[mythtv-users] Probably a FAQ Question (HD, MythTV, Cable Card, and Comcast)

[Mitch Gore]

if you have a stb and a firewire port might as well.  Although firewire has
its issues some people have great success.  If i had both i would try it.

Mitchell

On 4/10/07, David Frascone <dave at frascone.com> wrote:
>
> 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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