[mythtv-users] Maybe a slightly different usage model for Myth with DirecTV encrypted HD?

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Tue May 25 00:55:00 UTC 2010


On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Gabe Rubin <gaberubin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> There would be value (to me) in just using Myth to start and stop the
>>>> DTV DVR and still let it do the recording. As the recordings are
>>>> encrypted HD Myth cannot do much with the data anyway (AFAIK) so I see
>>>> no major value in Myth storing the video vs leaving on the DVR.
>>>
>>> Why don't you want to use an HD-PVR?  You can record to your heart's
>>> content using the component output and have HD recordings, even for
>>> the encrypted channels.  Seems a lot simpler than what you are tying
>>> to do.
>>
>> One component out vs two internal recordings.
>>
>> And the DVR is free - the HD-PVR is very expensive.
>
> I had thought about another (related) usage model, but never did any
> work on determining feasibility.
> The idea would be to take advantage of the fact that many vendor
> supplied STB/DVRs can do simultaneous recording.  Have the DVR record
> to the local hard disk and then later (in the middle of the night?)
> have MythTV play them back and record them (via the appropriate video
> capture hardware) onto MythTV's disk.   Unfortunately, this would
> introduce a delay between initial broadcast and availability in
> MythTV.   It also seemed like a more complicated idea then some of the
> other (unimplemented ideas thatI've had for MythTV, but I thought I
> would throw it out there in case it was useful to you.
>
> Good Luck,
> Bill Bogstad

Thanks Bill.

It's clear from these responses that I'm a bit remiss in terms of my
explanation here:

Sure I'd like to do this tomorrow using the software that available,
but it's not important to me. Really what I wanted to do was start a
conversation, understand what might be involved, and then maybe
propose the idea to the developers as an alternative usage. They could
then determine how to best do this within their vision of Myth.

My thoughts about the reasons for wanting this are:

1) There is a desire to watch HDTV
2) Much, if not most, HD content is now or soon will be encrypted.
Even SD material is already almost totally encrypted on Comcast which
is why I dropped them.
3) I've paid for this content and there's very little chance that Myth
is _ever_ going to really help me with this problem.
4) I'm not well versed in the HD-PVR area but I don't believe using an
HD-PVR solves any of the commercial flagging or streaming of encrypted
HD content to other machines.

Assuming others have a _roughly_ similar view of the problem set then
my thoughts are more like MythTV becomes sort of like a big TV cron
job server, keeping track of how I want to manage multiple DVRs,
potentially from multiple sources, and then just drives their hardware
for me. Once the programs are recorded on the DVR Myth goes back to
sleep. No hard drive issues, no recording direcory, no mythcommflag,
etc. It's a simple task and one that Myth is very capable of doing, at
least that's what I think.

True, I have to watch the programs using their hardware, but no one
has suggested any solution to that as far as I know, unless I'm
misunderstanding the HD-PVR as I think I still have to watch using the
same HD-PVR. I'm I'm a poor, out-of-work guy who's looking for a low
cost way to be more effective than the free DRV software in the
DirecTV box.

Thanks,
Mark


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list