Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Freevo Developers Interviewed

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the up-close-and-personal dept.

prostoalex writes "O'Reilly's LinuxDevCenter features Freevo, 'a media platform that brings together various applications for video recording and playback.' They interview the developers, and talk about the current plans for the project. Freevo is not just a standalone product, it's a platform to which other developers, interested in home media on Linux, can plug into."

82 comments

  1. Windows version? by Anonymous+Cowherd+X · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first release, in May 2002, consisted only of a blue screen

    So they made a Windows version first?

    1. Re:Windows version? by EpsCylonB · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Seriously though where is the windows version ? /running winxp and likes it.... //likes half life 2...

    2. Re:Windows version? by Keebler71 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I know that was a joke but Windows users do have an excellent option available in Media Portal. It is a very good open source rip-off of the Windows Media Center Edition functions.

      --
      "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
    3. Re:Windows version? by FullCircle · · Score: 1

      Media Portal looks great. The features look just about perfect.

      The problem is that every time I install it, it's incredibly unstable. That isn't a Windows bashing remark, I think Windows XP is stable enough for this use. Media Portal is just plain buggy.

      --
      If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
  2. This will never take off. by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Funny

    This product will never become popular until the authors implement some solid digital rights management. Several studies funded by the RIAA and MPAA conclusively prove that users want DRM in every piece of software and hardware that is made today.

    I'm afraid without such restrictions on them, users just won't want to use such software because nobody wants free and unfettered access to equipment and software they purchase.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:This will never take off. by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Informative? I think the parent was joking.

      I think DRM is going to slip itself in to many aspects of downloading/playing songs and movies without people complaining about it. This is because your average customer of this software and equipment doesn't realize exactly what it can do. I think there is going to be a backlash when people figure out that all DRM means to them is the inability to play a media file. I'm still waiting to hear about an actual feature or benefit this gives to the end user.

    2. Re:This will never take off. by EpsCylonB · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is because your average customer of this software and equipment doesn't realize exactly what it can do. I think there is going to be a backlash when people figure out that all DRM means to them is the inability to play a media file. I'm still waiting to hear about an actual feature or benefit this gives to the end user.

      I'm probably just rehashing what has been said before but it is difficult to see how digital piracy can be eliminated.

      The only way is for music and video to be safe digitally is if non drm formats don't exist. As long as they do it will always be trivial to convert between the two. Even if the conversion process is difficult, you only need to do it once.

      I have faith that as long as non drm formats are legal consumers will (after trial and error) favour the format that "just works" and never causes any hassles.

    3. Re:This will never take off. by BESTouff · · Score: 1
      Informative? I think the parent was joking.

      Please. Us moderators have the right to be funny sometimes too. That '+1 Informative' was intended as a joke. I hope it will be metamoderated accordingly.

    4. Re:This will never take off. by lachlan76 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't need to be converted to a non-DRM format, because no-doubt there will be a publically available key which can be used for freely distributable recordings.

  3. More Options by ReeprFlame · · Score: 0, Redundant

    That's good that O'Rielly is making somethingr for Linux. Now one has mroe choices and this package seems to have several things incorperated into one, which is a good thing.

    --
    _

    Free 27" Sony WEGA TV

  4. Perfect question for the first PVR box builder by 2MuchC0ffeeMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Howard Wen: How does Freevo differ from MythTV?

    Dirk Meyer: MythTV uses QT, which uses X. Freevo should also run on a frame buffer, a DXR3 or something else. The next difference is MythTV depends on a MySQL database. Freevo always was a GUI for external programs. There was never the idea to build a TV application like MythTV inside Freevo.

    Rob Shortt: MythTV has the live TV time-shifting nailed, and for that I am envious. While Myth has the advantage in [this], I think Freevo does a better job of other media handling.

    Freevo tends to be a more nimble program, or I should say "platform." This has to do with us not using a data server like MySQL or depending on Apache for the web interface. Instead, we use a combination of caches, object serialization, XML files, and SQLite for persistent storage, and our own lightweight web server using Twisted.

    Aubin Paul: MythTV is exceptional, and I admire much of what they've done. But I don't like some of their design choices. For example, why would I run X-Windows on my TV?

