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Check out http://www.mythtv.org/. They have some links to how to setup a MythTv.

Linux is unusable

Funny thing, that... See, I have an ATI All In Wonder Radeon. I wanted to make my computer be my vcr, dvd player, etc (what can I say, I got divorced, got out with my computer, and that was it for entertainment). So, I used the software that came with it, and got something moderately functional. Not great, but functional. Then I decided I wanted a remote control for it all.

Now, before I tell you what happened, let me tell you about me: BS in CS, working on home computers for about 20 years (started on Apple ][ and Vic-20, worked my way up Commodore's line, right on through the Amiga, before it died and I had to replace it with clone stuff). I write code. Play games. Build networks, pcs, and do general repair/maintenance (but no soldering, I don't have a steady enough hand for that). I grok the computer in a way that people around me just don't quite understand. I do things, and they just wonder how I knew to do it.

So, what happened with the remote? I got a lot of functionality working. Able to start file playback, already had working vcr functionality, so was going good. Then ... then I tried to make the power button on the remote into a toggle for putting the monitor into standby mode. Monitor in standby? Wake it up. Monitor awake? Put it in standby.

The damned remote control software stumped me. I spent over two weeks trying to make it do just that. I could set it so the power button would either always wake up the monitor, or always put it to sleep, but could never make it toggle. I decided I'd had enough. Bought an ATI TV Wonder, installed Linux, MythTV, and lirc, an had a working setup. Oh, and the time? About two weeks, including all tweaking. That was almost two years ago, and I haven't rebooted Windows since then.

In fact, I thought I'd deleted it off of all partitions, and recently found a copy hidden on that computer. Forgot it was there. Anyway, Linux is unusable? People can't make it do what they want? Maybe they can't, but I sure as hell can. And do. So please, don't call it unusable.It's only unusable for people who are even worse than my mom at computers (mind you, she still doesn't really understand the idea of folders even).

Since she uses Linux every time she goes online, I have to conclude that, if you believe Linux is unusable, you desparately need to check into computer rehab, and get some better skills.

the analogy of:

...The BMW runs like a dream, works without fault, didn't require any specialist knowledge to set up.

...The kit car, while resulting in a supurb vehicle when finished, took months to build, required a degree in engineering, an assumed knowledge of how to install and use the individual pre-requisite components, and an ongoing desire to tinker under the bonnet to keep it humming along smoothly.

I mean, really... have you looked at the documentation? And that's just about the PRE-REQUISITES!

Geeze!

I looked at that about a year ago.. balked, and looked for an easier option... which I found in MyHTPC... which was a free product (still is), but has been supersceded by the pay-for product called Meedio. Although you can still get your hands on MyHTPC here.

Let's see... what do you have to do there?
* Boot Windows X (I haven't checked how far back it works, but 2000 and XP are fine)
* Run Setup
* Use the point and click configure

Um... you're done.

Gee, that was tough.

Again I say: It's all well and good for there to be these great things out there for Linux, and they're free and wonderfully Open Sourced etc... gotta love that... but as long as the instructions for just getting the thing running are many, many pages long, and expect you to have to run off and do all sorts of other dependancy installs etc... I'm sticking with Windows and free products that have a 'setup.exe' thanks.

Most responses to this post so far mentioned XMLTV, which is an icky solution that's no longer supported by MythTV. The far more elegant one is to use MythTV's relatively new Zap2It support.

All XMLTV did anyways for North America was query Zap2It, and the DataDirect service of Zap2It that Myth uses now is much less errorprone and much faster, although you have to take a survey every 3 months if you want a free account there.

By using Zap2It

It's been a while since I built a MythTV box (went to a PrismIQ for a while; OK but not great)...

That being said I remember that there was an XML hookup for most cable channels by zip code. It would pull it all from an XML database and you just had to run it as a cron job to pick up the latest listings. AND you could timeshift based on those listings through the interface.

Try here

...I suspect that the software community will pickup the fragments and produce code to do whatever the original community want.

I think it is called MythTV and Freevo

Chop

Shit like this is precisely why I'm building myself a mythtv box. Better quality, unlimited space, no monthly fees, easy networking, easy CD/DVD burning, etc.

Enjoy!

Odd, my Myth box looks a lot better than my Tivo, both in it's UI and the box itself. Take a little time to research the various PVR packages, most of them offer themable UIs that look a LOT better than a Tivo.

As for a complex installation... I guess inserting a CD into a drive could be considered complex for some.

Really, I dont know who would pay $500 on this piece of junk when I can have a PVR running on Linux using MythTV software. Really, guys think about installing MythTV(http://www.mythtv.org/) rather than spending $500 for nothing.

