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MythTV 0.23 Released
An anonymous reader writes "After six months of our new accelerated development schedule, MythTV 0.23 is now available. MythTV 0.23 brings a new event system, brand new Python bindings, the beta MythNetvision Internet video plugin, new audio code and surround sound upmixer, several new themes (Arclight and Childish), a greatly improved H.264 decoder, and fixes for analog scanning, among many others. Work towards MythTV 0.24 is in full swing, and has be progressing very well for the last several months. If all goes according to plan, MythTV 0.24 will bring a new MythUI OSD, a nearly rewritten audio subsystem capable of handling 24- and 32-bit audio and up to 8 channels of output, Blu-ray disc and disc structure playback, and various other performance, usability, and flexibility improvements."
Good, I may be tempted to upgrade from 0.21 to 0.23, but will let others test this first... I did not upgrade to 0.22 because it is too much trouble and let's not break a system that kinda-of works :)
metageek
What does that mean, in layman's term? Does it look better?
Man up and call a version 1.0! The new 'hip' thing to do, having version 0.x so you can excuse bugs as "Oh, it's just a beta" is bull mess.
And just in time for H.265/HTML5...
I don't usually waste my time with these trolls. The post is for any mods that have not read the faq and are wasting their mod points with this trash rather than on legitimate posts.
Leave it to the editors to down-mod these stupid posts since they are obvious trolls and the editors have unlimited mod points. In fact, based on the faq, I imagine how that is how we are suppose to do it.
I prefer to spend my time modding up people.
Do Editors Moderate?
The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no problem using them. .....
The editors tend to find crapfloods and moderate them down: a single malicious user can post dozens of comments, which would require several users to moderate them down, but a single admin can take care of it in seconds. This tends to remove the obvious garbage from the discussion so that the general population can use their mod points to determine good. Otherwise, a few crapfloods could suck a lot of moderator points out of the system and throw things out of whack.
MythTV is a mess. I used 0.21 for a while, and it took me quite a while to configure right, the scanning for channels crashed, backend crashed from time to time. The UI is not friendly for a media player.
I looked under the hood and quickly ran away, database is a mess, codebase is huge.
I wanted a few simple things:
-1 machine, which can record TV shows and watch them later
-Play other media files
-Have a web interface to choose what to record
MythTV with MythWeb and MythVideo should be able to do this all, but I never got the other media to work. That with the crashing backend, unfriendly configuration tool and stupid frontend UI. And it has no 'overlap in 2 shows' option, if 2 shows follow eachother on the same channel, why not save the overlapping time in both files? If the 2nd show starts early and I have watched and deleted the first show then I mis the first part of the 2nd show. Totally pissed me off.
Then I found XBMC, which does a wonderful job at playing media files. But doesn't do any recording. I already had tv_grab_nl_py for guide data, my TV tuner is a simple V4L device that gives an MPEG stream, so 1000 lines of PHP code later I had a daemon that records TV shows, a webinterface where I can select what to record. With thumb generation, reencoding. Basicly I replaced the whole of MythTV with 1000 lines of php and XBMC (in my case) which is running stable for months now.
i like your style.
Yes, I agree, MythTV is a bit of a mess, but it's constantly and consistently improving, and user concerns are being addressed. It's an extremely ambitious project, and offers way more than any other media center / pvr app for any platform.
To address some of your concerns:
- I disagree that the UI is not friendly. I think it's ugly and outdated, but I wouldn't call it unfriendly especially compared to other media center apps (even XBMC).
- Last year I cancelled my cable so I don't even use MythTV to record shows anymore. I use it purely as a media player, and I simply can't replace it with XBMC as much as I've tried. I've had exactly the opposite experience of you, where for me MythTV is stable, plays every file format I've needed, and XBMC crashes all the time, and the interface is too complex for my wife -- she much prefers MythTV.
- MythTV most certainly does have an overlapping recording option. It can be set per show, per show instance, per channel, etc.
Other things you simply won't find anywhere else:
- hardware support. While MythTV's hardware support is better than most, I suspect most of your crashing problems came from using subpar hardware devices. Most myth users choose the best transcoding hardware, and the backend support is top notch for a few key recording devices. Choose one of them when building a myth box and you will have great stability
- commercial detection, and automatic commercial skipping. Not perfect, but works very well.
