[olug] Cox DVR questions...

[Will Langford]

> After using the the Cox DVR, I'm really missing my old ReplayTV DVR.  Sadly
> ReplayTV doesn't sell the boxes anymore (they're pushing their software for
> Windows systems), and I don't want to purchase one off of eBay.

Yeah, after doing reading and such, I wanted to look into ReplayTV,
but looking at their homepage is less than encouraging :(.

> I'm kicking around the idea of building a Linux MCE (
> http://www.linuxmce.org/) or MythTV system so I'm wanting to pick the
> collective OLUG brain.  I like the LinuxMCE interface and I'd probably
> support them by purchasing their remote - I'm already drowing in too many
> NON-universal remotes as it is!

I think I've got 5 or 6 remotes sitting next to my couch.  I'm
seriously thinking about picking up a nice $60-$100 fancy remote :).

> Starting with the motherboard, does anyone know of a motherboard that has
> decent video out that will send a composite signal to feed my analog tv?
> (Bonus points if it has Linux compatible HDMI ports for future use.)

Just about anything with composite out should do.  Composite quality
is already lack luster as is.  The question will be more relating to
the chipset that drives the output -- do you need something with
beefier 3D or just something that can do overlays and hardware scaling
/ mpeg2 decompression etc ?

Linux compatible HDMI might be... a misnomer.  HDCP + linux might be
more... of an issue.  As it is, I DVI -> HDMI cable just fine.

> My daughters have really latched on to some shows on "Noggin" (channel
> 257).  Will any digital tuner card pull in this channel?   Is this channel
> encrypted on the wire?
> (If it's encrypted, then that implies that you're forced to purchase a COX
> piece of hardware instead of using more commodity equipment.  Just doesn't
> seem right if I'm already paying for the channels that I'd have to use a
> "blessed" piece of hardware too...)

While I don't have first hand experience attempting to look at digital
tuning on cox, it appears the consensus is you're SOL... encrypted
goodness.  As such, you need a tuner of some sort that can handle
digital tuner cards.  A few exist, but are typically difficult to come
by... and undoubtedly will be a Windows based solution.

A more common solution is to use ir blaster devices to have your
computer control the cable box.  This way you can get a nice solid
state box from Cox (where a HD won't fail like my DVR is heh) and use
the svideo out from it to feed into your PVR computer.  There are
plenty of people here who have such setups working from MythTV.  The
only draw back would probably be if you want multiple tuners in your
computer, you'd need to get multiple boxes from cox (heat and desk
space usage hogging heh).

-Will