    --
    Runnin' On Empty .... I'm Still Alive
    1. Re:Perfect question for the first PVR box builder by BillyBlaze · · Score: 3, Informative
      One minor nitpick I'd make their - Qt doesn't necessarily use X - it usually does, but it can also run on the framebuffer, or embedded devices, or Windows. (Of course, so can SDL).

      I've actually been planning to give Freevo a try - primarily because mythbackend has a habit of dying on me, and a few other quirks.

  5. Freevo vs. MythTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am considering building a Linux "Media Center" PC soon and one reason I like Freevo more than MythTV is that for the most part it is written in Python. It seems that Freevo would be far easier to modify and write plugins for than Myth (which mostly written in C). Even the creators of Freevo claim they did not know Python before they started.

    1. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by avidday · · Score: 3, Informative

      Freevo is "lighter", more modular and more customisable. The MythTV developers really have time shifting sorted out well. On the other hand running MythTV means running X11, using a MySQL server for recording and listing management and Apache if you want a webserver from end for it. Freevo does the same thing with three python apps that sit over SDL, XMLtv/PySQLlite and the twisted framework. I have tried both and I like Freevo better - the flexibility it affords is a big plus.

    2. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by 2MuchC0ffeeMan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mythtv, only because of Jarod's HOWTO:

      http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php

      --
      Runnin' On Empty .... I'm Still Alive
    3. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by bljohnson0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Depends on what you want to do. If you want a media center to handle video and audio files then Freevo sounds like a good solution.

      But for me.. sorry.. Freevo is useless. If they're going to play off the "TiVo" name by calling it Freevo it should be able to handle timeshifting of live TV.

      If I cant pause/rewind/fast-fwd live TV then I'm not touching it. If they ever figure out how to add that functionality then I'll take a look. They're currently "working on it" but they've been doing that since I looked into it a year ago.

    4. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Cthefuture · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It seems that Freevo would be far easier to modify and write plugins for than Myth (which mostly written in C).

      Probably, Myth is written mostly in C++ though. The code is a horrible hack job though. Written by a college student. Not that all college student projects suck, it's just that usually the inexperienced create poor designs initially.

      Even the creators of Freevo claim they did not know Python before they started.

      This is not a good thing either. Same problem as above.

      Overall, MythTV looks a lot better and has more features because more people have been working on it. The code is often buggy and hard to hack on. However, it does work resonably well and I've been happily using MythTV for over a year with no major issues.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    5. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by DavidNWelton · · Score: 2, Informative

      The original Tivo was done with a lot of Tcl scripts, probably with a healthy dose of C integration (which is very easy with Tcl). The point being, that yes, using scripting..errr..dynamic programming languages improves flexibility, and if you plan carefully (doing the right bits in C), won't even impact performance much.

      --
      http://www.welton.it/davidw/
    6. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cant is a word you probably didn't mean. I know you meant can't but non native speakers may not.

    7. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by FullCircle · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've used both for a long time and I currently use Freevo.

      Both do a great job at playback on video files. Both have similar features for photos.

      Freevo has a better music playback system IMHO. Myth requires an overly complicated two step process of making a playlist using a badly designed menuing system in one screen and then going to another section of Myth to play back your currently selected playlist. With Freevo you have the option of selecting a folder to playback as a complete album or making a playlist. 99% of the time I want the album so this works better for me.
      I guess my life isn't random.

      Neither is very good at playing DVDs. If you do get DVD playback functioning, the menus will either kinda work or not at all. Don't throw away that $30 DVD player just yet.

      Myth has more polish and extra features such as background ripping and VOIP.

      The main problem with Myth is the complexity of the application. It uses a MySQL database to hold almost all of its information on movies, music and settings. This makes setup, even on a Debian system very complicated. Using a specialized distro such as Knoppmyth helps, but even the Knoppmyth installer is a bear to get fully functioning.

      With Freevo, details about each movie are kept in a single text file located in the directory with the movie. If I move the files around, the data never gets lost. With Myth, losing the database will lose any work you have done entering movie info. I know I could backup the database, but why should I have to? Think Windows registry vs. Unix text configuration files. Why use a database when a simple directory listing will suffice? The developers never heard of KISS, that is certain.

