Category Archives: Tivo-nation

Video capture card problem — RESOLVED!

Leave a reply

Well, the video capture card problem has been resolved.

I ended up going over to Frys yesterday and picked up a motherboard, cpu, and memory (2 motherboards, actually, more about that later).

The upgrade went smoothly … Linux adapted to the new hardware without a problem. Windows XP, however, wouldn’t even boot. I had to reinstall. I kind of expected that.

However, the capture card is seen by the PCI bus now, and is fully functional in XP. I need to figure out how to make it work in Linux though.

Continue reading →

Video capture card problems

1 Reply

Well, I got the video capture card finally … plugged it into my system (mordor) and … it didn’t work.

Tried a few different configurations, even booted up into WinXP (mordor usually runs Redhat Linux Fedora, but the card was just never seen.

I brought the card into work and plugged it into my workstation … it was seen and recognized as soon as I logged on.

Well, that obviously means my play machine is broken. Time to upgrade.

I think I’ll swing by Frys today and see about picking up a cheap motherboard & CPU. I think they have them on sale again.

Video Capture Card Redux

1 Reply

Well maybe I am going to get the video capture card that I ordered a few days ago.

Turns out the vendor “lost” the items … and recently found them (sounds like a song).

I got a call a few days ago from the vendor telling me that they did have the cards and I could get one if I still wanted it.

Considering their lack of communication and general bad business practices, I said no and hung up.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to get it. So I sent them an email asking them to re-activate my order. They informed me that the original order was canceled and I would have to call to give them my credit card, or order another one on Pricegrabber.

I ordered another one on Pricegrabber this morning … and I got an email this afternoon indicating that it had shipped via UPS. I should have it on Tuesday (oops, sorry Ginny, TARsday).

Not really enough time to properly record The Amazing Race … but maybe for the following weeks episode.

Hmmm … I’ll probably have to get a bigger hard drive for mordor.

Video capture card

1 Reply

Darn it!

My brother Mitch gave me a heads up on a good video capture card for $80 … I had this idea that I could setup MythTV so I could record shows and then burn them to CD or DVD.

I placed the order through Pricegrabber‘s storefronts … and the vendor is supposed to ship the item within 2 days … but they didn’t. I contacted the vendor and, after waiting a whole day, they responded that it would be shipped today.

I had hoped to be able to record The Amazing Race for Ginny and burn her CD’s … but it looks like the first episode will be missed.

New Cool Tivo feature

Well, it’s not really a Tivo function as such … it’s just the Tivo Home Media Option (HMO) … but I’m running a server application on the linux box called JavaHMO.

This lets me server pieces of dynamic information to the Tivo music and picture displays.

So, in addition to the standard HMO music and pictures, we have some Shoutcast auido streams, the current weather, movie schedules, games (I haven’t figured out to get the tic-tac-toe game to work yet), even screen shots of the PC desktop (although that doesn’t work, because it’s running on the linux system).
Continue reading →