Slashdot Mirror

You were doing great up until that "it works on everything" part. Plenty of folks have pulled their hair out with Myth in the past and you make it sound like a breeze. Look at the numbers of folks posting here that have given up on it and you can plainly see it's far from easy. I for one hope that this version is VERY good but please, the rah rah it works great stuff can be saved - most of us know better having tried it already.

In my experience, it does work on every PC I've run it on. It even works on my OSX work laptop.

I have had trouble getting crappy hardware to work, but I can hardly blame MythTV. Once it works, it just keeps working. I think some people may have a hard time figuring out how to install drivers and getting their machine to work in the first place. This is when I switched from Centos over to KnoppMyth. Installed, detected my new PVR-150, and worked until successive upgrades.

Now I have three and a half computers dedicated to MythTV. One is a recording-only host that connects to the CableTV HDHomerun. One was driving my analog projector until the projector power supply went -- it recorded from the Antenna HDHomerun. Then I have another one with my old PVR-150, which also drives the old TV downstairs. The other half is the master backend and MySQL database with no tuner. I am using Centos, and the atrpms yum repositories.

I just did a channel-scan after my upgrade, and I seem to have more channels, and also the audio channels from my sub-basic Comcast cable feed. I think I get more enjoyment out of harvesting television shows than I do by watching them. Think Captain Kirk's head on a 6-foot screen.

* Knoppix MythTV

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/

As the creator of KnoppMyth (now LinHES), I can tell you that KnoppMyth doesn't work on a TiVO (neither does LinHES).

Warm regards,

Cecil

*MIPS Debian
http://www.debian.org/ports/mipsel/

* An older thread on video sharing hacking with TIVO boxes
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25139

* Knoppix MythTV
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/

The wifi dongle: Depends on the manufacturer. However, wifi which "just works" internally will also just work on a USB dongle.

Just for fun: Gigabit ExpressCard. ZERO configuration. Plug into laptop, plug into ethernet, done.

Capture card: I honestly don't know, I haven't tried. However, given KnoppMyth, I would think that the creators of that distro wouldn't expect their users to configure a capture card (via the commandline) on every single boot. And again, USB doesn't really change it much.

HDTV antenna is almost certainly part of that capture card, or it's a capture card of its own.

I'd be shocked if the vast majority of users have any of these.

2) If you plan to use it, consider not fscking with it. Having a TV on the fritz because you tweak the software constantly can sometimes be pretty annoying (maybe mostly to the *other* people).

Seconded, I plan major changes a long time in advance and usually tie in a hdd upgrade at the same time. Means I can fall back to the old setup if I can't do it in time. Makes for a much happier significant other!!

I use Knoppmyth as of R6 it will become LinHES. There is a lot of development and the aim being to become an out of the box PVR solution.

1. Do some research on hardware
2. DO NOT USE ATi cards.
   Some people have gotten them to work but support for ATi on Linux is lacking. Before anyone complains about the huge cost of getting a new card, you can get a cheap nVidia (FX5 or higher) for as little as $30.
3. Try it out using a Live CD
   Don't wipe out your system just yet wondering if it will work. Use a live CD and see if it work at all. If it doesn't, you can eject the disc and reboot without any harm to your system. Currently, MythDora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth are the top versions
4. Understand what you want, what you need.
   For basic DVR functionality installing one the previous versions mentioned above is easy enough for most people. To get all the features, you might have to invest in some hardware. To get a networked system, you're going have to know more about Linux. For digital OTA HD TV, you need a digital OTA tuner and a video card with at least DVI out. If you are staying on analog cable and TV, you can get it running on very cheap hardware. Right now using a digital cable tuner is not fully supported as these boxes don't always have API documentation.

You should look into the Live CD versions to test out if you want to proceed. Many people are happy enough with them. KnoppMyth, MythDora, Mythbuntu.

And MythTV can be useful, as a frontend, without a hard disk.

http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

If it could not, I ask again, would it have been so much harder to build a diskless mythfrontend than to write something completely from scratch?

I've been using MythTV for about 3 years via the nearly 1-click install of knoppmyth. Fantastic. With just two tuners and basic cable we have more than enough commercial-free tv to watch.

