Question about the demo video

[johnnybirdman]

I am very impressed by the demo video of the LinuxMCE setup and have taking stock of my current hardware to see if I can start a setup. 

On thing I still don't understand is this:  When the user in the video switches to direct AV on the LinuxMCE system and switches to the direct feed (a HD signal in the video) what is actually happening?  I can only assume that there is another cable box present in the room OR that there are some big runs of HDMI cable throughout.  With multiple HD tv's in one installation this can become difficult and cost prohibitive as most cable boxes will only have one HD output so you would need some splitter and a lot of cable and, depending on the length of the run, some amplifiers.  From the demo hardware list on the wiki I only see one tuner being used, although I note it is a dual tuner pvr.

Does anyone know how that is working or what is going on to make that happen?
Thanks for any insight.
J.

[rnmixon]

The video is being sent over standard Ethernet cable - typically either 720p or 1080i, though with some nVidia cards it seems that 1080p should be possible.

[rrambo]

i think he's talking about the video out coming straight out of the cable box in addition to coax to the capture card..  I could be wrong..

[johnnybirdman]

i think he's talking about the video out coming straight out of the cable box in addition to coax to the capture card..  I could be wrong..

Since I don't know what's going on in the video it's hard to describe.  The video talks about distortion and latency.  The solution to the distortion and latency issue, according to the video,  is to switch to direct AV. 
I guess my question is whether, when the switch is made to the direct AV, how is that signal getting to the TV from the tuner/box?  The video implies that there is still a way to control the TV with the MCE remote, but, that in order to access the menus, the TV has to switch back over to the MCE signal.  I want to know this because if I have more than one HD TV in my setup, and I want to switch to direct AV, I would have to either have more than one cable or satellite receiver or be able to run component or HD cable to the additional TVs (assuming, that it is done the way I think it is done. if not,then I only need to worry about network speed/cabling)  I currently only have one dish network satellite receiver and the running of HDMI or Comp. cable does not sound like a good alternative based on distance.

[tschak909]

okay guys, let me set this straight:

When you set up your TV and audio reciever, there are some diagrams that you see in the Setup wizard....

The first, shows you plugging the HDMI/DVI/Component/whatever outputs for HD directly into your TV, and connecting the audio to either your TV or reciever...

the second, shows connecting the analogue outputs on your cable box (S-Video, and the Stereo L/R audio), to one of your tuners.

What happens, when you use the LiveTV (cablebox), the tuner displays on screen.

If you select Direct AV, the TV switches its inputs, and the reciever switches its inputs, and makes it so that the HD signals directly from the cable box are used. And any keypresses on the remote, are sent to the cable box.

So, you have two sets of cables running... one high definition set that directly connects TV, Reciever, Cable Box...and the SD streaming set, which connect to the tuner card.

-Thom

[cirion]

Johnnybirdman, what you probably want is a digital TV tuner for you satellite dish.
With a DVB-S/DVB-S2 card you can get the full quality of the signal over ethernet.

A DVB card, records the stream in the same quality as it is sendt and you can se LiveTV/Recordings in that quality on all MD's...

A VDR integration is comming in the new 0710. This is some information I found on the new VDR integration in this forum:

"On the differences between vdr and MythTV as the TV application... I think the main obvious difference is that the vdr integration is 100%... we have removed any need to use the normal vdr osd/epg. The vdr integration inside 0710 uses UI2 completely for all functions. The 2nd less obvious difference is that vdr is a DVB application and so is much better suited to any user who wants to use DVB (its not currently possible to use it in N. America). One of main benefits of this tight integration with DVB is that with a single tuner DVB card you can simultaneously watch/record all of the 'channels' delivered on the MUX you have tuned to. This means you could view and record for example upto 12 TV/Radio channels simultaneously using a single Tuner DVB card. My home system has a dual tuner T500 and an Avermedia 771 card which gives me three DVB tuners... nost evening my home system is recording 5-7 channels concurrently at some point in the evening and delivering live TV on two others. Myth as far as i know cannot do this without having a receiver dedicated to each 'channel'."

[johnnybirdman]

thank you,tschak909 and cirion for the information.  I had not actually run through the setup and therefore that is probably why I didn't notice what was going on.  I currently have a PVR-350 so that is not to cut the mustard as far as HD.
plus if I want to run an HD signal over my ethernet I'm going to have to upgrade my switch since it's not a gigabyte only my network cards currently are.
Thanks again for the information I'm looking forward to giving this a try.

[tschak909]

yeah, seriously..get away from that PVR-350.. the card is basically useless these days...

the best behaved card for LinuxMCE currently, is something based on the NVIDIA 6200 (or similar vintage 6xxx cards), and those do have the bandwidth to do HD display.

-Thom

[johnnybirdman]

I also have a NVIDIA Geforce 7600XXXwith dual DVI output but what I was referring to was my PVR-350 for my signal coming in.  maybe I just need to go to set up so I can see how this thing works for myself.  Then I will be able to ask more intelligent questions and have a better understanding of how things work.
thanks again.

[totallymaxed]

I also have a NVIDIA Geforce 7600XXXwith dual DVI output but what I was referring to was my PVR-350 for my signal coming in.  maybe I just need to go to set up so I can see how this thing works for myself.  Then I will be able to ask more intelligent questions and have a better understanding of how things work.
thanks again.

if your going to grab the analog output of an external PVR/STB then the PVR-350 will get you SD resolution digitised MPEG2 video into your Core. I am not familiar with the HD HomeRun external USB receiver... but if your in N.America then it seems to get high praise here in other threads - you might want to look at that as an option.