[kwlug-disc] Vmedia IPTV & MythTV

[B.S.]

Couple or 3 notes:

- for each provider, as I understand it, you must also purchase their internet. Make sure you compare apples to apples - and they don't make that easy. e.g. Only through visits to Bell and Rogers did I come to understand their real pricing. Including, Bell was cheaper by bundling internet (unlimited + 50/10, vs limited + 30/5 I had prior), TV, and Home Phone (which is still landline / I won't use - having ported from Bell to voip.ms a year earlier) - by bundling the 3 services together rather than only the 2 I would actually use. Ultimately saving $20/month off what I had been paying between Rogers analogue cable TV + acanac internet, before. I wasn't able to match apples at the Rogers website, I had to go in and talk to them. (They're nearby.) When I did, I found out Rogers is $10+/month cheaper than anything their web site says.

= for Bell, I got better results by building my own bundle. Watch when you shift service levels (e.g. 'deluxe' home phone vs plain), in doing so other options got automatically turned on. Having reduced service levels, I then had to be sure to go in to each option and turn off things that had been automatically turned on. I know you're not considering Bell, but what I'm saying is you may find manually building a bundle better for you, and make sure you check out each option, again, before clicking 'OK' - whatever the provider.

- I have seen vboxes on kijiji. You may be able to pick one up cheap and investigate, prior to any long term commitment. i.e. If you can't identify any API's by which MythTV can instruct the STB, you may decide that route is not for you. Even if you then resell the box you will probably have spent less than otherwise.

- from what I saw, vmedia has recently gone to a quad core box - I don't recall seeing any on kijiji, yet. I did conclude that if a provider site had an ability to control the box remotely, e.g. externally tell it to record a show via website, there is an API present that may be hackable. And without such, probably not. I don't know if the old and new boxes have different interfaces / APIs - I imagine if the web site lets you control the box remotely, and it asks you which box you have first, that should be a red flag that an old box purchased off kijiji, and a new box purchased directly from Vmedia, may require different API calls.

- I did the kijiji thing with Zazeen, before settling on Bell. I was able to scan the box and see nothing useful, nor any ability to control via website. Ultimately I found that not every channel has subtitles, and my experience going into Bell and Rogers and playing with their STBs showed that they did. Bell has the most intelligent UI / Guide, Rogers less so, Acanac almost as good as Bell, and everything was better than the standalone OTA box I had gotten and returned from Best Buy. (Forget which one, don't see it there now, Khalid has one, and what's there now is multiple hundreds of $ vs the $75 I would have paid then.) No UI matches the Tivo I got for OTA off eBay, nor my prior Panasonic PVR. VLC still beats them all.

= e.g. On my Tivo (which has YouTube and Neflix, if you want them) I can search, and it crosses all channels - e.g. it will record the first new episode of a show, regardless of the channel, and ignore the rest. Bell search does not cross channels, e.g. It will record the first new episode on each channel you've selected. I can wish list on Tivo and it will pick up matches, on Bell a show has to be in the guide before you can tell it to record them. Rogers had limited or no ability to search at all.

- the Acanac box would do zero until service activation. You may find the same with Vmedia. (But you should still be able to scan the box for ports and see if anything at all is open / comes back with anything. e.g. My Tivo box responds to a browser. Really plain, but indicates an underlying API is present. Which kmttg makes use of.) The Tivo box was expensive, but even now with only a few OTA channels, I don't regret the purchase.

- ultimately I concluded I would not exceed the capacity of the Bell box for recording. However, before deciding that, I had determined that MythTV was going to be part of the solution, and the only way that was going to work, regardless of the provider, is if I could pick up a https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_HD-PVR (NOT HD-PVR2!) off kijiji - to capture component + optical audio in. Controlled by the built in IR blaster. Sadly, I have seen none on kijiji anywhere near the K-W area. I still have a standing alert search for it on kijiji.

Good luck!

>________________________________
> From: Colin Mackay <zixiekat at gmail.com>
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 2:54 PM
>Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Vmedia IPTV & MythTV
> 
>
>
>Well, I am still considering it.  At the moment, I have no real TV, aside from 5 channels of OTA + some free streaming plugins for Kodi.  The $17.95 package from Vmedia isn't bad for price...
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>I also just realized that the wiki I posted doesn't look like the same box Vmedia uses as it says Europe / Australia. :p
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>Should I go through with it, I will let the list know what I managed to do... or not do. :D