- really great recording profiles and guide support (I.e., it's easy to hook up one digital HDTV antenna, and then a digital cable source, and have them both with completely different channel and guide data)
- user community. #mythtv-users has always been very helpful to me.
Do you have analog cable, or digital cable that your non-cablecard TV can tune to without a cable box? If so, MythTV can record it. Even if you have to use a cable box, MythTV can record the composite or component out on the way to the TV. There's pretty much no way a cable company can legally prevent you from recording non-encrypted, non-premium channels right now (by law that is required to include free to air TV stations). And there are ways with the cable box to record premium channels.
Editors shouldn't moderate, considering you can only post a limited number of times per day and that your karma has an affect on the number of times.
What editors should do is ban the users doing this sort of thing rather than moderating. Its going to be one or two users in almost every case causing the flood.
Of course, thats just my two cents and I've never been involved in a discussion site as popular as slashdot, especially one catering to a bunch of geeks and nerds who LOVE to get around things they aren't supposed to be able to get around. With that in mind, every time I think about writing a message to the slashdot group about something I think sucks, I tend to sit back and shut up. They have far more experience than I.
I will say however, timothy and kdawson should be removed.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I have FiOS and until MythTV supports CableCARD, it's rather useless. A google of the site just turns up a dry wiki definition of CableCARD and a bunch of forum postings that degenerate into DRM-related poo flinging.
I have an ATI AllInWonder 9800 Pro TV tuner card for my PC, and a Hauppauge USB TV Tuner stick for my laptop. Both are common as dirt, and neither of them are still supported by MythTV. Bummer.
> I just made an HTPC with Win 7 media center! it's because I only choose the right one tool for me.
The right tool for the job also includes supporting the latest and most interesting recording hardware.
If you are going to be a Microsoft Shill that pretends to use Linux, then at least don't push inferior Win32 solutions.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The right tool for the job also includes supporting the latest and most interesting recording hardware.
If you are going to be a Microsoft Shill that pretends to use Linux, then at least don't push inferior Win32 solutions.
"The latest and most interesting recording hardware"? You know there are plenty of tuner devices out there that have Windows support but not Linux, right? Most people don't want their recording hardware to be "interesting", they just want it to work.
Just because somebody thinks Windows is the appropriate tool for the job does not mean they're a shill. I'm more inclined to believe that you have no idea what you're talking about and are completely unaware of the state of media center software for windows -- why would somebody even be running Windows 7 on a 32-bit box?
Does it support HDCP decryption yet? If not its still not going to work for most people.
I haven't counted the editors but I doubt they have enough to run a 24/7 watch on every story. Not to mention it'd be slightly below first line help desk work in fun level. I don't care much for the mod points, so I usually drop to -1 and spend 15 points blasting trolls quite quickly. I guess if you're serious about moderating, go ahead. If you tend to let them expire (as they usually would for me) then help take out some of the trash instead.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If it's anything like in Canada, he is screwed. Rogers encrypt ALL channels and there is no analogue option.
Sure, I could record from the component out, but then you have to say hi to Mr Analogue (although these days, not too much of a problem I guess).
Tom...
I tried the previous version via mythbuntu, and found it so inconsistent and ugly (all those screenshots are from a single theme) that I even filed a bug report about it, but it was marked wontfix on the basis that a new version with new theme would be here in 6 months -- looking at the screenshots on the website I don't see much sign of improvement, can anyone who's used it comment?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
I moved to Media Portal a while ago, and while integrating commercial skipping with it is a real pain I haven't missed MythTV. MythTV was great for several months, but I had to replace the system with an Asus Pundit and the level of hardware support for the graphics card was non-existent on a Linux system. In additon, I had problems with the Hauppauge dual tuner and the Linux drivers as it would quite often hang the card. I had no such problems with Windows and reception was far better.
MythTV is a nice piece of software, but it is still being let down by the level of Linux media hardware support and, on occasion, it's own media support. Playing DVDs reliably and playing things like MKVs still had me plugging in VLC as an external player. The only problem I have with Media Portal is that it doesn't play default subtitle and audios stream within MKVs - it insists on defaulting to English.
All-in-all, I just haven't missed MythTV.
If you'd said Media Portal then I might give that some credence. Hardware support is better on Windows, but Windows Media Center is still crap.
