[mythtv-users] digital cable is upon me for real now

[Jerome Yuzyk]

On Thursday, August 18, 2011 09:01:12 PM Ronald Frazier 
<ron at ronfrazier.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:34 PM, Jerome Yuzyk <jerome at supernet.ab.ca> 
wrote:
> > What's the easiest way to add the digital box to the PVR-500 and use
> > it for the Tier 1-3 channels? Is it possible to use it simultaneously
> > with the 2 analog tuners to give me 3 input sources?
> 
> OK, if I'm understanding correctly, you are going to continue to
> receive some of your channels in analog, and you'd like to continue
> recording those with the PVR-500. For those channels that go digital,
> you want to record them from the cable box also using the PVR-500.
> Assuming your cable box has composite outputs (red+white+yellow
> connectors) you can connect those outputs to the PVR-500's composite
> input (which, when I bought my PVR-500 many many years ago, came on a
> little secondary panel that occupied another card slot and connected
> to the PVR-500 via a few wires). Then you can also continue to feed
> your PVR-500 via coax. So you will configure myth with 3 inputs: 2
> tuner inputs and 1 composite input. Then, the important part is to
> realize that the composite and one of the tuners share the same
> hardware and thus only 1 can be active at a time. You need to figure
> out which of the tuners is shared with your composite and assign those
> to the same input group. The idea of the input group is to tell myth
> that multiple inputs share the same backend hardware and thus only one
> can be in use at a time.
> 
> Of course, you are then going to also need to either configure an IR
> blaster to change channels, or (if your cable box supports it) change
> the channels via firewire.


Thanks Ron. I have composite and S_Video right on the back of my card. but 
the DCT700 has only composite and coax "TO TV/VCR" - no firewire. I'll 
order a box and muck around with it. 

To activate and set up one of these boxes it seems a TV is needed. I don't 
have a TV. Can LiveTV be used for this?