Myth(HD)TV, part 3

Geek said:

One of the most difficult choices in building a MythTV box is choosing an appropriate tuner. Granted there are functions of MythTV that don't require a tuner, but it's hard to be a DVR without one.

There are a lot of options in TV tuners and selecting one that works with Linux/MythTV can be a challenge, especially when you consider all the recording sources. One thing is certain, the Hauppauge brand is popular and is generally supported. I have used the PVR-500 NTSC cards for a long time without any problem. The built-in MPEG2 encoder comes in handy when recording analog sources because it offloads the digital conversion from the processor.

If I were to recommend a tuner right now to somebody I would go with the Hauppauge HVR-2250 and here's why.

• Supported in Linux/MythTV and Windows Media Center if you give up on MythTV
  
• Dual ATSC/ClearQAM/NTSC tuners
• MPEG2 Encoder Chips for NTSC/Analog capture

This particular card should setup easily in Mythbuntu (probably the easiest method to build a Mythbox) and allow for recording two shows (either analog or digital) simultaneously without much CPU usage. This card also has analog inputs for connections from set top boxes for satellite subscribers.

Personally I went with the HDHomeRun from Silicon dust for my digital recording because of the fantastic reviews, but mostly because of the compatibility. All the DVR packages I've looked at are compatible with it from MythTV (Linux and Mac), Windows Media Center, and EyeTV (Mac). That will allow me to evaluate every one of them without disrupting my production Mythbox. Another reason I picked the HDHomeRun was that I already had 3 PVR-500 cards which have 6 analog tuners between them so my ClearQAM tuner didn't need to be a hybrid.

The last thing I can say and probably the most important regarding tuners. Avoid the ATI All-In-Wonder card like the black plague. That particular card looks like the holy grail but will give you nothing but heart ache. It just doesn't work.

Geek out...

Windows 7 Media Center, part 1

Geek Said:

My HTPC has had many faces, most of which are Linux/MythTV as I have discussed in other posts, but seeing as how I'm never satisfied with the technology I'm using I always spend some time playing with other options.

Despite what you might believe, I do not hate Windows, at least not ALL Windows. First there is XP, I really like XP. Vista I do despise to no end, but I am still on the fence with Windows 7, it's just too young to be overly critical of it. Win7 definitely surpasses the nightmare that is Vista, but I still prefer XP. Where this leads me is to giving Windows Media Center a go....but on Windows 7 since it is built-in to Home Premium edition and not a completely different version of the OS (modified Pro as it was with XP). I do have some experience with Vista Media Center and I admit it was simple to setup, even with controlling a set-t0p-box with an IR blaster, but can you say resource hog? OMG.

I recently updated the kids computer from XP Pro to Windows 7 Home Premium. For those of you that consider yourselves Geeks, notice that I said "updated" and not "upgraded"... Anyway since I have the HDHomeRun on the network I decided it would be easy to try out WMC.

Thanks to SiliconDust and their fantastic instructions setup was a breeze. No thanks to Microsoft and their lack of information regarding ClearQAM. WMC fails to find any ClearQAM channels....or does it? Wait a minute, they are all there, just inactive. Say what? Yeah, Windows Media Center finds all the channels that he HDHR can tune in but since the listings source doesn't match up to the channels it disables them and tells you that it didn't find any. That's real intuitive...

Like I said, Thank You, SiliconDust because if it weren't for your directions I would have had no idea where to edit the channel information to enable the ClearQAM channels and assign a listing source to the channel. Once I manually enabled the channel and assigned listings I finally got to watch live TV with WMC. It didn't take long, but are you kidding me? I can see why people aren't gung-ho on building/using HTPCs. I have an internal NTSC/ATSC hybrid card that I had tried previously under Windows 7 and experienced the exact same issue, the difference being that manufacturer had no help what-so-ever to tell me how to enable the hidden channels and I never got it functioning...but that might because I didn't care to invest any time in it either.

I didn't play with it long but I did watch some golf and I have to say the WMC user interface is really intuitive and although it may require a geek-like attitude to set it up to work the use and function is definitely easy enough for everybody.

There is one primary reason I would never consider running Windows Media Center as my HTPC application. WMC embeds DRM into the recordings and limits what you can do with the resulting file. MythTV on the other hand has a bare mpeg2 file (or Nuppel video in some cases) that can be edited or transcoded and moved to any platform your heart desires.

Geek out...

Boxee Beta, part 1

Geek Said:

A while back I started playing with the XBMC derivative called Boxee. I joined the early access beta group and when they jumped from Alpha to Beta I took the plunge and was very pleased. The Alpha was just XBMC in sheep's clothing in my opinion, not much different. The Beta on the other hand shed some skin and introduced a whole new experience. Boxee is on a mission to create one fantastic media center UI.

The primary reason that Boxee caught my eye was it's cross platform nature which had carried over from XBMC. Having the same UI on Mac, Windows, Linux is very important to me and the functionality of an HTPC environment throughout the home. Teaching my family to use multiple systems is definitely not the answer... I keep my family operating system agnostic, they are exposed to Mac, Windows and Linux in hopes that they learn how to complete a task with the tools that are available and not just specific tools. FYI: Microsoft Word is not the only word processor in the world... surprised?

The first thing to remember about Boxee is that it is not a DVR/PVR and has no intentions of becoming one. This is much different than MythTV, Windows Media Center, and EyeTV which is the primary function of all three of those systems. Boxee's purpose is to provide a simple UI to access multiple media sources from local media files to Internet based streaming services like Hulu and major TV network sites. The Beta goes a long ways toward simplifying access to those various streaming providers. It's not perfect but there is hope one day it will be seamless.

The second thing to remember is that it is still in Beta which means there are significant bugs, the advantage is that Boxee is under constant development and new versions are available on a fairly regular basis. Although that can also be a disadvantage because something that was broken may now be fixed and vice versa. I hate the vice versa but it happens.

I have to add, even though Boxee doesn't have DVR functionality that doesn't mean you cannot connect to your DVR media. As a MythTV user I used a couple of scripts that create symlinks (shortcuts) to the mythtv files with names that Boxee can correctly interpret for cataloging the recordings.

This has uncovered two issues with my current environment. My main MythTV backend also serves as a frontend in my family room. Running Boxee, it is incapable of HDTV MPEG2 playback (the MythTV ClearQAM recording format), however those files playback fine in MythFrontend. Most likely that's an issue with VDPAU support within Boxee...I'm sure that will get resolved at some point, but it doesn't work now. The second problem is that my wireless network is definitely not fast enough to stream HD content which is very disappointing to me because I cannot watch recordings in my bedroom where "She said" and I watch the most TV.

At this point I am not sure what part 2 will bring but it will be coming soon.

Geek out...

She said...

It's been much longer than between posts than I had hoped. Apparently "She said" is MIA... sort of like another blog I'm familiar with. schuermanfamily.blogspot.com

This may become a "Geek Said..." often and a "She Said..." occasionally.

Geek out.