Jeez, I have been using MythTV since 2004 first on MythDora, then MythBuntu and after taking a week to set MythDora up in 2004, the 2 MythBuntu installs were way easy. I just downgraded my office machine (Lucid) to .21 so I don't have to upgrade the living room one yet. Maybe the dual tuner Hauppage card I researched first was the key, I don't know. Plus, in the MythBuntu forums I have always found everyone extremely helpful if I had a question.
How many channels can it record simultaneously? If it's just one (the one I'm watching) this does not seem to be a viable PVR replacement.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'll wait a few weeks for the package managers to get any fixes in them, but I fully intend on upgrading soon. It'll probably break my video card setup again, which'll require
I guess I'm just one of the few folks who are happy with MythTV on /.
It took a while to get it running smoothly. Plus, I can't think of any other projects that can manage schedules and records HDTV over clearQAM with the flexibility that a MythTV box does.
It's a pain, but, combined with the helpful folks at KernelLabs.com, it's getting better and better.
import system.cool.Sig;
It can record as many channels as you have capture cards. It can even use capture cards on other Myth backends in multiple backend/frontend systems. On some digital multiplexed channels, one card can simultaneously record 2 channels in the same multiplexed stream. It's as good a PVR as you kit it out to be.
> "The latest and most interesting recording hardware"? You know there are plenty of tuner devices
> out there that have Windows support but not Linux, right?
Redundant ones.
> Most people don't want their recording hardware to be "interesting", they just want it to work.
Well MCE fails in that department too.
This idea that just because it's Microsoft, "it all just works magically" is a big lie.
> Just because somebody thinks Windows is the appropriate tool for the job does not mean they're a shill
No. You're a shill because you insist on fixating on the OS Vendor product when
there are other better options. This is the whole problem with the Lemming whole mindset.
You have a platform where there are a plethora of options but you get one monopoly option
pushed at you.
You're a shill not for pushing Windows in general but MCE in particular.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Does anything open source support cable card? Don't complain to mythtv devs about it, complain to Verizon.
The time was once when slashdot articles were properly vetted and *edited*. "Work towards MythTV 0.24 is in full swing, and has be progressing..." 'be' rather than 'been'? Really slashdot?
"why can't myth have a "save my database" and "look in this directory for recordings" import , rather than me having to edit my 450MB MySQL database?"
Don't know the last time you tried, but since at least 0.22, it has exactly this using an included python script. Also I'm no fan of MySQL, but I've never had my database corrupt itself yet, and I've done upgrades every 6 months since MythBuntu 8.10. Wonder if there are other causes?
I imagine the reason for using the database to store confs (besides the fact when you already require one for recording metadata, many devs would probably be inclined to stuff everything in there), is to allow easier setup of multiple backend/frontend systems. The master backend contains all the confs, and other nodes can connect to a known port to retrieve them just like the master backend does, rather than maintaining separate code for the master backend to serve text conf files up to connecting nodes.
There is also the fact it makes developing alternative configuration editors easy. Right now you can edit the confs using the native tool on the local machine, using an included webpage/webserver, or external tools like myphpadmin or Microsoft Access. Also Myth has so damn many settings, that for power users and developers doing additions/debugging, using a database is probably easier to manage than a 1000 line long text file.
Now that I think about it, it sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.
I really like mythtv, I've been using it for 2-3 years and it has become significantly more stable during that time. Today the biggest issue is that the UI and themes haven't really evolved as much as they could have - either themes are good looking and unusable or usable and bad looking. This is still true with the latest 0.23 version. Of course my expectations are quite high considering what you could do with a high def screen and a computer... Anyway, thank you mythtv developers! It's a really really amazing piece of software and one I use several hours per day.
Pay for it, then. Or do it yourself. Why not fill that need and sell a fork that is kind of the RHEL to MythTV's Fedora? If there are so many people who want/need/expect a product that comes with proper support and can be relied on, tap that market!
I wouldn't say it has changed in basic usability all that much. But I am very impressed with it on modern(ish) hardware, using current $50 USB tuners to capture ATSC and Clear QAM high def signals, cheap Intel GM45 graphics, software deinterlacing on a Q6600 CPU, and getting amazing image quality for all that. It clearly out performs the deinterlacer/scaler built into my Samsung TV for scaling everything up to 1080p. And I do surround passthrough over my ancient USB toslink sound card, so my hifi receiver can do the surround decoding itself.
