[mythtv-users] Comcast bricked me above 33 so I bricked Comcast with my wallet

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 1:53 PM, John P Poet <jppoet at gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
> I originally had one of Directv's DVRs (HR20), but I couldn't live
> without the extra functionality of Myth, so I traded it in for a
> couple of Directv's standard HD STBs (H20).  I then hook up the
> component (HD) outputs from the H20s to Hauppauge HD-PVRs component
> capture devices:
>
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/HDPVR
>
> The Hauppauge HD-PVR encodes the analog component video into H.264 and
> muxes in the AC3 (Dolby Digital) audio from S/PDIF.  The result is
> sent into the Myth backend computer via USB.  This means there are
> extra boxes lying around to get the job done, but they all sit in my
> office were they are generally out-of-sight.  This all works well.
>
> You should note that the Hauppauge HD-PVR does not encode any
> closed-caption information, so if you need that you would need to
> leave sub-titles turned on, on the STB.
>
>
> John

John,
   Thanks for the info.

   It's been my reading looking at the HDPVR spec page at Hauppage
that it only has one component video in? IF I wanted to record 2 or 3
HD programs then doesn't that get quite expensive?

   There's also the electricity of running an Myth backend machine
plus multiple external devices like the HDPVR and then the power for
the DTV receivers. Seems that there is a lot of stuff involved in
doing that. At my electricity rates it's going to run $30-$40/month I
think if they are powered on 24/7/365. I haven't checked that
mathematically. I just know the cost of electricity is high and too
many things add up to a lot of money. My current Mac Mini backend -
underpowered for HD - along with the HDHR, external hard drive  and
Ethernet switch, were running me about $23/month. The DVR from
DirectTV is more like $10.

- Mark