[PLUG] Using a HDHomeRun with VLC on Linux

[TuskenTower <tuskentower@gmail.com>]

This topic came up at the last PLUG West meeting.  Bhaskar asked about
using VLC with the HDHomeRun without using MythTV.

I was going to have a fun time learning this except, the wheel has
already been built.

1) Use apt/synaptic to get the hdhomerun_config utility.
OR you can download and compile it from
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/downloads

2) Upgrade your firmware, The most recent release is 20090305a (from
the downloads link above).  The forum thread link (below) about
'unknown channelmap 'default' error' is the error that you will get
when the channel map has not been set.  Looking through the minimal
Mac GUI that automates this (there are sources for a GTK GUI, but I
didn't check for it in the repos) I see four options: 'us-bcast',
'us-cable', 'us-hrc' and 'us-irc'.  Set the right one for your use.
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6330

3) This older post covers everything else that anyone needs to do to
watch TV via VLC.
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1924


This is the help from the HDHR
$ hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF get help
Supported configuration options:
  /tuner<n>/channel <modulation>:<freq|ch>     Get/set modulation and frequency
  /tuner<n>/channelmap <channel map>           Get/set channel to frequency map
  /tuner<n>/filter 0x<nnnn>-0x<nnnn> [...]     Get/set PID filter
  /tuner<n>/program <program number>           Get/set MPEG program filter
  /tuner<n>/target <ip>:<port>                 Get/set target IP for tuner
  /tuner<n>/status                             Display status of tuner
  /tuner<n>/streaminfo                         Display stream info
  /tuner<n>/debug                              Display debug info for tuner
  /tuner<n>/lockkey                            Set/clear tuner lock
  /ir/target <ip>:<port>                       Get/set target IP for IR
  /lineup/location <countrycode>:<postcode>    Get/set location for lineup
  /lineup/location disabled                    Disable lineup server connection
  /sys/model                                   Display model name
  /sys/features                                Display supported features
  /sys/version                                 Display firmware version
  /sys/copyright                               Display firmware copyright
  /sys/debug                                   Display debug info

I noticed these two help lines are missing from the new firmware:
  Supported modulation types: 8vsb qam qam64 qam256
  Supported channel maps: default us-bcast us-cable us-irc us-hrc

Ah, I see its in the /sys/features
$ hdhomerun_config 1014350D get /sys/features
channelmap: us-bcast us-cable us-hrc us-irc
modulation: 8vsb qam256 qam64
auto-modulation: auto auto6t auto6c qam

The HDHR Dev Guide (see
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/instructions) covers the use of
the utilities.  You can use the tools to capture an MPEG stream too.

Neat stuff,
Amul
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