The most horrifying part is configuring clear QAM cable channels, because scanning can yield many junk channels that have to be manually deleted (and they can crash the viewer when you try to preview them, so this process itself is very slow), and then you have to watch each channel to identify it and construct a manual mapping. I really wish some additional effort could be done to export/import these channel maps and get community-based sharing of this work. I don't know if the maps could be included into the schedulesdirect listings data, but that would be best, so you could get the mapping with your lineup.
Another issue is that analog tuners are becoming obsolete, and some hardware that used to "work" now has no Linux driver, and many of the newer hybrid analog/digital tuners have good digital support but bad or nonexistent analog support in their drivers. So you have to do you hardware compatibility research very carefully, focusing on contemporary support information and ignoring old "works for me" reports that are no longer valid.
Last I looked the backup script didn't offer the option to change, e.g. the location of recorded TV shows, so you always need to keep the same paths all the time... so I can't just build myself a new system and import my config into it without editing it first, as paths may well have changed.
In terms of storing global configurations in the database, I'm all for that and it makes plenty of sense. But when there doesn't seem to be an option of "copy all my settings for host X to host Y except for machine/hardware-specific ones" I don't see the point, and using mythweb/phpmyadmin for editing a config file is even clunkier than using the UI - there's no reason why things like screen resolution, sound setup, OGL settings, etc should be stored globally - but in any case if you do want everything in the database it's perfectly simple to have the myth programs parse a text file on startup and insert the data into the DB. This would have saved me no end of problems when I had a system that would freeze and crash X (due to buggy intel drivers) with the OGL painter enabled. Sure, it's simpler for devs but much, much harder for users.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
I have to say, I usually go for the Linux option all things being equal, but I too have just set up a Win 7 HTPC as my Dish Network replacement. A friend spent far too much time getting his MythTV setup to work; I bought the dual core Atom/ION Revo box, a USB ATSC tuner and a Media Center remote and I was recording live OTA TV the same evening I got the box from Newegg. With the install of the Media Browser plugin and Virtual Clone Drive I can also watch all my avi files and DVD ISOs. It's pretty sweet for under $400 for everything, especially since the Revo is a small, quiet, WiFi equipped box with HDMI. If you're interested http://revohtpc.com/ has a lot of information on what works. I figure if Win 7 ever pisses me off I can run XBMC on it, but for now I'm happy.
"Last I looked the backup script didn't offer the option to change, e.g. the location of recorded TV shows, so you always need to keep the same paths all the time...".
/var/lib/mythtv/recordings. I don't see value in granulating them further. So if you decide to put recordings on another disk or in a different location on a subsequent install, the easy way is to just symlink the new location to /var/lib/mythtv/recordings and no database edits are necessary. Now if you are talking about putting other videos in different places, that is probably harder?
... Sure, it's simpler for devs but much, much harder for users"
I believe by default all TV recordings go to
"But when there doesn't seem to be an option of "copy all my settings for host X to host Y except for machine/hardware-specific ones" I don't see the point,"
I don't follow I guess. Master backend X database should contain settings for all clients Y,Z,A. So the host settings are already copied for you, just not in your preferred format. I haven't had a good enough reason to do a multiple client install yet. Are you saying that new clients must be configured from the ground up, and the Myth system isn't smart enough to autopopulate global configs, and request only machine specific configs be manually entered on new clients?
"and using mythweb/phpmyadmin for editing a config file is even clunkier than using the UI"
I don't know. I like mythweb good enough. And after dicking with LIRC text configs forever in Nano, I sorely wished I could have been doing it with phpmyadmin or Access. Though for most quick setting changes, it is overkill. The native UI pisses me off because it can't switch back and forth between showing the mouse cursor in the config UI and hiding it in the regular frontend. So I have to blindly fumble around in the config UI until the cursor hits an editable field.
"perfectly simple to have the myth programs parse a text file on startup and insert the data into the DB. This would have saved me no end of problems
It is just one more step in the process that could go wrong and lead to unintended problems later. Though you make a good argument that machine specific settings should stay on the machine (and perhaps in a text file if there aren't that many) as long as the machine specific settings are correctly categorized.
