Mailing List Archive

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> I tried this, but it captures off the master for live tv. Is
> this the way it is designed to work?

MythTV will use the first free encoder. This doesn't mean that the
first card has to be on the master. Read the advanced backend
section of the HOWTO for some ideas:
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-19.html#ss19.13

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OK, before I get flamed I just RTFM. I just noticed for the first time the
last section named "Advanced Backend Configurations". This is close to what
I want. But, I would like the option to be able to "reserve" the local
capture device for the frontend. So the local card is always available for
the local frontend when someone wants to watch live-tv on that frontend. I
plan to have three frontends in total. I want the master backend to have
two WinTV cards doing software encoding for recordings and three slave
backends/frontends with hardware MPEG cards for watching live-tv. Does
anyone else think this is a desirable setup? Would it be possible with the
current CVS release, or does this require and major change?

Thanks,
--Ken


Quoting Ken VanDine <ken@bizrace.com>:

> Is this possible:
>
> -Master backend with WinTV, MySQL and lots of storage.
> -Slave backend/frontend with a PVR-250 capture card.
>
> I want the master backend to handle scheduled recordings and storage and
the
>
> slave backend/frontend use it's pvr-250 for watching live-tv and watch
> recordings off the master.
>
> I tried this, but it captures off the master for live tv. Is this the way
> it is designed to work? Am I expecting to much? Anyone have any tips to
> help me accomplish what I am trying to do?
>
> TIA,
> --Ken
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>


--
Ken VanDine
biZrace Inc.
http://www.biZrace.com
kvandine@biZrace.com

Ken VanDine wrote:
> Is this possible:

Yes 8-)

> -Master backend with WinTV, MySQL and lots of storage.
> -Slave backend/frontend with a PVR-250 capture card.
>
> I want the master backend to handle scheduled recordings and storage and the
> slave backend/frontend use it's pvr-250 for watching live-tv and watch
> recordings off the master.
>
> I tried this, but it captures off the master for live tv. Is this the way
> it is designed to work? Am I expecting to much? Anyone have any tips to
> help me accomplish what I am trying to do?

Two questions; are you using the same video source for
both tuners? are you using current CVS?

If you have more than one video source (cable, satellite,
antenna, etc.) I think you will always get the first source
for LiveTV. If you have two sources into the first card, say
coax and s-video, you can use "c" to switch inputs once you
start LiveTV. However, if both backends have the same source
you can ignore all this ;-).

In 0.8 LiveTV would always come from the first availabe card.
About two weeks ago this changed in CVS. Now it checks to see
if there is an available tuner on the same host as the frontend.
If not, it uses the first available tuner anywhere. To "reserve"
a tuner, simply add it as the last tuner in setup so that the
scheduler won't try to use it until all other tuners are busy.

-- bjm

Ken VanDine wrote:
> OK, before I get flamed I just RTFM. I just noticed for the first time the
> last section named "Advanced Backend Configurations". This is close to what
> I want. But, I would like the option to be able to "reserve" the local
> capture device for the frontend. So the local card is always available for
> the local frontend when someone wants to watch live-tv on that frontend. I
> plan to have three frontends in total. I want the master backend to have
> two WinTV cards doing software encoding for recordings and three slave
> backends/frontends with hardware MPEG cards for watching live-tv. Does
> anyone else think this is a desirable setup?

I sure don't. Once you get used to having a DVR the way you
watch TV ought to change drastically. If there are any shows
you might want to watch, record them. If you don't get around
to watching them, delete them. No harm, no foul. I usually
have 30-100 hours of shows that I know I'm interested in. If
the list of recorded shows doesn't look more tempting than
whatever happens to be broadcast at the time, then I know I'm
not using the DVR properly. I *never* watch LiveTV other than
debugging MythTV issues. If I discover that something I might
want to see is on, I first start recording then watch the
recording in progress and delete when I'm done. If I'm distracted
or there is a part that I might want to see again, I can always
watch the recording again. Once you change the channel in LiveTV
the buffer is gone forever.

So two bttv cards ($60) to record hundreds of hours of your
very favorite shows then three PVR-250 cards ($450) to channel
surf hoping that there might be something 'good' on doesn't
sound desirable to me ;-).

That said, add your cards in setup in the following order:

Master 1 = bttv
2 = bttv

Least Used
Frontend 3 = PVR-250

Other
Frontend 4 = PVR-250

Most Used
Frontend 5 = PVR-250

The first two overlapping recordings will always happen on
the master. The third would use a tuner for a frontend but
the good news is that the show would get recorded. The most
used frontend will always be free unless you've scheduled
five things at once.

Now, I could suggest ways to never record more than two shows
at once but I think you'll soon find that what you are thinking
right now really isn't what you'll want in the long term.

Hope this helps,

-- bjm