Author Topic: Can I use my TV tuner box on this?  (Read 3221 times)

Fjatle

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Can I use my TV tuner box on this?
« on: August 23, 2007, 10:25:11 pm »
Hi!
I have recently seen some videos of Linux MCE, and it looket awsome!

I saw on the video that you could use Satelite tuners, and control it from the Linux box.
But I have a different kind of tuner. My tuner is a box from Motorola, called ip stb 1510.

This is connectet to my fiber network (I have fiber solution with Telephone, internet and TV).
It sends the signal to my TV via a scart cable. I don't know much about its technology in-depth, but
it found out it runs on Linux (!!)

Does anyone know if it would work to use this seamless with Linux MCE??
I don't care buying anything if it turns out not to work...

dopey

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Re: Can I use my TV tuner box on this?
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2007, 08:25:44 am »
If the tuner sends the audio/video via RCA composite cables or an Svideo cable and it can be controlled by IR remote, then it will work in LinuxMCE. However, you will probably need to have LinuxMCE learn the remote commands.

I hope that's what you meant. If you meant that want to install LinuxMCE on the box itself, then no, that's not possible... well, that's not feasible... Boxes such as that would have a lot of proprietary stuff to keep you from stealing the shows you didn't pay for. As a result they usually keep you from doing anything with the internals of the box, or at least make it extremely difficult to do so...

Fjatle

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Re: Can I use my TV tuner box on this?
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2007, 03:22:49 pm »
No, didn't mean to install Linux MCE on the box itself..

But OK, I suppose it would work to some level, but cannot figure out this:

The MCE remote control can only act as a "universal remote control"??
I mean, I can understand the remote control can control my tuner, but will it only stream
the video signal to MCE box? So the MCE box, will only be some sort of by-pass unit?

Or will the MCE box on some miracles way "dive" into my tuner, get the complete program overview and
show the program overview in a Linux MCE user interface??

dopey

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Re: Can I use my TV tuner box on this?
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2007, 12:05:53 am »
Yes, it will only stream the video/audio signal to the MCE box and won't retrieve any further information. However, tv program information is captured elsewhere via different services. Most people have been using the Zap2it service, but they will no longer be offering this service to the open source community starting September 1st. As a result I suspect most people will switch to Schedules Direct, which the current version of LinuxMCE doesn't yet support (MythTV doesn't support it yet, but close).

Also, if you have multiple outputs on your tuner then you can have one going to your tv and the other going to MCE; that's what was showed in the video. However, it doesn't look your box does support simultaneous outputs to multiple sources, so that option probably won't work with you. Also, that option isn't really used for guide data and such, but rather to get HD quality video output to your TV.