[mythtv-users] (ATTN: John Pullan) HD-3000 HD Digital TV over Cable Working - But I had to hack to do it...

[Michael Haan]

On 6/20/05, Christiaan Lutzer <mythtv.lutzer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I just joined the list, so please forgive me if I'm posting this on an
> incorrect list.
> 
> I've been using MythTV for a while now, and have for the last month or
> so been trying to get a new system built using only an HD-3000
> (www.pchdtv.com).  No matter what configuration I tried, the Channel
> Editor's scanning facility simply would fail with tuning errors.  I
> took a step back from MythTV and learned how the DVB drivers work and
> even created a program (based on dtvstream) called dvbrecord that
> tunes to a specified frequency, parses the Multi-Program Transport
> Stream (MPTS), uses a specified program number to filter out a single
> program and stores the resultant Single Program Transport Stream
> (SPTS) to disk.
> 
> Dvbrecord works great.  I added a scanning feature that has it go
> through all of the US Cable frequencies and a reasonable set of
> program numbers, and captures SPTSs to disk for review.  This allowed
> me to start associating frequency/program numbers with Digital TV
> channels.  NOTE: I thought it was very cool that I could capture and
> view both SD and HD streams with dvbrecord/mplayer.
> 
> FYI: I live in Cambridge, MA near MIT, and have Comcast Digital Cable.
>  I have not yet completed my catalogue of Digital TV programs, but
> here is what I've learned so far:
> 
> http://mandalore.dyndns.biz/~clutzer/dtv.txt
> 
> Anyway, onto why this message is appropriate for this email list: I
> had to alter my libmythtv library sources in order to get this to
> work.  The HD-3000 card is recognized as an ATSC card.  For the life
> of me I could not get scanning to work, so I had to figure out
> something else to do.  I noticed that if the card was a QAM (FE_QAM)
> card, that you could supply a "channels.conf" file in lieu of
> scanning.  However, with ATSC, the GUI components are not there to
> allow you to enter a channels.conf file if the card is ATSC.  So, I
> hacked the code to:
> 
> 1.) Allow one to specify a channels.conf file if your card is of type ATSC, and
> 
> (scanwizardhelpers.cpp)
>    case CardUtil::ATSC:
>        addSelection(tr("Full Scan"),
>                     QString::number(FullScan_ATSC),true);
> +       addSelection(tr("Import channels.conf"),
> +                    QString::number(Import));
> 
> 2.) Modified the DVBConfParser to read in the program number from
> channels.conf if the card type is ATSC.
> 
> (dvbconfparser.cpp)
> bool DVBConfParser::parseConfATSC(QStringList& tokens)
> {
>    cerr << "DVBConfParser::parseConfATSC(): parsing tokens..." << endl;
> 
>    Channel c;
>    QStringList::Iterator i = tokens.begin();
>    QStringList::Iterator end = tokens.end();
>    if (i != end) c.name = *i++; else return false;
>    if (i != end) c.frequency = (*i++).toInt(); else return false;
>    if (i == end || !c.modulation.parseConf(*i++)) return false;
> +   // We need the program number in the transport stream, otherwise we cannot
> +   // "tune" to the program.
> +   if (i != end) c.serviceid = (*i++).toInt(); else return false;
> 
>    channels.append(c);
> 
>    return true;
> }
> 
> And, the channels.conf file that I used simply looked like:
> [root at localhost ~]# cat channels.conf
> PBS HDTV:585000000:QAM_256:1
> CBS HDTV:603000000:QAM_256:2
> ABC HDTV:597000000:QAM_256:1
> NBC HDTV:597000000:QAM_256:2
> FOX HDTV:603000000:QAM_256:1
> TNT HDTV:681000000:QAM_256:1
> GBH Kids DTV:591000000:QAM_256:2
> 
> Now, to me, if you want to use MythTV to record and view HD and SD
> Digital TV, it would be very difficult programmatically to determine
> what frequency and program number corresponded to what XMLTV ID.  So,
> to me anyway, channels.conf seems like the way to go.
> 
> Does this hack make sense?  Is there a better way to do it?  Am I nuts?
> 
> Side question: You may have noticed that I added a non-HD stream, "GBH
> Kids DTV".  This captures and plays fine using VLC, but locks up
> mythfrontend.  Any idea why HD would work, but SD would lock up the
> frontend?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Christiaan.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 

I don't have any answers to your questions, but maybe you could post
your dvbrecord so other folks could use it to scan their cable as
well.