Comcast/Mythtv (OT?)

[Jarod Wilson]

On Mon, 2008-11-24 at 22:03 -0500, Tom Metro wrote:
> > A better move might be to push for a standard control interface for 
> > interface between PVRs and cable boxes... The cable companies won't
> > like that either, as they would rather sell you a PVR...
> 
> That'd be great, but what are the chances it'll turn out any better
> than CableCard did?
> 
> Can't you control some STBs via Firewire, in addition to getting the 
> video via Firewire?

Yes. My Motorola QIP-6200 cable box from Verizon can be controlled over
firewire, and dump video over firewire.

> The whole Firewire interface to STBs seems real 
> rickety and unreliable right now, but maybe it'll get better.

There's hope. Just a few days ago, the new firewire stack started being
able to pull video off my cable box. The new stack is far better than
the old one, so with luck, once some remaining kinks are worked out[1],
it'll be much better. However... Part of the frailty I'm seeing is on
the part of the firewire interface on the cable box. If you poke it in a
way it doesn't like, it disappears off the bus, and requires a full
power off to restore functionality...

--jarod

[1] at the moment, the myth backend segfaults when trying to use a
firewire cable box w/the new stack, for reasons unknown as of yet, while
test-mpeg2 from libiec61883 has no problem pulling video w/the new stack
now.