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I started with a 1.33GHz Athlon, and:

• bought a $110 Hauppauge PVR-350 card from Amazon,
• threw in 512Mb ram, and an 80Gb hdd I had laying around,
• downloaded and burnt the open-source software to CD,
• set up a free schedule-downloading account at Zap2it,
• plugged in the cable, rebooted...

You can use Media Portal if you're on XP, or Knoppmyth if you want a completely different OS.

They can alter my DVR when they pry it from my cold dead hands!

Sounds like an interesting book, but I still plan on not buying an XBox of any sort. I am just happy with my KnoppMyth distribution, which also comes with MAME. I can still kick your ass in Asteroids.

Great job hacking Microsoft's Unhackable 360! Looking at the instructions, it seems a rather complex hoop jump, and if that's the case -- I'll stick with KnoppMyth and MAME.

High Def, huh? That's cool, but all you've gotta do for a high-def DVR is get the hd-3000 card (http://www.pchdtv.com/) , with Linux compatibility pretty much off the box and a special vendor build of xine supplied that's compatible with high def, and then build a mythtv box & you are good to go.

http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/album_page.php?pic _id=11
http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/album_page.php?pic _id=10


Easy as pie (well, not really, but if you use something like knoppmyth from http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html in your dedicated box, or follow Jarod's Howto for Fedora on http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ , it isn't too difficult.)

My DVR is KnopMyth, a MythTV Knoppix distro. Why would I want to replace it? No DRM, works great, and I can burn shows I like onto DVD. I recommend this to everyone interested in a DVR.

KnoppMyth is perfect for this. Just pick hardware that is known compatible if you aren't familiar with compiling kernels and such to get them working.

The 500's will work, but they're not perfect like the x50's are. ivtv support is still a work in progress for them although people get them to work every day.

  http://mysettopbox.tv/ hit the forums then the Tier 1 if you need hardware recommendations.

And by the way - this topic sounds very exciting, but lots of people are running myth on quiet EPIA mobos. Check out mythtv's hardware database. Its not new or even hard.

1. Buy mobo, case, HDD, encoder card, DVD. Or buy one of these pre-built ones
2. Plug it all in.
3. Insert knoppmyth CD.
4. install
5. ???
6. profit... errr... I mean watch TV.

Alternate solution:

1) Pick any formfactor x86 PC you want, from small to "I have this obnoxious beige box hanging around";

2) Install a tuner -- USB, firewire or PCI

3) KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html)
3a) $4.99 from CheapBytes if you don't want to download and burn an .iso (http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/007001102 5.html)

3.5) Stay up all night browsing support forums, because the cheap Taiwanese IDE bridge on the "obnoxious beige box" you had hanging around is not on the Linux Compatibility List and nobody seems to have heard of it except for two people asking "how do I get this to work?" on the web archives of some old newsgroup list, neither of whom ever got an answer. Then try out several drivers to "similar" bridge circuits to see if you can find one that mostly works, before giving up and trying it on your laptop instead, just to make sure you can get everything else working before running out and buying a new system the next morning, only to find that your laptop runs everything fine, but with no sound. Then spend the half-wakeful following morning pondering whether you should go with a new PC made of carefully-selected Linux-compatable parts, or just go with a Windows or Mac solution.

4) Set up your universal remote

Done.

There. Fixed it for you.

(Mostly kidding... Linux hardware support is much better than it used to be. Still, I always look parts up before attempting to use Linux with them, because I've had far too many Linux install experiences along the lines of: "Generic 2-Button mouse!? What do you mean generic 2-button mouse!? It's a three-button-plus-scroll-wheel mouse from a top-5 name-brand manufacturer!" Ahh... good times, good times.)

I use a VIA M10000N, 1GHz with a tiny fan that creates little noise. I put it in a slimline mini-itx case with two small fans to push some air through. I use Knoppmyth and install on a local 40GB hard disk. I store media on Windows & Linux servers, accessed over Samba on the wire, and I put some media on the local disk. I mount all the shares at startup, in the /myth directory, and MythTV goes off and finds all the titles. Finally I use an ATI Remote Wonder (RF version) to control it from my chair. Total cost was around 250GBP. Everything you need to know is at the Knoppmyth forum.

