That's probably ok. LinHES/myth supports external channel changers. I am not sure though if this option is supported when you are pulling the stream over firewire as I am not in a position to test this.

You set the external changer in the mythtv-setup when you define your tuners. For the SA boxes I recommend mythchanger: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/majoridiot?acti ... f.beta.tar

It supports all the known protocol variations with special attention to the SA (aka Cisco) boxes. These boxes are notorious for proprietary implementations. With mythchanger look at the "-f" option and try various protocols.

For general streaming using mythtv, look also at the myth wiki and in particular: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/FireWire

That should get you started.

If your cableco has Motorola STBs available, they tend to use more standard channel changing scripts and you will have less headaches.

To be clear, that's a MythTV issue, not LinHES.


For channel changing you can try christ's most excellent stb-command program. That stb is supported as reported by christ himself. It is in the mythtv-contrib package. Or you can just go to the project page and get it. It needs to be compiled, but it's trivial to do so.

To check if your channels are "in the clear" you can use scanfw which is in the LinHES repos.

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Mike
My Hardware Profile

Thanks for the plug mihanson. But I have not yet added all of the various channel changing bits in stb-sommand. stb-command at the moment does all of the other commands (e.g. up, down, channel up, Menu, Escape, Guide, etc). It only has the button press variation for channel changing which some STBs will know.

For the broadest coverage I recommend mythchanger as it uses the "tuner" commands and has about 6 variations on them.

At some point I will integrate what mythchanger does and then make it more adaptable and generalized.

Thanks guys. I'll try later tonight or tomorrow and see how far I get.

Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

A few other things:

* I too use the mythchanger scripts (those are the "majoridiot" channel-changing scripts I mentioned). I've never tried recording over Firewire, just channel-changing. Much more reliable than IR, faster too.

* Re: costs. I don't use a separate STB, I just tell everyone "see when that bright blue light is lit up on the HD-PVR? Don't change the channel, I'm recording." I also try to set up recordings at times I know no one will be home, if I have a choice.

* Having said that, if you want to record ANY channel, and never use the flexibility that MythTV gives you (transcoding, commercial skip, media server, etc.), you're right that the cable system's DVR is probably an easier and cheaper path forward. A lot of them now allow you to plug a hard drive into them for more storage, which had always been a huge plus for MythTV.

* One thing I hate about the cable DVRs is their interface. A friend showed me Comcast's and it was atrocious. Then again, Comcast and Verizon now have very nice iPod/iPad apps that make it much nicer to program things.

Note that my STB displays a scary message if more than one input is connected simultaneously. For instance I tried using the coax and hdmi to two different tv's. It stopped working and said that I'm doing something illegal. Oops. Sorry, just trying to use the equipment that I pay for!

So I don't know if the situation in the post above would work for me. Tho I haven't tried hdmi and firewire simultaneously yet so ya never know.

Fyi, Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

Prior to running "scanfw" you need to run "mythtv.firewire.channels.pl". Unfortunately the output of mythtv.firewire.channels.pl is simply "0". Am I missing something here?

Also on this thread it says to use broadcast not p2p. But my device is found automatically and p2p is chosen. What's the difference between the two? Or should I just google that?

Thanks, Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

You need to define a firewire tuner in mythtv-setup first. Then bind a lineup to it and then run the perl script. See here for instructions.

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Mike
My Hardware Profile

My box is a Scientific Atlanta. Scanfw doesn't work with SA stb's.

Is there any other way to determine channels? Thanks, -Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

I am completely unfamiliar with your STB, but there is probably a diagnostic screen (google) that will tell you the CCI, 5C or DRM status of the currently tuned channel. Here's what mine looks like. CCI 0x02 = encrypted for me.

It's probably very time consuming and cumbersome to flip back and forth to the diagnostic screen, but that's one way. The other way would be to try to tune the channel and see what happens. Your local networks should tune. You will more than likely have to perform some kind of "firewire priming" as well. See the MythTV Wiki for more on that.

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Mike
My Hardware Profile

I did some testing tonight. Progress has been made but I have some [more] questions too.

1) mythtv.firewire.channels.pl returns "0" when run as root. The command must be run as mythtv user.

2) mythtv.firewire.channels.pl simply queries your mysql db for the channels on the tuner. No hocus pocus being done at'll. Hence the need to have the tuner properly defined.

3) If you have two devices providing access to the same channels and one device is firewire, myth recommends creating a separate input for the firewire tuner. Not sure if this is required but a message is displayed in your xterm window recommending as much.

4) SA4250/SA4300 STB's can indeed change channels via firewire!! (I'm using LinHES 6.04.)

5) <rant>Comcast sucks</rant> While all channels have 100% strength, no channel "locks". I cannot find any channels that work. Can anyone recommend any possible gaffes on my part that would cause this?

6) Depending on how you look at things, Comcast threw me a bone. At least the STB can be controlled via 1394 while the coax continues to provide output. (See my earlier rant about the scary messages that the STB displays when HDMI and coax are connected simultaneously.)

Questions... if I leave the firewire card in my SBE and connect the STB's coax to a PVR-350 (convenient since it comes with a remote), how do I define the tuner card to work properly? Do I define a firewire input and a pvr-350?

Thanks, Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

At the very least your local channels (the ones you can get OTA) should be clear. Tune a local channel and check the diagnostic page(s). Then tune a "premium" channel (i.e. Discovery Channel) and compare the diagnostic pages to see if anything is different.



You define a PVR-x50 and use the firewire channel changing script for channel changes. (i.e. 6200ch or whatever you successfully used to change channels on you SA box)

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Mike
My Hardware Profile

Channel changing on the SA4250 >> I didn't use any script. The channels magically changed via firewire when I hit the up/down arrow.

I'll check into that diagnostics page and provide feedback asap.

Thanks, -Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby

As mihanson said, you will define PVR-x50 as the tuner and then use an external channel changer such as mythchanger to change the channel.

Mythchanger does the same as (and more) than the myth internal changer. The internal changer is linked to the firewire capture.

To get to the diagnostic screen on a Scientific Atlanta STB press the "bullseye" or select button (typically centered around the four positioning arrows) for three seconds then press the info button.

Obviously I have only tried this on my SA4250 but it worked. I found this info at http://www.dslreports.com/faq/11880

The only information I see regarding firewire is on page 17 (out of 56) which has a chart I'll try to replicate:
COPY PROTECTION
Outputs: Protection Type Enabled Constrained
DVI/HDMI: HDCP yes no
YPrPb: none no no
1394: UNAVAILABLE UNAVAILABLE
Composite: none

There's a lot more information but nowhere else is firewire mentioned. I believe this chart is telling me that firewire is not enabled on my STB.

Comments are welcome.

Thanks, -Abby

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R6.04, dual core 3ghz, 3 gig memory, Zotac 8400 passive heat sink dvi/hdmi out video, 500 gig sata, dual tuner hdhomerun, streamzap remote

Abby