[mythtv-users] XM Radio Functionality in Myth

[Meatwad]

Matt wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>    I did a little searching, but never found any real discussion on
> integrating XM (or other satellite radio) into MythTV.  Are any of the
> developers interested in this?  I bring it up because over Christmas,
> my family and I subscribed to XM radio.  While I can hook it directly
> to my stereo, I'd love to be able to use it directly in MythTV.
> 
> I have to admit, I didn't come up with the idea.  I was walking
> through Best Buy yesterday and I saw the Windows XP Media Center
> display.  However, one of the employees was listening to and changing
> XM channels on it.  So, I went home and found this:
> 
> http://www.xmradio.com/newsroom/screen/pr_2005_ces_microsoft.html
> 
> Basically it appears that there's a plugin in Windows MCE that acts as
> a frontend wrapper around "XM Radio Online" which allows XM
> subscribers to stream music over the net.  What's nice about it is the
> way it presents the information to the user.
> 
> I think SageTV also has a sirrius and XM plugin as well.
> 
> Either way, I just wanted to see if anyone besides me would be
> interested in such a plugin!

I was thinking about this as well but from a hardware perspective. The 
Polk XRt12 XM radio tuner can be used just as we currently use Direct TV 
receivers - with some bonuses. First, the digital out of the Polk could 
be routed to your soundcard's digital input which maintains the 
all-digital path to the harddrive. Secondly, the RS-232 port on the back 
is bi-directional. While discrete commands be issued by the plugin to 
the receiver, the receiver can provide the plugin with metadata such as 
"what's playing now."

I would suspect that for such a plugin to actually be released with 
mythtv, certain conditions would need to be met such as a reliable 
program data source for the XM content so that the recordings could be 
handled by the existing scheduler framework. I recall Isaac disallowing 
the MythFM plugin from releases because it did not meet this requirement.

At this point an FM tuner could be adapted with relative ease, assuming 
reliable program data sources were available for the desired stations of 
course.