Want to run MythTV but don't have the energy to install Linux? I can't help you with that, but if you've already got a MythTV system up and running and you'd like to be able to watch recordings on your Windows machine, you're in luck.
MythTV Player is a PC-based program that lets you watch videos stored on your MythTV backend box. It's not a full frontend, but simply a way to access your recordings. There's support for MythTV bookmarks, skipping commercials, and you can delete recordings using the player.
MythTV versions 0.18 to 0.20.1 are currently supported.
If you like the sound of a fully customizable PVR that runs on open source software and comes with very few restrictions then MythTV could be just your thing. Unfortunately to run MythTV you need to be pretty technically minded and good at building a PC from scratch as well as setting up Linux software.
Fortunately for those of you that like an easier ride you can get a MythTV PVR that is pre-built and ready to use from Monolith, a company that specializes in pre-built MythTV PVRs. Here is what Monolith have available:
MonolithMC This is the entry level MythTV PVR which costs $699 plus shipping. It has one analog TV Tuner, a remote control, an IR Blaster for channel changing, a built in Dual Layer 16x DVD Burner, and a 200GB hard drive.
MonolithMC DT This is pretty much the same as the MonolithMC but with an additional Hauppauge MPEG2 NTSC tuner allowing you to record two channels at once. The cost is $799 plus shipping.
MonolithMC HD The MonolithMC HD is the top of the range Monolith MythTV media center designed for High Definition video. It features an analog tuner for recording satellite or digital cable, and a digital tuner for recording OTA and QAM channels in HD format. It also features a DVI cable for connection to a HDTV, a 500GB hard drive and Digital S/PDIF outputs for 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. The MonlithMC HD costs $999 plus shipping.
To spark a bit of Windows vs. Linux action Tvease has posted a visual comparison of the Windows Media Center GUI and the MythTV GUI. You can instantly see some very strong similarities and where MCE might appear more visually appealing in one area (e.g audio), Myth TV is more appealing in another (e.g images).
However overall I think MCE has a slightly better look and feel, but so it should given the money gone into it compared to the open source MythTV project. Although MCE does look slightly better I would have to admit the functionality and customizability of MythTV is much better than with MCE.
Interested in setting up a MythTV system but scared of Linux command lines? MythPVR has an easy-to-follow walkthrough on installing MythTV using Mythdora.
Mythdora 3.0 is the first complete MythTV distribution to use MythTV 0.20. Don't get scared by the low version number there, MythTV is already a pretty full-featured and stable PVR suite.
All you need to do to install Mythdora is download and burn the DVD image to a disc. Put that disc into your drive, reboot your computer, and you've got the option of reformatting your hard drive or creating a dual boot system. This walkthrough assumes you're going to make this into a dedicated MythTV system, so goes for the reformat. Creating a dual boot system is a bit more complex.
Anyway, Mythdora is based on Fedora Core 5, and will install a fully usable operating system on your PC, but if you're dedicating this machine to multimedia, you can choose to instlall the full MythTV frontend and backend, and never really even think about the rest of the operating system.
For the most part, all you have to do during the installation process is click a few buttons saying you agree with the license, input your time and time zone, IP address, and graphics and TV tuner cards. Once you've got Mythdora installed, there's a screencast to walk you through the setup and configuration process to make sure you can actually you know, watch and record TV programs and all that good stuff.
Before getting started, be sure to make sure you've got compatible hardware.
I've been keeping an eye on the MediaREADY line for a while now, and while they always seem to do a nice job of throwing a bunch of features into a compact package, it's always seemed like you could build a better system yourself for less money. I'm not sure that's true anymore.
For $899, you get a Linux-based box, that appears to run a version of MythTV, with:
An Intel 2.8GHz processor (It doesn't say what kind of processor, but I'm going to guess P4)
512MB of RAM
200GB hard drive
DVD/CD playback
Support for MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, DiVX, CD, WAV, MP3, FLAC, VORBIs, and AAC
Networking via 802.11b/g or ethernet
USB/Firewire
S-Video, VGA, DVI, S/PIDF and RCA outputs
An RF keyboard and IR remote control, both of which have a built-in trackball
A web browser, email client, IM, and optional Skype software
The MediaREADY MC will ship during the first quarter of 2007.
