[mythtv-users] Questions from a prospective MythTV user

[John Goerzen]

Hello,

I currently have a rather old ReplayTV unit and am looking to upgrade
it.  MythTV looks quite promising to me, and as a long-time Debian
developer, I think that I'd have no problem setting up and configuring
it.

I've read the docs online and searched with google, but I still have a
few questions about the capabilities of MythTV.  Just to let you know my
setup, I have an off-air antenna and Dish Network tuner, and would
probably get a Hauppauge PVR-350 to receive signals from both.

My questions are:

 1. Is it possible to set up a MythTV "client" machine?  This machine
    would be a regular Linux PC -- no special video input device, etc --
    and would be able to play back recorded programs from the main
    MythTV unit.  Even better, it could drive the main unit, and could
    let me watch live TV over the Ethernet LAN.  Can MythTV do this?
    Would it just run in a window on my X desktop in this case?

 2. I'd get certain channels off-air and others via Dish Network.  I
    have read that MythTV supports this setup, but I have not seen
    details of exactly how it manages this support, especially when the
    user is selecting channels from the guide or tuning to a specific
    channel.  Does it just "know" that, say, channel 12 comes from the
    TV antenna and 200 comes from Dish Network?

 3. Does MythTV support the hardware MPEG *decoder* on the PVR-350?

 4. The PVR-350 can generate an encoded MPEG-2 stream in the specific
    format used on DVDs.  MythTV, of course, can record that stream to a
    hard disk.  I would like to be able to burn recorded programs to a
    DVD that can be played in a standard player, and I want to do it
    without having to recode the data.  How can I do that with MythTV?
    I can't seem to find any info on getting DVD-recordable data out of
    it.  There are several places that talk about encoding MythTV data
    to MPEG-2 DVD format, or even re-encoding MPEG-2 data, but I want to
    do this without having to re-encode anything.  Suggestions?

 5. Does MythTV support the FM tuner on the PVR-350?

 6. Does MythTV support playing audio CDs in a DVD drive?  What module
    would I use to accomplish this?

 7. Regarding the NES/SNES/whatever emulation (which sounds *very
    cool*!)...  what input device would one use?  A standard IR remote
    would probably not be very suitable for gaming.

Thanks to all for your help!

-- John Goerzen