Alternate solution:

1) Pick any formfactor x86 PC you want, from small to "I have this obnoxious beige box hanging around";

2) Install a tuner -- USB, firewire or PCI

3) KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html)
3a) $4.99 from CheapBytes if you don't want to download and burn an .iso (http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/007001102 5.html)

4) Set up your universal remote

Done.

Knoppmyth is pretty decent, in that most of what you need is already there, including all the modules like MythMusic, MythWeb, etc.... The only major issue is having to set up the ivtv drivers for the PVR-350 (if that is what you have).

Is there such a thing yet, or should I wait for PVRuntu?

Knopmyth

KnoppMyth gets pretty close to what you are describing:

http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

It's not perfect but it's close to out-of-the-box.

It helps if you are careful when selecting your hardware to make sure it is well supported ahead of time (hauppauge is a good call).

I think that thinking people don't want reality TV, and the reality is that there are more stupid people than thinking people. How else can you explain Brittany Spears? I really don't know where they get these focus groups, and people with nielson boxes. I can't imagine what kind of people like the kinds of shows that are on TV these days. Commercials suck too, but I'm happy that my MythTV eats them for me.

And of course they target living-room PVR devices, but with the brouhaha over broadcast flags, maybe it's understandable that they want to keep it quiet. Do it the easy way with Knoppmyth

The Mini is a really cool idea. I haven't seen any of the hardware that WMC is running on. Personally, I use KnoppMyth, which is alarmingly functional, as far as PVRs go. I am not so into Windows solutions, due to the FUD: How often do I have to reboot WMCE? Will it record my shows? Do I have to have a 500+ Ghz machine to run it on? Will DRM cripple my ability to watch NetFlix DVDs? With an open-source solution, I know that I can do what I want with my hardware, and in this case, means watch Star Trek whenever I want.

I'll admit, I used to have difficulties setting up a MythTV system. Last month however, I discovered KnoppMyth. End of story for me.
It setup almost everything perfectly, and took me about 15 minutes to do. Basically the only things I had to do was run an included script to get encoded DVD to work properly (legal issue), and plunk in the right X config script.

I was seriously blown away how easy it all was.

The founder of KnoppMyth had similar issues when he was first installing MythTV, which is why he made KnoppMyth http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html. On Dragon http://mythic.tv/product_info.php?products_id=44 reference hardware, time between inserting the KnoppMyth CD and actually running MythTV can be as little as 21 minutes, and most of that time is spent waiting for automatic processes to finish. There's very little interaction required on the part of the user.

The whole aim of the Knoppmyth project is to simplify installing and maintaining MythTV. It's free, boots from the cd, and installs with little interaction. The latest versions are even handling IR Blaster configuration (which is normally a pain in the ass). When a new version comes out, you run the backup (from a menu), pop in the install cd, select auto install, and wait. When it's finished it'll restore your backup automagically and bam, you have the latest and greatest.

  Keep an eye on http://mysettopbox.tv/ if you're interested in MythTV or Knoppmyth. There's a big update coming soon due to MythTV's .19 landmark release.

MythTV can be installed and setup very easily using the KnoppMyth distribution, and then customised after that (all I've done is install libdvdcss). Otherwise there is Jarod's detailed setup guide, and the mythtv-users mailing list is very busy, and people on there are very helpful.

If you're in New Zealand, we have a localt mythtvnz list.

Rob :)

Totally. I have to post about MythTV, I am a big fan.

I chose the KnoppMyth distro, which installs quite easily, but blows away your hard disk, and sets itself up neatly. I did try the RedHat RPM version (dag?), but I found it much easier to use the knoppix than the RPM version, due to things like remote control setups, and the like -- they're all there for you with KnoppMyth.

I'm using an old 850Mhz Pentium 3 I think. I've had the Intel mainboard for a while, and it kept (incorrectly) reporting disk errors with Windows, and bluescreening -- an old mainboard.

I used to use old ATI tuners, without the hardware MPEG. You'll need a pretty hardcore machine to read the data, compress it, and then write it to disk. I picked up a PVR-150, which has a hardware MPEG encoder. I paid $99 for it at COMPUSA, which is too much. Grab the card with two tuners from an online voodoo hut.

