[mythtv-users] Cable box always on

[Brad DerManouelian]

Preston Crow wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 09:56 -0700, Steve Peters - Priority Electronics
> wrote:
>> But what happens if the channel that the cable box was tuned into goes
>> off
>> the air for a few hours in the middle of the night? That happens with
>> some
>> of the smaller stations.
> 
> I think the ideal behavior would be for Myth to realize that it's about
> to record something through a tuner with an external channel change
> command, and if the tuner is not already in use, then send the channel
> change command two minutes early, with an environment variable
> specifying the number of seconds before recording should start.

And screw up the last 2 minutes of whatever program it was recording 
before this recording.

> 
> Then the script could check for audio, tune to a different channel that
> is expected to always have audio or video activity, send the power
> toggle, and repeat several times if necessary to be sure it has the box
> on.
> 
> It would also be nice for Myth to have the option to run a script when
> it isn't planning on using the cable box for at least an hour, so it
> could be shut off (if it makes a difference).
> 
> This would get complicated when using the same tuner for analog (coax)
> channels and digital (cable box) channels with back-to-back recordings
> where the first is analog and the second is digital.

If you have a reliable serial connection to the STB which knows when the 
box is on and off, you can run a user job script to check the status of 
the box and turn it off if it's on. This get complicated when the next 
program it is going to record is on the same channel as the last program 
because there's no need to change the channel at this point.

Again, the answer up until now that has been 100% reliable is to make 
sure the cable box is on and always left on and never used for anything 
but Myth. Problem solved. ;)