2013-05-29, 16:06
Hello everyone. I am a noob when it comes to htpc (along with other things) and need some advice. First let me start with my current setup so you can gage the resources i currently have. I have an older machine its a pentium 4 3.06ghz, 1 gb of ram (sucks yes i know) and will have NFS share (to a nas but right now to my machine(s) one stores movies one stores tv shows.). I have ubuntu installed with xbmc and it works seemlessly. I can successfully stream hd content to my tv with the current setup. Now having said that I had an old eyeTV elgato 250 (mac product) and decided to plug it in to my suprise no filter was put on my line. So through my eyeTV (can't seem to find how to get it to work with myth) I can watch free basic cable. I've been using the eyeTV parser addon and am some what pleased at the idea of liveTV though my xbmc setup. The problem going this route is the quality looks horrible (i'm assuming because its an older device). Now digital basic cable + a cableCARD only would be $10 additional dollars from time warner (i read that they copy once everything) to actually pay for services. Now i'm not really interested in the preimums as I download most of my tv shows with couchpotatoe/sickbeard setup. So here are my questions. I've been looking at Ceton Infinity 4 which would still need to be hooked into a machine. So i'm guessing because i have an older machine this probably isn't the best solution; but should successfully work with mythtv. I've seen this HDHomeRun Prime which looks to be more of a networked device which i'm guessing doesn't rely so much on the machine's resources. Now either solution brings up another question. What is copy once, copy all, etc? I'm not very interested in using the setup as a dvr (for scheduled recordings) however; pausing live tv in order to go grab a beer would be nice. Now i've read that copy once means something with DRM and can only be utilized using a WMC as far as recordings. What about just viewing? If i get this device with my TWC + cableCARD will i not be able to use this using mythtv? I mostly interested in the free (local channels), history channel, etc. Now Because the local HD channels would be avalible over clearQAM i understand i could just get a hybrid type stick to do both analog NTSC (IE my free cable right now) + clearQAM. Going this route i would keep my history, comedy, etc viewable from myth and get HD for the locals correct? Thanks for all your input in sorting this out. I don't have any other vendor (cable) in my area so that is out of the question.
