“MythTV is a Linux based, multimedia software that allows you to view and record TV shows to your hard drive in the manner of Tivo, Windows Media Center and Beyond TV. MythTV recently released 0.20 version of their awesome TV/PVR/Multimedia Frontend software. I installed the latest version to see if it was really as good as it looks.”
Am I correct that one cannot use a cable card with MythTV as one can with MS media center?
Currently I have DTivo, so there’s no fiddling with controlling external tuners, etc. What are MythTV users doing to get really good quality video off of encrypted digital cable?
MCE 2005 doesn’t have support for CableCards either. Vista will have it however in the future. Currently if you want digital cable on MythTV or MCE 2005 you have to use a cable box and IR blasters.
So Vista will have this “trusted path” stuff to ensure that a user cannot fiddle with the cablecard, correct? So if you want quality all-digital recordings, you either have to go with the cableco’s PVR or MCE post-Vista… Lovely.
Have a search for mythtv and softcam
Have a search for mythtv and softcam
Softcam appears to be a software decryption doodad for european pay tv via satellite – seems like a different beast to me.
On dvbn.happysat.org there is an excellent discussion forum about linux PVR/sattelite software (mostly PVR and MythTV) and addons. Of course, site doesn’t contain nor links to any illegal stuff like keys. To my knowledge, also some north american sattelite channels/networks are hacked, some people were dsicussing about it.
While conceptually the same idea, softcam and CableCard are two totally different, incompatible mechanisms.
A very good review of MythTV features. But it would have been nice if the author had explained how he set up MythTV to work on his machine. Considering that setting up MythTV is quite problematic to the extent of sub projects having spawned such as knopmyth to make it easier….
The biggest improvement for me is now it doesn’t include the way that it occupied 100% of the CPU after running a couple of days.
Having set-up MythTV with both this version and the previous version. The hardest part of the setup is setting up the database(MySQL).
The second hardest part assuming you can get your card to work. Is configuring your card, and that this is ,tricky because it tries to account for every single possible setup
The third part is that MythTV is too clever for its own good, because it runs in two parts a viewer that can be on *any* machine and a backend on the machine that can record programs etc in the background. And you have to configure both. Its not one program its *two*
The final part of why its hard is you can configure *everything* thats without the 3rd party plugins that do far too much.
That said a working MythTV setup is WOW.
I’ve noticed another one of the harder parts of MythTV is that some distributions still do things slightly different than others, and not all Distributions have all the mythtv packages, or if they do, they are in 3rd party repositories.
Having that in mind, I recently had to re-install with the new MythTV upgrade (was running Debian Sid, but for some reason it always booted up and said the backend wasn’t running, even though it was.) Now I’m currently running FC5, but may eventually go to Ubuntu Edgy if 0.20 fully makes it in (right now the plugins still need to be packaged, but mythtv, mythtvfrontend and mythtv-backend are all packaged)
Myth TV looks awesome. Can anyone tell me the minimum & optimum hardware specs for a box dedicated to Myth TV? TIA.
My frontend/backend box (meaning the MythTV ‘server’ and the ‘viewer’ run on the same machine) is a Celeron 1.2GHz with 384MB RAM, Hauppauge PVR-250, 250GB hard drive and a GeForce 5700LE video card. I run MySQL on a separate server (PII 350MHz). For those having difficulty with setting up the database part, use a virtual appliance like the MySQL appliance available from http://virtualappliances.net.
The MythTV box does get a little jittery when the IPG information is being updated but aside from that, it plays and records regular NTSC content happily. I should note, I am also using XvMC (Xvideo Motion Compensation, which is hardware acceleration for MPEG-2 playback) so that helps with CPU usage.
If I had a bigger budget, I’d separate the frontend from the backend. Keep the existing hardware for the backend and add a high(er) performance front end perhaps diskless and with a better video card with component output.
Hope this helps!
First, check http://www.mythtv.org for details about requirements.
Capturing analog TV is possible with quite wimpy systems.
HDTV capture can be tricky to configure, but the main hardware issue is the need for lots and lots of disk space. HDTV playback takes significant CPU power.
I just upgraded to 0.20, and am impressed by the new features. Saving a recording to DVD no longer requires sacrificing a goat. I’m using two HDTV tuners, and the results are stunning.
If you stay with suggested HW, analog TV is easy to set up. Using odd HW is possible, but takes effort. HDTV is bleeding edge, but worth it.
If you want an appliance, buy or rent one. MythTV is a hobby, like woodworking or gardening. You spend time and money on hobbies because they’re fun.
MythTV is a hobby, like woodworking or gardening. You spend time and money on hobbies because they’re fun.
I disagree with that. I use MythTV because it saves me LOTS of time. I compiled my entire MythTV box on my own custom Linux, and yet I was repayed several times the time it took to make the box.
So I spent time on MythTV because it was a very good investment.
There is a visual plugin for MythMusic that displays cover art. I know as I saw it again this morning.
The reviewer has obviously never used TiVo. The others just don’t compare past the very basics of TV recording. TiVo is so much better than the others that it isn’t funny.