Here is another great reason to own a MythTV PVR; you can turn it into a Slingbox so you can stream your TV over the internet to any other internet enabled video player such as a laptop, PC, or PMP.
By installing MythStreamTV, a module for the MythWeb interface to MythTV, you will have an extra option in your MythWeb homepage. From that page you can then go on to select what you want to watch.
Unlike the Slingbox, MythStreamTV won't automatically decide what bitrate to use so you will have to set this manually and experiment a little bit. Also the user interface is pretty basic but as a handy free feature I wouldn't be too bothered about that.
MythTV, the open source Linux PVR software gives you a huge amount of options for customization, but it's not always the most straight forward thing to use.
ExtremeTech.com have published an extensive guide on how to export and convert recordings from your MythTV PVR to other devices. The guide is an excerpt from the ExtremeTech book, Hacking MythTV.
The 5 page guide covers:
How to browse your recordings outside MythTV and make sense of them based on filename alone
MythTV's Recording Profiles,
Specific details on Export for Burning to DVD, Video CD, iPod, and More
Configuring Third-Party Components as Post-Processing Jobs and;
Being able to watch your home recordings anywhere in the world is becoming more popular with products such as Slingbox and Sony LocationFree. However if you own a MythTV PVR then there is a way to do this without these internet streaming products.
MythTV records programs into large MPEG2 files which can be streamed around the house using a wireless connection. The next logical step is to get your TV recordings streamed over the net.
This tutorial from DVR playground shows you how to stream your recorded shows over the internet using the VideoLAN client (VLC). It will transcode the MPEG2 files into "stream friendly" MPEG1 files and transmit them over a HTTP connection to any internet enabled video playing device.
Posted Nov 15th 2006 11:59PM by Chris Tew Filed under: MythTV
Here is the Hannibal PVR, a media center PC packed with features that costs only $550. It uses myth TV and has native 1080i output, is wireless out of the box, can rip DVDs, has built in torrent support, has 7.1 Dolby support, and can supposedly play any media format.
You can see a full list of features listed here, you may quickly notice there is one very important thing missing, a TV tuner card.
So unfortunately this PVR is not ready to run, but according to a post on Digg you can just drop your chosen TV tuner card in and be ready to go.
One of the biggest turn offs people have when trying to build their own PVR is that things can get complicated quickly, especially if you use a Linux based software solution. Heck, even for the seasoned PVR builders amongst us, we know that configuring everything just right can be a huge hassle and time sink.
Well if you have ever wanted to try and build your own MythTV box, you should really check out this great MythTV Ubuntu Installation Guide. This guide uses the latest release of Ubuntu (6.10 Edgy Eft) for the base system, and the tuner card of choice used is a Hauppauge Nova-T card, so most of the drivers are already built into Ubuntu.
The guide is split into several sections which makes it easier to follow, and it has quite a few screen shots which always makes things go smoother. Also make sure to check out part two of the guide which includes the steps involved with getting remotes, MythWeb and MythVideo all working.
Guides like these are always welcomed in the community, especially to those who are new to the subject. Part 1 of the guide can be found here, and part two can be found here.
One of the best features of MythTV, the open source DIY Linux PVR software, is its ability to completely skip commercials without any human input.
This is something that mainstream PVRs have shied away from in fear of lawsuits from TV networks. After all they get enough stick over the fast forwarding feature.
MythTV uses a very impressive system to detect adverts and is generally very accurate. It uses the following three criteria to score video segments as being commercial breaks:
Fade to Black: Often just before advertisements start and end there is a short fade to black. This can help identify adverts but can also produce false negatives from fade to black scenes within TV shows.
Frequent Scene Transitions: By detecting regular changes in scenes (high contrast image changes) MythTV can help pinpoint a block of commercials. Commercial breaks generally contain several frequent scene changes every 30 seconds over a short period of time.
TV Station Logo Disappearing: Quite often TV networks have a watermarked logo in the corner of the screen to help brand their station. This disappears during commercial breaks so can be used to detect them.
Take a look at the video below to see MythTV's commercial skip in action.