I have never used MCE nor Tivo but I have used the cable companies DVR and now I have MythTV. To be honest, it isn't easy enough yet for everyone to install but it is getting easier. If you are looking for a all-in-one setup, it is a lot easier than before with projects like MythDora and KnoppMyth. Why I picked MythTV over a simple DVR was the fact that I have wanted a network, and I currently have 4 clients and one server with ability to record 4 shows simultaneously. I didn't look at MCE because I didn't think it had this capability. Has there been any progress in this area?

Back when my cable provider (Charter) first offered their DVR's, I discovered that with 3 adults, all with different viewing tastes, one DVR with it's standard recording capabilities and storage capacity was simply not up to our household's time-shifted viewing appetites.

Attempts to obtain a second DVR, at an additional monthly expense, were solidly refused by Charter. They maintained that their supply of DVR units was limited, and that providing more than one DVR in the same household was not part of their business plan. Not a very smart move, from my viewpoint, when you consider that most satellite services have been offering the option of multiple DVR's for quite some time now. Isn't it wonderful how having an exclusive cable territory allows cable operators to ignore customers wants/needs and adopt a take it or leave it attitude towards the quality of services provided? Oh, well, that's a rant for another day.

Solution to this dilemma?

KnoppMyth http://www.mysettopbox.tv/

I started out small, with one PVR-150 and one frame grabber tuner in the backend, a minimalist frontend, and 80 Gb of storage (2 times the storage on the Charter DVR).

Today my backend supports 3 PVR-150's, the ability to record (paid for) premium channels by using a digital converter feeding directly into one of the PVR's, 3 frontends, and 750Gb of online storage, with an additional 300Gb on a separate NAS for archival storage of my personal DVD collection. All four units have fully supported APC battery backup systems, which protects against data loss here in rural Michigan, where the power can be unstable, even at the best of times. The frontends have replaced the need for stand alone DVD players at each of the 3 viewing stations, and anything that has been recorded can be viewed at anytime by anyone. Additionally, my entire music collection, which is quite extensive, since I am an independent DJ/Karaoke operator, can be accessed from the frontends, mapped into the Knoppmyth backend and stored on the same NAS as the media files.

Being relatively new to LINUX at the beginning, there was a bit of a learning curve, especially as the system evolved into it's current configuration, but there was always a wealth of information on the MythTV website http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and the KnoppMyth User Forums http://www.knoppmyth.net/phpBB2/

Interestingly enough, Charter subsequently did add the ability to add an additional external USB hard drive to extend the storage capacity of their original DVR, but since it shares it's resources with viewing and recording tasks, it simply lacks the flexibility of the Knoppmyth backend.

Expanding storage costs aside, and using eBay as a bargain outlet for components, the backend unit ran about $250 to bring to it's current state, and each frontend ran $150 or less. After that, the only other expense is the $20/yr subscription fee to Schedules Direct http://www.schedulesdirect.org/ to obtain the needed TV listings data, which is hands down the biggest entertainment bargain you could find anywhere.

Up next, the addition of a slave backend to support a recently acquired HDTV tuner to record unencrypted QAM cable channels, and additional tuners for those rare occasions when I do actually max out the system's recording abilities.

Note: I realize this post is somewhat off topic, since the original posting is about suing Time Warner for the right to use alternative set top boxes, but there are already alternative solutions available, such as MythTV and it's various derivatives, which can obtain virtually any functionality, short of a cable card, that the user desires, and requires no special lawsuit to implement on any current cable operators system.

DaveJ45

Don't underestimate MythTV. It's been a viable option for awhile. I've been running a Knoppmyth box for almost 2 years. The initial outlay was small (I was replacing my computer anyway, so I needed a HTPC case and a TV card (total about $200). Added to the cost of components, it's a little steep, but it's got a lot of advantages.

1. No "rental" fees to Comscat. $20/yr to schedulesdirect beats $10/mo
2. The box is MINE.
3. The integrated DVD player ignores stupid "Don't skip" directives on FBI Warnings, Previews, etc.
4. Can add video files at will. The thing even plays Matroska FFS.
5. Can integrate emulators into it, so my mythbox also lets me play Nintendo, SNES, and with a little hacking, even PSX.

I run Knoppmyth on my DVR and the Hauppauge cards are very well supported.

On a side note, I recommend you consider the ATI Remote Wonder instead of the Hauppauge IR remote. It's RF and highly configurable.

