[mythtv-users] Linux/MythTV HDTV options and questions

[Shelby McGregor]

I have been watching the threads here for quite some time while I
contemplate building my MythTV box.  One of the most import issues for
me is HDTV support, and preferably QAM support so that I can get my HDTV
signals from cable.  Anyway from what I can see there doesn't appear to
be a currently available HDTV turner for Linux that supports QAM.  I was
interested in the Sasem OnAir USB tuner since it tunes ATSC and QAM as
well as provides a MPEG2 encoding chip for analog channels.  I contacted
Sasem and they tell me that they currently have Linux driver support on
the roadmap but don't expect beta level drivers until at the earliest Q2
2005, so at the moment it looks like my only choice is the HD-3000.

 

Anyway sine the HD-3000 isn't currently available I have some time
before I start to build my box.  One question I have is about how MythTV
handles channels with similar content.  I plan to put some sort of HDTV
tuner in my box as well as 2 PVR-250s that will be receiving content via
DirecTV, and basic analog cable respectively.  Is it possible to stack
the channels on top of each other with preferred tuning devices?

 

For example I will have 3 input sources all of which will have the local
CBS channel 62 available.  What I am curious about doing is setting up
the system so that there is only one Channel 62.  If I tune to the
channel I would prefer to use the HDTV card first but if that is busy
recording a program fall over to one of the analog tuners, preferring
cable 1st and then satellite.  Likewise when scheduling recordings, I
would prefer to record from HDTV tuner first and then fall over to
analog tuners if I have no other choice.  Actually in a perfect world it
would be great if MythTV knew that one tuner was HDTV capable and then
only used that tuner for content that is flagged as being HDTV in the
program guide, but I am guessing that sort of beyond the current
functionality.

 

In order to do this, I would need to map channels from the different
tuners to one unified "virtual" channel guide and again this is
something I don't know is possible (I couldn't find any similar setups
in Gossamer-threads or in Google, though maybe I don't know what
keywords to search for).  I would prefer to use the DirecTV guide as my
starting point but have a method of hiding the fact that Channel 62 one
DirecTV is actually channel 15 on cable and channel 44 on HDTV.  It
seems that it should be logically possible since my HDTV content is a
subset of my cable channels and my basic cable channels are a subset of
my DirecTV channels.

 

Any information on how to setup something like this would be very much
appreciated.  I have played with MythTV briefly and if I can iron out
these sort of issues I think I am ready to build my dedicated box. 

 

Shelby

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