So I read all about MythTV, got all excited about it, order a PVR-250 and now here I am...

First, I have my Comcast cable coming from the wall into the cable receiver, and another coax cable from there to the coax input on my PVR-250. THis is what in Myth is referred to as "Tuner" correct?

Second, From the PVR-250 who does that connect to the TV, there is no output, does the video card do the output to the TV? If so, I assume I am going to need a new video card in this Dell 8100 I am running it on.

Third, when I set up the comcast box to tuner and then have the tuner configured to use zaptoit I get fuzz on the screen. I can change the channel on the computer, but I just get different versions of fuzz.

Fourth, I have RAM on the way for this machine, but currentlly its a 1.6 with 128 MB of RAM, should I wait to continue or should it work, just really slow?


Help?

1. The PVR-250 has a television tuner in it for analog cable. If you aren't using digital cable, or are but don't want to record any digital channels, your cable box isn't important... the 250 can tune all by itself.

2. You use your video card's TV-out to connect to your TV. No TV-out, no TV. The 250 doesn't have video out. The PVR-350 does have a video out, but it's significantly harder to configure.

3. Try connecting the cable directly to the 250 rather than through the cable box. If that doesn't work you'll need to troubleshoot your installation: search the forum for "250 AND static"

4. From MythTV docs, http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.1, "A MythTV host that is both a backend and a frontend and using software encoding with a single capture card should run adequately in 256MB of RAM." Since you're using a hardware encoder (your 250) that'll help some, but no idea if 128 will be sufficient.

Unless of course if you have a high def tv that takes rgb (in which case you can connect your vga out with a special cable) or if your tv has component inputs in whiuch case you can use a converter box to go from vga to component.

When I was spec-ing my first MythTV box I went and looked at the various success stories in the (now extinct?) MythTV hardware DB and how the owners rated them. Machines that had less than 512Mb rated significantly worse than machines with 512. Likewise with machines with less than a 2Ghz CPU. This is not to say that people couldn't get things working with a lower spec machines, just that the odds of being satisfied with the results were lower. I figured it was better to throw a little bit of extra money at the problem (not even a $100 differntial) than to end up with something that didn't cut the mustard.

Okay, got it.... so my next couple questions are:

I am still having the issue where out to the video card (monitor) its fuzzy. The channel changing doesn't work to change. I will try without the digital box and see if I can get that to work. Thats a good idea.

1.) Shouldn't it be similiar though? Why does the cable box not work with composite (RCA?) in or Tuner in?

2.) Any good video cards/links that you know of that I can buy that would be compatible and good quality if I do go to HDTV?

New RAM is on the way.... Going to have 768 when its all done, with a 1.6 Ghz.

3.) On the Video Sources, I am configuring Tuner 0 - Zap2it, and the rest are none. Is this the best to to do it?

4.) Also, running the mythtv-setup to reconfigure works great, is there another script that I need to run after pressing ETC to update without restarting the system?

-Nick

If you mean "why can't I connect the (composite or s-video) out of my cable box to the (composite or s-video) in of my PVR card?", well, you can. In fact if you want to record digital cable channels, that's what you have to do. However, then you would need to get an IR blaster working with your system to change the channels on your cable box via MythTV. That's a whole different ball game. Best to try to get analog cable working first, get comfortable with MythTV and KnoppMyth, then move up the complexity scale from there.

If you didn't mean that, not sure what you meant.

See my recent posting over in the Hardware recommendations - Tier 2 forum, or any of the others there. The Nvidia FX5200 based cards are very popular and can be had for as little as $45. Pick one with a DVI output since this seems to correspond to better Svideo TV-Out quality and allows for future HDTV support.

Okay, so we're close, after reconfiguring I have the MythTV box with clear picture. It defaulted to Composite 4 for some reason. Anyway, once I found that "C" changed the input it made quiet a difference.

Okay, so now Digital cable, I understand I need some infared item, where can I find some additional detail oin this?

Secondlly.... I want to thank everyone for the forum. I am quiet the windows guy who has much respect for everything linux and am slowly converting, its people like you that help people like me out that makes it possible.

Can some one give me the next steps to take for digital cable... and how does the sound work from the tunder card to the sound card and then out the new video card which I am yet to buy?

-Nick

The search term you are looking for is "ir blaster". It's an IR tansmitter used as a computer driven remote control for you external tuner box. There are other ways to control a cable or satellite box (firewire, usb, serial) but an IR blaster is the most common.

Here's the scoop, remember when most VCR's rencoded whatever signal they were outputing (playback of a tape or using the tuner) onto channel 3 or 4? That's one option. Another is if the external tuner box has svideo or composite and audio outputs like a low end DVD player. In the first case you plug into the capture cards tuner (cable) input and keep the cards tuner set to the magic rebroadcast channel, in the other you plug into the svideo or composite video input. In eithe case you change channels by means of the IR blaster (or equivalent) sending commands to the cable box. A search of the forum will turn up much more detailed discussions of this.

Thanks TJC,

So I think I get what your talking about, I took some time and read through http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4462&highlight=blaster which describes this process. Looks like people have some hard time with the WinTV-PVR 250.

My current setup includes the PVR250 with the grey remote and the black remote control receiver. I also have a Sony Prgrammable remote control (RM-AV3000) which I am hoping to get to do everything in the end. Besides the video card that does video out and some additional RAM for the machine, is the IR blaster something else additionally, or is it what came with the 250?

The IR blaster is additional and doesn't come with the PVR250. You can buy one:

http://www.irblaster.info/

or build one:

http://www.lirc.org/transmitters.html

If your DirecTV receiver has a serial port on it, you might also be able to control it directly instead of via an IR blaster.