[mythtv-users] MythTv, pcHDTV HD3000, & SuSE 10.1

[Chris]

> Chris wrote:
>>> The HD3000 will do both analog and digital, but of course, it will not
>>> do digital with the analog module loaded.
>>> There is more in the gossamer-thread archives about this.
>>>
>>> Geoff
>>
>> Can you clarify what you meant by this statement Geoff? I've got one
>> running under Suse 10.0/Mythtv .19 and I'm able to switch back and forth
>> to either tuner within Mythtv. I did set the card up as a dvb card, not
>> using Myth's preconfigured pcHDTV3000 setup if that is what you are
>> referring to.
> 
> The HD3000 will tune and play analog channels (such as cable TV feed)
> using the cs8800 module.
> The HD3000 will tune and play digital channels (including cable digital
> QAM256 feeds or OTA) using the cx88-dvb module.
> 
> Until the .19 version, MythTV could not handle switching back and forth.
> It was possible, for example, using xine, to rmmod (or modprobe -r) one
> module and modprobe in the other, and then use the new feed. I never
> bothered to try that. I have no idea how the tuning would be done, but I
> presume from what I read here, that people were using azap or similar to
> tune and xine/mplayer to play.
> 
> Of course, Mythtv uses an entirely different tuning methodology. And it
> was not set up to allow, in effect, the "existence" of phantom input
> cards, matched against video sources, (since while one module was loaded
> the card could not receive the other type of feed and for that purpose,
> at least, the card "did not exist").
> 
> Without knowing anything more than what has been written here, I
> understand that Myth was tweaked so that it would not barf if it did not
> find all of the card:source pairs that it could expect, and it was
> tweaked to allow the program to load/unload the proper modules at the
> proper time, treating the matter as no more than a type of tuner plus
> channel change....which it is not! Neat work by the coders.
> 
> So although it may *appear* that both modules are loaded, the HD3000
> will only work with one of the two, at a time. So Myth actually unloads
> one and loads the other.. transparently. So my statement is quite
> correct, although your experience would lead you to believe that both
> modules are loaded at once
> 
> Note, however, that this still requires that you keep your source
> channel lineups unique.
> 
> Glad to know that that feature works. I have never tried it, as I have a
> PVR500 to deal with my analog channel recording needs and use the HD3000
> only for digital cable feeds, and possibly HD OTA by the end of the
> World Cup...!
> 
> Geoff

Thanks for the clarification Geoff, it sounds like I chose the right 
time to get involved with Mythtv.  FWIW, I've been very pleased with my 
HD3000 for HD OTA but the analog tuner for NTSC doesn't hold a candle to 
a PVR-x50 for NTSC so you're not missing anything.  I'd already decided 
that a PVR-350 was going to be my prime tuner for SD OTA with the HD3000 
analog tuner either being ignored or rarely used for recording.

In theory, the HD3000 sounds good because it saves a slot and a splitter 
but I haven't found the analog tuner's video quality to be worth the 
extra bucks over competitive ATSC cards that lack the analog tuner.

Chris