> I love being able to play ogg file on my iPod..oh wait, no.

I enjoy a large collection of vorbis coded music on my neuros.

> I mean I love being able to stream them to my Tivo.

My mythbox plays ogg encased xvid4 rips of dvds just fine.

> Wait, no I mean, It's great that I can burn ogg files onto a cd and play them in my car mp3...er ogg...wait, no.

Did I mention my neuros? It has a built in FM transmitter. Childs play to take my music anywhere.

Open solutions exist, run well and will continue if I have anything to say about it.

... so my clock doesn't drift by like five minutes a day, necessitating a daily ping to the USNO time servers? anyone?

My MythTV box has a rather old clock that drifts a lot. This could create problems with program scheduling, so I've set up a cron job to run rdate every couple of hours, and keep the clock synchronized with one of the NIST NTP servers.

If you're on a Windows box, I'm sure that a similar automated functionality can be set up.

Actually, most of the big torrent sites already publish via RSS. Combined with a specialized reader or script (available on http://tvt.milfclan.com/ or http://torrents.co.uk/) or mythtv http://mythtv.org/ It is pretty much fully automatic. Granted, most of these solutions require using regular expressions, so it's not entirely foolproof.

You don't want to surf and watch TV at the same time but others do. Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.

I already access my videos and MP3s (actually, OGGs) via MythTV . On top of that, I check the weather, get news headlines, and play games. I can also schedule programs from halfway around the world, via the web interface.

On top of all this, MythTV is free free. I'm not sure what would ever convince me to switch to TiVO or a similarly-limited product.

These would make great MythTv boxes if they had more pci slots. Currently there are only two. It would be nice to have two regular tuners and a digital tuner in the box. They could also add an irda port to the front. Also the thing weighs 15kg or approx. 33 pounds; not something you want to trip over in the dark.

Subject: I want to build a 1.5TB storage array for MythTV

Recently ran into the account of a guy who built his own 1.2TB RAID50-based storage array for $1600. I really like the idea and have been thinking about following suit.

Like Finnie, I want to be able to store huge amounts of DivX/Xvid files online. In addition to the storage array, I also plan to build a separate MythTV box, which among other things will let me play them at will. My 200GB Series 1 TiVo's been serving me well for more than four years, but I really like the idea of being able to seamlessly integrate my AVI collection with TV recordings, and from what I gather MythTV has finally matured enough to be a realistic TiVo alternative.

I have been 100% Linux at home for almost a decade and am quite comfortable with most of the technical aspects of the project.

I'm planning on making the following changes to Finnie's build configuration:

• Instead of 200GB ATA, use 250GB SATA drives for a total of 1.5TB. Outpost.com offers a Western Digital 250GB SATA drive for $170. I just missed the chance to get a $30 rebate off each drive, but I'm sure Fatwallet will alert me to a similar opportunity sooner or later.
  
• Accordingly, get a HighPoint SATA RAID card instead of the specified RocketRAID 454 ATA RAID card. I think the RocketRAID 1640 is the way to go.
  
• Instead of ext3, use XFS as the file system.
  

My questions:

• If I connect the storage array to my Linksys WRT54G router, will 100Mbps Ethernet be fast enough to pump the AVI files to the MythTV box without dropping frames?
  
• Conversely, will 100Mbps Ethernet be sufficient to let me use the storage array as the primary storage medium for MythTV's recordings? What about HDTV encodings (using the pcHDTV Linux-only card)? Or do I have to upgrade to a Gigabit Ethernet router? Or would the encoder card and MythTV software have to run on the storage array itself in order to achieve acceptable performance? (Actually, I'm not opposed to doing so, if one box can simultaneously handle both storage and MythTV tasks.)
  
• Anything else that I'm missing or should keep in mind?
  

I wish MythTV(http://www.mythtv.org/) (or another of the OS DVRs) in the mix, especially since one of the Tivo requests he's got is for a PC version of their software.

Let's not forget about Snapstream with it's web and 10-foot based administration. I've been using it for a long time and it has a larger feature set than both Tivo and Media Center if you include the up and coming Beyond Media. It even does dual tuners now like Myth TV.

Almost everything he talked about is in someform of completion on the http://www.mythtv.org/.

I may be wrong, but my understanding of cable TV here in Australia has been that our population is simply too sparse to support wide-spread roll outs. Foxtel and a few other operators have cable around the big three cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane... what about Perth and Adelaide?) but everywhere else requires satellite. And satellite is an extra hassle, and I'm guessing is more expensive for the operator.

