[mythtv-users] Which HD card?

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jul 28, 2006 at 05:22:19PM -0700, Jafa wrote:
> BTW - Check out the HDHomeRun: www.silicondust.com
> 
> It plugs into your network so there are no issues with compatibility. 
> The only requirement is that you are running the soon to be released 
> MythTV 0.20.
> 
> Nick

That looks very interesting.   No QAM tuning then, just 8vsb?

One thing that's nice about an ethernet tuner is in theory any
backend could suck data from it, though it would be a mess to
try to manage allocation in a system like that.    Two tuners on
ether for $169 does seem like a good value proposition, though.

To kick it up a notch (I don't know how much of a microcontroller
is in it) the next step would be to let it have a usb hard drive
(or even internal) and be told simple commands like, "From 8 to
9 record channel X to file Y" or even to get simpler, "to blocks
M through N on the drive".   This would allow you to have a box
that records on its own, and the backend could actually power down.
It would present a very basic block interface to the disk and leave
filesystems to the smarter computer.   Not that filesystems are that
hard, I guess if you can have linux on a cheap wireless AP, you can
have it in a tuner box.

But this sort of box is an interesting start.