[mythtv-users] XBox360 to display in MythTV

Raphael Pooser rpooser at gmail.com
Fri Feb 24 01:09:53 UTC 2006


Thomas Baker wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I currently have an Xbox360 plugged into my capture card via S-Video.  
> In the past I would use TvTime to display the Xbox on the screen by 
> changing the input connection to S-Video.  How do I do this in MythTV, 
> or even better, what is the best way to integrate the xbox with my myth 
> setup.  A few things to keep in mind.  My display is a ginormous 
> monitor, not a television (anyone remember the gateway destination 
> systems?) so I cannot plug the xbox directly into the display.  I'd like 
> it so that I pretty much never have to exit myth for any entertainment 
> functions.
>
>   
Understood, but mythtv live TV using the svideo input is not going to 
work the same as TVtime for you.  In myth, you're always going to be 
watching on your screen about 1 to 2 seconds behind what is actually 
happening on your xbox (or 1-2 seconds behind a live TV broadcast) at 
the least.  This is because of the TV on demand functionality.
Because of this, games will be unplayable using the s video connector 
and myth's live TV.  That said, the way to access the connector is 
simple.  This info is provided for your benefit in terms of knowledge 
only; again your xbox will be playing ahead of what you see on the 
screen this way.  Inside mythtv-setup, you need to define all the 
connectors on your card and then associate them with a source.  Like the 
coax input would get associated with a cable TV signal.  You then would 
have the option of defining the composite and svideo input on the same 
root option screen.  Most likely when you set it up the first time you 
only configured TV input.  At any rate, then within myth it's easy to 
change connectors while watching live TV.  There's a keyboard shortcut 
for it; but I forgot what it is as I have it bound to a key on the 
remote.  Check the docs at mythtv.org for the key bindings.

The real solution you need is to play your xbox video in real time on 
your linux box.  To do that without exiting myth, you most likely would 
need to use the mythvideo plugin, and then set up a command line 
argument to grab the output of the svideo connector for the video file.  
So the command line would need two parts, one along the lines of "cat 
/dev/video1 > videofilename" or whatever and the second part needs 
something like
mplayer /directory_wheremythvideo_looks_for_video/videofilename
cat /dev/video1 > videofilename | mplayer 
/directory_wheremythvideo_looks_for_video/videofilename
something like that. google will help you get there, or tell you if it's 
even possible.  Or someone more knowledgible will come respond and put 
what I said in more exact terms.
At any rate, don't they make a vga connector for the xbox that outputs 
HD resolution?  If so that would probably work on your big monitor.
Raphael


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list