I use a PCHDTV 5500 - it works well as a dedicated DVB tuner, but its an older card and, despite being designed for Linux use, doesn't switch from analog to digital and back very gracefully. Prior to that I had an ATI all-in-wonder which I can't really recommend for any purpose. I would recommend grabbing a Windows MCE remote - they're cheap, and come with receivers that are well supported by LIRC, and some of them have functional IR blasters built in as well. Phillips apparently makes a pretty good one.
Since you're using cable, you might also look into firewire capture. Apparently there's an arcane FCC regulation requiring the cable company to give you a firewire-capture-capable box at no extra charge. That will give you HD as well. On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Alan Bromborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Edmund Kohlwey wrote: >> >> I've been using MythTv for about two years. All in all, its an ok system, >> but is a little rough around the edges where other (read proprietary) >> systems aren't. It seems that nobody tries to put together a stable myth >> distro: when I've played with any of the myth distros, I've found them to be >> bleeding edge, but buggy. I've also had problems with the distro-included >> "helper" apps messing with my ability to actually customize the system (like >> set up additional frontends, etc). I recently upgraded to Mythbuntu 8.10, >> and for the time being, it seems that many issues I had (particularly random >> hangs while recording) have been fixed, but some still exist (messed up log >> file rotation). >> >> My Myth system has an Opteron 939-- whose model number escapes me at the >> moment, an Asus A8N-SLI premium moboard, 2 gigs of ram, and a relatively >> decent Nvidia video card. Opterons are supposed to be particularly good for >> HD mpeg decoding. The Nvidia card is particularly important because I was >> able to tweak the DVI output to get it to display correctly on my TV, which >> reports incorrect EDID data such that computers plugged directly into it >> (with no corrections) will have half the display missing. I also have one of >> the Windows MCE remotes which, while it was a pain to set up, works OK >> (although not great). >> >> All in all, it should be a fun project to get running (if you're into that >> kind of thing =). If you want to get your girlfriend or some non-technical >> people to use the system, or if you want it to just work, you might want to >> look at windows - there's an excellent open source myth clone for Windows >> called Media Portal. >> >> Alan Bromborsky wrote: >>> >>> I am trying to find people with experience with mythtv, better yet >>> mythbuntu. I wish to assemble a system. I have been using linux since >>> slackware came on 50 HD floppies. I currently use unbuntu 8.10 on a dual >>> Opteron system. My main interests are python and latex. I have been using >>> python (sympy) to do symbolic math. >> > I have a verizon (motorola) hd cable box. Mythtv is not quite ready for the > Happauge HD-PVR (component input) so for now I would use the S-video output > of the cable box as my source. Which video input card and ir controller > would you recommend for my system? >