Try Knoppmyth. Yeah, it's Knoppix-based and thus Debian, but try it anyway. Go outside your comfort zone. I've been using it for about a year now. The last few versions have been very easy to set up. I don't have a digital card tho, so don't know how it will play with your ATSC card.

http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

This site has excellent resources and makes mythtv dead simple.. http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html And Cecil has put together a nice pamphlet here that is worth reading. It also talks about HW recommendations. While these things are somewhat knoppmyth specific it will be similar with most other myth setups. http://www.mysettopbox.tv/pamphlet.html

This site has excellent resources and makes mythtv dead simple.. http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html And Cecil has put together a nice pamphlet here that is worth reading. It also talks about HW recommendations. While these things are somewhat knoppmyth specific it will be similar with most other myth setups. http://www.mysettopbox.tv/pamphlet.html

I for one am very happy to see this stopped! I grew up in a "third world" county (Belize), when my siblings and I joined our parents in the US, I recall one of the first things they did was get us a computer (CoCo 2). I wouldn't be where I am today if they had not (good job and my own little project http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html/ ). While I did do some growing up on Windows, it has been almost 9 years since I switched to using Linux exclusively at home. As someone that grew up in a developing nation, I firmly believe there is no better option for it that FLOSS.

Education and technology can level the playing field. Perhaps in the first world, we can afford to argue about the merits of FLOSS vs closed source. However, this isn't the case when you are worried about where your next meal is coming from or if you can afford to vaccinate your child. The Gates Foundation could really show it's altruism by helping to support OLPC or the Classmate PC.

Cecil

I've been using KnoppMyth for about 2-1/2 years now, and the data was free the whole time. Now that a few "bad apples" spoiled the free data-feed, we have to pay. That's too bad, but I don't mind. I'm paying the $2.50/month fee to SchedulesDirect because the freedom that MythTV provides is worth it. I don't care if SchedulesDirect is a non-profit or a for-profit. If they provide the data I need to record/watch the cable shows I want, WHEN I want, that's good enough for me. Thanks, MythTV, KnoppMyth, and SchedulesDirect!

KnoppMyth has been around for four years http://www.mysettopbox.tv/CHANGELOG.txt/. A glance at the CentOS site shows it was first copywritten in 2004. When Ubuntu was launch in October of 2004, KnoppMyth was already a year old. The community is large and very active. I'll stop producing releases when my keyboard is pulled from my cold dead hands.

Once I can actually read the article, I'll comment in full. But to state that one cannot upgrade software in KnoppMyth is dead wrong.

Regards,

Cecil

Over the last year or two Ubuntu has become by far the most popular distro for the average Linux user, especially for desktop use at home. The article dismisses Ubuntu as just "the flavor of the month." It's more than just that, the popularity of Ubuntu is unprecedented. For the first time ever we finally have a distro that is starting to become the dominate choice. Ubuntu is typically what new Linux users who don't already have a favorite distro choose. Red Hat and SuSE remain popular with businesses, perhaps because they can get paid technical support if necessary (I don't know much about that). But, for the average Linux user Ubuntu increasingly the winner. There is also a server version of Ubuntu, as well.

Ubuntu is a Debian derived distro. Of those Linux users who don't use Ubuntu, many of them use Debian or a Debian derived distro such as Kubuntu or Mepis. They all use the apt-get package manager and some variation of Debian packages for installing, upgrading or removing new software. There are also easy to use point-and-click GUI front ends for apt-get such as Synaptic or Adept. Since they are all Debian derived distros they probably aren't a lot different. Even Knoppix, which is the most popular live CD version of Linux, is a Debian derived distro.

Kubuntu, which I use, is just a variation of Ubuntu. Kubuntu is just a version of Ubuntu that uses the KDE desktop and it's preferred selection of software instead of Gnome. A Ubuntu user, could use the Synaptic Package Manager to easily download and install the kubuntu-desktop package as well. I started with Ubuntu, then added Kubuntu and then made KDE my default choice when booting up. I ended up with both selections of software in the menu plus those programs I later added as well.

The article also mentions "Linux from scratch." That would appeal to the same kind of person who would like to build their own house themselves or assemble their own ham radio or car from a kit, just so they know how it all goes together. It's not for the average Linux user. Linux is becoming less of a fragmented market than it was several years ago. There are also various specialized distros for special purposes such as KnoppMyth which, for example, is for building your own Linux based personal video recorder. As for myself, I have used Linux at home for about 6 or 7 years. I started with Red Hat, then Slackware and am now using Kubuntu. Various other distros are good too, if someone is more familiar with one of them.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ if you like win32. You need a card with the mpeg decoder on board.

