I have a general question about trying to do a couple things and would like some feedback on those. I have comcast cable with a topbox from Scientific Atlanta 8610X558. I have basic cable. I got mythtv to work with different frontend so thats all figure out. Its not yet plugged to the computer because i dont have an irblaster. My question is this...

I want to be able to watch live TV while something is recording on the computer. I want to be able to switch channel on the tv while the computer is still recording. Then at some point I want to watch the recorded shows on the TV...

Im thinking it needs a splitter or something. I dont have irblaster installed yet. Can someone shed some light on this!

thanks

From what I can understand from your post you simply need a video swicher. I have one with 3 inputs and one output and you simply dial the switch to which input you wish to display on the TV.

In your case I could guess that you would have your TV aerial plugged into your Myth box, and then your mythbox tv out and audio to the "switcher". You would also have your Cable box plugged into your "switcher" and you would then be able to switch between them.

You would not be able to split the signal from the cable box to both the TV and your Mythbox and expect to be able to watch one channel whilst recording another from your cable box.

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Girkers

how about I get another topbox on ebay and plug that in... would that be ok with comcast and if not, can they find out ?

In theory you should be able to split the signal as it comes out from the wall prior to going into your cable box and connect both of them up. Then you can plug one into your video switcher and the other into you Myth box and then you Myth box into your video switcher and work happily away.

As to the legalities of it all, sorry can't answer that really.

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Girkers

ive plugged the cable into my computer, made that work but i get some scrambled channel.

??? is there a way to go arround this?

Yeah, use the channel editor to remove those from your line up. Just uncheck the box that says "visible" and it will skip over it.