[truthlesshero]

so...i've been doing research for the past while and i'm pretty sure my brain has turned into mush with all the contradicting information...mostly because some information is outdated

I have some questions i'd like to clear up or get some info on regarding watching tv on xbmc

i'm in Canada..I use rogers cable, which is ATSC...

now, my questions:

1. can I buy a tv tuner (via usb or pci) card that i can bypass my cable box (as in, the plug would come from the wall straight to my tv tuner) and watch tv directly on xbmc?
(i used to rip music videos back in the day...yes yes, i'm showing my age...and the only thing i needed to do back then was plug the cable directly into my tv tuner card and voilà...now i'm not sure if i can bypass the box or not)

2. now, regardless of if i need to go through my set top box or not, can i connect it to xbmc, view my cable subscription AND use an EPG (e.g. a guide and get the information of what's on and what will be on, etc)?

3. as i understand it, PVR will be built in starting with frodo? (i will make the jump from eden once frodo has stable builds) so i will just need to connect into my tv tuner, get an add on and that's it? Or do I need to install something in xbmcbuntu (which is what i'm using) then log into xbmc, as outlined in the tutorial here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=91716 and use the pvr addon once frodo is released?


to give a bit more background, my goal is to use my xbmc htpc as my main "appliance" for everything..whether it'd be watching cable tv (which, i want to mention, the channels goes in the hundreds, possibly thousands, and has both hd and sd...it probably goes without saying, but i'd just like to add that), recording tv shows, watching my ripped movies or tv shows, etc etc...i just wanted to know if this was possible. Thanks!

[Ned Scott]

We're actually working on getting a nice start-to-finish how-to guide up on the wiki. I'm learning much of this for the first time myself, and the same with some others.

What I can tell you so far is that it gets tricky depending on the source of the TV. Some cable companies are easier to access than others. I'm not entirely sure about Canada, but you'll probably get some limited channels without a box, but most if it will require capture after the box. What some PVR servers (backends) can do is get the video out of your cable box and then use an IR sensor to change the channel when a scheduled recording occurs.

PVR actually comes in two parts. XBMC handles all the user interface for watching tv and scheduling recordings, organizing them, etc, but needs backend software to interface with the hardware and manage the actual recording. We do this because it would be near impossible for us to maintain some kind of internal fork of any existing PVR software (let alone starting from scratch), and supporting it on all the platforms XBMC is on. This is mostly transparent anyways, as you can run both PVR backend and XBMC on the same machine. You can also have multiple XBMC instances access a single PVR backend, so you don't have to run cable to each XBMC machine you want to have PVR on. Backends can handle multiple tuners and sources, and some can even run directly off of a Raspberry Pi (wiki).

[truthlesshero]

no worries about having a PVR backend...it seems reasonable to install, especially that there are multiple options supported on ubuntu...

I'm kind of excited for these functions on xbmc...even if i have to keep the cable box, it's not the end of the world, as everything would still be centered on one machine (my xbmc htpc)

but from what i get you're saying is that if i have an ATSC tuner card, i can connect the cable box to the tuner card, follow the aforementioned guide to view tv and i'll follow another guide (or the same?) to set up the pvr...one as a backend, then use something inside xbmc as a front end (well, in frodo, i'm assuming it's already there?)
so if i go through my cable box, is it possible to change the channel through xbmc? is there an epg available?

[thethirdnut]

@truthlesshero

As Ned explained you're likely going to have to Coax --> Cablebox --> ATSC tuner. The control of the Cablebox will likely have to be done via an IR blaster from PC - changes the channels, power, etc.

I don't know what XBMC is planning since I'm not planning to use PVR capability, but MythTV would allow for said functionality and you could use a EPG on the PC, picks recordings, and then have the PC change channels on the Cablebox so recordings get set to correct channel automatically. I had all this working on an old MythTV setup.

I can only imagine that XBMC will try to replicate this functionality at some point.

All this tail-chasing wouldn't be required of course if the ATSC tuner could decrypt QAM channels directly. Unfortunately, we don't have that option here in Canada.

[truthlesshero]

yeah, Canada sucks for telecom stuff...we were so far ahead 10-15 years ago...then the companies got greedy and we (as consumers) are getting killed

but i just want to clarify..when you say, use an EPG on the PC...you mean somethign in xbmc or it would have to be external? i'm on xbmcbuntu..i guess if mythtv add-on can handle it, i'm assuming you mean using mythtv inside xbmc to use the EPG?

assuming any IR blaster can handle it, I could just use an MCE remote (which from what i've read, if it has a USB receiver, it can be used as an IR blaster) that i used with xbmc, and it would change the channels and such

the PVR function is secondary at the moment, it's more to view the cable channels with EPG and the PVR function will be a bonus if it follows and works..

[thethirdnut]

Like I said this is all an MythTV analogy that may or may not apply to how things will evolve for XBMC:

-- in MythTV you'd open the app, browse through its EPG for stuff to record
-- once selected it would then do the rest by making sure cablebox turned on, set to right channel, shut box off when done

The hardware [TV tuner] I was using back there was the Hauppage PVR-150 which came with its own IR blaster. This was taped - with hockey tape - to the front of a Shaw cablebox.

It all worked well, but it was a real PITA since at that time lots of the dependencies had to be compiled to work....we've come a long way from that thankfully.

[truthlesshero]

does anyone have experience in Canada running a similar set up?

I've been doing a bit more research and i'm really wondering a few things...
if we have to go cable -> set top box -> tv tuner....then does that mean we need something different than just a "regular tuner" card?

meaning, would i need a hauppauge colossus (so that the signal sent from the box is in hd through the hdmi and use an spdif passthrough to get the audio)? Or would just the hauppauge 1850 do (and have just a standard RF coaxial cable from the box to the tv tuner card and still have the spdif passthrough)?

beyond that, if anyone is using the live tv function of xbmc (recording is secondary to me..the main thing is to be able to watch live tv), do we have an epg in xbmc that works with rogers (or whatever cable subscriber you have)? Can you actually see a working guide, just like you would on the normal box?

sorry to bump this thread for more questions..but i'm in a bit of a shopping mood and i may try to start using this functionality in xbmc...