[mythtv-users] 2 capture cards: want 1 dedicated to live TV, other to recording

[Jon Bishop]

On Dec 16, 2008, at 9:53 PM, James Miller wrote:

>> If you *really* want to use the one card for *only* LiveTV, then  
>> don't
>> tell MythTV about it and launch some other LiveTV-viewing program  
>> that
>> uses your other card and ignores the card MythTV is using.
>
> Thanks for your answer, Brad. I actually like this option better  
> than the
> one you mentioned that involves fiddling with card priorities. I was
> actually attempting to do something like this before I sent my query  
> to
> the list. But I have to admit that I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I
> would invoke that other program (both VLC and xine come with  
> Mythbuntu)
> while Myth's frontend is running. Do you have any hints as to how this
> could be done? Or are you suggesting I quit the frontend in order to  
> view
> liveTV, or maybe run a second instance of xorg?

Don't totally dismiss his priorities suggestion, it really isn't that  
complicated. You have 1 setting in mythtv-setup, go to your sources  
section, and pick the higher quality source, and set it's priority to  
a positive number... or set the bttv card to a negative priority...  
then in the general frontend setup, select avoid conflicts from  
livetv, and it will automagically default to that lower priority card  
when you want to watch livetv. This will allow the card to still be  
used for recordings as well - alternatively, as Brad mentioned, you  
can setup the livetv menu option to launch another software tv player,  
but this requires editing your theme settings.