[mythtv-users] Comcast STB Firewire vs HDHomeRun

[Eric Sharkey]

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Sunday, August 08, 2010 07:48:40 am Chris DiLorenzo wrote:
>> We're going to be moving in with my brother-in-law for a while.  The room
>> we are staying in will have a Comcast STB.  Right now, I have no idea if
>> it has firewire or not.  Let's assume it does.  I also have an HDHomeRun
>> available.
>>
>> Is there a significant advantage to using one over the other?
>
> Yep, no way to know for certain  until you try.
>
> But I wouldn't expect anything from firewire that you can't get as clear QAM.

This hasn't been my experience with Comcast.  Here in New Jersey I'm
getting pretty much every channel I subscribe to as available over
firewire.  I don't have HBO or any premium channels like that so I
can't comment on them, but all of the expanded basic lineup that I
have now is still available over firewire despite now being
unavailable as clear QAM.  For me, that means I have about ten times
as many channels available from firewire compared to the HDHR.

The main difficulties with firewire seem to be getting it to work
reliably.  Some people have flawless setups, and some don't, but at
this point I suspect that most of the problems people are having with
firewire are actually in the Linux firewire drivers and/or MythTV's
usage of such.

Eric