MyHD MDP-130 - Page 7

Fair enough . In theory I think it will, in practice we'll see this weekend.

-MP

Okay, fair enough. Lets move to the second part of my question then ...

Is MIT planning on developing a full fledged PVR application with integrated EPG ? Something along the lines of MCE/SageTV/BeyondTV etc. i.e. something that is more feature rich in terms of recording scheduling and maintenance.

If so, will it work with the 120 and 130 both, or just the 130 ?

MyHD is not Tivo nor MCE. Its what it is, take it or leave it.

Thank you, Cliff!
David

I already know that it is not TiVo or MCE, and that is why I was asking *IF* MyHD had any plans for going in that direction *IN THE NEAR FUTURE*.

Thanks for clarifying this, but I don't really appreciate the rudeness. I don't think I said or implied anything to offend you

psx, just understand that Cliff posts in short sound bites . He doesn't mean to grump at you, it's just thenature of his posts. It's very easy for people to read context in where it might not exist.

Thanks MP ! I have read quite a few of Cliff's posts in this forum, so I do understand what you are saying.

I was just very surprised why he is taking my positive questions/suggestions so negatively ! I genuinely thought I was asking about something that will make an already excellent product (as I understand from the posts here, I don't own one yet) even better.

I didn't know a full fledged PVR app was considered to be so evil I am STILL very curious to know why Cliff doesn't like this idea ...

One mans positive questions/suggestions can become obnoxious when attempting to force a person to provide answers.

I opted not to answer you original question and you would not let it go, so I provided the answer you didn't want to hear.

You question have been answered a 100 times in this forum. Try reading the forum before DEMANDING my time.

I don't think he doesn't like or dislike it, I think he's saying that MIT probably isn't ever going to tackle the issue so don't get your hopes up

No one DEMANDED your time Cliff ... at least I sure didn't ! This is a free forum; if you don't want to answer a question, no one is obligating you.

Sometimes giving a simple "no" answer is much better than trying to AVOID questions altogether ... and would avoid all these unplesantness. But to each his own.

And just FYI, I did read enough about MyHD in these forums before asking my questions. I don't know where you saw it, but at least I didn't see anyone get a clear answer on whether MyHD is going to eventually deliver a full fledged PVR application.

I already have the ATI HDTV Wonder working wonderfully in my MCE box, but being the experimental type, I am always curious to try out new products that people in this forum speak highly of. That is the sole reason I am investigating the MyHD 130 for my next PVR box. Not that I owe you an explanation, but thought this may clear why I was asking all these questions.

psxjunky,

Its been discussed quite a few times with the answer being the same, the PVR software company that wants to use MyHD needs to contact MIT and obtain an SDK to implement the hardware to the software.

MCE is a different animal and hardware decoders are excluded, I suspect because they can never be made to be DRM compliant by the OS.

"No one DEMANDED your time Cliff"

Really? So when you post this, "Okay, fair enough. Lets move to the second part of my question then ..." you must have been talking to yourself.

Another point to the one above regarding PVR and the information required to build it, guide services are quite expensive, if you have had the opportunity to read the comments on the TitanTV vs. AccessDTV debacle you will not that its one thing to have a free app like TitanTV site, its another to license the information they provide. A simliar product will be required to populate an EPG required to create a PVR. It can't be done by a hardware company without passing on the cost of the service to the user, and most may opt just to use the free guides.

MP,

Last summer when Cliff announced timeshifting with two MyHD cards, I played around with this. I don't have a cable company tuner, but I have a Samsung T165 OTA tuner with a firewire output.

If you get everything working as posted in the How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP thread, and use VLC to capture a file, you can play back the stream using MyHD while VLC is recording the file. VLC does not lock the file. It is not quite real time, but it's close. My guess is that it would work with a cable tuner also if it is in the clear firewire.

No, I was giving YOU the benefit of doubt assuming in all innocence that in quickly reading my original you *may* have missed the second part of the question.

Now thinking about it (and having read some of your other posts earlier), I should have known better than that ... that you prefer to avoid answering questions to which you may not have a favorable answer. All I was saying is that sometimes a direct and negative answer is MUCH better than trying to AVOID a question at first, and then burst out and be rude if the question is asked a second time.

And for one last time ... NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO ANSWER ANYTHING. If you knowingly avoided a question the first time, what is preventing you from continuing to avoid the same question again ? Don't get all high and mighty and think people are DEMANDING your time all the time. This is an open forum and anyone can pick up a question and answer if they want to ... NO ONE IS FORCING ANYONE TO POST HERE>

Anyway, I apologize to all others reading this thread for going on this off topic path. For the benefit of all, I will not continue this mindless fight. I don't usally attack anyone unnecessarily and hence get pretty pissed on when someone attacks me for no good reason.

Now back to your regularly scheduled questions folks

Kei - thanks for your answers and clarifications. They make a lot more sense to me.

Regarding the guide issue - doesn't Zap2It have a service now where you can get their guide data for free ? Isn't XML TV doing just that ?

Let me tell you what I can do today with MyHD. This may clarify how I would answer this question (were I asked).

I can do all of this from my little tiny MyHD remote.

I can watch a DVD.
I can watch analog TV
I can watch Digital TV
-I just go through the channels and the digital one come in and the analog ones come in- I use the favorites channels for this.

