[mythtv-users] Output to h.264

[Kevin Ross]

On 08/05/2010 10:00 AM, mike at grounded.net wrote:
> I have a WINTV-NOVA-HD-S2 DVB-S2 Tuner Card which I'd like to try as a 
> replacement to a Traxis FTA receiver I'm playing with.
> Finally, I have an Hauppauge HVR-1600 WinTV card for local TV along with cameras and other things I have modulated on my local coax.
>
> Not sure what else I should add as information.
>
> Mike
>    

Your blade servers, at 850MHz each, would be okay for MythTV backends, 
as long as the capture of video isn't CPU-intensive.  Your DVB-S2 card 
just streams the digital stream from satellite directly into MythTV, and 
then to hard drive, so you're good there.  The HVR-1600 features a 
hardware MPEG-2 encoder for the analog inputs, so it doesn't draw any 
CPU resources either, so you should be good there, too.

For the cameras, if you want to integrate them into a MythTV system, you 
would need a way to get the video from the camera into the computer.  I 
assume they aren't IP cameras, but rather have the normal composite 
video output.  You could set up analog capture cards for each camera.  
Make sure you use cards with hardware MPEG-2 encoding, like the 
Hauppauge PVR-150 or HVR-1600.  You *could* then configure MythTV to 
treat these as video sources, available in the electronic program guide 
as another channel.

But a better approach is to setup ZoneMinder for your cameras, which is 
a separate product from MythTV.  It uses motion detection, and records 
video clips to disk whenever it sees motion.  You can also monitor the 
live feed if desired.  MythTV has support for integration with 
ZoneMinder. It would appear as a different menu item in the MythTV 
frontend, separate from the live TV or recordings menus.  From a MythTV 
frontend, you could view recorded motion detection events, or view the 
live camera feed.

To get the full functionality of MythTV, you *need* to install a MythTV 
frontend on a device at each TV.  UPnP is okay for browsing video files 
for playback, but you don't get anywhere near the full power of a MythTV 
system.  I think you will probably need to accept the fact that a MythTV 
STB is going to cost more than those $30 ebay items you listed.  A good 
MythTV STB is an Acer Aspire Revo, at around $200 each.

Hope this helps!
-- Kevin