satellite and myth - ATTN Pat

[snarkout]

OK, well, my wife is finally pissed off enough with commercials that she's giving me the go ahead to build a full blown myth solution, and seeing that you've been hacking on it and talking about it so much people are actually complaining, I figured you'd be my go-to guy. However, I have satellite, what with living in the middle of BFE and all. In the past, a huge, huge stumbling block has been the fact that myth pretty much sucked in this situation since changing the channel on the receiver is so difficult. Do you know if this is still the case? I've googled around some, but half of the info I find is a year old or more. Is there a common solution for this?

[Patrick]

In the past, a huge, huge stumbling block has been the fact that myth pretty much sucked in this situation since changing the channel on the receiver is so difficult. Do you know if this is still the case?

You'll need to use an IR blaster and a channel changing script. Honestly the M$ receiver/blaster I've been using is pretty damn good. It's usb based (uses the mce_usb2 lirc module) and I've seen them as cheap as $29 (and it comes with a remote). I don't have satellite anymore but the setup works well with my cable box. As long as the IR codes are properly setup for the satellite box in lirc it should work. What model receiver do you have? The LIRC project maintains a fairly extensive list:
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/

If all else fails you could capture the remote codes and create your own configuration file. I was playing around with this when setting up the remote for the cable box.

Warning about HD satellite receivers: They do not come with working firewire ports as many HD cable boxes do. Capturing via firewire is currently the easiest way to get HD content into your Mythbox from a cable tv source. I know of this company that will modify HD satellite boxes but it's very expensive:
http://169time.com/

[hellonorman]

OK, well, my wife is finally pissed off enough with commercials that she's giving me the go ahead to build a full blown myth solution, and seeing that you've been hacking on it and talking about it so much people are actually complaining, I figured you'd be my go-to guy. However, I have satellite, what with living in the middle of BFE and all. In the past, a huge, huge stumbling block has been the fact that myth pretty much sucked in this situation since changing the channel on the receiver is so difficult. Do you know if this is still the case? I've googled around some, but half of the info I find is a year old or more. Is there a common solution for this?

I'm not trying to bash myth tv. Just after getting my hd dvr comcast box I determined that it was plenty for my girlfriend and me to record everything we wanted to watch. For anything I wanted to save more permanently I just setup a computer with a capture card. That also saved me from having to spend money on new hardware that could actually play HD content.

[snarkout]

Yeah - my DVR works well enough, which is why I never made the full leap before. I have the DishNetwork 533 which appears to be an extra large PITA to work with. Yay.

[Patrick]

Yeah - my DVR works well enough, which is why I never made the full leap before. I have the DishNetwork 533 which appears to be an extra large PITA to work with. Yay.

I used to be a Dishnetwork subscriber. I have my old receiver sitting in storage. Do you want it?

[snarkout]

I guess I need to get Firm Order Commitment (sorry, industry jargon) from my wife before I go much further. It looks like the 533 actually does work, it's just that one controller uses RF and the other uses IR. I'm not sure why so many people made such a big deal about it sucking. Maybe I'll learn...

[elgordo123]

I have dishnetwork and control it with an IR Blaster. For the single digit channel numbers it changes correctly 99.9% of the time. For double digit, I'd say 98% of the time. Three digit channel numbers probably 90%, four digit probably 80-85%.
I have a SELECT statement at the beginning of the change channel script that helps alot it "waking up" the sat. and ir blaster that makes it much more accurate.
However most things I record are on local channels, 1 and 2 digits and the other things like movie channel are normally 3 digits. If one of the movie channels don't record it's no big deal, because they repeat the same program over and over.
Tivo users have the same problem too. The only way to be 100% is to use the providers DVR, which has almost no functionality. My wife approval factor went way up after she forgot to set the old DVR to record a show. I popped into my knoppmyth box via my wap cell phone, scheduled it and she watched it when we got home!

[snarkout]

Yeah, that's about what I read. I think the xmas bill is probably going to torpedo this, yet again, in any case, and I'll just go back to manually recording stuff once I get a new mobo for my "myth" box. It seems like it's the simplest/cheapest thing to do right now.

Oh, and the box I have is the 522 - no idea why it says 533 on the back.