I can look at the next days programs for a digital station and set one to record (with a few options of how and where). I expect in the future one would be able to say "record this one weekly" but not yet.

I can select and play back recordings I have made from a playlist.

I can also select an SVIDEO input and use MyHD as an excellent scaler for SD sources.


If I want to go to the computer desktop (which I can select from the remote) from there I can set up scheduled recording any way I want. This is the only time I need to put down the remote.

I LIKE this setup. I like it better than some other options. I have a Tivo and love it but this is a different device and I don't really need it to become sage TV. Stick to the ATI and MCE for that. Why does every product need to become something that already exists.

If one wants an HD tivo, they should buy one.

I hope this gives another side to the answer.

Sorry for the side trip folks. Back to the MDP 130!

netman - very much appreciate your detailed explanation on what you can and can't do with the MyHD !

One question about the recording scheduling - can you only schedule recordings for the next day, or (using TitanTV) can you schedule recordings for an entire week at a time ?

"Why does every product need to become something that already exists."

Exactly! MyHD is not Tivo or MCE, but some people don't want to hear that.

Here's a part of the Terms of Service from Zap2It:

Robots. Due to the potential impact on system performance and availability, the use of robots (automated HTTP requests) to retrieve Content from the Service is in most cases prohibited.

In effect, their information has not been locked...yet. But if you plan to build a commercial product around the guide, you need to purchase a license and there is a link to an e-mail address where you can inquire about the pricing. Zap2It is owned by Tribune Media Services and the cost of the EPG guide service licensing is no different than TitanTV. Don't think that MIT has not looked at the costs of this as well as many other TV tuner companies, and found the costs prohibitive to pass onto the consumer that buys their cards. In the near future when analog TV is turned off, I expect most of these services will charge subscription fee to all users.

From the remote you can set any program you can see in the stations guide to record. Where I live the station guides only run 12-24 hours ahead of "now".

From Titan you can set as many "reservations" as you like. They can be daily, weekly or complex. You can do the same by hand (even for next year!).

I make most of my reservations by hand since I don't change them very often at all.

Hope I was clearer this time.

Dave,

I don't believe this is what the madman is talking about. I have the impression he means to provide a firewire driver that will directly interface with the MyHD inputs selection so one can select the firewire output from a cable box and use MyHD application for viewing and recording to HDD.

This can be done with D-VHS tape only because Windows provides a standard tape device driver.

Of course if MIT did provide a driver for cable box firewire they would open a can of worms because users would soon be demanding that MyHD provide channel controls of the box and integration with TitanTV to provide full PVR functions with the cable box.

With MDP-130 supporting unencrypted QAM channels I don't see much advantage for firewire to a cable box because most (if not all) premium channels will use 5C and the unencrypted ones like rebroadcast OTA channels can already be recorded with a direct RF connection to the cable system and no additional fees for the cable box.

I agree Cliff, there's nto a ton of use for it. I just like to know if you can . You have it right. Essentially Dave what I want to know is if the cable box, once configured as in the above guide, will appear like a tape device to MyHD. I had it all set up a while ago but it never occured to me to try. So now I have to go back and do the configuration again this weekend. It's purely for educational research. I've got no need for it myself, but someone else did ask.

The driver mentioned in the post above may conflict with the Windows D-VHS tape driver. Do you use D-VHS tape with MyHD?

Cliff,

I have a JVC 30K that is recognized by MyHD using the MS driver. I also have the hacked/forced driver from the firewire thread, which allows my OTA tuner to be recognized as a tape device in CapDVHS and VLC. The drivers do not seem to conflict.

The inf file (Meitape.inf) from the drivers discussed in the firewire thread looks like a modified version of the MS driver inf file (mstape.inf).

My guess is that if someone wanted to spend time hacking the inf files they would have a decent chance of getting a firewire tuner to show up in MyHD.

-Dave

Dave,

What is the hacked driver called in CapDVHS and VLC?

Cliff,

This is what I see:

Dave,

Does "Unknown video" show up in MyHD Config Panel?

No, all I see in MyHD is the JVC.

Uh, well, on a lighter note Cliff........

Here's the response regarding PBS EPG/PSIP stuff:

I'm somewhat hesitant to quote directly, since this was an email to me, but I think it very nicely illustrates the problem (and may provide diagnostic info):

=============================
I also looked at other stations in this market with much better results than what I was getting on UNC-TV. There is definitely some kind of problem and we looked into this a few weeks ago and determined that we have many more tables than are supported .

BTW I have a Samsung SIR-T165 set top box. I also have a LG LST-3100A STB as well as a Zinwell (Generation 2) that I bought directly from Taiwan before they were available in this country. Zinwell now makes STB for Motorola.

On the samsung I have a "Mini Guide" feature and another button selects "Full Guide"

The mini guide worked fine and showed all the program names and times for the subchannel I was looking at. When I selected the full guide I got the outline of the full guide but the message said "Receiving Program Information" It sat on this for quite awhile but did not give me any data.
I am having even worse problems with the LG box. It says "Receiving Program Information" for awhile then gives up.

I have also looked at the test equipment in the control room and see all of the tables, MGT, ETT etc.
As you see this is a very complex issue. We are working with the vendor of our PSIP system to try to solve these problems..
=========================

It may very well be that there is no problem with the software for the MyHD card, and that our local PBS will need to change their PSIP.

I'll keep posting the results...