[mythtv] Hi-Def satellite box hacks

[Andrew Mahone]

I know that 169time.com products have been discussed before, and that
the product is prohibitively expensive, and they don't seem interested
in helping much with Linux support for their product (funny,
considering that their AVX1 converter box seems to be a PC running
Linux).

Has anybody else looked into the Nextcom R5000-HD?  I emailed them,
and they don't seem interested in developing the drivers themselves,
but it sounds like it might be much easier for the community to
develop drivers for it than for the 169time.com system.  It uses a
popular USB bridge chip, the Cypress FX2.  According to Nextcom, a
development kit and documentation are freely available.  This appears
to be true - there is even a generic firmware loader for devices that
use this chip.  They say that there's not much releasable
documentation on their own (Windows) source code, but that it should
be very easy to interface with their device once a driver is to the
point of doing bulk USB transfers to it.

Are there any developers with more device driver experience who are
interested in HD recording from the various satellite networks?  I
know that I and a number of users are probably interested in seeing
something like this working with MythTV, but I probably won't have
time to work on it myself until I get broadband at home again, about
six months from now.  In the meantime, I will try to read up a bit
more on USB development for Linux, and see what else I can get out of
Nextcom.  They might be more helpful if they saw more developer and
user interest, as well, and I doubt it would hurt for more users or
developers to (politely) ask them about using their product with
MythTV.
-- 
Andrew Mahone
andrew DOT mahone AT gmail DOT com