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- riskable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I would consider myself a MythTV expert: I run it at home on two boxes (one box is front-end only), I've given presentations on it for two years now, and I'm always keeping up/trying out all the latest PVR software. My MythTV back-end box has a PVR-250 installed and I've tried SageTV, BeyondTV (Snapstream), Freevo, MCE, and some other more obscure PVR setups.
Here's the lowdown:
MythTV is by far the most feature-packed.
SageTV is probably the best PVR for Windows (better than MCE since it lets you transcode your shows however you like)
Freevo is the most modifiable in the customization dept (anyone with a text editor can change the look & feel)
MythTV is the most complex out of all of them--but this is because of it's feature set. It does fniggin' everything. Because of this, setting up MythTV on an existing Linux distribution can be a time-consuming process and newbies to Linux can run into one hell of a learning curve. This can be helped considerably if you start with something like Knoppmyth. Also note that if you take the time to setup Gentoo, it is probably the easiest to use with MythTV ("emerge lirc ivtv mythtv" and you're 90% done!)
What it comes down to is that because MythTV is so modular, the most basic setup requires that you install a 3rd party module in your distribution (for the tuner card and remote control), install MySQL, and perform basic Linux troubleshooting (which isn't hard since Linux gives you great error messages, but it can be frustrating to a newbie since they don't know where to look).
Once you get MythTV up and running, it will blow your mind. Anything you could want to do with it, you can. For example, my MythTV box is an arcade machine, a music/video/TV show jukebox, a movie time viewer (think movietickets.com), an RSS news reader, a weather station (with real-time animated maps), and it is also my "general linux server/router" for the house (snort intrusion detection/prevention, Asterisk/VoIP server, firewall, transparent proxy w/anti-virus, storage server, music server, and more). What is funny is that I'm using all this functionality and I'm only scratching the surface of what you can do with a MythTV box.
I even wrote a script that uses MythTV's on-screen display to tell me when I have voicemail waiting in my email inbox. It is that flexible.
-Riskable
http://www.riskable.com
"I have a license to kill -9" - alienos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well when you compare installing/configuring the Ubuntu/MythTV setup to "insert CD, next, next, next, finish".. DONE! I would say it's a bit harder wouldn't you? I run MythTV on my Gentoo server at home along with Snort, Apache, MythWeb, Samba, etc, but come on you can't honestly say that this is "easy" when compared to a Windows Media Center setup?
This is a great setup for the "hobbyist", but it's not for your average Windows user. - tylerman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I digg this
MCE is laggy on the tv side
when I use the 9600xt's tvsoftware its right no the money no reason for there to be lag when switching channels - xiangxianni, on 03/24/2009, -0/+1Yea KnoppMyth is the easiest way...may not be the best, as it isn't tailored to your system, but it is very easy to install and maintain.
http://www.windows7home.net
You can go windows 7 home to find more useful information - wilf_brim, on 11/12/2007, -2/+3Thanks. Now I am absolutely convinced that there is no way no God's green earth I could ever get a Myth box running. Hello, Windows Media Center.
- SatansSpatula, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Liar, you spend all day on Digg, and you know it!
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http://www.tips5.com - ToddCostella, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php is a better guide for folks trying to get thier Myth box configured.
- forrest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0dugg for being a thorough walkthru, tho
- barbobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I spent a couple months trying mythtv and freevo with fedora, mepis, knoppmyth, etc and finally found an os that worked with all my hardware and supported all the software I needed."
Once again the old saying is true: "Linux is easy, if it isnt easy, you are doing something wrong." - ahmadster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I got MythTV running on Gentoo PVR-500 MCE 1 serial port infrared led controlling TWO dish network 301 receviers. It works like a charm. I was a DirecTivo user and I'm totally hooked on MythTV.
Best feature:
- Auto commercial detection and skip.
- Much more powerfull recording (won't record re-runs, Tivo Did)
- Zoom and Pan live video
- PCHDTV 3000 works
Worst bugs:
- When watching half way in the show, hit record, won't record from begining.
- Forgets buffer when switching turners.