But I think you're also right about us not being "real heavy tv watchers". I used to get Foxtel when I lived in Sydney and while it had some good things from time to time, it never really engrossed me to a great deal. With the internet, computer games, Triple J radio, a good collection of DVD's, and several gigs of ripped MP3/Vorbis music, the five FTA channels are entertaining enough for me. I never find myself thinking "geez I'm bored and what I'd really like to do right now is flick through 500 channels of crap and vegetate".

Besides, there's always the D1 Home Media Centre as well as DIY MythTV and Freevo boxen.

I have been thinking about creating a web service that could be used by PVR software to create an open-source version of TIVO-style recommendations.

The idea would be to collect viewing habits anonymously, and then automatically create "viewers who recorded this also recorded..." listings.

A PVR project could then use this data to automatically record shows, or just mark them as recommendations in the Guide. It would not be tied to a specific PVR project, it could be added as modules to GB-PVR (which I use), MythTV, or any other project.

Some of the challenges include how to identify films and TV series correctly, handle international show titles, and how to make the users contribute to the database hassle-free.

If anyone has heard of a project like this before, please let me know :-)

With some old leftover hardware and a $150 TV card, it was ridiculously easy to set up, even though a little Linux experience did help. Sure, the commercial detection is "programmed" and prone to miss commercials or (on occasion) think that the program itself is the commercial, but when it's free and includes most, if not all of what these PVR boxes will, having that "up-to-the-second" information isn't really all that vital.

You have to compile it yourself. Screw that. Can't they come up with a simple install-me CD or .iso?! I just want to watch TV dammit, not mess around with obscure Linux configs.

I'll second that.

MythTV is great and it's extensible - if you want to build your own PVR and you like Linux, then you'll like MythTV. It's not necessarily cheaper than a Tivo up front, but it's more flexible and extensible if you're into that sort of hacking thing ;)

Having just completed a MythTV box that now "owns" my TV, I can say it was more complicated, cost more, and took longer than I expected. I can also say that I'm very happy with what I have and what I can do with it, and the potential to add new features and functionality.

Installing MythTV takes some time. I recommend using one of the distros/guides below. Following these, most clueful people should be able to get MythTV running.

See:

MythTV Homepage
KnoppMyth - bootable MythTV
Jarod's Fedora/MythTV Homepage
Debian MythTV howto
Gentoo MythTV howto

meant to say:
mythtv

You mean like the GPL'd MythTV ?

Yeah it runs on linux(QT), so it's a little hard to set up, but it runs well, downloads TV schedules for free, supports multiple tuners and a wide range of cards including pcHDTV

...Must configure Linux Box!!!
...Myst configure Linux Box... Myth configure linux box...

So has http://mythtv.org/

Try MythTV... it rocks.

http://mythtv.org/

I'm not stuck on DVD as next generation or big floppy. I'm not even thinking DVD as next generation VHS. I'm discussing the passing trends of technology. VHS hit houses in the 70s and 80s, becoming fairly ubiquitous in the late 80s and early 90s. I've got a few VCRs, but I can't remember the last time I rented or purchased a tape, and I know I'm not alone. DVD has started replacing VHS which lasted, therefore, about 20 years on top.

Whatever you stick on the DVD doesn't matter. Whatever the purpose of your sticking things on the disk doesn't matter, either. Yes, there are stand-alone devices that make it unlike computers. I concede. You missed some of my point, but I got yours. You win.

My mention of broadband was not to imply an extension of PPV. On the contrary, I was simply suggesting that bandwidth can become a medium for delivery of movies or data delivered by other than physical media. The other discussions in this thread have kicked that horse to death, but here's my take:

Consider the possibility that out-of-band delivery or really high speed makes it so that time isn't the problem; now downloading many GB of data (including the MPEG encoded movies) can take hours longer than going to your video outlet and making a purchase. You instead order your purchase from Amazon. It's delivered to your home entertainment server, or made available in perpetuity from some remote server (in the example, bandwidth isn't a big deal, but maybe storage is). You watch the digital any time you want, same as having the disk in the drive. You want to take it with you, you move it to your portable player, just like music on an iPod, or you access your video server account from your buddy's player when you want to share.

Even wire as a medium might fade. Wireless is nearly everywhere, and if the bandwidth and access can become ubiquitous, too, maybe that'll open the system up so you don't need the comfort of holding the plastic disk in your hand.

