[mythtv-users] SA3250 HD + firewire questions

[Norm]

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 10:16 -0400, Keith Lawson wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I just started working on getting firewire going so that I can record HD
> channels and can't seem to get things working properly. I have a couple of
> questions regarding how I should be setting things up.
> 
> 1 - Can I only get HD channels over firewire or should all the channels
> the STB receives be available over firewire?
> 
You can only get channels you subscribe too -- any digital channel will
come through.

> 2 - For HD channels I have to pay a subscription to get will they come
> over firewire or are they encrypted and protected from being recorded?
> 
As per above BUT - your cable company can also send the 5C flag which
indicates whether you can record or not -- the STB will abide by that
flag and block certain things from being sent.

> 3 - Do I need to use an external channel change command (sa3250ch.c or
> perl script) to change channels prior to recording over firewire?
> 
I have a 4250hd and I don't believe you need a channel changer.

> Initially when I connected the firewire cable I firewire_tester worked just
> fine, I was able to receive packets 100% of the time. Then when I fired up
> my mythfrontend (after configuring in mythtv-setup) it just stopped
> working. I got it to display about 5 seconds of video at one point but
> it stops and then I can't even get firewire_tester to receive packets. I'm
> thinking I've got things configured wrong.
> 
I have a similar error when I hit a channel that I can't get - someone
on the list indicated that its a kernel related error - so if you
upgrade to 2.6.23 or greater kernel, the problem is apparently fixed.
I'm have not been able to confirm that.  There are lots of situations
like this and I have been able to get mine fixed by loading windows and
accessing the firewire port through it and then back to Linux.

Norm