      Compared to Freevo, MythTV crashes a lot. IMHO, the overhead of the database and the complexity of C++ make MythTV harder to debug. At one point, one of my Myth installs lost the ability to add more files to the listing. I have quite a few full series on the drives and I wonder if I didn't hit some limit in the software. I finally gave up on Myth at that point and went with Freevo.

      Don't get me wrong, I'd like to use MythTV. It's the instability and the dread of configuring MythTV that keeps me using Freevo instead.

      Freevo is simple and functional.

      --
      If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
    8. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      The code is a horrible hack job though. Written by a college student. Not that all college student projects suck, it's just that usually the inexperienced create poor designs initially.

      Like, um, the Linux Kernel?

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    9. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Installing mysql is "very complicated"? Dude, sounds like you better stick to Windows.

      YOu don't backup your text files either. It's MUCH easier to do a backup dump of the database.

      Finally, there's barely any overhead running mysql this way.

    10. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Neither is very good at playing DVDs. If you do get DVD playback functioning, the menus will either kinda work or not at all. Don't throw away that $30 DVD player just yet.

      I have to disagree with this. First of all, neither one plays DVDs directly, they both rely on an external program. The default player for both is probably still mplayer, which as you say, does not do DVD menus. But if you tell them to use Xine for DVDs instead, as most people do, DVD menus work flawlessly.

      Some people also use Ogle instead of Xine or mplayer, but although I know Ogle also supports menus, I haven't used it and am not sure how well it supports them.

      Compared to Freevo, MythTV crashes a lot.

      I've been using MythTV for about a month, and it's never crashed.

      But neither did Freevo in the week I used it before I tried MythTV.

    11. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by geckofiend · · Score: 1
      Probably, Myth is written mostly in C++ though. The code is a horrible hack job though. Written by a college student. Not that all college student projects suck, it's just that usually the inexperienced create poor designs initially.


      yeaahhhh right. While some of the people who contribute code to Myth are college students, the core development team has been writing software professionaly for a number of years.

      The code is often buggy and hard to hack on.

      Buggy? Hell it's stable enough and bug free enough to run CVS 99% of the time. What bug do get found get fixed quickly. If it's hard to hack on for you, perhaps you don't have enough development skill to be making any assements about the design.

    12. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by geckofiend · · Score: 1
      Compared to Freevo, MythTV crashes a lot

      Funny I don't remember the last time I had a crash with Myth.

    13. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Cthefuture · · Score: 1

      The key word is usually. I was writing professional quality code by college as well. But that was only because by the time I was 18, I already had some 20,000 hours programming experience. Most people do not dedicate their lives to programming like that, especially not at such an early age. Some of us do.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    14. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Cthefuture · · Score: 1

      The "core development team" has not always been the same people.

      I have never run any version of MythTV that would not crash for some reason or another. I tend to be a heavy user and push software to its limits though. I just learn what to avoid to prevent crashes, but it has never been 99% bug free for me.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    15. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
      But for me.. sorry.. Freevo is useless. If they're going to play off the "TiVo" name by calling it Freevo it should be able to handle timeshifting of live TV.

      If I cant pause/rewind/fast-fwd live TV then I'm not touching it. If they ever figure out how to add that functionality then I'll take a look.

      How often does the average TiVo or MythTV user watch live TV, though? It's one of those neat features that TiVo uses to sell its boxes, but in the more than four years I've had my TiVo, I've almost never watched live TV. It usually only happens when I start watching a show that's been recording for 15 minutes or so, and I end up catching up to live TV before it's over.

      I've started using MythTV more recently, and the only time I fire up live TV on it is to verify that the capture cards are working after changing hardware, upgrading software, or whatever. If they made live TV some sort of service-menu option and removed it from the main menu system, I wouldn't miss it. (Swapping the "Watch TV" and "Watch Recordings" options around would be nice...maybe I should dig into the source some time and do that.)

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    16. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, I remember yesterday, though.

      And the day before. And the day before that.

      I've had myth up for about a week now, and mythbackend has been dying on me daily for the past three days.

      I'm currently configuring Freevo.

    17. Re:Freevo vs. MythTV by FullCircle · · Score: 1

      Installing mysql is easy. Configuring MythTV and mysql to work right isn't. I do video for a living, not database servers, so I would rather not configure a database server if I don't have to.