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html if you like linux. Cheap pci cards/usbpvr2 work great.

I've configured both knoppmyth http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html and mediaportal for win32 http://www.team-mediaportal.com/.

Each has their caveats. Knoppmyth works better once you get it rolling, but there's lots of fiddly work to get it going. Lots of fiddly work. Once it's up its rock steady. It manages powering down/sleeping between scheduled shows much better than win32.

MediaPortal is easier to set up. Buggy interface though. Not show-stoppers but whacky things that make it hard to use. For reasons I haven't investigated it uses some kind of proprietary file type to store the shows. If someone knows how to set it up to make an mpeg that would be great. http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

I wonder occassionally why this seems so hard. I could easily set up a MythTV system (see http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html) and use it with any number of cards (http://www.wifi.com.ar/english/hw-pvr.html) as a way to turn output into input. Then I could use my DVD player or CD player or even my main computer as my player. It could be considered an audio hole, but it would be a pretty high quality system, not relying on something like a hand held camcorder or audio recorder. Sure someday it might be hard to buy that equipment, but I doubt it and of course the software could be made harder to get, but probably neither will be impossible in my lifetime and the hardware available now can handle it and I can't see it being unlikely to handle the same types of recording 20 years from now.

Back on topic with Vista and DRM, I personally think the best bet for virtualizing Vista is on a Xen based installation using the hardware based virtualization. I cannot see how Vista could even identify that it was running in virtualization. With that said, something like using LVM snapshotting would allow someone to set up a base installation, which could be reused anywhere the hardware was a close enough match to handle the Xen config. People wouldn't need to redistribute the base install but once, and the customizations would be the diff files (or partitions to mount and reg files to add.) For example, say that I have my Vista install set up the way I want, with the base install, and I want to create an install with a working IIS setup. I set up a snapshot, enable/install/configure then take another snapshot and then run a diff on the two, saving it as 'post IIS vX.x.x'. Now the VM application of IIS is a 'patch' that could be distributed to anybody who already has the base VM.

A shoplifted copy of Vista, a blockbuster card or a store that allows returns of CDs bought with cash would be sufficient for any of these to be done anonymously. That takes it from gray to black, but then if you're going to those lengths you're probably not worried about the morality. I believe the problem of piracy is insurmountable with technology, and the only hope of dealing with it is through instilling ethics. You can't legislate to force people to be ethical but you can legislate to make them afraid to act otherwise and you can legislate to change a society's norms. Why legislate? I suspect it is the only way to change the behavior of large numbers of people.

None of this addresses the question of whether it should be illegal. I'm not up to that debate.

MythTV already comes preconfigured with at least two Linux distributions:

MythDora (Fedora-based)
KnoppMyth (Debian-based)

hdd has the live recordings (on different controller than the OS/boot disk).
hdb is refreshed each morning with a cron script, when the backend isn't recording anything.
hda is periodically backed up to an external USB drive, as well as to hdb (b for backup).

jca@bunny:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 74G 2.0G 68G 3% / <--BOOT
/dev/hdb1 294G 107G 173G 39% /mnt/backups
/dev/hdd1 294G 130G 164G 45% /myth

Here's the cron entry

# run "mirror" backup on an early Non-Sunday morning when nothing's scheduled.
0 5 * * 1-6 /myth/rsync-hdd1-to-hdb1
# run "mirror" backup on early Sunday morning when nothing's scheduled.
0 4 * * 7 /myth/rsync-hdd1-to-hdb1

#!/bin/bash
# script to copy files from /myth dirs on hdd1 to backup on hdb1
#
# First, let's see the contents of this actual script.
echo "====== SCRIPT $0 CONTENTS BEGINS ======" ; cat $0 ; echo "====== SCRIPT $0 CONTENTS ENDS ======"
echo -n "The $0 script is beginning on " ; date
nice rsync -avr --exclude-from=/myth/rsync-excludes --one-file-system --delete --delete-excluded --force --timeout=60 --progress /myth/ /mnt/backups/myth
date ; echo rsync is done.
echo -n "The $0 script has completed at " ; date

In summary, I have backup plus availability, but no RAID hassles.