- Guide has normal TVGuide-like layout (Tivo show guid is the best).
No LIRC mess, used an infrared keyboard and a learning remote, best move I have done, dumped DirecTivo, I watch BridgesTV now AND I have PVR, shweeeeet! - Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I find Knoppmyth is the the easiest way to install MythTV on a computer:
http://www.mysettopbox.tv
Although, with that said there is usually some tweaking involved and command line unix experience helps (although building a mythtv box is how I learned my command line unix...) The people on the forums at the same site are extremely helpful, and there's even a wiki:
http://knoppmythwiki.org - DjinnX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Right on forrest, I have tried Myth,SageTv, Freevo, Meedio, Beyond Tv, GB-pvr. On windows and Linux. And i found Myth to be the most difficult to use. I love that its free, and powerful. But too much work. Iam an IT guy and when i get home I dont want to setup all that crap. So I instead use SageTv on Windows Xp wich I have found to be very nice and extremely flexible. I would love to use my AMD 64 to its max potential with the Ubuntu, etc setup but the program compatibility and ease of setup keep me away.
- tmanka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thanks Josh, I will look into it more....
- Protoss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yea KnoppMyth is the easiest way...may not be the best, as it isn't tailored to your system, but it is very easy to install and maintain.
- Beanlover, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I believe a channel can be both "cable-only" and "must-carry" but I could be wrong. Usually these are the same channels you can get over the air but not always.
- matts0344, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Are their any advantages to using MythTV rather than Windows Media Center? (just wondering, cause I'm thinking about setting something like this up.
Myth supports extending to other tvs right? (if you have another Myth PC on a network of course.)
WMC seems easier to me to setup so I was just wondering the pros and cons of both.
I'm going to wait for tuners with cable card support anyway so I can get rid of my cable box for right now. - JoshNelson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey tmanka, it says "the FCC has mandated that must carry channels be sent unencrypted out the firewire port of new cable boxes". This is news to me, but the "must carry channels" are basically anything you can get over the air with an antenna, so this is basically all your local channels, none of the "cable" channels.
- SweetsGreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0cool, but I"ll stick with my tivo
- luke--, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ahmadster , if you're still reading this I'd really like to get some info on how you got your PVR-500 MCE working. I have a system with a working 350 and mythtv on it but I've also got a pvr-500 mce just laying around that I can not get working. There's no links in your blog or comments in there.........see my profile and leave a comment on my blog if you want to help me out...
- aiiee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ahmadster said: "- Much more powerfull recording (won't record re-runs, Tivo Did)"
Tivo Series 2 can be set to only record new show, no reruns, with Season Pass - forrest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Linux is easy, if it isnt easy, you are doing something wrong."
It wasn't that it was hard...just time consuming. And I couldn't find any one *nix flavor that did everything I needed, so I got back in bed with the devil.
@djinnx: SageTV, eh? I've been using GBPVR, but I'll give that one a shot too. - lonegeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I use gbpvr on windows xp pro...I was planning on building a mythtv box but my hardware wouldnt work.
gbpvr is great but is slow on anything under 1.6ghz or so....Im running it on a celeron 800 with 384mb of ram...! Its just a little jumpy when turning channels...BUt its insanely easy to get going and has a great community that is constatnly developing new plugins and themes for it! - linuxrebel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0
Thanks. Now I am absolutely convinced that there is no way no God's green earth I could ever get a Myth box running. Hello, Windows Media Center.
Don't listen to M$ you aren't that dumb. For the easy version. Go here.
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
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Buy TV Cheap Panasonic LCD HDTV - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0KnoppMyth is so far behind times that it doesn't even do whats needed furthermore It sucks so bad XMBC is so far above this in looks feel and fuctions. Myth TV is a joke by all means !!!
better know mysql
better be able to trouble shoot all twelve programs that it takes to run the damn thing
better have some $300 computer setting around (i do but that does't count)
Make sure your depends are correct!
***** THAT !!! - stalinvlad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Do me a favour!
A PVR box with DVB-T decoder is about £130 in the UK
Why would I put a fireside P-4 powered ugly *NIX or MCE box next to my TV if I could have that or sky+ for a few quid a month?
