Hello, i was wondering if there was a way to force xawtv to tune into channel 3 (possibly through the "external tuner command" in setup) while selecting any channel from mythtv. Basically i want to use my digital cable box to select the channel i want to record and then select the same channel on mythtv-guide for my recordings, that way when myth tv records shows it will save the files with the correct title. I hope im explaing this clearly any help would be much appreciated.

btw
i tried entering '/usr/local/bin/xawtv-remote setchannel 3' in the external tuner command hoping that it would set the tuner back to channel 3 after mythtv changed it the the channel associated with the selected tv-listings. (it obviously didnt work )

Sounds like you're more advanced than I in the setup. I have a Moto 2224 but I cannot get dct-channel to work at all. Well, I believe there is a setting that gives your cap. card a channel to start at which is either in mythtv-set or in the recording profiles (I can't remember).

What brand digital cable box are you using, and how have you physically connected it to your PC?

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

You may be able to use composite or svideo in to accomplish your needs. As far as I'm aware the "external tuner" option is only for watching live tv. I myself don't use an external cable box, so I'm not much help with setting one up.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

thanks for the ideas. ive been pretty tired the past few days (trying to get everything configured correctly) and using composite input didnt even dawn on me. Im sure that it will work perfectly for the way i have everything setup thanks again. btw i just wanted to say awesome job on knoppmyth, it really makes setting up a pvr MUCH easier.

I have an external cable box, (a Motorola DCT2224,) that I use with a PVR-250. Myth changes channels on the cable box and leaves my PVR-250 card on channel 4. This works for live tv and for recording programs.

The problem is that you need a way for Myth to change channels on the cable box. The method you use depends on the cable box and on your local cable company.

For my setup I have a straight-thru serial cable connected from my Myth box to a serial port on the back of my cable box (not all boxes have them.) Next, my local cable company (Comcast) has enabled the serial port on my cable box. Not all cable companies will enable the port (and not all local Comcast centers will enable them either. And the Motorola box has to have a minimum firmware version, 7.54 I believe.)

I downloaded Myth ver .13 and compiled the dct-channel program. I placed it /usr/local/bin/ (once compiled the name is just 'channel'.) In mythtv-setup’s Input Connections for my input source, I set the external channel change command to /usr/local/bin/channel and I set the preset tuner to channel value to 4 (which is the channel my cable box sends its output to.) I then restarted the Mythbackend and things just worked. (I was lucky.)

If you can't use a serial cable then you'll have to use an IR Blaster. That's a device that acts like a cable box remote control that sends the IR signals to your cable box. It also connects to your computer’s serial port.

For more information on either method you can search the Myth archives at http://www.gossamer-threads.com. Search for IR Blaster or for your cable box’s manufacturer name.

You can also search the tivo board at http://www.tivocommunity.com. They've had these discussions too. The following post discusses how to determine what firmware a Motorola cable box has: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/sh ... genumber=1