Hi all.

I've been researching the questions i have for about two days non-stop and have hit a wall. There's just so much to wade through over the internet with this information and "know-it-alls" who actually answer stuff wrong or guess.

I'm building an HTPC and moving away from the acer aspire revo 3610. It's got good horsepower (Core i7-950) with 4 gb ram and an hdmi low profile nvidia card (gt430 fermi) in a micro-atx case.

For the longest time - I've been running an Acer Aspire Revo 3610 with a standalone XBMC install and minimal ubuntu. With this set-up - I noticed nothing was updating itself and I'm not nearly competent with Linux os's to properly upgrade from the cmd line. So I installed Ubuntu 10.10 maverick meerkat and XBMC Dharma. Right away - I ran into the sound problems that plague so many others (Conflict with pulseaudio - so I removed pulseadio and use only alsa).

I've also tried boxee and it's ok - but with no pulseaudio - the tv shows dont have any sound. It didn't do a very good job of tagging my library either (which I can do alot easier in XBMC).

So finally - the question! I have verizon fios and have been living without dvr capabilities for my whole life (40 years, haha). It's really hard to enjoy regular tv with all the commercials and no ability to fast forward or record my favorite shows.

What recommendations do you all have for the following:
DVR software on a Ubuntu machine (I guess the choices here are mythtv and sagetv right)?

Are you able to use a tv tuner card / cable card combination to record 100% of the channels on Fios with that software?

Do you send (or is it possible) to automatically send your recorded shows off to the WHS over the network?

Anyone using the hauppauge HD-PVR with MythTV? I'm unsure on how the architecture really works here (My assumption: HD-PVR records off of the component cables and the spdif optical (I've seen of problems with AC3 5.1 - has this been resolved?), channel changes occur through a firewire connection between the mythtv system and the set top box, HD-PVR transfers the video to the computer via USB?, the computer then would play the video + sound through the hdmi out?)

How does Livetv really work with the hauppauge hd-pvr and/or cablecard / tuner card? fast forward through commercials ok? I guess this means it would always need to record and delay what your watching by 5 minutes to be able to do this - right?

Your time and help are greatly appreciated. I'd like to pull the trigger on a tuner card or HD-PVR by the end of the week.

Thanks!

TedC,

I have never used Linux so I can't be much help in that department. Here are some thoughts:

- DVR software - as well I have never used MythTV. However, SageTV is a solid solution, and easily expandable with their HD300 extenders. You can get a free 21 day trial of SageTV to start testing out.

- tv card/cable card - the answer is most likely no. A TV Tuner card will only allow you to grab any unencrypted channels your cable provider makes available. For example, I have an HDHomerun and with that I can grab only the basic channels in HD (NBC, ABC, FOX, etc...). I also have an analog TV Tuner card and can grab a few more channels (such as ESPN), but only SD. It all depends on your cable provider, but just go in with the mindset that you will most likely just get the basic channels (which for me as long as they are HD is good enough). As far as cable card, it is only officially support with Windows Media Center. There is a work around for SageTV but it does not give you full support

- Using WMC you can automatically have WHS archive your TV shows. However, if you install SageTV on your WHS you shoudl be able to use your WHS drives for recording your TV shows.

- I have an HD PVR but once again I don't use Linux so I cannot confirm how they work together. With the HD PVR I have no issues recording (Component to Cable Box, Optical to Cable Box) and haven't had any issues getting 5.1

- Yes, you can watch live TV via the HD PVR. Like any DVR though if you want to fast forward through commercials you will need to watch on a delay. SageTV also has a nice feature that after a show is recorded it will scan for commercials. WHen it comes time to watch the show SageTV will place markers where the commercials and automatically skip for you as you watch.

Once again, I am not sure how much help I have been since I don't use Linux and have never used MythTV, all my PVR/TV functions are done via WHS and Windows 7 (WMC and/or SageTV)

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Thanks dbone.

One expansion please - you know a TV Tuner Card / Cable card means a pci card you install in your box / a cable card is provided by the cable company and plugs into the tv tuner card to unencrypt the coax signal, right? What I'm unsure on here is if un-encrypting is enough - can the computer record 5c compliant (channels and/or programs flagged with CCI 0x02 (copy once)) with the cable card/tuner card combo?

I separate TV Tuner Cards and Cable Cards as two separate items. For example I have a Hauppauge 2250 TV Tuner and an HDHomerun TV Tuner. Both allow me to grab any unencrypted channels that my cable provider (Cablevision) makes available (The HDHomerun I grab the QAM /Digital channels and with the 2250 I can grab either QAM or analog). Cable Card is a completely different beast (i.e. install in your PC such as the Ceton or via network with the upcoming HDHR Prime). Is this different then the Cable Card you are thinking about?

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Yes - this is the type of technology I was thinking about:

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/05/12/how-t ... ia-center/

You can just plug the coax into this card and recieve OTA un-encrypted.

Get a cablecard from your cable company and plug it into the slot there and you should be able to get all channels.

That is what I am talking about when I say cablecard (i.e. Ceton). As I mentioned though this only works with Windows Media Center, it is not something you can just purchase, throw in a PC, and then have access to all channels on any front end, it is specific only to Windows Media Center. (i.e. it will not work with your linux build).

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

After much more research - I've pulled the trigger on the Hauppauge HD_PVR device.

My findings:
All threads regarding cablecard support (Ceton mostly) for Linux stop at about Aug 2010. Support for this card was possibly supposed to make it into 0.25 (they are currently on 0.24 now).
Even if MythTV were to support this card - it would still only be good for recording non 5c compliant programs (where the flag is set to 0x00 - copy freely). So sure - you could grab all channels - but if it's marked copy-once - MythTV isn't really allowed to record it.

