[mythtv-users] determining power state of firewire cable box

[Sam Logen]

--- On Wed, 12/31/08, William <william_munson at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: William <william_munson at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] determining power state of firewire cable box
> To: starz909 at yahoo.com, "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 5:40 AM
> Sam Logen wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I've got a motorola DCH-3200 attached to my mythtv
> setup via a firewire cable.  The way I've set up my boot
> process, it primes the firewire port before mythtv starts
> up.  However, if the DCH unit is powered off when the
> machine turns on to record, then the priming process hangs
> and I won't be able to enter mythtv.
> >
> > I've downloaded and compiled the latest
> "6200ch" from svn.  I noticed that this script has
> the capacity to toggle the power state of the cable box.  So
> I modified its source to include my box's vendorid, then
> compiled it.  Toggling the power of the cable box with
> "-w" works, but all it does is toggle.
> >
> > That means that if the box is on, "-w" will
> turn it off instead.
> >
> > So if I was to set the machine to power on for a
> recording (and I'm not the only person to use the cable
> box at times), I'd still have to 
> 
> Here is the real problem... I would suggest renting another
> cable box 
> and hiding the one for mythtv where it wont be turned off
> accidentally. 
> Put the other one at the tv set for when you really really
> must watch 
> live tv. Or even better, put both on your myth box so you
> can record and 
> watch at the same time. I doubt I could go back to a single
> tuner box 
> again, too many shows on at the same time.
> 

Well I don't have a problem with shows running into each other.  I have both a digital & analog capture card for those rare instances.  My main issue is that I'm not always around when the machine begins recording, so I won't always be able to tell when the cable box is powered on (if someone just left it on).  So if there is any way to query through the firewire connection it's power state, that would save me a lot of trouble.  

If not, would it be possible to use the s-video port of my pvr-150 to check if the box is sending a video stream, and therefore determine if the power is on?

Sam