Hi all,

I've been kicking around the idea of building a MythTV box for a couple of months and I think I'm about to jump in. I've got a few questions though while I'm still compiling the hardware wishlist.

I can definitely see the need for recording two shows simultaneously which will demand two seperate tuners so I'm looking at either two PVR-350's or a single PVR-500. The question I have is will I be able to record two shows while watching a third channel using using the tuner on the digital cable box, or would that require a third tuner in the MythTV box?

Next, by searching here I found the order of connecting when using a digital cable box is wall outlet--->Cablebox--->MythTVbox--->TV. I can see how that would allow you to record channels above the analog range >100 but will it allow you to record say from History International on ch 229 at the same time as HBO2 on ch 302?

And last question for now is (and I hope it's not sacreligious to ask this here) why Knoppmyth instead of running mythtv over fedora or some other flavor of Linux, (I'm a newb to linux, been a windows user for 15 years).

Thanks in advance, I'm looking forward to getting into this project.

Kamy

Why would it be sacreligious? I could really care less what folks run MythTV on, as long as they are running MythTV! Simply put, there is no easy way that I'm aware of to install Linux and MythTV. If you intend on recording multiple digital cable programs at once, you'll need multiple cable boxes.

What he means to say is no easier way (than KnoppMyth).

There are a lot of options between those two. The PVR-350 has traditonally been the most expensive PVR card. While one can be justified if you want to use it for the "best of breed" TV-out, the second PVR could easily be a lower cost card...

Yeah, he did.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

But I would still be able to record from say 1 analog channel as well as one digital channel at the same time with only one cable box? Could any folks with digital cable boxes respond with how their setup works?



Okay, got it, knoppmyth is optimized for MythTV, so hopefully less headaches and a shorter learning curve for Linux newbs (like me!)

That's it for now, thanks for the responses so far,

Kamy

Yes, but you need 2 tuner cards. One would be connected directly to coax (for analog stations). The other would be connected to the cable box via s-video. You can use firewire instead to connect to the cable box, but in my case most of the digital channels are encrypted.

I have firewire from my cable box which allows me to record anything from the cable box, and I also have a cable going directly into my pvr250 card. which allows me to record standard analog cable signals. so I can record two things as long as at least one of them is available on analog cable (what you get if you plug your cable into a tv without a box.)

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

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