Given that, I believe even today's technology surpasses PPV and DVD. Small changes to PVR software could allow technology to integrate and deliver content differently than today. You set up your PVR to record the movie to watch later, poof it's there; there until you don't want it any more. Better than DVD, it gets the resolution best suited for your video and storage device, lanugage preference, and viewing preference (letterbox, directors' cut, whatever). You've go the right setup (I've got nearly a TB of storage on 11 different servers in my house), you probably never have to get rid of it. Sure, licensing needs to be worked out. BitTorrent ripped DVDs aren't always legal (although there is legal content, too), but here I'm just pointing out different technology, not advocating theft.

That's what Bill was talking about. Not the shitty "watch on demand" crap from your cable company.

DVD as a medium? It'll pass. I bet it'll pass a lot faster than albums have (which have gone through their own transitions such as two sided, 78-, 45-, and 33-RPM, stereo, etc, so it's not like they turned out the best phonograph 100 years ago). It takes a lot of gear to make a DVD work, instead of just a needle and something to vibrate for a phonograph. That technology will change more rapidly than it has to bring us DVD. High-definition, surround-sound, extra features, all that jazz will push the limits of the media, and it'll shift. You want to record your own stuff on DVD? That's not where it will be either (and you have to concede, nearly no one ever recorded albums at home).

I think the medium of DVD will be around for a long time. I hope so--I have hundreds of the damned things (exaggerated, but not unrealistic). I also think the next best thing will be here before we send men to Mars.

Distributed, multi-channel recordings are very nice. If you have multiple PCs, you can also do distributed TV watching (watch a recorded program on a PC other than the one which recorded it).

MythTV also has the cool feature where, if all the encoder cards on your current PC are busy recording shows (which means that you can't watch something else), MythTV will transparently use another encoder on another PC, and stream that output to your current PC. Sehr cool.

Unfortunately, MythTV can be a royal pain to install and configure. The easiest approach is to use something canned like KnoppMyth, but the current version (R4V4.1) still needs a fair amount of hacking/tweaking to work with high-quality encoding cards like the Hauppauge PVR-250 or PVR-350. Still, it's better than starting from scratch.

Why steal software? Many software packages are reasonably priced, and many are offered with rebates and upgrade coupons. See more here

On the other hand, most of the truely great apps are written for linux. They are usually feature packed, have very little security problems, etc.. Examples would be MythTV, Apache, MySQL, the GIMP, Mozilla and Firefox, etc... The list goes on!

--
Craploads of deals updating in real time from all the best deal sites.

it is more accurate and vastly more reliable than XMLTV based solutions like Myth.

XMLTV is no longer the preferred way to get listings for MythTV. MythTV now supports Zap2It.com DataDirect service. See sections 5.4 and 21.19 of the MythTV documentation.

I'd add MediaPortal to that list for comparison, although I would agree MythTV should come out on top, it's awesome!

"I've yet to find anything that I use that doesn't run on all three platforms just fine."

I have one: mythtv is one that won't run on windows and has only $-ware nosourceware limitedware versions for windos... Nothing can beat the coolness and feature richness of a set of mythbackends with multiple frontends and one or more mediamvp's with our own gpl software.

"There's no reason for *anyone* not to feel "spoiled" by the large amounts of free, high-quality, software available!"

hihi. Funny, but I'm afraid for many of us it's too late to feel spoiled: We already are spoiled and are taking it for granted. I guess soon it will feel neglected, get mad and leave us ;-))

I'm surprised that Mythtv hasn't been mentioned here as an alternative to the DRM'd crap more than once.

What more can you ask for? linux/wireless/radio/dvd/mediaplayer-dvd-mp3 -ogg-lame-wma/weather/news/web/mysql/ripping dvd/photoalbum/DVR -pause-rewind-record/PIP/Schdeduled recording/front-end/back-end/all-in-one/

What's not to drool over?? Beats the pants off any commercial product, plus you get to build it yourself!

Many, many sites to help you get started , !

All without someone watching over what you're doing with what you've purchased......

Are you referring to MythTV? Because Mythtv has very little todo with what cards are supported in linux. In any case the Ati TV wonder VE is supported, so don't claim ATi cards aren't supported, because the stand alone ones are, just not the all-in-wonder cards.

There's two types of TV tuners out for PCs right now: Those with hardware encoders, and those without

The cheap ones (usually under $50) do not come with hardware encoders.

Hardware encoders (usually MPEG2) look superior and are generally smoother, taking the load off your CPU. Do not assume that since you have quad-processor super PC that it's enough to output great/smooth video. A hardware MPEG2 encoder is still superior.

As for internal VS external, there's a few USB 2.0 tuners with built-in hardware encoders, but none of them work in Linux. You're better off getting a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 (or 350 if you need TV-out) and sticking it in a MythTV Linux box... The current king of Tivo-like software.