We don't have any big cable package -- just the cable TV that comes with the Comcast Internet. It is $10 cheaper if we have the cable, presumably because they want you to buy the $40 upgrade. Anyway, we have only like 12 channels of slightly useful stuff. But, with MythTV, we can make sure we get to watch Futurama, ST:TNG, and the other geeky shows we like to watch.

Go grab KnoppMyth (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html) and burn it to a CD. Try it out yourself and see!

Hell, I love it. It downloads the showtimes and listings, records your shows, has priority and quality settings, lets you play MAME ROMs, lets you play other video files you have, will play DVDs, MP3s, has an image browser -- it is rediculously full-featured. There's a VOIP module, DVD-burning support, and much much more. I'm using the KnoppMyth version, which only needed me to tell it about my remote control, and setup the buttons.

On the subject of MythTV, I have been looking into setting up a PC Multimedia Center. Does anyone know a list of distros on this topic? Some distros I have found are:

http://www.geexbox.org/en/
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
http://www.davedina.org/content/ (this looks promising, but is still in infancy stages)

Ideally, I am looking for a distro that I can set up in my living room, and, giving non-linux-savvy-guests a mouse/keyboard they can navigate their way to video games (ROMS), videos or TV.
I have browsed the distros above, but would like to know what else is out there before commiting countless hours configuring it.

Have you tried Knoppmyth with front end only option? Or, if you want to repartition your drives, Knoppmyth will do that too.

As for the lack of documentation, use the (doxygen'd) source, luke (ok, even this site admits to the lack of documentation of the protocol, but, a good programmer should be able to figure it out).

If you don't enjoy spending hours setting up a distro and installing MythTV, use a prerolled PVR distro like KnoppMyth. KnoppMyth is integrated with the MythTV development process and includes current drivers for many tuner cards that aren't supported in the default kernel. It will also download and install NVidia drivers, basically everything except libdvdcss (for obvious reasons; but you can download and compile it yourself easily.)

The KnoppMyth installer assumes you're installing to an IDE hard drive though. You may have to get in and tweak the fstab after installation on SATA. I've been using KnoppMyth for about 6 months though, and it is very nice, easy to install, and comes with all the bells and whistles already configured.

This is wonderful news, but how long until KnoppMyth is ready for the rest of us to play with?

I've got my R5A30.2 working with 95% success and will be replacing all of my Tivos in my house very very soon. I already have the backend working, and frontend working in the living room.

It's not open source, unfortunately, but has a very active development guy and a very good plug-in architecture.

My PVR is an AMD Sempron 2200+ with 768MB RAM, 360GB Hard drive space, two Hauppauge tuners (250 and 150-MCE) running in a small case on a Chaintech 7NIF2 board running Win2000. Everything works flawlessly and my wife loves it! She records all her shows and watches them whenever she wants. I've got about half of our DVD collection ripped and converted to Xvid sitting on there, ready to go (those discs aren't getting anywhere near the kids!) and everything is awesome.

When we move into our house, I'm going to run network through the walls and have a Hauppauge Media MVP as a small, quiet front-end in the bedroom.

The PVR itself is fairly noisy, but when the TV's on, you can't hear it so it doesn't really matter. When I do an upgrade, I might get another MVP and put the main server into the closet.

I originally tried MythTV (using KnoppMyth), but after a week of hassle and wrestling with it, I gave up and tried GB-PVR. I haven't tried MythTV since. I'd like to have only open-source, free software running, but I couldn't get it to work. I hope to be able to switch over in the future, but for right now, we're quite happy.

But where is the epic struggle in that?

The downside is that KnoppMyth is designed to have exclusive use of the whole machine (though it is Debian based so you can add whatever extras you like), but the upside is it just works with simple installation for most people, most of the time. I tried to add MythTv to my SuSE server box 18 months ago, and was losing the will to live. Dug out another machine, installed KnoppMyth, and literally had it working within an hour.

