On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Eric Mesa <<a href="mailto:ericsbinaryworld@gmail.com">ericsbinaryworld@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
My brother's going to be moving into an apartment with FiOS and wanted my advice as to how well mythtv would work in such a setup. Can you just plug it directly into the myth box? Does it need to be connected to the STB and, if so, does that mean to watch 1 channel while you record another, do you need 2 STBs?<br>
</blockquote><div><br>It depends on what hardware your brother has.<br><br>What you get straight off the coax from FIOS is analog signals for channels below 50 (*) and digital QAM equivalents for those. As well, you get digital QAM for the HD network (OTA) shows. All channels 50 and above (except for the noted HD ones) and non-network HD are encrypted and cannot be obtained from the raw coax. You can use a splitter to use the coax as input to both an analog card PVR-500/150/etc and a QAM card. No STB required.<br>
<br>With a STB, you get access to 50 and above, but you are also tied to the STB's tuner, and you can't get any of the HD as HD (just the downscaled version, at least until support for the new Hauppauge card is supported).<br>
<br>Also there is a firewire option if you have the HD STB, and it is similar to the straight coax.<br><br>In my setup, I have several splitters, and the coax goes to a PVR-500, an avermedia QAM tuner, and the STB. The s-video out of the STB also goes to the PVR-500.<br>
<br>-Jerry<br><br>* Verizon says it will stop providing all analog signals in the near future, and in some markets this may already have happened.<br></div></div><br>