Hi,
I am a uk user of linuxmce and want to get a good range of tv channels setup on my system. I have got setup up my core/hybryd and 4 MDs after quite a few problems.
my inital plan was to have 2 pvr150's to allow me to input my skyplus box and also a secondary normal sky box - hopefully allowing 2 different users 2 watch 2 different programs on sky. I also wanted to make use of a dvb cart I have, a Nova T500.
totallymaxed you mention "we have Core's with 3 x T500 twin tuner cards which here in the UK means we can cover all the UK MUX's without any restrictions to live viewing/recording"
when it says without restrictions how do you mean, I sort of understand that each t500 has 2 tuners, 3 cards each with 2 tuners is 6 tuners all together - it sounds like it is then suggested that with 3 x t500 you can pretty much have as many people watching as many different channels as you like (well as many as network and core power can handle) is this the case?
I am also wondering how to get the channels guides setup uk for UK channels, both DVB and satalite I have read a few posts about how zap2it has now finished and schedules direct is now used - can this be used in the UK or do I have to use a different service? I am especially confused over how to get the SKY listings working- justcan't get my head around howthis will work.
was also wondering about HD broadcasts, are they planned in the UK and if so does anyone know when they will be implemented
on the nova t500 I have setup I do get channels but with out any planner which is why i am asking about this in the uk. Currently I am experiencing a time delay between changing channel in DVB, will having the planner setup correctly sort this out or is it a problem with a badly aligned ariel or just "thats how long it take to change channel"
I am also understanding that with the nova t500 I will be able to watch 2 different channels in 2 different rooms, currently I can only get one running on one MD, if I try and start a second MD, mythtv comes up with a message about how all the inputs are currently in use and you can only watched recorded programs - am I missing somehting here becaus surely i have the other tuner still to use.
I also have setup a pvr150 to input my sky with, which works fine on the core/hybryd, but if I try the chnnel on an MD I just get a blank screen, then If I leave it for 10 mins by the time I come back the channel has started, I don;t understand where the delay is coming from, the picture and sound appear straight away on the core/hybryd?
thanks in advance on any info anyone can provide especially those from the uk and sorry about all the seperate questions, totallymaxed you seem to know what you are doing when it comes to mythtv in the UK would it be possible to elaborate just a little.
matt
Hi Matt,
I'll try and answer some of the questions you put above;
I don't really have that much experience with Myth I have to say - we looked at Myth when deciding which PVR software we felt had the best fit for the UK/Europe. We chose VDR over Myth as we felt it fitted our needs better (I'm not knocking Myth at all)
We use VDR not MythTV for the TV side of LMCE. In Core's with 3xT500's installed that gives us six tuners. Currently here in the UK DVB-T (or Freeview as its known in the UK) is broadcast nationally on 6 frequencies, with each frequency carrying one MUX (Multiplex of digital channels) alongside the old analog channels. Each DVB-T Mux carries a mix of digital TV & radio channels. This mean in most parts of the UK you can relaibly receive about 60-70 digitial DVB-T TV channels plus 30+ radio channels. With VDR and 6 DVB-T tuners we can therefore receive all the MUX's concurrently. The clever part is that VDr allows us to extract any of the channels from the MUX that a given tuner is tuned to ie I might be watching BBC1 in the lounge live while the kids are watch BBC2 in the kitchen. BBC1 & BBC2 are broadcast on the same MUX but using a single tuner on one of the T500's VDR allows me to watch or record those two channels or any of the others on that MUX all at the same time :-)
That means I can have any mix of recordings and live viewing happening anywhere in the house. As I write this my home Core/Hybrid is recording 6 different channels at 9pm and there are 3 live streams being watched and one recording from yesterday being streamed.
The EPG data we use is the data broadcast with the UK DVB-T freeview service.
We are working on the Analog TV in aspect of VDR now so that we can capture analog sources and then stream them digitally around the home like we do with VDR's digital channels. So it wold mean that Sky/Virgin Media or other analog TV sources can be treated like 'digital' channels (using lmce's ability to IR blast or serially control those external STB's for channel selection etc).
The service/product we are building around lmce is targeted at the UK/Europe and is aimed at the non technical user. Our product will be a professionally installed system with ongoing service provision. Although some of our service/product will not be made available to the open source lmce community much of it will be including the VDR integration.
Regards
Andrew