[mythtv-users] Dutch digital cable (was Re: Problem with mythfilldatabase and home-brew grabber)

Ian Macdonald ian at caliban.org
Mon Sep 11 16:00:51 UTC 2006


On Mon 11 Sep 2006 at 17:32:29 +0200, you wrote:

> What hardware are you using to interface mythtv to Dutch digital
> cable? Do you have a decoder card in your PC or are you using the
> supplied settop box and feeding the analog output to a normal capture
> card? I don't have (Casema) digital yet, because I didn't think I
> could make it work with mythtv.

I'm using the Thomson DCI-52UPC set-top box that UPC doles out to its
digital customers.

It has only SCART + 2 x RCA (tulp) output, so I have a switchable
input/output SCART to S-Video connector that I use to feed S-Video into
the Hauppauge PVR-350.

The RCA outputs feed audio into a 3.5 mm stereo jack converter. From
there, a 3.5 mm stereo cable connects to the PVR-350.

This set-up is not ideal, but it works.

If UPC really cared about their customers, the Thomson box would have an
RS232 port that could be used to change its channel. They'd also allow
you to have more than one set-top box per household and use higher
bit-rates for all of their channels, some of which look like Internet
clips intended for ISDN users.

In short, if the Casema box has a useable auxilliary line out and the
ability to change channels, either via a serial connection or by IR, you
can make it work with MythTV.

At that point, you might find yourself in the same position as me,
namely needing to write your own XMLTV grabber, because both the
standard Dutch one and the popular drop-in replacement written in Python
both use tvgids.nl as their source, and that has data for only a limited
number of channels.

Ian
-- 
Ian Macdonald               | Whip me.  Beat me.  Make me maintain AIX.  
ian at caliban.org             | -- Stephan Zielinski 
http://www.caliban.org/     | 
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