[mythtv-users] Probably a FAQ Question (HD, MythTV, Cable Card, and Comcast)
David Frascone
dave at frascone.com
Wed Apr 11 00:40:32 UTC 2007
Rod Smith wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 April 2007 15:02, David Frascone wrote:
>
>> Ok, after reading quite a bit, and searching quite a bit, I have come to
>> a few conclusions:
>>
>> There is no Cable Card hardware for MythTV to use, so getting to
>> Comcast's HD and premium channels is not possible with a tuner card.
>>
>> But -- what about using a STB and blasting IR?
>>
>
> This will work, but with some important caveats:
>
> - IR blaster configurations sometimes don't work, so you might miss some
> recordings. How often depends on a lot of hardware and software details,
> and even ambient light conditions.
>
> - You'll be able to record the NTSC output of the STB. This means no HD
> content and even SD digital content will go from digital to analog and
> back to digital, which will degrade its quality.
>
>
>> So, the receiver needs to be at least a dual-tuner setup, and needs to
>> record HD.
>>
>> Is this possible? I'm guessing there is a way to blast IR to two (or
>> more) Set Top Boxes, and to capture the output of the HD Comcast Set Top
>> Boxes via component, HDMI, etc.
>>
>
> AFAIK, there's no way to capture the HD output of HD STBs on consumer-grade
> hardware. Some STBs do have firewire output for digital capture, but my
> understanding is that this works only with unencrypted content, so you'd do
> as well with a suitable direct HD capture device (bypassing the STB), such as
> an HDHomerun (dual-tuner Ethernet device) or AVerMedia AVerTVHD A180
> (single-tuner PCI card). Such devices capture unencrypted HD content. If you
> go this route, be sure to get something with QAM support, which is the
> encoding method used for digital channels by cable TV operators in the US.
>
> The big question is how much content your cable provider encrypts. If you can
> tune HD channels directly on a non-CableCard TV, then you should be able to
> record it with MythTV and a suitable HD capture device, or perhaps using a
> cable box's Firewire output. If not, then you'll only be able to capture an
> SD (NTSC) version of the content using an analog (NTSC) capture device,
> assuming your HD STB has NTSC output at all.
>
> If your provider doesn't encrypt the channels you care about, I'd suggest you
> get a mix of digital and analog/NTSC tuners. (Some can do both.) You'll be
> able to record a lot of stuff without an STB, but most providers do encrypt
> at least some channels, so you may have to rent at least one STB and record
> some content via it. You might end up with something like an analog/NTSC
> tuner recording directly, another analog/NTSC tuner recording via the STB,
> and a digital tuner recording directly.
>
>
Two last (I hope) questions:
1) What is the most popular tuner for analog & digital? (Popular for
price / performance, features, and reliability)
2) In regard to firewire -- how does that work? Does it just constantly
transmit what's playing? So mythTV would change channels on the STB,
and then store the stream to disk? If so, shouldn't I do this before
even buying a tuner card?
-Dave
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