[mythtv-users] Please recommend hardware for caller id via MythTV

[Stroller]

On 24 Apr 2007, at 22:51, Michael Rice wrote:

> I'd really like to display caller id info on my Myth boxes but I  
> lack the
> necessary hardware.  I don't think I've had a machine with a modem  
> for 7
> years or so.
>
> I've searched the web to try to find some recent info on this but  
> haven't
> had much luck.  Info on modems seems very old and I have no idea  
> what modem
> I'd need to buy today that would work on Linux for this purpose.

Info on modems was dated when I installed vgetty at least 3 years ago  
(perhaps 4). I doubt if the information available on the web has been  
updated much since, but the vgetty website & mailing list will be the  
best pace to look.

I'm running vgetty using a Hayes modem I picked up secondhand for £2  
at a car-boot sale, but there's no use me giving the model as caller  
ID is done differently in the UK from the US. Last time I checked  
modems bought new were pretty poor for this sort of thing, and the  
vgetty author (Gurt?) was particularly scathing of USR models. You're  
surely best shopping around at yardsales for a proper external voice  
modem - if it's  33k or slower then the hardware inside is likely to  
be better quality.

Here vgetty converts voice messages to MP3, wraps them in MIME  
encoding & emails them to me, so they are available immediately  
whether I am at home or on my laptop. Caller ID can easily be parsed  
from the vgetty.log, surely as the call comes in (after the 2nd ring,  
I think).

If MythTV has a caller ID display plug-in then this may be intended  
for use with VoIP systems, but a full installation of Asterisk may be  
overkill for your purposes, and installation is no more a trivial  
undertaking than is MythTV. I think instead you can do the same thing  
by watching vgetty's log and using MythTV's notification facility (I  
think this listens on a port and simply accepts plain text??).

Stroller.