      It sounds like you are advocating a Windows like approach.

      This is one single point of failure for the whole PVR system. Relying on the database for everything in MythTV is like relying on the registry on Windows.

      When I backup a folder full of movies the information files tag right along. If I ever had a bad backup medium I could still recover most of the data.

      If I lose the database on a backup I lose the whole file.

      --
      If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
  6. Freevo vs. MythTV by drgath159 · · Score: 1

    Planning on building a box, anyone want to comment on which one is better? Never used Freevo, played around with Myth a little bit, but my TV card at the time didn't work with it.

  7. comment id = elite! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    by Anonymous Cowherd X (850136) on Saturday January 29, @09:31AM ( #11513371)

    Check out that number: I-is-leet-1! Dude, are you one of the editors??? This can't be a coincidence!?

    1. Re:comment id = elite! by Anonymous+Cowherd+X · · Score: 1

      by Anonymous Cowherd X (850136) on Saturday January 29, @09:31AM (#11513371)

      Check out that number: I-is-leet-1! Dude, are you one of the editors??? This can't be a coincidence!?

      I'm not one of the editors! But after setting the record for most consecutive Slashdot posts yesterday and posting this I-is-leet-1 post (which is also the first post, BTW) I know you find that hard to believe.

    2. Re:comment id = elite! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      And apparently you are a fish.

      11513445 == "I is one Baas".

      Well, it's the German variation...

  8. why bother? by remmelt · · Score: 1

    i agree, this looks nice. it's good to be in control. it's great that it runs on linux. my question is: why bother? there's nothing on anyway. the handfull of shows that are worthwhile (for me only the simpsons, really) you'll get on dvd anyway... all without the ads! no timeshifting or anything, you OWN the thing! i haven't had a tv in years, and the only thing i miss is the news.

    1. Re:why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You miss the news... Trust me you're not missing anything.

    2. Re:why bother? by lewiz · · Score: 1

      If you bothered to read the article you would realise Freevo does a lot more than allow you to watch TV.

      I use Freevo on a tuner-less PC. I have it hooked up to my projector and it is a lot easier to use a remote control and pick the DVD or CD I dumped to my hard disk, show people my holiday photos (with nice alpha blending), listen to the radio, download information and images about the film from Amazon.

      Sure, I could do all this with mplayer, realplay and Firefox but it's a damn site easier to press a few logical buttons on a remote control to do it.

    3. Re:why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Simpsons? Wow, you're a real intellectual.

    4. Re:why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my question is: why bother? there's nothing on anyway. the handfull of shows that are worthwhile (for me only the simpsons, really) you'll get on dvd anyway... all without the ads! no timeshifting or anything, you OWN the thing!

      I hate libraries, too. Most of the books suck, and you don't even get to keep them. And they have all that advertising all over them ("Public Library" stickers everywhere). They're not even in good condition.

      No wonder amazon.com is going like gangbusters! What a scam the library's been pulling all these years.

  9. What about MythTV? by laird · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm amazed that they wrote up the Freevo project without even mentioning the MythTV project, which is far more mature (i.e. dues more, works a lot better, has more users and developers). Aside from doing more and working better, MythTV has a nice, scalable architecture that allows you to have multiple back-ends (storage and video encoding) and multiple front-ends (control and playback) so that you can have (for example) a big MythTV back-end in the basement with tons of storage and a couple of tuner cards, and have lightweight MythTV front-ends (which can run on an X-Box (for example, see http://www.killefiz.de/k/machines/xbox-mythtv-fron tend/) or a Mac. And since mythtv is available via apt-get install mythtv-suite it's really easy to set up and play around with on any Linux box. The latest version adds MythPhone, which is a fun way to play around with voice over IP and videophones. I'll admit that I spend more time in MythGame (runs all MAME games, etc.).

    From trying both projects, the only interesting thing about Freevo is that the front-end is written in Python, which is a nice language but is slow, while MythTV is written in C++, which is an annoying language but is fast.

    --
    Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
    1. Re:What about MythTV? by spencerogden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I read the article yesterday, and the do mention MythTV. I haven't used either system much, but I do know that Freevo is also easy to install.

