[mythtv-users] DBOX2

[Mike Richardson]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 01:58:59PM +0000, Justin Hornsby wrote:
>    The basic idea is this:
>    DBOX2  operates  on  your  network  as a 'source' for video to record.
>    There's  code  in  SVN  to  talk  to the box, get a list of channels &
>    populate  the  programme  guide  (but  you  have  to  add the channels
>    yourself).   At  recording  time, mythtv takes an MPEG2-TS stream from
>    the DBOX2's network connection via a TCP stream. An alternative method
>    using UDP is being developed, so I hear...

Sounds idea, if it worked.

>    Anyway  -  in that configuration not many people have had success or a
>    great  deal  of  reliability,  but this is probably caused by the http
>    daemon on the dbox being overwhelmed (or that fact it only has 10-base
>    ethernet).

Ouch.

>    A  very  workable  solution  is to use the dbox as-is, but rather than
>    enabled  it as a video source for mythtv directly, connect a PVR tuner
>    card  to  its  audio & video outputs.  You don't need an IR blaster to
>    change channels on the box because the dbox has a web interface... all
>    you  need  is  a script (see the ML archive from a few days ago for my
>    scripts to do this very job).

That would be more tricky. The aim is to avoid noisy machines in living
areas and the run to the computer room is too far. Silent PCs aren't cheap
either.

>    Either  way,  your  mileage  may vary, and getting the damned thing to
>    work  in  the  first place can be tricky -thankfully there are lots of
>    forums for help on that.

I've spent a fair while on MythTV and don't mind putting the effort in. 

>    Some  people are under the misapprehension the dbox can be 'converted'
>    into a frontend for mythtv.  This might be possible, but I'm not aware

Some sort of port I guess. 

>    of  anybody  having tried it.  The dbox software _can_ play back MPEG2
>    files  from  network  shares  though, so maybe it wouldn't be too much
>    work to bolt a better GUI around it & a bit of mysql.

What about the other way? Exporting a samba or NFS share off the DBOX to be
used as a source by MythVideo running elsewhere? 

>    I hope this answers some questions for you.

It does. Thanks. 

Mike
-- 
Mike Richardson
Networks
IT Services, University of Manchester
Email: doctor at mcc.ac.uk
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