MythTV requires a little tinkering to get running, but is very flexible. I think this is really what it comes down to with most Windows VS. FOSS situations
</quote>

True, but if you use a canned distro designed to run on dedicated PVR boxen, such as Knoppmyth or Mythdora, you can get mythtv to "just work off the bat" too (at least with most standard configs). I installed Knoppmyth version R5E50 from scratch a couple of weeks ago in my hauppauge pvr-350 + pvr 150 dual tuner box with the silver remote for the pvr-350's ir receiver and the whole shabang was up-and-running in about an hour, no worries. Plus, I could then spend the rest of the day tweaking it to my needs (the Knoppmyth maintainer has already added some extra functionality, including a fully installed democracy player etc.)

Hey Cecil,

Forget the whiners. KnoppMyth is awesome. I just installed version R5E50 from scratch in my dedicated box. Lots of people here are talking about problems with lirc and the Hauppauge PVR remotes in from-scratch installs. I had the whole system up-and-running in an hour. My system has a Hauppauge pvr350 and pvr-150 with the pvr350 silver remote and lirc worked just fine right off the bat. It didn't work with earlier versions (I installed version R5A16 some months back and had to recompile lirc and manually config the grey remote's keystroke mapfile back then), but now it works just fine.Same with the pvr350 tv-out (which, with the earlier versions, required manual compilation of the ivtv driver and manual configuration of XFree86config file, not anymore). The whole process was easy as pie and anyone who wants to have a Linux MCE system up-and-running swiftly would be wise to use a well-established distro like KnoppMyth.

Weblink: http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

I've run MythTV since 0.14 on Knoppmyth and Fedora -- starting with FC3.

When I started, Knoppmyth was way over my head -- particularly the finishing touches to get everything running properly. It was my first real hands-dirty experience with Linux and I appreciated for all I learned. I did did manage to get an ancient K6-3D system running Knoppmyth -- not well enough to put in my livingroom, but well enough to prove the concept and that it was worth the time and effort to build a new system on more capable hardware.

My second system was a P3 700 built on FC3 following Jarod Wilson's definitive guide, mainly because I felt that following the guide to transform a generic install into a MythTV appliance would teach me a lot about what the Myth components were, how they all fit together, how to make them all fit together in Linux, and what to do when something went wrong. I was right.

I built a third machine (my current master beckend/frontend) on FC4 also following Jarod's guide but this time on a P4 2.5 machine.

By this time I was ready to start adding FE capabilities, but I already knew the process of installation, knew about the components and dependencies, and no longer felt the need for yumming or smarting in kernel modules and so on. I used Knoppmyth to turn my old P3 700 former-backend into a frontend.

This setup worked well through several upgrades -- FC on the backend, Knoppmyth on the frontend with the only caveat being that both machines have to be running the same version of Myth. Upgrade one, you have to upgrade the other.

Even though this was about two years ago, the Knoppmyth install was easy and painless, and I was prepared to deal with irregularities like tweaking xorg.conf. I also really appreciated that the Knoppmyth CD would let you run a frontend off the CD -- allowing you to instantly test hardware without touching the drive.

Last weekend, I finally retired the P3. It's currently on holiday, but will soon return to service as a file server. Instead I built a new frontend on an Athlon 64 4000.

I decided to give Mythdora a whirl since I know it's been under heavy development including the involvement of Jarod. I was really impressed with how smoothly and quickly the installation went, including post-install scripts to handle things like IR hardware and binary nvidia drivers (I know, I know, but the binary driver really works better for Myth than the Free one). I went from having a pile of boxes at 4 pm to a working Mythtv system at 9:30. It might have been quicker but I had to run to the shop when I ran out of beer.

I didn't try a Knoppmyth install on this hardware, but have no doubt that it would have gone just as smoothly. Cecil deserves a lot of respect and credit for the fantastic job he has done with Knoppmyth over the years.

Of course I did have quite a bit of Myth-specific experience behind me and knew from the start to buy hardware that was rock-solid compatible -- like an nforce board, nvidia gfx card, turtle beach sound card, on-board 10/100 LAN, etc.

The point is that by last weekend I was a lot more familiar with Fedora than with Debian, so I was really happy to be able to so painlessly migrate my FE to Fedora. I have no doubt that those more familiar with Debian will be just as happy with what Cecil has done in Knoppix.

And more than anything, lot of credit is owed to the folks behind MythTV -- from Isaac Richards, the original creator, and all the key developers, to folks like Jarod, Cecil, and Dennis for enormous contributions in making Myth more accessible, to all the numerous active and helpful folks on the mailing list. They've made MythTV into a product that truly is a world-beater -- by far the most powerful, most flexible, most extensible, and downright most pleasurable media engine on the planet.

