[mythtv-users] Problems with HDHomerun

[Greg Woods]

On Mon, 2006-11-27 at 14:01 -0500, Michael Tiller wrote:
> In case anybody comes across this thread looking for answers, I seem
> to have resolved most of my problems.  The key appears to be in
> getting the channel scan correct.  I ultimately did the channel scan
> pretty much as directed in the HDHomerun installation instructions but
> then I entered the xmlvids myself.

Another possible way to do this is to enter the call signs. which you
can get directly off your labs.zap2it.com lineups page. While viewing a
channel in Live TV, hit the 'e' key which brings up a channel editor. If
you just enter the correct call sign (it must EXACTLY match what's in
the zap2it lineup) and then navigate to the Probe box and hit enter, it
will fill in the xmlvid for you.

>  It is quite sweet having one analog capture device, one OTA capture
> device and one QAM capture device. 

I have yet to get OTA working, but I may not need it now that I've got
pretty much all of the HD broadcast channels available via QAM and the
non-HD broadcast channels available via analog. I'll probably hook up a
second QAM line instead. I think my OTA problems are related to good old
antenna reception, which is notoriously bad around here (front range of
Rocky Mountains), and there is a big battle going on about whether or
not they will be able to put HD towers on Lookout Mountain where the
current analog towers are, so the HD transmitters are located in
downtown Denver which is much harder to receive OTA. I would probably
need a rooftop antenna which is beyond my handyman skills, so I'll
probably stick to QAM for now.

>  All in all, I think the HDHomerun is a great piece of hardware for
> the MythTV crowd. 

I concur. I had a defective one at first, and they replaced it no
questions asked.

The only gotcha is that it can only receive channels that are
unencrypted off the wire. I have found that the majority of my channels
are not available to the HDHomerun because they are encrypted, and the
only way to get them is to use a Comcast-supplied cable box.

The other thing to note is that you do have to use a
compiled-from-source version of the myth software in order to do QAM off
the HDHR. This is a relatively recent addition.

--Greg