[mythtv-users] Comcast Digital transition Denver

[Brian Wood]

On Thursday 11 February 2010 09:58:23 pm Matt W wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Joel Donahue <joel.donahueis at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > I have a headless masterbackend with 3 of my 5 pvr-150's, so don't need
> > to worry about that hardware being able to play anything I believe. I
> > noticed the HD-5500 is pci based, and the Clear QAM stream isn't anymore
> > hardware intensive than the stream from the 150's, correct? I'm hoping
> > all I'll need to upgrade on the backend are the capture cards.
> 
> yes, the CPU load for recording is very low, I'm not sure of the exact
> numbers but the other night I was recording (and hadn't planned it)
> Lost at 720p and Nova (or "NOVA" as the guide calls it now) at 1080i,
> simultaneously(!) and the system was barely working.  At that point
> it's nearly all disk I/O.  The simultaneous bit comes from the
> multiplexing of the channels on the cable; if the card can see two
> shows you want (or more) at the same time on the same multiplex, it
> can demux them, too.  I was thinking of trying to record the 40 or so
> local FM radio channels that Comcast puts on the wire, all
> simultaneously :-)  a snippet from scte65scan output:
> 
>  960  121.10  2 FM-KQED
>  961  121.11  2 FM-KRCB
>  962  121.12  2 FM-KCSM
>  963  121.13  2 FM-KSJO
>  964  121.14  2 FM-KNGY
> 
> if you pursue an upgrade with a digital tuner card in comcast digilog
> land, scte65scan will be your new best friend :-)
> 
> > What resolution are the channels you're receiving over clear QAM? Do they
> > provide Standard Def channels or is it all 720p or higher? I don't have
> > any high def tv's at the moment and would rather not have to upgrade my
> > video cards and/or transcode all my recordings to be able to play them.
> 
> I'm a late-comer to anything beyond NTSC 480, and just got an HDTV a
> month ago.  But in my area Comcast continues to carry the analog
> stations in the low band of the cable which you can still tune with a
> traditional cable tuner, up to channel 34 or so (?).  Above that is
> where the new material lives.  The whole thing gets 'activated' after
> you connect the free STB they give you.  In fact I had several pay
> stations in the clear on that box for a couple days til they figured
> out I was a lowly premium basic user and shut me out :)  So if you do
> get a new tv or a digital tuner box, hook it up to the cable and let
> it scan, digital-only if possible.  it may take a while (my Panasonic
> took like 10 or 15 minutes) but it found everything.  Locally, Comcast
> seems to carry a lot of the SD channels on their traditional channel
> number and then the new digital channels on an adjacent channel number
>  According to the on-screen info bar on my TV (no myth, just straight
> into the TV) I am getting some 720p channels and a few 1080i channels.
>  I haven't compared them to actual OTA broadcasts but they look pretty
> good.
> 
> Oh and I can still watch my old PVR-350 recordings, the myth internal
> player handles them just fine with no extra configurations. sure they
> may not look so good all blown up on the new screen but at least it's
> there.
> 
> > Are you using any of the "free" digital tuner boxes with IR blasting? I
> > know it's possible to use more than one blaster on a box by using
> > different channel change scripts. If you have any advise on IR blasting
> > I'm all ears.
> 
> Hmm no, I haven't delved into IR blasting since I thought it was
> really cool on my VCR I bought in 1996 :)
> But for the true IR blasting power user, a linux box is definitely the way
>  to go
> 
> > Yeah if I can't extend my introductory rate for the third time, I'm
> > moving to OTA and online streaming. I've played with boxee a while back.
> 
> yeah we're lucky in that we live in large metro areas, and digital tv
> is all around.  be sure to check Antennaweb for what's available near
> you.
> 
> > I just ordered my two "free" boxes and they should arrive in 5-8 business
> > days according to comcast. If they have only RF outs that wouldn't be too
> > big a deal to me. I'll just figure out how to IR blast them and plug them
> > into my pvr-150's
> 
> hmm will that work?  if it just passes RF along, you'll only be able
> to tune the older analog part of the band.  I don't think the cheapie
> STB is re-generating QAM  :)

No, they decode the QAM and re-modulate it to NTSC, at least that's how the 
boxes in Laramie work. NTSC modulators are still cheap.