[mythtv-users] Comcast bricked me above 33 so I bricked Comcast with my wallet

John P Poet jppoet at gmail.com
Sat May 8 20:53:28 UTC 2010


On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 5:44 AM, Matthew Zimmerman <mzimmerman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Comcast is gone from my TV viewing life and replaced by DirecTV.
>>>
>> This probably won't work for everyone, but the wife and I ditched
>> everything in lieu of OTA antenna.  I've found that when given the
>> option to record things and watch them later, I am never at a loss for
>> good content.  Even only having just the major networks, I still have
>> content I enjoy ready anytime I want it.
>>
>> I do miss some sporting events and other programs that aren't carried
>> on the main networks, but I don't have a single per month fee...
>
> Just reporting in after 1 1/2 weeks of life without Comcast
>
> 1) DirecTV in HD kills Comcast SD and is costing me less to boot. Far
> less if I had ever paid Comcast for HD which I didn't.
>
> 2) The DirecTV DVR is a reasonable product for more or less being a
> freebie. DirecTV gives you two rooms without extra costs and their
> current deal was 2 free HDTV hardware choices, so I got one receiver
> and one DVR. (2 DVRs cost extra money.)
>
> 3) I can record any channel I subscribe to which I wasn't able to do
> with the HDHR.
>
> 4) I won't get 100 hours of HD recording with their DVR - more like
> 60-70 - but the guy at the store said I could hook up extra storage on
> the USB port.


With Directv, extra storage is achieved via eSATA.  Dish uses USB.


> 5) I VERY much miss Myth's programming model. The DVR isn't very smart
> about finding ways to get all my programs recorded and has a very
> limited priority model so it's a bit hit and miss. We haven't missed
> getting too many things recorded, but we have missed a couple.
>
> 6) I miss mythcommflag. With the DVR I Can just jump 30 seconds
> forward, 6 seconds back. It works but it's a little slow.
>
> 7) Still no ability to stream to my PC in the office. Requires Windows
> 7, HDCP monitors and video card and will NOT work in VMWare like
> NetFlix. Maybe in a few weeks when I get a new laptop but not yet.
>
> At this point I don't know how to set up my dream system using DirecTV
> and Myth. If there were PCIe component video in cards that could
> record then TTBOMK that is not encrypted and potentially Myth could
> work with that. I don't have anything special in my old 480p HDTV and
> that plays, so likely it could be recorded. They may or may not play
> higher defs on component though. I don't know.
>
> For anyone considering setting up a SD system - likely not many - I
> think DirecTV with IR Blaster type control is a very reasonable target
> system. I get a lot of high-def material through NetFlix so I don't
> really care what I record in Myth, but I understand others have
> different goals.


I originally had one of Directv's DVRs (HR20), but I couldn't live
without the extra functionality of Myth, so I traded it in for a
couple of Directv's standard HD STBs (H20).  I then hook up the
component (HD) outputs from the H20s to Hauppauge HD-PVRs component
capture devices:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/HDPVR

The Hauppauge HD-PVR encodes the analog component video into H.264 and
muxes in the AC3 (Dolby Digital) audio from S/PDIF.  The result is
sent into the Myth backend computer via USB.  This means there are
extra boxes lying around to get the job done, but they all sit in my
office were they are generally out-of-sight.  This all works well.

You should note that the Hauppauge HD-PVR does not encode any
closed-caption information, so if you need that you would need to
leave sub-titles turned on, on the STB.


John
-- 
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