The Hauppauge PVR-350 card allows MythTv to run on a very slow machine, like a PII (taking the decoding effort away from the CPU), and gives good quality output, but from personal experience I wouldn't recommend it. You're restricted to mpeg2 so disk usage is high and downloaded videos have to be transcoded to play, you can't play games or have pretty music visualizations, and sound is a minor configuration headaches. Worst, the drivers are the flakeyest bit of my setup (video lock-ups about once a month) and it's relatively expensive. Better to just buy a cheapo encoder card known to work with MythTv, and use TV-out from a normal video card.

You must not have actually tried MythTV, and only thought you did. I generally only have junk equipment around, bad tuner cards, and other weird crap. Every single time I install MythTV, from KnopMyth, it works like a charm -- no compiling of kernels, no wacky config changes. MythTV recommends the PVR-250, which I haven't bought yet. Still, it works using one of those El Cheapo ATI tuner cards, even if it is a little slow. And you had trouble?

You can always talk to Microsoft technical support!

MythstreamTV ( Link )already broadcasts recorded programs from mythtv (linux/qt based PVR software) over the internet. It is basically a PHP front end for a couple of shell scripts that control VLC that you have to compile specifically for this purpose. I am currently assisting with making a rich client/AJAX implementation of the interface as it was very basic. The people developing the rest of the package are working on adding features like streaming live television with the ability to change channels using the VLC PVR module. Its a pain to get MythstreamTV to work on most linux boxes as compiling VLC and FFMPEG from source is required and is not exactly cake, but getting something like Knoppmyth takes the pain out of it. -Rich

It's pretty much there in the form of Knoppmyth

Or, if you're using Fedora, the pre-packaged RPMs from ATRpms make installation on a traditional linux box *much* easier.

Try Knoppmyth, you might be surprised. I've got my dual tuner box running like a champ and I'll never regret it.

Both of us starting with parts, I'll wager I can install KnoppMyth http://mysettopbox.tv/ and get it up and running faster than you can MCE.

cesman

I mean, it's so easy. All you have to do is go to your linux box, preferably with a custom Knoppix installation optimized for mythTV, but a red hat installation will do, just make sure you rebuild the kernel issuing all the right mantras.... then set up your partitions (be sure to choose the right filesystem), download and configure the appropriate mythTV packages that you wish to install (check your hardware of course and be sure you have the right video drivers and take a look at the docs for your sound card). Obviously check dependencies on all the components and also you might want to edit the usual files for something like this such as /etc/modprobe.conf. Make sure you get all the MythTV components, there should be 94 packages if you're installing on redhat, and check the dependencies for each one. You'll probably want an IR receiver so you can use remote too; find, download, configure, and install those packages too; you might want to fiddle with /etc/udev/rules.d/lirc.rules. Of course you'll have to set up MySQL to run at startup and issue the usual commands, things like mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/doc/mythtv-0.18.1/database/mc.sql to get things running; the rest will be handled after you set up mythTV. Then populate the database (check dependencies first!) and if all goes well, all you need to do is edit your crontab to take care of mythfilldatabase every night and then you can configure automatic startup. Configure whatever MythTV addons you want and you're done! It's that simple! Problems? Read the documentation! Then just think of all the many things you can buy with the $2 that you just saved with these simple steps.

I mean, it's so easy. All you have to do is go to your linux box, preferably with a custom Knoppix installation optimized for mythTV, but a red hat installation will do, just make sure you rebuild the kernel issuing all the right mantras.... then set up your partitions (be sure to choose the right filesystem), download and configure the appropriate mythTV packages that you wish to install (check your hardware of course and be sure you have the right video drivers and take a look at the docs for your sound card). Obviously check dependencies on all the components and also you might want to edit the usual files for something like this such as /etc/modprobe.conf. Make sure you get all the MythTV components, there should be 94 packages if you're installing on redhat, and check the dependencies for each one. You'll probably want an IR receiver so you can use remote too; find, download, configure, and install those packages too; you might want to fiddle with /etc/udev/rules.d/lirc.rules. Of course you'll have to set up MySQL to run at startup and issue the usual commands, things like mysql -u root -p documentation! Then just think of all the many things you can buy with the $2 that you just saved with these simple steps.

