[mythtv-users] Can Mythtv record uncompressed video from PVR-150? (my Comcast solution)

Bill Bogstad bogstad at pobox.com
Fri Apr 9 16:13:30 UTC 2010


Since my original message was unclear, let me clarify:

1. I don't want to store the uncompressed digitized audio/video
streams.  I want to do software compression on it with a different
codec/parameters then the on-board chip allows on my PVR-150s.  This
is with the goal to get 'better' compression then the onboard chips.

2. According to the documentation I have already found for the IVTV
driver, you can in fact get the raw digitized streams for both video
and audio.   You can go check the MythTV page for the PVR-500 to which
I provided a link for a hint of this functionality.  I am having
trouble accessing the IVTV web site at the moment so I can't provide a
link to a page that I found which documents this functionality.  Or at
least that is what the pages I read say, I won't know for sure until I
actually try it.

I've also found references to doing this with Windows software as
well.   In that case, someone was trying to play a TV based video game
via a PVR-150 input.   The problem was that due to compression there
was a noticeable 'lag' between when they would change a control input
and it would appear on their computer screen.   They apparently found
software to do this.

If #2 above is correct, then I believe it should be possible to treat
a PVR-150 as an analog card that requires a software encoder much like
the bttv based cards operate.   I'll be using an external channel
changer script to work with my Comcast DTAs anyway so I'll just be
asking Mythtv to
accept the raw PCM audio and YUV? video streams that the IVTV driver
apparently makes available.

I was hoping that someone had tried this out already and could tell me
if it was worth investigating further.  It looks like I am a pioneer
on this.  I'll let people here know when I get a chance to try it out
for myself.

Bill Bogstad


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