[mythtv-users] Newbie wants PVR!!

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Wed Nov 12 10:11:26 EST 2003


On Wednesday 12 November 2003 00:11, mythtv at lionofzion.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've been running Linux for quite a while.  One night while searching
> for programming X10 in Linux I came across the MythTV site and am
> totally impressed.  I want one!  The problem is that we have Time
> Warner digital cable and I am uncertain how to hook up a PVR to it. 
> Our cable box is a Pioneer BD-V1100.  Most of the tv cards I've seen
> only handle 125 channels but digital cable has significantly more. 
> I've read others on this list talking about 'controlling' the cable
> box.
>
> Do I need to somehow control the cable box?  If so how is this done? 
> Is the PVR capable of watching one channel while recording another or
> does that require a second card?  What recommendations does anyone
> have for a good tv card?

Well, you could just plug your cable into the tuner card, but that would 
limit your PVR to 125 channels.  If you want your full suite of digital 
cable channels, you need to hook the output of your cable box into your 
tuner card's input.  However, this eliminates the tuner cards ability 
to 'tune' the channels, so Myth would need to be able to 'control' your 
cable box to tune channels.  You can do this either by using an IR 
transmitter + LIRC, or by using a serial cable (if your cable box 
supports it).

Myth can record as many simultaneous streams as it has tuner cards 
available.  Keep in mind that watching 'Live TV' counts as a recording 
stream.  So, to watch one show while recording another, you would need 
2 tuner cards (and presumable 2 cable boxes!)

The consensus here seems to be that the best card(s) is/are the 
Hauppauge PVR-250 or PVR-350.  Both have hardware MPEG-1/2 encoders and 
excellent recording quality, and the PVR-350 additionally has a 
hardware MPEG-1/2 decoder with a TV-out that is better than any video 
card or scan-converter's TV-out.  They don't come cheap, though.

Good luck!

-JAC



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