[mythtv-users] MythTV and HDTV?

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Tue Jun 15 13:36:56 EDT 2004


On Tuesday 15 June 2004 13:09, Peter Lee wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Ed Benckert wrote:
> > I use Myth right now just for images, video, and music... my TV is
> > fed from my Tivo upstairs. I'm expanding my home theatre and was
> > thinking of getting a HDTV DirecTV tuner for the basement and
> > setting up Myth to PVR for it... can Myth handle HDTV? I'm assuming
> > I'd need some special capture card, which I have not seen
> > anywhere... so my inital thoughts are "No"
>
> There is indeed a pcHDTV card.  Check out http://www.pchdtv.com/.  A
> number of people are working on Myth support for this, see for
> example
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/54285?search_strin
>g=pchdt v;#54285.
>
> Note that decoding HDTV seems to require a fast processor (on the
> order of 3GHz).
>
> > Will a DirecTV HDTV tuner have both HDTV and non-hdtv outputs on
> > it? I'm thinking I can run the HDTV directly to my projector, and
> > the svideo to the myth box. Maybe? Anyone have a setup anything
> > like this?
>
> I don't know about the DirecTV HDTV tuner, but my Comcast-provided
> Motorola HDTV cable box has both component outputs (for hdtv) and
> svideo output (for normal TV).  For a while I was piping the svideo
> output to my mythtv box, and the component video output directly to
> the component video input on my hdtv.  Then, I would switch to svideo
> mode on the tv to watch mythtv, and to component mode to watch HDTV.
>
> Ultimately, I didn't like this setup.  While watching HDTV (eg, the
> Super Bowl), the mythtv box would sometimes decide to switch channels
> to record something, which is annoying.  So, I decided to go out any
> get a second cable box, exclusively for mythtv, and then reserve the
> hdtv cable box for hdtv.
>
> At some point I'll invest in the pcHDTV card, but since this would
> involve getting a faster computer, it will have to wait...

Note that the pcHDTV card is not useful for DirecTV or HDTV over cable.  
It's specifically for receiving over-the-air HDTV broadcasts.

There's a new card out with CAM support that's supposed to be able to 
tune HDTV over cable; it's supposed to have Linux drivers, but I 
haven't heard of anyone actually using it yet.  In any event, I doubt 
it would be useful for DirecTV.

-JAC


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