I bet over half the Myth users aren't doing anything as involved as what you discussed here, so they probably don't care either way. And these are pretty savvy users compared to the average computer user. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of pain from my Myth install. And listening / second hand relay of some of the dev discussions sounds like they aren't predisposed to really focusing on the end user. But I'm not sure changing what they have done would be the best use of their time.
Ok, thanks for answering and sorry for my ignorance on this.
What capture cards are recommended? Do I just split my cable from the wall into as many inputs as I need and feed them individually to each capture card?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
> I just made an HTPC with Win 7 media center! it's because I only choose the right one tool for me.
The right tool for the job also includes supporting the latest and most interesting recording hardware.
If you are going to be a Microsoft Shill that pretends to use Linux, then at least don't push inferior Win32 solutions.
Sadly this person is right. Without the ability to support M type cable cards myth is dead to me. In my area we're all digital and nothing would ever make me buy multiple cable boxes just so i can setup some complicated multiple IR blaster solution. Myth will either speed up development of these technologies or get left in the dust. To get around the digital encrypt issue i bought a Moxi (moxi.com). I wouldn’t really recommend it but I had to replace the old myth box some how.
No problem.
I'd strongly suggest a HDHomeRun for free to air digital or clear QAM cable TV. If that is too expensive, most Hauppauge cards are supported, though the best dual tuner model HVR-2250 isn't much cheaper than a dual tuner HDHR. pcHDTV cards are also well supported, being specifically Linux hardware.
If you want to record encrypted cable and want it HD, the best choice is a Hauppauge HDPVR encoding from your cable box component output. Though that is pricey. If you still need analog cable, the best is to get a Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card.
Most cards will require you to use a splitter from your wall outlet into their multiple inputs if they are a dual tuner card, or to split them for multiple single tuner cards. If you have a lot of other splitters in your house cable wiring, you may need to get a high quality digital cable TV amplifier. You can get one on eBay for about $30. Tuner cards need a powerful signal. The HVR-2250 is the only dual tuner card I know of that has one input that is split between the tuners internally.
The problem with the symlinking of stuff is that, after a few generations of hardware, it gets very messy and complicated. I settled on stuff in /storage/tvstore but I think just symlinking stuff all over the place is inelegant; when I was importing recording and metadata from two other systems, it was either "create random symlinks everywhere depending on where system owner put his recordings" or manually edit the database exports.
And yeah, last time I setup a frontend I had to do it from scratch. It picked up the backend settings from the database, but all other settings had to be changed manually. This would be alot more bearable if I could just go into, say, mythweb and copy the host settings for host X to host Y, but last time I looked it wasn't there.
Horses for courses on the editing front I guess - I'm pretty familiar with lirc and can thrash out a config file and have irw spitting out the right buttons in a few minutes... but as to why I have to manually create an lircrc for Myth? No idea. At least xine allows you to dump out a default lircrc keymap which you can just populate with your own values.
Completely agree about the settings being categorised - in fact I'd be happier if they were nicely categorised in the database, but as it is they're all just glommed into a single table listed in alphabetical order, without any sort of hierarchical structure in the key names (such as you do with objects in firefox's about:config for example) - wouldn't it be nice to have a frontend.display.widgets.renderer = opengl for instance?
Agree that it's entirely possible I'm doing very complicated things, but this is why I get so annoyed at the bulk of Myth power users; I say something's needlessly complicated, and I'm told it's because Myth is so powerful. If something powerful doesn't work as I'd like it to, I'm told I'm making things needlessly complicated.
Academic perhaps, as with the advent of iplayer, the general shittiness of broadcast TV and more disposable income meaning towers of DVD box sets to watch we're spending less and less time watching the tube, but I'd still like to see Myth living up to its potential. But like you say the devs have practically zero focus on the end user so I don't hold out much hope.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
HDHomeRun, and yes.
If you just want ATSC, get an HDHomeRun. Network connected, so no kernel level drivers. IR receiver included, open specs for the protocols. Fully supported in MythTV. I had the same experience with Myth years ago because I did some research and bought hardware that worked. If you do that, getting Myth working is pretty easy really. I set up the hardware, installed MythBuntu, and it "just worked" as far as the basics went. I did a lot of tweaking to get things the way I wanted them, but recording TV, watching recordings, and playing videos worked fine. It's even better now as you can use NVidia's VDPAU to handle playback so you can use low-power CPU devices like the Atom/ION combo. I used to need a fast dual core CPU, now an Atom works great.