Let me buy missed episodes from iTunes for a few pence, and free up my living room+ brain from this PVR tosh! - geckofiend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0- When watching half way in the show, hit record, won't record from begining.
Not in .19.
- Forgets buffer when switching turners.
Not in .19
- Guide has normal TVGuide-like layout (Tivo show guid is the best).
Get an HDTV or other widescreen and see how you feel. Tivo's guide is horrid IMO. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0We are talking about a damn pvr people why.....why...is this so damn hard if my 40yr old tv can display in real time come on!!!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0posted by geckofiend : "You can't compare Myth or MCE to a boxed PVR"
I will buy one of those any-day or a all in wonder !.....yes you can compare those! - resounder, on 03/24/2009, -0/+0Actually, I think linux and unix are the wave of the future if they aren't already. This is an excellent example of why "linux/unix" enables a person who wants to build on anything like their OS.
When you implement limitations on a OS to the end user and confide them to first and third party paid applications and force them to only use specific first and third party applications on a user then you inhibit the personal creativity and genius of software/hardware architecture development on an individual basis and leave it to a limited spectrum of individuals in a first and third party world of development.
Furthermore, I think if you allow a primary OS to dominate and it is not open source then you may be opening a door for third party vendors only to port and sell applications for that primary OS locking other OS's out of the market for that product and forcing users to buy that primary OS just to be able to use that third party product. It's of my opinion and I think that this is and has been being done for a very long time.
I think I've heard over and over again when I said "why don't you get a linux/unix system" and they would say that the application that I am required to use at work will not work or is not ported to a linux/unix system or available out of box on a linux/unix system and I need to use what they have at work.
What and where are the standards? I think open source has been the new and exciting frontier for the creative minds that want to create and use it. I think there are alot of new applications that are or once open source that are being used on alot of first party OS's. Well then where did this new frontier all begin?
Look, I recently had a discussion about LCD and Plasma TVS and what was the best one. Well, the downgrade to the plasma TV was the weight to that of a LCD TV. The same sized Plasma TV weighed almost 100 pounds as the same size LCD TV that weighed about 50 pounds. Also, even though the plasma TV picture seemed better (brighter) the life span of average use for the picture of a Plasma TV I think was about 5 years and the average use for the LCD TV was about 7 years.
The TV I ended up getting can be found at http://buydealscheap.com under the location http://plasma-tvs.buydealscheap.com at http://plasma-tvs.buydealscheap.com/02-LCD_TVs.htm ... for a Sharp LC-37SH12U and it has lots of capabilities. Yes, of course I wanted to buy a cheap deal on the best LCD or Plasma TV I could find but I also wanted it to work with my computer and PC too.
So once I got the LCD TV I did a test. My goal was to see if I could play movies on my out of box Unix system and at the same time use the 37 Inch LCD TV as a display for my computer. To my surprise after hooking up my monitor cable to the LCD TV the computer screen came up in HDTV on the LCD TV with keyboard and mouse functionality. I then put a DVD Movie in and to my surprise again the movie played with sound and all!
Anyways, using the computer is good now and I only use my Linux and Unix system when I can. I grudgingly use the other PC OS only if I have to for OS dependent applications that are not installed or ported to my Linux and Unix systems like when someone sends me an attachment from one of those other PC OS systems that I can't bring up or open on the Linux/Unix system. I actually could if I installed some more open source and not third party paid software but I have not gotten around to it yet. I get tired of spoon feeding the PC OS's out of box problems that never seem to end.
Have you hugged your Linux/Unix today?! They can be Virus free too! - atomx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The biggest problem with MythTV is simply that it's Linux.
And (waiting for the flames here), the biggest problem with Linux is that 90% of the world's modern hardware *won't friggin work*. So unless you choose your hardware specifically for Linux support, the odds are that you'll either spend hours and hours trying to find some barely-supported P.O.S. driver with no documentation, or you'll just be S.O.L.
