[mythtv-users] Comcast & Firewire STB's without 5C/Firewire equipment

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Robert McNamara
<robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> No tuning commands via USB.  It's for DVR expansion, picture viewing
> (with certain firmwares), firmware upgrades, and service only.  You
> *will* be able to tune channels or capture video or both via firewire.
>  If you are not (and it has happened) then they are in violation of
> teh FCC regulation requiring a functional port.  See the firewire wiki
> page for the chapter and verse to quote in a complaint.  Start with
> Comcast's management, but also cotnact your local utility franchise
> board.
>
> As a consolation, I'll remind you again that most of us in the bay
> area do *quite* well with firewire on Comcast.  A San Francisco
> resident took them to court some years ago and they've mostly played
> nice since then.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
>
> Robert

In that case I'll investigate getting one box. I'd prefer to go the
1394 direction vs. IR Blasters and fixing my PVR-150 to channel 3, at
least until I run into some other set of issues. I like this as it
conceptually scales better and would make the family happy being able
to record more channels.

Question - can a single 1394 interface running either the newer or
older Linux Firewire stacks control more than one STB? Clearly 1394
itself wouldn't have any problem but possibly the Firewire stack in
Linux isn't good at that sort of thing? No big deal as I probably have
3 or 4 old 1394 cards around, but it would be nice not to have to
worry about running out of PCI slots. My server has 3 and two are
currently used with PVRs.

Thanks,
Mark