[mythtv-users] HDTV reception via Cable

[Jesse Guardiani]

On Thursday 23 March 2006 5:50 pm, R. G. Newbury wrote:
> Christian Burger wrote:
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > ------------------------------
> > 
> > Message: 18
> > Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:14:12 -0500
> > From: "R. G. Newbury" <newbury at mandamus.org>
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] HDTV reception via Cable
> > To: christian.burger at abtg.net, 	Discussion about mythtv
> > 	<mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> > Message-ID: <442169C4.4040906 at mandamus.org>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed
> > 
> > Christian Burger wrote:
> > 
> >>Can you manually tune your card with azap or mplayer?  I too am on Charter
> >>but using an Aver TVHD A180.  Myth just won't tune the card no matter what
> >>I've tried, but mplayer will tune it via channels.conf.  When you generate
> >>your channels.conf you are just doing atscscan atsc/us-Cable-Standard >
> >>channels.conf right?


[...]

> Note that there is a quick way to look at the 'raw' streams (going from 
> memory here):
> Use azap -r STATION to tune, in one console.
> Use mplayer -vid xx -aid yy in another console where vid,aid and pid are 
> the last three numbers on the channels.conf line....If vid is 0, you may 
> have an audio channel, but try one digit less than the audio id..


I'm also on Charter using an AverTV A180. I now have HDTV working in MythTV
The last sentence above was critical to my success. I realized that I might 
be getting audio on some of the channels I was trying to tune, but not video, 
so I changed my testing command from this:
    mplayer -nolirc -nosound /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0
To this:
    mplayer -nolirc -novideo /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

And started looking for AUDIO: A52 lines in mplayer's output, along with sound.
This let me detect which channels were coming through, then I went to work
getting the video to show up by changing the vid to one less than the audio
in my channels.conf.

Backtracking a bit, I had to do three things to my channels.conf:
1.) I had to renumber the channels so azap could tune them properly. So my
original channels.conf from atscscan looked like this:

[0001]:579000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
[0002]:579000000:QAM_256:0:2113:2
[0003]:579000000:QAM_256:0:2177:3
[0004]:579000000:QAM_256:0:2241:4
[0005]:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:5
[0006]:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:6
[0001]:657000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
[0003]:657000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
[0002]:657000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2
[0001]:663000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
[0002]:663000000:QAM_256:0:2113:2
[0003]:663000000:QAM_256:0:2177:3
[0004]:663000000:QAM_256:0:2241:4
[0001]:669000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
[0003]:669000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
[0002]:669000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2

(note that the channel numbers overlap in the leftmost column)
Which became this so mplayer could tune the channels:

0001:579000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0002:579000000:QAM_256:0:2113:2
0003:579000000:QAM_256:0:2177:3
0004:579000000:QAM_256:0:2241:4
0005:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:5
0006:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:6
0007:657000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0008:657000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
0009:657000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2
0010:663000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0011:663000000:QAM_256:0:2113:2
0012:663000000:QAM_256:0:2177:3
0013:663000000:QAM_256:0:2241:4
0014:669000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0015:669000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
0016:669000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2

2.) Then I needed to get the video working, because all
my vid columns are 0. So it became this:

0001:579000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0002:579000000:QAM_256:0:2113:2
0003:579000000:QAM_256:0:2177:3
0004:579000000:QAM_256:0:2241:4
0005:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:5
0006:579000000:QAM_256:0:0:6
0007:657000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0008:657000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
0009:657000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2
0010:663000000:QAM_256:2048:2049:1
0011:663000000:QAM_256:2112:2113:2
0012:663000000:QAM_256:2176:2177:3
0013:663000000:QAM_256:2240:2241:4
0014:669000000:QAM_256:0:2049:1
0015:669000000:QAM_256:0:2113:3
0016:669000000:QAM_256:0:2177:2

3.) Finally, once I knew what channels were unencrypted,
I simplified my channels.conf to this in preparation for
MythTV import:

0010:663000000:QAM_256:2048:2049:1
0011:663000000:QAM_256:2112:2113:2
0012:663000000:QAM_256:2176:2177:3
0013:663000000:QAM_256:2240:2241:4

So, out of 16 channels, I get 4. :)
The rest was just simply following the Wiki page to get
everything setup and working in MythTV/Zap2it. Time consuming,
but uneventful. And it's working now. :)

Thanks for the help!



-- 
Jesse Guardiani
Programmer/Sys Admin
jesse at wingnet.net