Every single time I think "I'll try Linux, it MUST be better by now..." I run into this same problem. Unless you custom build your system just to run Linux, expect to spend hours -- or days, or weeks -- tracking down and troubleshooting drivers. Expect your sound system to always be flakey and slightly weird. Expect to never be able to FULLY exploit your hot-shot graphics card. Expect DVD's to sometimes just inexplicably not play...
And you know, if you post about this, you get flamed. You're called a shill for Microsoft. You're called an idiot. You're told about how "Linux is so easy. My system has been running for 194 years with no problems, you retard." You're basically made to feel like a fool just because you'd *rather be using your system than fiddling with it*.
I'm hardly a newby -- I'm a kernel coder, a hacker, and have used *nix'es for a long, long time. Even with all that, I have to agree with forrest; I spend all damn day working on code and troubleshooting bugs. I have *no interest* in doing that just to watch TV and record some shows. I was about ten minutes away from just giving in and buying a TiVo before I discovered SageTV on my XP box. And, wonder of wonders, it *just works*. It ain't perfect -- there are loads of bugs and it sometimes runs inexplicably slow, but it's never once crashed, trashed a recording, or anything like that. I don't have to come home from my programming job and write 100 lines of code just to watch House... I just click play and tune out the world.
When, oh when, will Linux and all of its major apps (of which I consider MythTV one -- the hype is that it's the "answer to TiVo") work like that? Until that day, Linux will just be an obscure hacker's OS -- useful for server rooms and for a handful of geeks to brag about from their mother's basement, but a useless paperweight for the rest of us who'd like to actually USE our computers.
Grr. Needed to rant. - geckofiend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0tmanka said "Interesting comment that all new cable boxes must send unencrypted
signal through firewire. I wonder if there is a way to offload the
encoding back to the pchd 3000 after it goes through the firewire to
preserve the digital signal?"
There's no encoding needed it's a digital signal. - geckofiend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0stalinvlad said "Do me a favour!
A PVR box with DVB-T decoder is about £130 in the UK
Why would I put a fireside P-4 powered ugly *NIX or MCE box next to my TV if I could have that or sky+ for a few quid a month?
Let me buy missed episodes from iTunes for a few pence, and free up my living room+ brain from this PVR tosh!
"
You can't compare Myth or MCE to a boxed PVR any more than you can compare a bicycle to a motorcycle. As for appearances, they make cases designed for home theater use that look rather nice...
Oh and: Missed episodes from iTunes have horrible quality when viewed on anything other than an ipod. - irabinovitch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0KnoppMyth is a MythTV and Knoppix bootable cd. Their developers will be exhibiting at SCALE 4x: http://www.socallinuxexpo.org
- tmanka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Interesting comment that all new cable boxes must send unencrypted signal through firewire. I wonder if there is a way to offload the encoding back to the pchd 3000 after it goes through the firewire to preserve the digital signal?
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I'm in need of some advice here. I'm looking to make a purchasing decision in the next couple of days. I'm trying to decide between LinuxMCE (MythTV) and SageTV. Looks like they can the same thing with MythTV having the greater feature set and its free. I'm not a programmer but fairly techie so I'm not afraid of a bit of work.
But I'm nervous about all the negative comments about MythTV. Is it really reliable and solid? I'm planning to install this for my wife and kids so it can't be a big bust. It just needs to work.
Thank you,
Kurt - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"I find Knoppmyth is the the easiest way to install MythTV on a computer:"
Trash Knopmyth is trash point blank!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - forrest, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I spent a couple months trying mythtv and freevo with fedora, mepis, knoppmyth, etc and finally found an os that worked with all my hardware and supported all the software I needed.
xp pro.
I spend all day writing code - when I get home NO MORE CODING!!! I just want games and tv without having to engineer a system. - heyitsmedusty, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0OLD site, no digg. (not really, i just want to seem like every other person who leaves comments on digg.)
- mcaaronice, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Hey tweekster,
In middle school, I learned to spell it "truly". - Tweekster, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Wilf_Brim:
You honestly cant follow those steps? im truely sorry, exactly what grade of middle school did you drop out of.
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