As some of you have surely noticed, we recently launched a new feature: Media Center Edition Plugin Spotlight. Although we are currently only focusing on MCE plugins, there are a lot of other homebrew PVR solutions which also support plugins.
On that note, Tom's Hardware has a put together a nice, little six page article that highlights 13 official plugins for MythTV.
MythTV for those who may not know is by many accounts the leading software for a free, do-it-yourself PVR solution. Although it may be a little more complicated to set up than other PVR solutions (due in large to the fact that it is Linux based), it is still one of the most developed and versatile packages out there.
Some of the plugins showcased include MythDVD (a DVD ripping and playback solution), MythNews (a RSS aggregator) and MythWeather (a plugin that displays weather forecasts, similar to MCEWeather which we spotlighted last week).
It's quite nice to see that a lot of the software based PVR solutions allow for development from the community. Because of this development we are given options to not only add to the software, but we are also given the opportunity to turn our PVRs into true media centers.
The worlds favorite homebrew Linux PVR solution has just received an update. Version 0.20 of MythTV was released today and houses an abundance of changes. The release notes are pretty extensive, but the major changes can be found below:
Added MythArchive plugin for archiving recorded shows
Menus are now drawn by MythUI using OpenGL. This option can be enabled/disabled in the Appearance settings
Improved internal DVD player - now supporting menus and other missing features
Added MHEG content implementation (Interactive TV in UK)
Added Hotplug support for removable media in Media Monitor and MythGallery
Added support for the HDHomeRun encoding device
Added support for basic FreeBox recorders
Added support for H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) TS decoding
Added an MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC IP network recorder
Added internal UPnP server support for TV and Music
Added experimental second commercial detector
New socket class for backend communications
OSD image cache which improves channel changing speed
Fixed program transition while Watching LiveTV
Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
Support for DVB radio channels and guide data collected via EIT for them
Added mouse support in menus, including gestures
The new version is available for download from the MythTV website in the downloads section. The site is currently running very slowly, which is probably on account of this release being Slashdotted.
If you're in the market for a homegrown Linux PVR, don't have the extra cash to buy something like a Monolith Media Center and have the gumption to put it all together yourself, you'll be very interested in KnoppMyth.
KnoppMyth is a distribution developed by Cecil Watson in an effort to greatly simplify the Linux and MythTV installation process. The most recent version (Release 5 D1) was posted on the My Settop Box site and an extensive listing of changes can be found in this changelog.
The site also houses an active forum should you run into problems building your box.
I can't say I've tried this myself, but the more I read about MythTV the more interested I get in putting one of these together. If and when this occurs, I'll definitely go the KnoppMyth route.
Okay, so here's the thing about MythTV. It runs on Linux. And here's the thing about Linux, people can spend all the time they want arguing about why it hasn't become more popular, but the truth is, it still seems too complicated for many users. Sure, you can slap Ubuntu onto your desktop and get a nice clean, easy to understand interface. But to really make any Linux distribution your own, you have to know how to get under the hood.
Nicholas Petreley over at Linux Journal has an essay about his experiences putting together a MythTV box. By all accounts, this is one of the most powerful software packages you can use for building a HTPC. But installing it is not for the faint of heart.
And to be honest, I'm not sure it should be. If you want something that's easy to to set up for your grandmother, go with Windows MCE, SageTV, or BeyondTV. Or you could even buy a pre-configured MythTV box (although that could be asking for trouble if something goes wrong with it). MythTV, like most Linux applications, is best suited to power-users who not only know how to play around under the hood, but want to.
Arguing about whether Linux is ready for prime time is one thing. But I think it's a bit silly to argue about whether a free (as in software, not free as in beer -- although it is that too) PVR software package for Linux is ready for the masses.
If you like the sound of a fully customizable PVR that runs on open source software and comes with very few restrictions then 
To spark a bit of Windows vs. Linux action 
Okay, so here's the thing about MythTV. It runs on Linux. And here's the thing about Linux, people can spend all the time they want arguing about why it hasn't become more popular, but the truth is, it still seems too complicated for many users. Sure, you can slap Ubuntu onto your desktop and get a nice clean, easy to understand interface. But to really make any Linux distribution your own, you have to know how to get under the hood.
