Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

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Urkster
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Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by Urkster »

Hi there

I currently use both terrestrial freeview and my cable set top box from virginmedia in my setup.

My cable provider, Virgin media have begun to pressure me into a free upgrade to their Tivo platform and naturally I am being evasive so far!

Everything I have read online about their Tivo offering so far has been very negative!, but from what I can gather it seems to be more complaints about the interface in general.

I am wondering if these problems might be negated by using with Mythtv, or perhaps made worse!?

I believe their tivos are multi-tuner, so be able to record / watch more than one cable channel at the same time is an attractive feature, especially considering how patchy UK freeview can be! – But how / does this work in conjunction with mythTV? With a single output I would have thought not at all? or can the recordings be extracted from the device somehow?

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who uses tivo, particularly Virgin’s tivo with their mythtv setup, or even from anyone with any kind of well-informed opinion on the matter.

Many thanks
davep1628
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Re: Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by davep1628 »

Hi urkster,

I've been using mythtv with Tivo & V6Box (a newer version of the Tivo) for a few years now and they work very well with mythtv.

I have my Tivo boxes connected to mythtv via a pair of Hauppauge HDPVRs and record at 720p, which gives me good quality and a reasonable file size.

To change channels, I use the following script:

#!/bin/bash

/bin/echo -e -n "SETCH "$1"\r" | /bin/nc -N tivo.local 31339

Hope this helps.

Dave.
Urkster
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Re: Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by Urkster »

Hi Dave

That is very helpful indeed, thank you so much for your reply.

Yeah, I currently have the old V+ box hooked up to my HDPVR recording at 1080.

I use an IR blaster type setup for the channel changing, but looks like you are sending via the network. Is that documented anywhere?

Many thanks

Rob
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bill6502
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Re: Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by bill6502 »

I have a Tivo (because of my building's agreement with the cable provider). But I also pay
for a Cable Card for my HD Homerun used by MythTV. Both work A-OK.
Urkster
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Re: Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by Urkster »

Thanks Bill

I guess what was on my mind really was the fact that the tivo functionality seems to be a lot like that of mythtv itself in that it too records etc..
(Not that I have ever used, or even seen a tivo before!)

So I was wondering if this gets in the way at all, or even if on the flipside if mythtv was able to leverage the extra functionality offered by tivo at all.

Thanks
Rob
Urkster
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Re: Mythtv + Tivo play nice?

Post by Urkster »

Hi Folks, it's me again!


In the interveining years I did indeed get the tivo and the channel change script from Dave has been working very well, until recently.

Now whenever a SETCH or FORCECH command is sent to the box it replies with "CH_FAILED NO_LIVE"

The message indicates that the tuner is not in LIVETV mode, when in fact it is.

I've bee playing around and it looks like this is the only funcionality that's effected, you can still send the IRCODE commands for instance.

Numeric IRCODES or the CHANNELUP CHANNELDOWN commands are the only way I've found to change channels now.

That means we need a new channel change scrtipt that instead of sending single SETCH command for the whole channel it can split up the digets making up the channel number and send multiple IRCODE num# commands instead (I think).

I have no idea how to do that!

Is anyone else still using a tivo with mythtv? are you seeing the same issue? (have you solved it?! :-) )

Cheers
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