I have been using MP since last summer with a PVR150 (analog of course). I have digital/hd cable, so all these wonderful channels are mediaportalless (that's a new word BTW).
It turns out that the STB I have, a Scientific Atlanta 3250SD, has an active firewire (IEEE-1394) port. With a bit of googling I found windows XP/MCE drivers for this STB here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695
All from the above forum, I found that I can:
1. Capture video as a transport stream (.ts) over the firewire link. This is using the CAPDVHS program found in the avsforum.
2. Change channels via the firewire link using the command line program included with the STB drivers (channel.exe).
3. View the live transport stream using VLC Media Player.
4. Convert the captured .ts file using TSconverter into a .dvr-ms and play it back in MP.
So it seems like all the pieces are there to make viewing/captureing/channel changing work within MP. It is already working in SageTV and BeyondTV for these STBs. So this brings me to my questions...
In MP setup, my STB shows up in the list of available capture cards. There are four listings:
1. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Tuner Device (General S/W encoding card).
2. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Panel Device (General S/W encoding card).
3. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Tuner Device (General H/W encoding card).
4. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Panel Device (General H/W encoding card).
I can choose either of the above tuner devices, but I'm not sure where to go from there. Aren't there other STBs that are working in MP? I could be mistaken, but doesn't the FireDTV connect via firewire? What would it take to be able to support this hardware?
I know that the channel changing part of it could already work using 901Racer's MPExTuneCmd Plugin. We just need MP to recognize the STB. This would probably work for everyone with Motorola 6200/6208/6412 STBs and the Scientific Atlanta 3250HD/SA8000/SA8300HD STBs.
So what is the next step? What's involved in viewing/captureing a transport stream? VLC Media Player is opensource, so I'm sure that the code could be used in MP if it doesn't already handle it. I'm not a programmer, but I would be willing to help in whatever way possible. Thanks,
AW
It turns out that the STB I have, a Scientific Atlanta 3250SD, has an active firewire (IEEE-1394) port. With a bit of googling I found windows XP/MCE drivers for this STB here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695
All from the above forum, I found that I can:
1. Capture video as a transport stream (.ts) over the firewire link. This is using the CAPDVHS program found in the avsforum.
2. Change channels via the firewire link using the command line program included with the STB drivers (channel.exe).
3. View the live transport stream using VLC Media Player.
4. Convert the captured .ts file using TSconverter into a .dvr-ms and play it back in MP.
So it seems like all the pieces are there to make viewing/captureing/channel changing work within MP. It is already working in SageTV and BeyondTV for these STBs. So this brings me to my questions...
In MP setup, my STB shows up in the list of available capture cards. There are four listings:
1. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Tuner Device (General S/W encoding card).
2. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Panel Device (General S/W encoding card).
3. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Tuner Device (General H/W encoding card).
4. Scientific-Atlana AV/C Panel Device (General H/W encoding card).
I can choose either of the above tuner devices, but I'm not sure where to go from there. Aren't there other STBs that are working in MP? I could be mistaken, but doesn't the FireDTV connect via firewire? What would it take to be able to support this hardware?
I know that the channel changing part of it could already work using 901Racer's MPExTuneCmd Plugin. We just need MP to recognize the STB. This would probably work for everyone with Motorola 6200/6208/6412 STBs and the Scientific Atlanta 3250HD/SA8000/SA8300HD STBs.
So what is the next step? What's involved in viewing/captureing a transport stream? VLC Media Player is opensource, so I'm sure that the code could be used in MP if it doesn't already handle it. I'm not a programmer, but I would be willing to help in whatever way possible. Thanks,
AW