YOURE ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!! "People who have ATi graphics cards and/or people who would rather buy such a graphics/DVR capable card from the local Best Buy or CompUSA instead of ordering a specialized Linux supporting card from a more obscure source." You can buy a Hauppauge WinPVR at Compusa, Circuit City, etc... http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/buy/wtob_us.html These cards are not obscure or specialized. They work well on many platforms and are easy to buy! These are hands down the most compatable / reliable PVR cards out there for Linux and they work well in Windows MCE. I am not going to crap on Windows MCE because it does have some nice features, but let me offer some insight to my ignorant friend. Regarding ATI - They have horrid Linux support. I have seen a handful of people successfully use their ATI TV Cards (Not AIW cards) for Myth. (http://www.mythtv.org/ The AIW series support just isnt there. However, the Nvidia driver support has been wonderful thus far. I set out to put together my own PVR. At first it was windows based due to the ease of setup and install. It sucked. It was resource greedy and there are subscription costs. I do not want to pay for a TV guide which should be free already. So began the MythTV install. I have successfully set Myth up on Fedora and KnoppMyth. Both are viable solutions depending on your experience. KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/) is extremely easy to install and setup. You have a handful of hardware options. I use an Nvidia Ti5200, and old SB Live, and a new Hauppauge PVR250. Relatively cheap stuff in todays market. This system is incredible! You can configure multiple frontends (Including the nifty Xbox Frontend) on a single backend server, have a special server to cut commercials, or just one box to do it all. You have Mame, SNES9x, Nes support, RSS Feeds, a Web Browser, a web frontend to schedule from another pc..its great. So many people have done it now the documentation is very comprehensive. If you have ever played with a Linux box or built your own PC this project is not beyond your scope. Get off the microsoft bandwagon and dive into a real PVR. You will not regret it.

But I run MythTv, specifically KnoppMyth. KnoppMyth is actually a distro that gives you a bootable CD that will install linux, mythtv, xine, and do almost all of the setup for you.

But the nice part is needs much less hardware. My system is running on a Duron 750. The 160GB drive yields about 70 hours of recording.

Nothing gives me more satisfaction than hitting the "skip" button and saving 4:34 (or however long the breaks become) of my life.

I hear a lot of people talking about this, but I've never seen an implementation that works as well as Tivo. Take MythTV for example. This is a group that has tried to make an easy to install linux distro based on knoppix and MythTV.

http://mysettopbox.tv/

They even are working on producing a reference system to make it super easy.

http://mythic.tv/product_info.php?products_id=44

On this page they also detail a whole list of problems with their "reference" system. Some of these issues are minor...others like not being able to watch live tv are in my opinion major.

My point here is that despite what people say, the home brew PVR is not easy to do. I know I've tried. I've also had friends who have tried. Furthermore, many people who claim it's easy to do typically do so by making serious sacrifices. I've seen and experienced a wide array of issues. Some of these issues are related to playback...both audio and video. For example there can be crap on the screen, sometimes the playback stutters, sometimes the audio is out of sync, etc. In the case of my friends who said they got it working, I went over there to watch TV and they had all sorts of issues getting stuff to play (similar to things I experienced).

In the case of the system detailed above (with more people working on it for more time than I'd care to spend) they still lack the basic function of watching live tv.

Contrast with Tivo where you plug it in and it just works. Granted a homebrew HTPC has potential, but as of yet I've not seen that potential realized.

Heres a link to some knoppmyth info if you're interested.

Linkey

1. Insert Knoppmyth CD into your CD-ROM drive
2. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete
3. When the CD boots up, select option 2: Auto Install
4. There is no step 4.

Contrast that with the steps to set up TiVo:

1. Get in car and drive to Best Buy
2. Sit in an assload of traffic (I live in DC)
3. Deal with a 16-year-old moron trying to sell you the extended warantee
4. Wait in line at the cashier for 20 minutes
5. Have the cashier also attempt to sell you the extended warantee.
6. Sit in traffic on the way home.
7. Attach TiVo to your TV.
8. Start up your TiVo
9. Realize you have no program guide data, and you can't get it without a valid credit card.
10. Curse a lot.
11. Pay the machine $300 bucks.
12. Watch as TiVo fills up its puny hard drive with shows you didn't even ask it to record.
13. Cry when the DRM deletes shows for you that you haven't watched yet because they're expired.
14. Smash TiVo.
15. Insert Knoppmyth CD into your CD-ROM drive
16. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete
17. When the CD boots up, select option 2: Auto Install

Personally, I just started out with the MythTV box. I place value on my mental health as well as my time.

