User:Nik Doof
About Me
My name is Andrew Williams, Business Intelligence Analyst from Widnes, UK.
MythTV Boxes
Combined Front/Back - MythTV
- Asus K8N-SE (Socket 754)
- Athlon64 3200+
- 1Gb DDR RAM
- 20Gb Seagate UIDE HDD (not mounted)
- 200Gb Maxtor SATA I HDD (/mnt/mythtv - xfs) - lvm
- 250Gb Maxtor SATA I HDD (/mnt/mythtv - xfs) - lvm
- 250Gb Western Digital SATA II HD (/ and /mnt/vault - xfs)
- LG DVD±RW DL
- nVidia FX 5200 (S-Video Out)
- 1x Hauppage Nova-T (DVB-T)
- 2x TechnoTrend C1500-HD Budget (DVB-C)
- Gentoo 2007.0 with 0.21-svn
Providers
- UK Freeview (DVB-T), Winterhill Transmitter (Rooftop "Contract" aerials).
- Virgin Media Cable (DVB-C), FTA Only.
I don't recommend or support using Virgin Media for direct DVB-C connection, as this is unsupported by Virgin and its also in breach of your Terms & Conditions.
Content
The combined Backend/Frontend box can decode 1080i content without the use of XvMC, but it runs at around 60-70% CPU usage, possibly enough spare for pure DVB source recording. HD content (BBC HD) is available via Virgin Media but this is encrypted. Crystal Palace transmitter is currently running a HD trial over Freeview (DVB-T).
Most Virgin Media channels are encrypted with Nagravision, Virgin do supply Nagravision cards for their STBs, unfortunatly these are CAM locked, so even using a CI and Nagravision CAM you'll be unable to decrypt these channels. Several channels available on Freeview FTA are also FTA on Virgin Media.
In several areas, Virgin Media still offer FTA analogue channels, these can be received using a normal analogue encoder such as a WinTV or PVR-150.
