[mythtv-users] HD recording

Greg Woods greg at gregandeva.net
Wed Jun 11 16:20:30 UTC 2008


On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 08:38 -0700, Alan Murrell wrote:

> 
> Anyway, with the cable companies apparently discontinuing analog service in February

As others have pointed out, that may or may not be the case. The Feb.
17,2009 deadline is set by the US Government and affects only broadcast
TV stations in this country. 

I expect most cable companies will move to all-digital as soon as they
can, just to stop us "pirates" from being able to record all the analog
channels without an STB )-:

>  I was thinking about moving to HD, as I have read some positive results of people being able to record HD via firewire.

This seems to vary a lot, depending on what type of cable box you have,
what kind of firewire chip you have, which kernel version you are
running, etc. Firewire is iffy. It may in fact be easier to use a device
such as the HDHomerun which is well supported in MythTV, far easier to
set up, and more reliable than firewire, but of course it does cost
extra. There might also be some channels that come out of the STB via
firewire that are not in the clear on the wire (and thus available to an
HDHomerun). That too varies by cable company. (An HDHomerun would be
able to record the same HD channels that a directly-connected TV with a
digital tuner can see).

Also, don't expect to be able to record all the channels via firewire
that you can get to your TV out of your STB. Many channels are
encrypted. I don't know what the rules are about that in Canada vs. the
USA, but here in the USA, the cable companies are only *required* to
provide over firewire unencrypted the stations that you could
theoretically get OTA. Some cable companies do provide more than that,
but it does vary. Unless you can find someone else in the same area as
you that already has a firewire setup, there is no way for you to really
know which channels would be available to you via firewire. The morons
that you can actually talk to at the cable company are unable to be able
to tell you anything even if they wanted to be cooperative.

> 
> My question: if I connect my MythTV box via firewire to an HD box and am recording a show, would I also be able to watch "live tv" at the same time

If you have an STB with two tuners in it, yes. Otherwise, no.

--Greg




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