1. Insert Knoppmyth CD into your CD-ROM drive
2. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete
3. When the CD boots up, select option 2: Auto Install
4. There is no step 4.

Contrast that with the steps to set up TiVo:

1. Get in car and drive to Best Buy
2. Sit in an assload of traffic (I live in DC)
3. Deal with a 16-year-old moron trying to sell you the extended warantee
4. Wait in line at the cashier for 20 minutes
5. Have the cashier also attempt to sell you the extended warantee.
6. Sit in traffic on the way home.
7. Attach TiVo to your TV.
8. Start up your TiVo
9. Realize you have no program guide data, and you can't get it without a valid credit card.
10. Curse a lot.
11. Pay the machine $300 bucks.
12. Watch as TiVo fills up its puny hard drive with shows you didn't even ask it to record.
13. Cry when the DRM deletes shows for you that you haven't watched yet because they're expired.
14. Smash TiVo.
15. Insert Knoppmyth CD into your CD-ROM drive
16. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete
17. When the CD boots up, select option 2: Auto Install

Personally, I just started out with the MythTV box. I place value on my mental health as well as my time.

Care to share the details of what hardware, OS, and recording software?

Sure. MythTV is the software, but I used the Knoppmyth version of it to make the install go quicker. I also used standardized hardware to lessen the screwing around factor and just get it up and running. From a blank hard drive to recording TV took me about 3 hours. Hardware is as follows:

Hauppauge WinPVR-250 capture card
Generic GeForce FX-5200 video card (chosen for the S-video out, Nvidia chipset to lessen the screwing around, and the passive heatsink)
80 GB Seagate EIDE hard drive
Asus mainboard and an Athlon 1600XP CPU
512 MB DDR SDRAM.

Brief notes on the above:

- 256 MB of memory works all right as well which is what I started with. I went to 512 after a bit of tinkering and just left it in the system as RAM was cheap like chips at that time, but saw no real gain in performance. Not that there was an issue in performance to begin with.
- More hard drive space is better. If I was to do it over again (and I probably will in the next few months) I'd use at least a 200GB hard drive. OS and swap (MythTV buffer space, not OS swap) chew up about 12 GB, which left only about 66 GB of usable space for programs. Decent quality programs eat 2.2GB/hour, so I have only enough room for about 32 hours of TV. A 200GB drive would yield almost 90 hours.

Tivo is in the same situation as Apple. They absolutely control a limited number of hardware configurations. Just Making It Work is very easy under such circumstances and they can concentrate their efforts on implementing the results of usability and marketing studies.

MythTV on the other hand has support a multitude of configurations on J. Random Hardware. Furthermore it has to rely on "third party" software such as MySQL and X.Org because largely because of the first issue. It is a fairly mammoth amount of work keeping it Possible To Install on a galaxy of configurations much less making it all work in five clicks. There is also a pretty steady demand for new features and the time required to debug ones recently added. What you have is a limited amount of manpower trying to solve a much harder problem than the one Tivo Inc. has to solve.

That said there ARE easier ways. Knoppmyth will do it as painlessly as it is possible to do. It is based on Knoppix and will do most of the icky hardware configuration for you. It also includes an installer that asks a minimum of questions to give you a functional PVR. The only catch is that it has to know about all of the hardware you are using.

If you think of MythTV as a upstream project rather than the All Knowing Source then you can see where the polish can come from. MythTV is an application that implements PVR functionality. That's it. It takes a distribution to bring the rest of the drivers and dependencies into a coherent polished whole. KnoppMyth is one attempt to do this.

There's KnoppMyth.

... Not a network... and show the files in a Samba share.

Make up your mind, do you want a network or not?

In the meantime, check out knoppmyth.