[mythtv-users] Cable or dish

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Dec 17 22:36:43 UTC 2010


On Friday, December 17, 2010 03:11:29 pm Mike Gibson wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 12:16 PM, jedi <jedi at mishnet.org> wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 12:12:57PM -0700, Mike Gibson wrote:
> >> Hi, I've been using MythTV for awhile on regular OTA for a while
> >> now. I'm currently using a pcHDTV HD-5500.  My setup is dead
> >> simple now with just an antenna plugged into the HD-5500.  I
> >> don't record analog anything.  It's all digital.
> >> 
> >> My wife now wants to get some form of cable, dish, or some paid TV
> >> service.  I have absolutely no experience with this.  The only
> >> time I've had cable is when I lived in an apartment and it was
> >> provided via the "magic plug" on the wall.  I've never dealt with
> >> a set top box or anything like it.
> >> 
> >> So I'm looking for any recommendations on what sort of service to
> >> get. We're not picky, just want more channels.  What is going to
> >> make this process as easy as possible?  I'd like to just be able
> >> to unplug the antenna and plug in the "magic plug", update my
> >> channel setup and be off and running.  IR blasters and so forth
> >> scare me a bit so I'd like to avoid that.  A set top box is ok
> >> with me as long as it's easy to
> > 
> >    DTV might have an edge here since there are a number of us that
> > subscribe to DirecTV and use the USB/serial port to control the
> > reciever instead of an IR blaster.
> 
> How do I go about recording HD this way?  Do I need more hardware?  I
> don't see any outputs on the DirecTV box that I can connect to my
> HD-5500 for HD even if I can solve the channel changing problem.

The only way to record HD from a satellite receiver is to use a 
Hauppauge HD-PVR:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html


The pchdtv site says the 5500 has an S-Video input, but I didn't think 
that card had any encoding capability, but in any case S-Video would be 
limited to SD. You need component signals to record HD with an HD-PVR.

I'd guess the 5500 could, at best, operate as a simple frame grabber for 
SD, and thus require software encoding to use with Myth in that way.


Channel changing really isn't difficult, though if you have a receiver 
that can be tuned via serial (DirectTV only) it might be easier, but 
I've never had any problems tuning my DISH receiver with an IR blaster.





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