[mythtv-users] Help needed with MythTV/Comcast Digital/HD Homerun Dual Tuner

Justin Johnson justin.johnson3 at gmail.com
Tue Sep 28 13:36:00 UTC 2010


On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 7:12 AM, Chuck Mattern <camattern at acm.org> wrote:
> Greetings,
> I have some MythTV background (formerly ran 0.21 on a standalone CentOS box
> with a Hauppauge PVR-350 on Comcast SD) but have moved, married and am
> wanting to set up a new install for my new larger family.  I am looking to
> do a standalone backend on a VM using an HD HR dual tuner with multiple
> front ends and one secondary backend for optical media importing.  Would
> also be nice to have easy Windows access for my kids.  I'm a sysadmin by day
> but do not have a lot of time to spend keeping disparate repositories in
> sync (was bitten last time by dependency conflicts between the CentOS and
> external repository (can't remember which it was at this time)) so I'm
> leaning toward a unified distro like mythbuntu or mythdora.
> Status: Installed Mythbuntu backend server talking to the HDHR (no OTA at
> this time) as a VM and Mythbuntu on a dedicated PC as a frontend/secondary
> backend.  Live TV functionality worked well.
> Challenges (I did dig through the myriad FAQs and invest quite a few hours
> in trying to get this going):
>
> I'm having trouble with my channel selection.  I've taken multiple whacks at
> getting the channel listing by scanning and then syncing up with the listing
> from SchedulesDirect but it seems to have gotten a tad more interesting with
> digital.  On my first pass I found that the channels were out of sync with
> the SchedulesDirect so my program listing was useless and scheduled
> recordings pulled the wrong channel.  Subsequent attempts took me down the
> path of guessing whether we are on cable, cable-hrc or cable-irc and
> scanning in all sorts of different channels, having to take Myth's
> suggestions and ending up with a mess.
> Ripping the media simply returned to the menu seemingly without even trying
> to access the DVD drive (but that is secondary and I can get back to it
> later)
>
> Confession: I was swayed by a friend's tales of SageTV and burned down my
> installation to try it. only to learn that there is no eval license for
> Linux ( I DO want to try before I buy) and that the Linux server does not
> play DVDs (according to one of the SageTV forums) and I am not really open
> to running Sage on a Windows backend so I am back with hat in hand asking
> for some help.
> Needs:
>
> pointer to an FAQ for getting my channels imported from Comcast Digtal
> "World of More" in Acworth, GA (a suburb of ATL, spot checks of the paper
> listing sent by Comcast to the SchedulesDirect listing seem to match up with
> the Atlanta line up
> pointer to an FAQ for pulling in all of the available channels and none of
> the cruft using the HDHR
> pointer to an FAQ for pulling the old recorded content off of the old MythTV
> and into the new backend, the hardware needs to go away
>
> Of course if any reader has an out right recipe for this combination that
> would be cool beyond words and appreciated even more than the fact that you
> read this far.
> Thanks and blessings,
> Chuck

Hey, I'm in Atlanta and I can tell you that yes, the World of More
lineup is the full Comcast Digital lineup. However, you won't be able
to get really any of those channels with the HDHR. You'll only get the
channels that are sent "in the clear". For me, this includes local
channels (in HD) and a handful of religion and shopping channels. For
me, the only channels I care about are the local HD channels so that's
all I've bothered to keep in my db. This simplifies things on
schedules direct front because I can use the broadcast lineup and edit
the xmltvids manually (something you'll have to do no matter what, it
seems). Then you won't take forever to download the program listings
for 500 channels when you're only using 10.
I haven't followed the guide from this thread, but it seems like it
should make adding QAM channels really simple:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/450732. I've come
up with my own convoluted method which I personally understand but
could never fully explain.
That being said, if you're serious about using Myth as a full-featured
DVR on Comcast you should definitely investigate the HDPVR. It will
let you pull all the channels off the cable box (that you receive),
including premium channels. It's fairly expensive but well worth the
money, IMHO. I have one in my setup and it's wonderful, the file sizes
are small compared to full MPEG2 and the quality is very high, at
least what you'd get from DirecTV, in my experience. I read on this
list several people say how it was worth the money and was hesitant to
believe them, but it truly makes the MythTV experience worthwhile.
It's easy to set up and allows you to get what you pay for.
--Justin Johnson


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