<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 17/01/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Mike Richardson</b> <<a href="mailto:doctor@mcc.ac.uk">doctor@mcc.ac.uk</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I've managed to find a bit of info about mythtv and the dbox2 but I was just<br>wondering if anyone has a summary of how the dbox integrates with mythtv and<br>general funcationality comparisions with a PC running mythfrontend and an
<br>MVP box?<br><br>I'm considering getting one but would like to know a bit more first.<br><br>My main desire is to be able to record Sky One (and some other cable<br>channels) to a central mythtv server (already set up and working) and be
<br>able to watch the recording back in multiple rooms (got an MVP box in the<br>bedroom already).<br><br>I'm not keen on messing around with our existing cable boxes, encoding<br>analogue signals and IR channel changers - I'd like to leave those boxes
<br>alone and have the mythtv stuff as a separate entity.<br><br>Ideally would like to be able to use the full mythfrontend software<br>functionality for scheduling and recording of programs.<br><br>Not too fussed about watching live TV through these devices - mostly just
<br>need sources for recording of programs.<br><br>Mike<br>--<br></blockquote></div><br>
The basic idea is this:<br>
DBOX2 operates on your network as a 'source' for video to
record. There's code in SVN to talk to the box, get a list
of channels & populate the programme guide (but you have to add the
channels yourself). At recording time, mythtv takes an MPEG2-TS
stream from the DBOX2's network connection via a TCP stream. An
alternative method using UDP is being developed, so I hear...<br>
<br>
Anyway - in that configuration not many people have had success or a
great deal of reliability, but this is probably caused by the http
daemon on the dbox being overwhelmed (or that fact it only has 10-base
ethernet).<br>
<br>
A very workable solution is to use the dbox as-is, but rather than
enabled it as a video source for mythtv directly, connect a PVR tuner
card to its audio & video outputs. You don't need an IR
blaster to change channels on the box because the dbox has a web
interface... all you need is a script (see the ML archive from a few
days ago for my scripts to do this very job).<br>
<br>
Either way, your mileage may vary, and getting the damned thing to work
in the first place can be tricky -thankfully there are lots of forums
for help on that.<br>
<br>
Some people are under the misapprehension the dbox can be 'converted'
into a frontend for mythtv. This might be possible, but I'm not
aware of anybody having tried it. The dbox software _can_ play
back MPEG2 files from network shares though, so maybe it wouldn't be
too much work to bolt a better GUI around it & a bit of mysql.<br>
<br>
I hope this answers some questions for you.<br>
<br>
Regards....<br>
<br>
<br>