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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>[I tried to post this message earlier, but it
bouced because my request to join the list evidently did not go through
yet. Now that I have received the list membership notification, I am
re-sending. If it ends up going out twice, I apologize in
advance.]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have been using DirecTivo and UltimateTV for
many years, and have thus been a big supporter of PVRs. I've also done
some Tivo programming, since its based on Linux. I also recently discoved
that ReplayTV (Tivo's newest competitor in the PVR appliance business) is
also runs on Linux. But, I have never been completely happy with
Tivo, UltimateTV or ReplayTV. Each has some good features, but none of
them has everything that they should have. So, it then occured to me that
an open-source Linux project maintained on sourceforge would be a very cool
project to start, and with the help of the entire community it could become
the best PVR available anywhere. So, I started doing a little web
browsing to see what components I could build it on, and to my
surprise, I discoved MythTV. I was impressed that somebody had
already thought of it, and that the project was already underway. I have
not used MythTV yet, but have spent all of my free time during the
last week reading everything I could find about it on the web, particularly
the <A href="http://www.mythtv.org">www.mythtv.org</A> home site and the
archives of this mailing list. I must say that I am very impressed with
what I have read so far. It is an courageous project that actually aims to
do more than I originally imagined could fit into the function of a PVR.
So, I have decided to build a MythTV box, and then afterward, try to find a way
to contribute. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In choosing the stream type to use with MythTV
and the tuner card I ran into a few basic questions. These issue has
been discussed in the mailing list archive in one form or another, but I could
not find answers to these specific questions: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1) In my area, I have the choice of analog
cable, digital cable or satellite (DirecTV). Which is optimal for
MythTV? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>2) If money is not a problem, when using
MythTV which is the optimal tuner PCI card for each type of stream: analog
cable, digital cable or satellite (DirecTV)? WinTV PVR-350, WinTV-HD,
WinTV-Nexus-s, respectively?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>3) I think that I understand analog cable and
DirecTV fairly well, but I do not quite understand what a digital
cable signal provides. Is it truly digital? Can we use the
Hauppauge WinTV-HD or WinTV-D as a tuner for a digital cable signal
with MythTV without using a set-top box from the cable
company? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have used DirecTV with my Tivo and UltimateTV for
many years and been very happy with the results. The picture quality is
very good. But, these units have DirecTV built into the PVR, so there is
no encoding, only decoding to display on the TV. The encoding done by
DirecTV before the stream arrives is very good, and
digital delivers better reception. So, that would seem the
like the best choice at first glance. But, unless DirecTV has
released a component for the common interface of a satellite PCI card
that can unsramble their signal, then we must use their tuners/decoders.
This results in the stream going from digital, to analog, then back to digital,
then back to analog... which makes no sense to me. In
addition, trying to get the DirecTV tuner to change channels with a serial
cable or IR blaster seems like it would be a challenge, even
with LIRC. The other pitfall of using an external
DirecTV tuner is that the on screen displays (OSD?) are
always popping on when you change channels, and could
probably end up in the recordings. All of the DirecTV tuners I
have experimented with do not have a way to completely turn off the
OSDs. I do not know much about digital cable, perhaps someone can
enlighten me. I am not sure if a digital cable set top box
is needed, or if the cable can go straight into a WinTV-HD, WinTV-D card, or
something like that, thus giving the computer access to all of the channels
without having to mess around with seriel cable or IR blasting to change
channels. So, good old analog seems like the best option to me at
this point... at least its the least painful to get set up
and avoids OSD problems and probably avoids slow channel changing,
too. The only pitfall I see is just the quality of the picture.
It is the least in quality of the three options. Does anyone/everyone
agree with my logic in choosing analog as probably the best choice for
now? I really wish DirecTV would release or sell a PCI card that
could unsramble their signal and perhaps give access to their pay per
view channels. That would be great. If I understand correctly,
the PCI card would not even need an encorder, just the algorithm or chip
for unscrambling, and perhaps a hardware decoder would be nice. That
could form the basis for a really great DirecMythTV
box. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks in advance for everyone's help and
suggestions.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Chad
</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>