[mythtv-users] Windows Media Center w/ Cable Card used as MythTV Tuner

[Andrew Gallatin]

Melvin J. Cureton [melvincureton at MELCRYS.COM] wrote:

> Does anyone know if it would be possible to record in MythTV from a
> Cable Card equipped Windows Media Center pc? Would be a weird setup
> but if possible could be a simple way to get around the whole Cable
> Card on Linux issue. Not sure if it is possible to configure MythTV as
> an extender or not. If anyone has any ideas or input I'd greatly
> appreciate it.

There is an ongoing project to do this for SageTV.  See 
http://babgvant.com/blogs/andyvt/archive/2009/10/19/sagemctuner-experimental-release.aspx
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44864

SageTV uses MCE to tune the cablecard, then pulls the video out of the
DRM'ed MS container.  The ability to liberate the video from the MS
DRM is similar to firewire tuning, in that it depends on how the
video is flagged by the cable provider.  There is a lot of discussion
of this in the SageTV forum thread.  The general understanding is that
it *should* work for non-premium channels (ESPN, TNT, etc) but not
premium channels or VOD, but it all depends on how your cable company
configures its equipment.

Avoiding the DRM entirely by using an HDPVR seems like a better choice
to me personally.

Drew