Since there is a Linux upgrade kit ($99) for the PSX, will the EPSX also be Linux capable?

This would make a great all-in-one platform for Freevo or MythTV.

I was an early TiVo owner. I paid for Cable. I upgraded my TiVo's HD, and got DirectTV... Then I got a DirectTiVo...
But one day, I realized that I was paying too much for the limited number of shows on TV I watching... so I stopped paying at all, because the net is a good source of all media now.

Now, I download my favorite TV shows from the net. Within hours of the Simpsons airing on 'free tv', I can download a DivX of it, watching it on my MythTV box, which outputs to my 60 inch TV, with no commercials either. Looks as good as Cable or DirectTV ever did. HBO shows like the Sopranos? CBS/ABC/Fox/NBC? The same thing. Pretty much all of the 'good' tv programs, I can download right away, thanks to Bittorrent.

Mixing Mythtv, RSS and Bitorrent is the killer app for media. It's coming soon... I'll just subscribe to shows, and they will just appear on my box... And every other Myth-style Box out there will help spread them. Even better than Tivo, since I can trust someone to manage an good RSS feed and I'll get everything they think I'd like... Or I'll pick 2 feeds, or 3 feeds, or a dozen... Or run one of my own for friends, etc etc.

We are already seeing things like this:
Michael Badnarik (the 2004 Libertarian Presidential Candidate) using Bittorrent: He's put his entire Constitution Class on downloadable video, for free over the Internet, using BitTorrent. 7 parts, each one hour long.
What would buying Primetime TV for this sort of exposure cost? And who would watch it, all 7 hours, if they did? But this way, grassroot politics, simply by bypassing traditional media! Watch on demand... Educate people... Expose people to ideas they aren't getting on Mass Media.
I want to see this man in a debate with Bush and Kerry now...

Death of traditional Media, due to Growth of Net, predicted, Film at 11.com

one of the major reasons I gave up and abandoned my MythTV box for a replayTV box. It took me 3 days to find a working "subscription code" for the zap2it.com page and finally found one not with mythtv's forums but in the XMLTV user mailing list.

I can see enough into the future to know that zap2it will certianly start charging fees by the end of this year.

Even if they did charge, can we not just file it away as a "don't have to screw with it" payment?

PVR systems based on old hardware will be slow. It doesn't matter if you throw a hardware encoder/decoder in your Duron 850, it will be slow. You want all the CPU and disk speed you can get. Trust me.

But it seems MythTV does record the adverts, though it can automatically delete them afterwards.

This is just not broad enough for people to actually see the differences between the various htpc alternatives. Many of us htpc fans started over a year ago here or here or here . This review, frankly, is inadequate. There are far more issues than meets the eye when making your own htpc, whether myth or xp mce. I'm not advocating either one, I'd just like to remark, after building my own htpc from scratch, that this article tells little to nothing about the pain and suffering of completing this complex task on your own.

Pros: It's SO DAMN COOL
Cons: the 900mhz phone screws up my wireless. I solved this by getting rid of my land line and going all cellular,

I also use PalmVNC at work to manage a large variety of machine, although only mac, windows and RH9 (damn I'm gonna miss you RH9). It's quite convenient to haev my palm with me and be able to read logs while in the bathroom. Ok, I know that's a bad pun, but I really DO read the log files from my servers on PalmVNC when I'm in the crapper. And it's not as bad as going to the bathroom to play solitaire with your Palm.

Why? My HT PC uses a NiceTracker ACK-573 keyboard. It's an infrared PS/2 keyboard. Works just fine (with one exception I'll get to momentarily), and has the added bonus that I can program my Universal Remote from it, and use the remote for most functions that don't require me to actually be entering text. Since I run MythTV, I rarely need to enter text, and it saves me having to doink with LIRC.

The one exception to working fine is that the thing eats batteries, even when it's not in use. The solution was pretty simple: run to Radio Shack, get a pushbutton switch, drill a hole in the case and install the switch on the battery terminal. Voila, on-off capability that saves the battery.

A friend of mine has a modded Xbox with XBMC and it is fantastic. Very nice themes have been made, too. Check 'em at allxboxskins.com.

However, I'll have to put in the required plug for MythTV. It does PVR stuff (TiVo), music, videos, weather, etc. I run mine in a little Shuttle XPC that integrates well into my home theater (doesn't look like an obvious computer). I run HDTV resolution out to my Sony TV and get a really stunning GUI.

Have you not looked at MythTV? It is pretty cool with what all it controls and the GUI.

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