[mythtv-users] Trying to use HDTV as a firewire recorder

[Andrew Burgess]

>I have a Samsung HDTV with both a cable card and IEEE1394 ports.  For
>the past several months I have been able to use test-mpeg2 and "at" to 
>record shows.  Of course, this has many limitations.

Cool!

>I have set-up my TV as an "OTHER" firewire box.  I created a "channel 
>changer" program that will power-up the TV (IR blaster), set the input 
>to "TV", tune to the appropriate channel, and "prime" the firewire using 
>test-mpeg2.  The problem is that the backend appears to be recording, 
>but the file is always 0 bytes.

I've had better priming luck with firewire_tester and myth_prime
both available as C files on the web. myth_prime includes a
/etc/sysconfig/mythbackend file to prime automatically
when the backend starts. You don't need to prime before every recording.

HTH