[mythtv-users] HD-PVR and OnDemand

[Harry Devine]

Christopher Meredith wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 6:33 PM, Harry Devine <lifter89 at comcast.net> wrote:
>   
>> I don't use my Myth system to watch LiveTV, I just use the tuners to record
>> my shows.  I've seen a few things on my Comcast OnDemand that I'd like to
>> record.  How can I go about doing this with my HD-PVR?  Should I go into
>> LiveTV mode, start the show, and tell Myth (somehow) to record off of that
>> tuner?
>>
>> How do I go about that?
>> Harry
>>     
>
> This can be tricky, but there's a way to do it. First off, it may be
> simpler to not use Myth at all and instead do the old 'cat /dev/video0
>   
>> movie.ts' thing. If you want to do it in Myth, you can try what I
>>     
> did. Add a channel 01. Obviously, this won't have any guide data so
> you have to create a manual recording schedule or else it will break
> the recordings into 30 or 60 minute chunks (I can't remember which).
> Set the recording to start in one minute or two. You can look up the
> runtime of the program and set the recording end time appropriately,
> or you can just set it for 3 hours (or so) to give yourself some
> wiggle room. Then, once the recording starts, just start up the movie
> and you're good to go.
>
> I would suggest that you use the component passthrough on the HD-PVR
> and watch it "live" right off the box until the program starts. This
> is because it's hard to navigate through the menus when what you're
> seeing is time delayed. Also, Comcast's on demand program changes
> video modes when switching between menus and this can cause the HD-PVR
> to choke momentarily.
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>   
This is basically what I ended up doing.  I went to the show in the 
OnDemand menu, then from an SSH session, did "cat /dev/video0 > <file>" 
and started the show.  Then killed it when it was over.  I ended up with 
an mpeg file that was about 2.4GB.  Then I was able to go into 
MythArchive and use the "Add File" option to burn it to a DVD.

Perhaps a bit crude, but that's what ended up working for me.  Thanks 
for the tips!

Harry