Hello, I wanted to solicit some pointers. I have KnoppMyth R5E50 with a PVR250 and PVR350. I live in Australia, but the physical box is in the USA so I generally remotely administer it. Early in October I will be back in the US for only a few days and need to make some major changes efficiently and wanted your assistance to make sure I don’t miss any key steps. The house the computer is at will be changing providers from Comcast to Verizon FIOS TV & Internet. My main concerns are working with the Set-top boxes and also upgrading Myth to work with Schedules Direct.

Set-top box / IR Blaster Questions:
1) I wanted to confirm that if I get two Verizon set-top boxes they will work with my current PVR250 and PVR350 tuner cards.
2) Will Verizon HD STB work with the 250 / 350
3) Not happy about needing to “rent� these Verizon STBs so if you have any alternatives let me know
4) As I have never required a STB before I am a bit unfamiliar with how to set them up with knoppmyth. From my research I will need a Double Headed MythTV LIRC RS232 IR Blaster (http://www.irblaster.info/) to control each STB. My concern is that if I get a dual headed IR Blaster it just sends the same signal to both STBs. How do I get the STB to distinguish which one should change channels?
5) Any special steps I need to take when setting up LIRC to work with FIOS STBs or will the knoppmyth install take care of most of it for me?
6) I have heard FIOS TV currently has a few analogue channels so if I decide to only use one STB I can still record certain, mostly local, channels.

Schedules Direct:
7) I plan to install the new R5Fx release of Knoppmyth and sign up for SD in early Oct? Judging by Cecil’s optimistic comments it should be ready (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16324).
8 ) Cecil and the team. I’ve had mythtv for 5 years and knoppmyth for 4 and must say you guys absolutely rock! So thank you for all your hard work and unwavering dedication. Also kudos to the ingenuity of the SD founders.
9) As you can image since I’d be physically at the box I’d prefer to upgrade knoppmyth instead of upgrading mythtv to 0.20.2 and moving to SD. Following these directions I expect to be able to switch to Schedules Direct fairly easily if required (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16178)
10) Can some one confirm SD has Verzion FIOS TV listings (SE Pennsylvania)?

VNC / PVR350 TV out:
11) I had been using the PVR350 TV out in the past but due to limited time last time I was home I needed to switch to the NVidia video card out. I was wondering if I switch back to the PVR350’s TV out will VNC still work? I recall some time ago that VNC didn’t work when using the 350 TV out.

Thanks for you assistance and feel free to share any other lesson learned or ideas you may have.

Hello, I'll answer what I can.
1) This isn't a question.
2) I see no reason why it wouldn't. Out from the STV In to the PVRs. You should need an IRBlaster to control the SB. Cannot help with details there...
3) Ahhh ok....
4)
5)
6) See 1.
7) Is this a question or a statement. R5Fx will be out way before you are back state side.
See 1. You're welcome.
9) If you plan to auto upgrade, no need to follow the instructions.
10) If Zap2it worked, SD should work.
11) The video card in use should have no bearing on being able to use VNC. I think you need to expand on this...

2) Although the 250/350 would work with the Verizon HD STB, they won't record in HD from it, only SD. You may already realize this but just in case you don't, just wanted to clarify.

6) Yep, FIOS has analog service, at least for now, which I think equals extended basic cable, so more than local channels. You could just plug the cable into your 250/350 and record those, no IR blaster needed.

Thanks Cecil and ceenvee703 for your prompt responses. Cecil – I see you released R5F27. Thanks again to you and the testers. Looking at the Change Log a lot of improvements have been incorporated.

1) Cool!

2) ceenvee703, yes I am unfortunately aware that if I use the PVR250/350 I won’t get HD quality. The key is to be able to at least record a show. If HD quality is needed the owners will probably just go direct from the STB to the TV and bypass myth.

3) Any place to buy Verizon STB instead of wasting money ever month renting? Not sure if this is even a realistic option.

4) and 5) Anyone with two STB that is using the Double Headed MythTV LIRC RS232 IR Blaster have any lessons learned they can pass on?

6) Once back in the US I will see what channels actually come via analogue, if there are enough “key� channels I hope to avoid the cost of renting an additional STB and just use the one. Mind you that is only good until they phase out analogue channels.

7) Statement now that R5F27 is released

8 ) As stated above

9) Yes, I plan to do an auto upgrade so it should work perfectly.

10) Cool.

11) I can’t seem to find the post that mentioned issues with VNC and PVR350 tv-out. I recall seeing it a couple years ago so the issue may have been resolved especially now that VNC in part of the core Knoppmyth build. I am guess it will work.

12) [new] Does anyone have a preference on using the PVR350’s TV out functionality vs the TV-out (svideo) on a standard NVIDIA card?

Kind Regards.

I have recently signed up for FIOS internet, but stayed away from going the TV route for many of the same reasons you are concerned about.

I hate the idea of using IR blasters. An having to rent two tuners for dual recording is also a drag.

As for analog channels, you will only get the first 13. That was what the tech told me when the internet was setup. For now I am still with Comcast, but am looking for solutions much as you are.

I hope we both find a workable solution.

I currently have Verizon Fios but not HD. I have two tuners (PVR150). One connected to the S-video out from the Motorola 2500 STB. I use the IR Blaster that came with my PVR150 to control it. The other tuner is connected directly to the FIOS co-ax cable with no STB. I get their analog channels which are channels 2 through 49. Check the Verizon FIOS website and you can see which channels are in that range.

I don't know of any way to "buy" a STB as they have to be registered when they are installed. I assume that means that there is some serial number being passed back and forth. To save a little money, you may consider using a SDTV STB instead of the HD since the tuner's won't record it anyway.

_________________
LINHES 8.6.1 BE/FE - MSI K9N6SGM-V with AMD A64 X2 4600+, 4GB Ram. 1.5TB WD. HDHR Prime. Nvidia GT210. MCE remote.
FrontEnd - Dell Vostro 400 3.0GHz Core2Duo NVidia GeForce210. MCE Remote

Like big boy stan said, you should be able to plug your tuner cards into the coax without a need for the STBs.

I don't know if your hardware can support displaying HD, but another option could be to get an HDHomerun (dual HD tuner) that's plugged directly into the Fios box and get DVR capabilities for all the HD channels that are unencrypted.

They still may want an HD STB for On Demand or any additional HD channels that they subscribe extra to.

That's what I'm eventually planning on doing. Has anyone else done HDHomerun with Verizon Fios?