[mythtv-users] DTV switch means dealing with multiple STB's via firewire - THANKS!
Joe Borne
joe.borne at gmail.com
Tue Jan 6 18:18:32 UTC 2009
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Robert McNamara
> <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Tom Lichti <redpepperracing at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Joe Borne <joe.borne at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Feb 17th my cable company will switch to an all digital lineup.
> Wifey is
> >>> pretty used to having three inputs to my MythBox in order to avoid
> recording
> >>> conflicts (one via firewire, two analog). So obviously I need to find a
> >>> solution before the switch.
> >>>
> >>> I currently have a 4 port firewire card in my MythTV system. I haven't
> >>> really dealt with the issue of firewire since early `07 when I first
> set it
> >>> all up. I recall that using multiple cable STB's via firewire was
> >>> problematical back then due to the issue of ports being reassigned
> >>> dynamically if there was a reboot or other reset event.
> >>>
> >>> I'd rather not have to turn another home system into a backend if I can
> >>> avoid it. So my question for the guru's is this:
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone have a reliable solution for using several firewire
> connected
> >>> set top boxes on the same backend? If so, can you describe the setup
> and
> >>> hardware used?
> >>
> >> They are only shutting down analog OTA, if you have analog cable, you
> >> should still be ok, AFAIK.
> >>
> >> Tom
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> mythtv-users mailing list
> >> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> >> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >>
> >
> > Joe is talking about his cable company removing the analog lineup,
> > something many companies are doing in various markets.
> >
> > Joe, I have used multiple firewire boxes with now issues on a 4-port
> > VIA chipset card. No issues-- I got best results using a dedicated
> > port per box rather than daisy-chaining, however. Thanks to Myth now
> > using GUID instead of port/node, a lot of the issues have disappeared.
> >
> > I also run a cron job at 5 and 35 after the hour to prime all boxes.
> >
> > Robert
> >
>
> And to be clear, it is the firewire_primer.pl script that I use (with
> tiny customization as I prefer more iterations of the prime) and it
> only primes boxes NOT in use so that it will not interrupt or cause
> issues with any recordings.
>
> Robert
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. I received a dozen or so well
thought out and intelligent responses with viable solutions within 20
minutes of my original post. I've been on hold for tech support for longer
than that man many times!
It sounds like 0.21 solved this issue by identifying STB's via the GUID. So
I'm going to pick up two or three STB's this Saturdy and give it a try. If
it doesn't work right away I did find this fabulous post by MajorIdiot on
the Mythbuntu forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=977820&highlight=stb
Apparently he has written an "all inclusive" channel changer script that
works with any STB and has a lot of built in error trapping, priming etc to
insure proper recording. His notes show that he also uses the GUID to
identify the individual STB's.
I hope this information helps anyone else facing this problem.
Thanks to the fabulous MythTV community!!!
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