All Win7 gives you over Linux/Myth in an HTPC is driver support, IMO. And even that is up to the hardware vendor to get right.
If your cable box has a FireWire output, MythTV can record from that as well. It captures the MPEG-2 transport stream for the selected channel as it comes down the wire, so no reencoding is done by the backend.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I strongly advice everyone using mythtv to move to vdr instead. I did a year ago, after 3 years of mythtv, it's another league as far as usability. It you need al the non-tv addons you're better off with xbmc+vdr. do yourself a favour and drop mythtv now.
my biggest beef so far is that the setting for mythvideo to remember your place in the video hierarchy seems to be gone so if you're watching 10 seasons of DVDrip over a span of several weeks you have to write down what episode you last watched if you leave mythvideo and head to recordings... That used to work perfectly in 0.21 but the setting is now gone. Am I the only one who relied on that feature?
My next beef is the updated mechanism for deleting a recording... You have to hit 'd' now.. That's just a mental-programming exercise though.
I must also say the install to my Mac Mini frontend went flawlessly and is working well. Also the install to my Acer Aspire net-box thingy also went well and is a terrific cheap little frontend for watching HD (with VDPAU)...
Anyway, so far so good.
That HDHR does look nifty - if my cheapo usb tuner heads south I'd certainly consider something like that. I have to say the $30 tuner does a pretty good job - it picks up way more stations than the one built into the Dish VIP box. The Revo is really a quick and dirty solution, when I canceled Dish my wife wanted a replacement up & running quickly. If I bump into too many obstacles I'll give MythBuntu a whirl.
Congrats to the devs for knocking out another version of MythTV. I don't care that the arbitrary version number is low.
Been using it for 4 years now.
(Score:-1, Troll)
*success* now to make (Score:+5, Informative) about iPad stories.
MythTV does not store the location of recorded shows, all it stores is the base filename, storage group, and hostname. If the recording is in any folder defined as part of that storage group, it will find it. If the recording is in any folder defined as part of any storage group, it will find it. If you want to move your recordings to a different folder, all you have to do is tell MythTV what folder that is, and it won't care.
The only thing you can do that could cause it problems is changing the hostname of your backend server. The backup script provides options for migrating from one hostname to another.
Completely agree about the settings being categorised - in fact I'd be happier if they were nicely categorised in the database, but as it is they're all just glommed into a single table listed in alphabetical order, without any sort of hierarchical structure in the key names (such as you do with objects in firefox's about:config for example) - wouldn't it be nice to have a frontend.display.widgets.renderer = opengl for instance?
Agree that it's entirely possible I'm doing very complicated things, but this is why I get so annoyed at the bulk of Myth power users; I say something's needlessly complicated, and I'm told it's because Myth is so powerful. If something powerful doesn't work as I'd like it to, I'm told I'm making things needlessly complicated.
Technically, there is no ordering of settings in the database. They are just inserted as needed. If they showed up in alphabetical order, its because you sorted them that way in your select statement. Manual tinkering with settings outside the GUI has never been recommended or supported in any manner.
Almost everyone will agree that there are far too many settings, and that their layout could be handled better. MythTV was designed for, and used on for several years, low resolution standard definition TVs. What works there doesn't make much sense on a higher resolution display. I have to say 'almost everyone', as there has been concerted effort over the past year to clear out bad and unnecessary settings. Every time something would be removed, people would pop into the mailing list and IRC channels bickering about how they couldn't live without their particular pet setting. Nevermind the fact that the setting was no longer even functional, and when it previously did function, enabling it caused bad things to happen.
According to this, I get the network channels many times over. I did not see USA, SciFi, TNT, Lifetime, etc on the list.
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lineup_web/US:78229
I have wondered about the analog because the TV in my bedroom is analog.
I wish there was a tvcard that pretended to be a tv so I could just output the signal from my cable card to my tv card.
I've been using Myth for ages now with DirecTV (I rewrote one of the early versions of the directv.pl tuner script) and have been happy with it. But... so far it's always been standard def TV, even though I've got a 19" 720p panel attached to the Mythbox.
