[mythtv-users] Virtualized MythTV?

[Scott Alfter]

John Drescher wrote:
> The big problem is getting the capture card into the guest. I have
> heard some users doing this with ivtv and xen but there were some
> problems.

I've not tried this with TV tuners, but I've used PCI passthrough with NICs to
set up router/firewall domUs.  You tell the dom0 to ignore whatever PCI device
is installed in a particular slot, then configure the domU to pick it up.

There could be driver issues that would make rebooting the domU problematic;
maybe that's what was happening with ivtv in a domU.  IME, the driver for Intel
Fast Ethernet NICs doesn't like being rebooted within a domU.  After a cold
start, it'll work, but if you try to restart the relevant domU, it won't work
again until you power down the whole system and restart.  (Replacing the Intel
NIC with a 3Com NIC fixed that problem for me, but there aren't many viable
alternatives to ivtv for analog-TV capture.)

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