Building a Linux PVR Part I - MythTV Setup and Install
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 3, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Final Thoughts
And finally, after several hours of turmoil and despair, we have installed and tested our Linux device. Its far from perfect - we cannot readily work with digital TV broadcasts, for example. What we do have is a machine that will readily emulate all of the basic Windows MCE or TiVo functionality at a reduced cost - and we can hack/configure/manipulate it to any extent that we wish to in the future. On the downside, it did take us over four hours to set up and install everything.Another item to consider in our cumulative upcoming comparison is that you cannot easily (legally?) scrap together some hardware and install Windows MCE on it. We can do some neat things with programs like BeyondTV and SageTV, but we are not given the full experience of Windows MCE (and certainly not for free).
Other drawbacks of MCE devices include the inability to play back the video content on anything but other MCE devices, and the inability to re-render the recorded files into a different format to save space. With MythTV and Linux, on the other hand, we can capture, re-encode and playback on completely separate machines, even Windows systems. For the truly crafty, Myth allows us to connect the front end of a different machine to the first MythTV system and play video files/streams in that manner.
These are all functionality comparisons that we will get into more in Part II, so stay tuned and get ready to see if our little Linux experiment can take on Microsoft's best.
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NullSpin - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
I can't tell you how long I have been waiting for this article. I have been waiting to buy components for almost a year but did not want to wade into this project with no idea of what hardware was reccomended. I'm also really interested in seeing the process of adding an nfs server into the mix for additional storage.Maybe you could price out a 'quiet' system and the various form factors for htpc's.
Can't wait for part deux.
NS
sisyphus - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
I have just one thing to say about MythTV:http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
Save yourself some time and grief!
Use KnoppMyth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nnyan - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Just had another thought, how does MythTV compare to other applications like Freevo?griffy - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Great job, thanks.In your next article, could you let us know a little more why you chose the hardware you did, and maybe what you think the minimum might be?
Thanks
archcommus87 - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Wow, goes to show me that there are still topics out there I know NOTHING about. Most of this article was over my head. Is that because I'm not familiar with Linux or something else?Just the whole part about getting the card setup, the commands to run, the Myth database, etc. WHOOSH.
Resh - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Thanks for replying Kris, but your reply makes me cry. My Hitachi doesn't have a DVI or VGA-in so unless I can get the TV-out on the vid card to work under Linux, I'm dead in the water.If anyone has seen any good directions on making Suse, Fedora, or Mandrake work with the TV-out on currently available nVidia card or Radeon 8500, please let me know! llama at rogers dot com
Kris, if you can cover this in the next, or a third, I'd have your children (although my wife might object). ;-)
Thanks!
Nnyan - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Cool article. My only complaint is that I would have liked to have read which distros DID work well with MythTV and perphaps the PVR-250. Perphaps in part 2?Thanks to skeptic for the mention of KnoppMyth distro.
JoeNiner - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Please please please include a KnoppMyth install in a follow up!KristopherKubicki - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Resh: We only used a PVR-250, so there is no passthrough. We just hooked the DVI out on our GeForce card up to the TV :)Kristopher
meksta - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
mythTV is perhaps the most versatile piece of software I have come across. You can build a system for cheaper if you want. I am running myth on a XP2500+ cpu and Chaintech 7nif2 mobo (built-in s-video out). I also run two el-cheapo tv tuner cards for some simultaneous recordings.With a PVR250, that does hardware encoding, you really don't need a kick ass cpu at all.
I agree it takes a while to set up. But once I had it up and running...it's been happily stable since.