[mythtv-users] Bolstering a system for Watch TV

[Steven Adeff]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:18 PM, Matt S. <skd5aner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Michael T. Dean <mtdean at thirdcontact.com>
> wrote:
>> On 11/11/2013 01:45 PM, Stefan Jones wrote:
>>> To reduce my monthly cable TV bill, I'm thinking of turning in my STB and
>>> DTC, and just using a HDHR Prime/Cablecard.
>>>
>>> This would mean using MythTV's Watch TV function if I ever want to watch
>>> a live show.
>>>
>>> I have used Watch TV many times as a test tool, to check on reception and
>>> channel identities and so on. But it has always seemed a little flaky to me.
>>>
>>> Besides increasing the size of the ring buffer (?), are there other
>>> things I could do to make my system better able to handle the task?
>>>
>>> I may also make a couple of simple front ends to stick on my guest room
>>> and office TVs.
>>
>>
>> I think any "Live-TV-specific" flakiness you may have noticed is actually
>> just due to the (hasn't-gotten-much-TLC) Live TV implementation in MythTV.
>> Basically, as MythTV (and its use of the huge variety of supported capture
>> devices for capturing TV with a huge variation in tuning/timing/...) has
>> changed over the years since the current Live TV implementation was put in
>> place, much about the Live TV implementation seems to be in need of
>> updating.
>
>
> I respectfully disagree with a couple of Mike's statements.  While yes, Live
> TV isn't a 100% seamless experience, I'll say that it's starting to approach
> a B+ or A- rating at this point.  Every release since really 0.23 has
> improved the Live TV experience.  With 0.27, it's even better and it's been
> definitely "usable" for daily use since 0.25.  It has gotten attention from
> several devs, and yes, it could use even more attention, but the major kinks
> have (mostly) been worked out.  Mike is correct, however, that some
> configurations and capture devices work very well, and others do not.  The
> HD-PVR, for example, isn't the best device for Live TV, but I assure you, it
> will work.  However, older analog devices like the PVR-500 work extremely
> well, as an example.  My ATSC tuners do pretty well as well.
>
> But the good news, to your original question, is that the HDHR + cablecard
> worked VERY well for me in live tv when I had one.  That's assuming you have
> a provider that broadcasts their channels as copy freely and you can tune to
> them.

My system uses a Ceton 4 tuner card and I'd say "98%" of the time
LiveTV works perfectly. Occasionally it will exit out with an error
and we have to select LiveTV again, but this is rare. My housemates
like to watch random stuff on LiveTV for whatever reason, so it gets
used quite a bit. The biggest complaint I hear about live tv is that
we don't have enough tuners (5 people, 4 frontends, 4 tuners).

-- 
Steve
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/User:Steveadeff
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