homemade PVR questions

[Nicolas Blais]

On Saturday 25 March 2006 15:41, Joe Auty wrote:
> On Mar 25, 2006, at 3:33 PM, Nicolas Blais wrote:
> > On Saturday 25 March 2006 15:07, Joe Auty wrote:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm just getting ready to setup a PVR for myself on my FreeBSD
> >> machine, but I thought I would run by my plans with you guys first
> >> just to ensure that this will work.
> >>
> >> I have a satellite signal (Bell ExpressVu), it comes with a set-top
> >> box that inputs and outputs a coax signal. I'm looking at the
> >> Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and using the driver for this provided in the
> >> ports tree with MythTV.
> >>
> >> Really, all I need this for is recording TV shows just like we used
> >> to use a VCR for. If I can schedule, record, save to a directory,
> >> I'll pick up this Hauppauge card.
> >>
> >> Are there minimal requirements for the video and sound cards, or is
> >> all of this handled by the Hauppauge card? Any experiences doing
> >> something similar to what I'm doing? Any general advice?
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >
> > Hi, what you wish to attempt is possible, here's my experience:
> >
> > I have a WinTV card and I can record with transcode (also possible
> > with
> > mencoder) but the problem is that whenever bktr (the wintv driver)
> > is opened
> > for read, the TV audio that is fed from my WinTV to my sound card thru
> > the "line in" port is heard.
> >
> > That means that I can record a show (audio/video) correctly, but at
> > the cost
> > of hearing the audio while it is recording. Obviously annoying
> > unless I turn
> > off my speakers, and I haven't found a way around (playing with
> > mixer to turn
> > down the volume obviously turns down the recorded volume too).
> >
> > Playing with the WinTV in FreeBSD is tricky, but usually one can
> > fiddle around
> > to make it work. Post your experiences in the FreeBSD-Multimedia
> > list if you
> > ever attempt your project.
>
> Well, I won't be using this setup to do any live recording at all,
> just recording stuff overnight on a machine that I usually just
> access over SSH. Sounds like your issue won't be an issue for me =)
>
> Do I need to have a minimal sound/video card configuration for this
> to work, or is everything handled on the card already? Would you
> recommend using transcode, mencoder, or MythTV to schedule recordings
> like I plan to do?
>

There isn't really a minimum sound/video configuration. Also, if you're only 
recording the output of the wintv and not displaying it, the video card won't 
even care you're recording a show. Your sound card usually must have a 
line-in port (or internal line-in).

Like I said, I use transcode or mencoder, but never tried MythTV. I schedule 
my recording using the 'at' command (see 'man at') and let cron do its stuff. 
Note that the 'atrun' command which is run by cron, is set to check jobs 
every 5 minutes, see /etc/crontab to change this. I wouldn't suggest getting 
below 5 minutes as this could slowdown your system, but instead start and end 
your recording job 5 minutes earlier and later.

Hope this is of use to you,

Nicolas.

-- 
FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT #13: Sat Mar 25 09:45:35 EST 2006     
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