What sort of HD can I get out of the component plugs? And why does this work? Because it is still "analog" and the media companies are not yet super anal about this particular work around? Also, does this mean that there isn't a method for locking down component output signals? I'd hate to try this and find that when I tune a premium channel I get junk... although, I suppose that depends on how the receiver box is designed.
If I can get a decent picture in this manner, I may have to upgrade. Hmm...
If I'm only interested in 720p component signals, what HD capture card would you recommend? I've been using a Hauppauge PVR-250 for years and it's been good to me, despite being std. def.
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
That's cool about you rewriting the DirecTV script. About the only thing I have done is a super trivial PHP fix to the recordings page on a very old version of Knoppmyth so downloading the episode would work, then notifying their forum how to do it.
Component can carry all consumer HD resolutions through 1080p, whatever the cable box will put out. Some cable companies reduce the resolution on cable box component out for some or all programming, based on their contracts with stations and media companies.
I don't think many are disabling it entirely or downsampling OTA stations they carry on only the component out. They want to stay competitive with broadcast, DVD, and Netflix, and component signal is the lowest common denominator for HD playback. Until recently, the ability of a consumer to reencode component signal at HD quality was pretty limited and very expensive.
Before investing in switching, I'd contact my cable company to verify their available cable box has a component out, and they don't do, or rarely do selective output downsampling or disabling. Good luck getting a cable CSR drone to understand that. Better to ask if they ever reduce the HD resolution on the component out or turn it off for some programs. You can't do DRM on component signal other than turning them off or downsampling. If it doesn't work, or they change policy, I'm sure you could sell your HD-PVR on ebay and recover most of the cost.
The only affordable way to do this I know of is the fairly recent Hauppauge HD-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html. You can get it on Amazon for about $200. It takes a component signal up to 1080i and hardware encodes it into H.264 before passing the stream off to your computer. Seems like Myth users don't seem to have much trouble with it now that it is officially supported.
I have also heard there are HDMI to component converter dongles made unlicensed in China that ignores HDMI HDCP and allows you to watch or record any high def signal you want. If you can find it, I think they run about $100. But I think if the component pushing the HDMI is connected to the internet, DCP could revoke the key and prevent the dongle from working. The Chinese company would then need to break the new key and provide the updated key to you. But I don't know if these dongles are field updateable.
On most networks, those are sent in encrypted QAM, so the HDHR can't tune them. Generally cable companies only send OTA channels, and a few things like C-SPAN and Discovery in clear QAM. You'd have to use a cable box and a Hauppauge HD-PVR encoder for e-QAM.
Any analog station you can receive on a TV without a cable box can be recorded by a cheap Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card and Myth.
There are no real differences between a tuner in a TV and a tuner in a computer TV card. The method media companies try to use to prevent watching TV in ways they don't like is using licensed encryption that is technically illegal to break, easily changed, and not very easy to bypass. So if a computer card company comes to them and asks for the license and encryption keys to produce a product, and the media company doesn't agree with the proposal, they don't hand over the goods.
If I understand you right, and you want to record channels only available on your cable box that contains a CableCard encryption module, and your cable box has component out, the only way to record it with Myth is using a Hauppauge HD-PVR. There are a few Windows solutions that support CableCard encryption if the entire system from motherboard to monitor supports HDCP.
Very interesting, indeed. And a lot to think about. In my case, I'll be dealing with DirecTV drones instead of cable drones. I *think* the former are slightly better, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Both the HD-PVR and the dongle sound promising. The DirecTV receiver is not connected to the Internet, but DirecTV is capable of pushing whatever software or updates it wishes down though its satellites, so I suppose it is possible that they could revoke the key that this dongle uses in that manner.
Thanks again for the tips!
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
I have MythTV and until encrypted TV supports MythTV, encrypted TV is useless.
It's not that you're wrong; it's that you're biased, or if that's too damning, then let's just say you have a very inflexible preference.
There is a solution to the problem (fire the TV company since they are going out of their way to keep things from working) but you're loyal to them. Ok, loyalty is virtuous. I'm sure the president of Comcast saved your life back in 'nam or something. You owe him. I understand. But the rest of us who have fired our asshole cable/telecom companies, sure are a lot happier, and we get to use MythTV too!