virtualbox.org

Hi I'm wondering if this is possible?

I run a Ceton TV card in my machine that handles all my Cable/DVR duties, and I use it with Windows Media Center exclusively. I'd like to get away from a windows machine for my everyday use however. So what I was thinking of doing is switching to a Linux distro for my host OS and running a stripped down/minimalist WIN7 with WMC for my TV/DVR use. Easy enough to do, and not the root of my question.

My question is, is it possible to set up and configure a virtualbox guest OS like I described above with all the things I want and configured the way I like on my current Windows 7 host OS, and then wipe my main HDD (all virtualbox host OS files will be on a slave drive obviously) and install the Linux Host OS of my choice, install virtualbox on my new super snazzy host Linux OS, and then boot my already configured Win7 Guest OS?

Is this possible? Would I run into a crap ton of issues?

Also, please just answer whether or not this is possible and why you think it would/wouldn't work. I'm not looking for other "solutions" to my TV/DVR setup. Thanks.

I think it is most unlikely to work. A vm does not have direct access to special hardware devices in the host machine. It is always best to run software which uses things like TV tuners directly from the host OS.

BillG wrote:I think it is most unlikely to work. A vm does not have direct access to special hardware devices in the host machine. It is always best to run software which uses things like TV tuners directly from the host OS.

Damn I think you might be right. That's no good for me though I don't think. I can't stream live TV to my Xbox360 without the use of Windows Media Center. At least I don't think I can.


EDIT: I just found where someone was able to "network" their Ceton PCIe card in order for their VM to see it. If I can do that I think I might be in business. Hrmmm... this is getting complicated though. And apparently the Linux Drivers don't support DRM so I might not be able to stream all my channels. Although, it depends on where the DRM decoding would take place. If it happens in the windows VM then I should be ok, if not I'm screwed.

There are too many variables here. Anyone else have any insight in this?