Here's looking to 0.21.

You know that part about not being as hard as you make it out to be? You should have paid attention to that. Get knoppmyth burn to CD, boot from it and you are off and running. That pretty much works out of the box for ~80% of the people who try it.

Good grief! Get that man a copy of KnoppMyth! He'll still have to reboot to watch shows (if he likes Windows), but at least he can do more than just watch one through.

Second link is bad. MySetTopBox Knoppix There ya go.

You can fairly easily upgrade the latest KnoppMyth (R5D1) to the developer-provided packages, provided you're capable of using a command prompt, as explained in this thread:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11558 &highlight=

Unfortunately registration is required for the KnoppMyth forum (I'd encourage you to join as there's a wealth of information there and they're generally very helpful folks) so I've taken the liberty of posting the relevant info below:

Not as clean as I'd like... But if you follow these instructions as root, you'll be 0.20. Make sure you backup first!

Open up a terminal in KnoppMyth by pressing Alt+X.

su
(provide your root password)
echo "deb ftp://knoppmyth.net/R5 ./" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
dpkg -r libmyth-0.19 libmyth-0.19-dev mythtv mythtv-backend mythtv-common mythtv-database mythtv-debug mythtv-doc mythtv-frontend mythplugins mythburn-ui
rm -fr /usr/share/mythtv/mythweb
apt-get install mythtv mythplugins myththemes mythstream mythstreamtv
rm -fr /var/www/mythweb
ln -sf /usr/share/mythtv/mythweb /var/www

During the install process, you see:

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/mythplugins_0.20a-1_i386.d eb not a valid DEB package.
E: Prior errors apply to /var/cache/apt/archives/mythplugins_0.20a-1_i386.d eb
E: Prior errors apply to /var/cache/apt/archives/mythtv_0.20-8_i386.deb

You can safely ignore this... I had to manually make changes to the package.

Now restart the backend and you should be good to go.

• The case did come with a quiet 280 watt PSU. The only fans in the system are the PSU and the CPU cooler. The AMD stock cooler is very quiet.
• The embedded video has s-video output. I don't use it because I am doing HD over DVI. The s-video adapter does cost an extra $10 though. If you have another Asus board that has onboard s-video that adapter will work.
• $10 universal remote is not a problem. I bought a nice one off woot.com for $8. I also have a MCE remote I bought off ebay with receiver for $15. The case also has an internal IR Remote window to place the receiver inside the case.
• The WinTV may not be the best capture card, but it is as good as the TiVO. Had you read the rest of my comment, you would notice that I am now using a PVR-500 (2x 150 in single PCI card). The PVR-500 adds $135 to the cost, but that can be bought later to upgrade the system if needed.
• I don't have any parts designed to be silent, except maybe the PSU. That came with the case so is factored in to the price of the case.
• I did forget about the DVD writer. I had one lying around there was no need to buy one; had I needed to purchase one they are only ~$30. Of course I am pretty certain TiVO does not come with a DVD-Burner. Since I can easily dump video off my Myth box in MPEG2 I can use a DVD burner on any desktop PC.

http://mysettopbox.tv/

Neat idea and all -- the TiVo. Rather than fight with DRM, I'm using MythTV. All the shows I want are recorded, plus I get the added bonus of being able to drag and drop shows to my laptop for watching later. Add in the many other features that come with MythTV, and it's a wonder why people would use a TiVo. Check it out, and you'll be amazed.

Psst... Usenet. Whoops, I've said too much.

Of course there's usenet. That's where I get my porn =_) Seriously, though, there's the issue of content. I sure like to listen to specific bands I like, and some old freaky psychedelic goodies that I like. I do have some old CDs that I've *bought*. More often than not, though, it is so much easier to scan through my favorite Internet radiostations (MythTV friggin' *rocks*).

Usenet will always be there, but there are a shortage of good free usenet servers that carry the binaries. That, and the extra tools needed to decode RAR, PAR, and all that -- I wanna listen to tunes now, not screw with writing scripts and tool figureoutage. The Internet gratifies me instantly, for free, and without the terror brought on by these silly lawsuits.