The Hauppauge HD_PVR is a trade-off - but an acceptable one. Until I see what everyone's referring to as a "quality hit from the conversion process" I'm going to assume these are videophiles that also buy certain tvs because of reported black levels or color saturation or any of that mumbo jumbo. The ability to record one show and watch another is something else I'll be losing (or record 4 seperate channels at once as the Ceton is supposed to do).

Thanks Dbone - and thanks to the silent masses for reading

Glad I could be of help. Yeah, unfortunately it can be crapshoot as well as to what the cable provider flags.

With the HD PVR you can have multiple HD PVRs running with SageTV (not sure about MythTV). I actaully just got the Hauppauge Collosus on Tuesday which will be replacing the HD PVR (same thing except Collosus is an internal PCI card vs the HD PVR being an external box). I have had no issues with the PQ of the recordings.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Update on the HTPC build - its been a disaster so far

Parts list:


Disaster #1 - ordered the wrong motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-H55M-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

I dont know why I searched for LGA 1156 motherboards instead of LGA 1366 motherboards. Took an extra 5 days to get a new one.

Disaster #2 - the combination of Ubuntu 10.10 and the GT 430 fermi video card. I kid you not - it took me 5 days to wade through the internet posts with bad info to figure out how to get sound working over HDMI on this card. Being new to Linux and Ubuntu didn't help at all. These are the only instructions that worked (partially): ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/gpu-h ... audio.html
After a week - I can't get AC3 passthrough to truly work in XBMC. Thinking about stripping off pulseaudio all together.

Disaster #3 one of the many re-installs - i tried to fdisk with an old dos 6.22 boot disk. One of the partitions got corrupted pretty badly - had to manually work through it in the ubuntu install program.

Disaster #4 - I kid you not - it took me 5 hours yesterday to install drivers for the Hauppauge HD-PVR.
A combination of the info here: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_HD ... tion_Howto
and here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p= ... stcount=30
The drivers have a bug in them that causes the re-compile to fail.
It didn't help that I mis-configured the files.

Edit - Disaster #5 - There appears to be no free way to get a Channel Guide. MythTV recommends Schedules Direct‏ - which costs $20 / year. Need to research if there's a better or free option. It'd be my luck that next march - I'm sitting there trying to get a channel guide and since I haven't paid the fee - I get nothing and crash my MythTV...

XBMC bug: when playing a movie - there's an option to choose the audio track (all my rips have track 1 = AAC and track 2 = AC3). There's also an option to "Set as Default for all Movies" where XBMC used to always use the 2nd audio track. This no longer works in Dharma or the latest build.

So the next steps are:
Get AC3 Passthrough working on HDMI in XBMC
Get the Channel Changing working in Myth TV
Get the Logitech Harmony one working with MythTV (Works out of the box with XBMC).

Rant on
Anyone else thinking of using Ubuntu - it prides itself as being the "Human" linux operating system - It clearly isn't. there's alot of people out there having problems with sound over hdmi and conflicts between pulseaudio and alsa (search for pulseaudio alsa hdmi and there's 36,000 pages returned - mostly with bad advice on getting everything to work. There seems to be no interest from anyone (alsa dev, pulseaduio dev, ubuntu dev, xbmc dev) on making this easier (except maybe for NVidia - they appear to have some pretty good advice and fixes).


I just think that anything that involves going to the terminal to fix something is just wrong (like in windows 3.x when you used to have to run the cmd prompt and edit .bat and .ini files). You would think these are supposed to be robust well built OS's and applications - but they are just not.
Rant off

Would I recommend ubuntu? Nope.

Ouch, that doesn't sound good. So are you sticking with Ubuntu or possibly switch to W7?

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

well - I do have to admit - I'm learning alot (when I really didn't want to be learning). I have an understanding (from a code level) how audio works on Linux OS's. I'll stick with Ubuntu and fight through the madness.

I don't really want to pay for another license of Win 7 - however - nothing in Life is free - Ubuntu may be free - but there's the ton of time one takes in getting the damn thing configured.

Disaster #6 - Newegg denied my RMA because I apparently damaged the CPU socket of the 1366 I returned. P.o.o.p!!! There goes another $130... ($109+ shipping)

Ouch

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

1st success!!! I have mythtv installed and working (mostly). Content is coming out of the set-top box (QIP7100) through HDMI to the receiver (Yamaha RX863) and through component cables to an Hauppauge HDPVR. Sound is fed via HDMI to the reciever and over SPDIF to the Hauppage HDPVR.

I keep the HDMI to receiver so I can switch to live tv easily.

The Hauppage HDPVR is connected to the computer via USB

The computer is connected to the set top box via HDMI for channel changing only.

I've reset the set-top box to stretch non-HD content (instead of going to 480p with black bars on the sides). I'm also pushing 1080i through HDMI and component.

Again - there's alot of bad advice out there on getting channel changing to work. I'm getting better at seeing what's bad and may harm my system versus what's helpful. The 6200ch script fixed all my problems in the channel changing department.

All told - I'm guessing it took around 12 hours to get MythTV set up (getting the firewire working, getting the HDPVR working, installing myth, then troubleshooting).

I get no sound - but I know why this is (or have an idea). it was just too late last night to muck about with it. I also need to figure out how to configure lirc to work with my logitech harmony one remote.

one thing I have noticed - there's not many threads on the net to find for custom built HTPC systems (i.e. who else uses a core i7 and asus rampage III gene and a GT 430?). If your thinking of going this route - buy a device that's made to do this like an acer aspire revo or a zotac. there's lots of threads for these devices. if you go the custom built htpc route - be preparded to try mish-mashing advice from conceptual to your hardware.

AVSForum has some good threads on building HTPCs

Great to hear you got everything working. I am hoping to test out my Hauppauge Colossus this weekend

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin