[mythtv-users] A few beginner questions

[steve at nexusuk.org]

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004, Mike Jasper wrote:

> watching live TV will the frontend be able to change channels on the 
> Dish tuner via the backend box, even when using an lirc remote?  Am I 
> making sense?

The frontend will tell the backend to change channels in live TV mode, so 
as long as you have the backend setup to change channels on the decoder 
(e.g. using LIRC) then it'll work fine.

> 2) Do you always need to have a keyboard/mouse available on the 
> frontend, or can all watching/recording, etc. be done via the remote 
> control?  My WAF will go *way* down if the former.

You can drive the frontend almost entirely with a remote control.  Infact 
a mouse is almost useless since everything is designed to work as a 
set-top-box.  I use a Sky Navigator remote, which has a built in keyboard 
to make entering text easier, but it's not mandatory.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/module.asp?CartID=040207105815368&moduleno=35978

> 3) Sound card - It sounded like if you're using a single tuner card you 
> can just run a cable from the tuner card to the sound card.  But what if 
> you have two tuner cards?  Do I understand correctly that I must use 
> btaudio if using two tuner cards?

Depends what kind of tuner card you have - some have btaudio chips on 
them, some don't, and some even have btaudio chips which aren't actually 
connected to the sound.  It'll be a case of trying the btaudio driver and 
see if it works - if it does you're in luck and don't need to use a sound 
card for the backend.  If your tuners don't support btaudio then you will 
need 2 sound cards, one for each tuner.

> cabinet.  Plus I already have a fast Linux box that I realized would 
> make a great backend.

Be aware that if the backend doing anything else while capturing video it 
may drop frames, etc.  I used to run Myth on my server and it worked great 
so long as noone was requesting pages from ym web site :)

-- 

 - Steve                                             http://www.nexusuk.org/

     Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence