[mythtv-users] An option for watching tv

[match at ece.utah.edu]

On 28 Nov 2006 at 17:14, devsk wrote:

> 
> but why? it should be fairly easily be possible with mythtv. xawtv doesn't work for my card, but 
> that's besides the point. I had problems with mythtv initially and I tried all programs present in 
> gentoo portage for watching tv. None worked. mythtv finally worked with a trick that I got from 
> pvrusb2 howto.
> 
> why do I need two programs to basically do two things which are so related to one another: watch 
> tv and record shows. livetv doesn't need to hang just because I ran out of space.

You're missing the point here. 

If you are running MythTV then you are already running a whole bunch of programs to make 
it happen. That's the UNIX/Linux way. It's like Legos. Big applications are made out of a 
bunch of little applications that only do one thing, but do it very well. You run mysql to provide 
your database, you run lirc so you can have a remote control, etc. You can choose to run 
mplayer or xine to view DVDs, and you can choose xawtv or TVtime, or some other program 
of your choice to watch TV without thrashing your hard disk.

There are several ways to acomplish this already. That's why the MythTV developers are not 
concerned with it. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel.

So, your capture card is not suported by these other programs? That's great! You want 
MythTV to use your current capture card to record with anyway. Don't take your current 
capture card away from MythTV if it's working. Just spent $19, or even less, on a frame-
grabber card that xawtv, or TVtime, or whatever can play nice with.

Then all that remains is to modify the menu selection in MythTV to lauch your alternate live tv 
application, if you want it to look seamless.

Does this help?

Marvin