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

[Brad Fuller]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Robert McNamara
> <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> Yep, I've daisy chained up to three before without issues.  Both the
>> firewire stack and Myth work very nicely with multiple 1394 tuners on
>> a single box.  I have heard of some people who had issues with daisy
>> chaining, I just didn't have them myself.
>>
>> Note that I only have experience with the old stack, although Jarod
>> recently did some work to get the JuJu stack working properly, and I
>> think he had that going-- there are just a lot fewer people with
>> experience there.
>>
>> Robert
>
> Good to know. I'll see about dropping a 1394 card into my current BE
> and getting it working with the old stack. I've got some 1394 disk
> drives but nothing that uses the DV drivers. Do you know off the top
> what drivers you had to load?
>
> I've watched a few of Jarod's emails go by on the 1394-users list so I
> knew he was working on it but I haven't paid all that much attention
> to the results. I'll stick with the old stack until I get more info.

Mark: what is the 1394-users list?

All,
I went to the Comcast office and picked up a 1394-enabled STB
(DCH3416). I added the appropriate
updates to 6200ch.c to change the channel. I can change the channel
outside of MythTV now, and it changes channel while watching TV or
recording. So, that _seems_ to work ok.

But, I get the same problem I've seen others mention, it only records
sometimes. It starts out fine in LiveTV (on ch2) and sometimes when
switching a channel, it'll switch and display fine. But, subsequent
channel changing, most other times,  the video locks up (NVP pauses,
actually) although it switches channel.

I didn't see any helpful hints for this in the Wiki, but I remember
that some people had this problem. I searched the mailing list for
some help, but nothing concrete was found. Any hints would be most
helpfule.

thanks!
brad



-- 
Brad Fuller