If you do decide to setup Linux for a media center you could use MythTV to create your own personal video recorder (PVR). I haven't tried it yet, but I am a Linux user who has been thinking about trying MythTV. I plan to get a copy of the book "Hacking MythTV" and try it out. The easiest option would probably be for me to use KnoppMyth which is a Linux distribution specially designed to make installation of MythTV as easy as possible. I also ran across some info about KnoppMyth at KnoppMythWiki. I am not really sure what effect a DRM restricted future might eventually have on a Linux media center. Perhaps Hollywood, Microsoft and Congress will somehow eventually block access to most content for open non-proprietary solutions.

If someone isn't already a Linux user Ubuntu or Kubuntu might be a good choice for general use. I have not looked into how they would be for multi-media or PVR use though. With Ubunutu or Kubuntu you can use the Synaptic package manager to download free software from the list of thousands of free progams that are avaiable and have it installed with the dependancies taken care of automatically. For various legal reasons most versions of Linux don't come preconfigured to play DVD movies or MP3 files. That is somewhat of a nuisance, but instructions on how to do that are available on the Internet and in some books.

With Linux I can rebuild my computer with a new motherboard and other hardware without worring about licensing issues. With Linux, no need to scan for viruses or worms either! My understaning is that viruses and worms are pretty much a Microsoft only problem. It's not a significant issue for Linux, Mac OS X, or Unix. As much as I like Linux, a barely computer literate computer user would probably be best off hoping that the day eventually comes when local stores start selling boxes with pre-installed with Linux just like Windows. Go ahead and make Windows licensing as annoying as possible to help that day eventually come.

Why do TiVo, when you can MythTV? Spend $50 on a PVR-150, and record all the shows that you want. Drag them onto your laptop when you get around to it. That, and the other 90% of MythTV really makes the television something interesting again -- it's got shows I want to watch.
Plus, it eats the commercials -- how cool is that?

640 * 480 is low res if you've got a DVD player.

If you're using a tube-based NTSC television, you're only seeing ~200 lines of resolution anyway. This is why I record my shows (MythTV for me!) at a much lower resolution.

They are extending the same exact image across the entire 30 second commercial so that TIVO Viewers will be forced to view at least one frame.

Seconded! MythTV is friggin' awesome. It eats the commercials, shares the shows over the network (NFS and SMB), lets me dump my MP3s onto it for playing, supports multiple heads (and backends), and more. I don't even use half the features of the software, and it still blows me away.

I'm using KnoppMyth, and was totally amazed how easily everything installed. Yes I did have to tweak LiRC, and a few other things.

I'm getting ready do build another unit into my house, and look forward to the extra features in the new version.

Any word on when this build will be on a Knoppmyth ISO?

It's called KnoppMyth

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

Get a knoppmyth CD and install the second box as a front end. Once you comment out the "skip networking" line in mysql it will allow outside connections to your box. From there the front end just connects and does it's business. http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

ivtv is evil to get working on your box. As is lirc and the other 7000 packages you need for a good MythTV box. I tried building a box based on Ubuntu and gave up a few days later. Get KnoppMyth. It automates the entire process. http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

It's called KnoppMyth

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

until you can just put in a disk, answer a few yes or no questions and then start using it.

Why don't you try KnoppMyth? It includes quite a detailed installation manual, and does the MythTV installation using Knoppix, so all the hardware drivers, remotes, etc. are basically automatic. It takes about 15 minutes. There's a free "subscription" to Zap2It Labs for daily TV listings going two weeks into the future. To renew, every 3 months you answer two survey questions about TV viewing.

My first install was with a Athlon 1.3GHz, 512Gb ram, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and an 80GB drive. It worked the first time.

I've been using it for about a year, and have since upgraded to dual 320GBs, a 40GB boot drive, and a second PVR-350. Aside from local grid power failures, it's been running nearly continuously. It's awesome. You can program/view shows over the web or your LAN; you can burn DVDs, lots more. Check it out.

Why don't you try KnoppMyth? It includes quite a detailed installation manual, and does the MythTV installation using Knoppix, so all the hardware drivers, remotes, etc. are basically automatic. It takes about 15 minutes. There's a free "subscription" to Zap2It Labs for daily TV listings going two weeks into the future. To renew, every 3 months you answer two survey questions about TV viewing.

My first install was with a Athlon 1.3GHz, 512Gb ram, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and an 80GB drive. It worked the first time.

I've been using it for about a year, and have since upgraded to dual 320GBs, a 40GB boot drive, and a second PVR-350. Aside from local grid power failures, it's been running nearly continuously. It's awesome. You can program/view shows over the web or your LAN; you can burn DVDs, lots more. Check it out.