      The developers say that on one hand, they dislike the reliance of MythTV on X, on the other, they envy MythTV Broadcast Pause feature, something they are still trying to get right.

      Now maybe their fear of X is as uncalled for as people who say X makes the desktop slow, but they are aware that MythTV has more features. In all Freevo seems to follow the Unix tradition of assembling small, seperate tools into a loose mass, which is often hard to get right at first than a more monolithic approach.

      --

      Spencer Ogden

    2. Re:What about MythTV? by isolationism · · Score: 2, Informative

      The reply above covers most of the points, but not all. When you say "MythTV does more" you might quantify that -- It does more with television viewing. MythTV is nearly (if not completely) useless for watching movies, listening to music, or looking at image media -- all things that Freevo does very well, which is all I, and a number of other Freevo users, employ it for.

    3. Re:What about MythTV? by stoneymonster · · Score: 1

      That's funny, cause I just finished wathcing a dvd I ripped using MythDVD in perfect quality. Oh, and I have a 30 gig mp3 collection that plays nicely in mythMusic. As for galleries, I've never been compelled by looking at photos on my TV, but mythGallery is there, never used it. Myth may be klunky, but its pretty powerful once its up and running. -C

    4. Re:What about MythTV? by lewiz · · Score: 1

      MythTV is linked heavily in the article itself. Also, MythTV and Freevo largely have different goals and design ideals.

      For example, MythTV is Linux *only*, while Freevo has a FreeBSD port and could easily be switched over to Net or OpenBSD.

      As for Python being slow -- this is all covered quite well in the article and from experience I can say you wouldn't know you were using Python (at least judging by speed).

    5. Re:What about MythTV? by Gregg+M · · Score: 3, Informative
      MythTV is nearly (if not completely) useless for watching movies, listening to music, or looking at image media -- all things that Freevo does very well

      I saw a lot more than a Tivo clone at the MythTV website.

      • Rip, categorize, play, and visualize MP3/Ogg/FLAC/CD Audio files. (FLAC, Vorbis, and MP3 encoding). Create complex playlists (and playlists containing playlists) through a simple UI.
      • An emulator frontend. (MAME, NES, SNES, generic PC games)
      • An image viewer/slideshow application.
      • A weather module.
      • A generic video player module, with automatic metadata lookups.
      • A DVD player / ripper module. Make perfect backups, or transcode down to smaller file sizes.
      • An RSS news feed reader module.

      How well MythTV performs these tasks is up to someone else to say. But looks like a lot is covered here.

      --
      Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
    6. Re:What about MythTV? by geckofiend · · Score: 1

      Ummm MythVideo, MythMusic and MythGallery. Do all those things and do them VERY well.

    7. Re:What about MythTV? by laird · · Score: 1

      "When you say "MythTV does more" you might quantify that -- It does more with television viewing. MythTV is nearly (if not completely) useless for watching movies, listening to music, or looking at image media"

      I've installed and run both, and this is just silly. MythTV is much better than Freevo at TV viewing, but MythTV also does more other things. As I said before, this is mainly a matter of maturity -- MythTV has more functionality integrated into it than Freevo, but over time many of the MythTV modules/capabilities have been copied (not literally -- but same functionality reimplemented, often copying design, graphics, etc.) -- from MythTV into Freevo. there's nothing wrong with that, of course -- all's fair in open source.

      To be more specific:

      TV viewing:
      MythTV: watch/timeshift TV, including pause/rewind/fast-forward of live tv. supports multiple tuners, optimizing allocation of recordings across multiple tuners based on user preferences. picture-in-picture from multiple tuners. Automatic commercial detection and skipping. Background transcoding into MPEG4. persistent searches (a la TiVo wishlists).
      Freevo: simple timeshifting, one tuner, no preferences/rules.

      Music:
      MythTV: listen to music, play/RIP CD's. cddb lookups when RIPing.
      Freevo: the same, but adds album cover art (nice!), though it requires a lot of work to set up (copy graphics, edit a text file, etc.). Both systems should add support for embedded album art.

      Play movies: essentially the same.

      Image viewer: essentially the same.

      Weather: essentially the same, because someone copied the MythWeather module into Freevo. (new code, same design, graphics).

      Telephony:
      MythTV: make/receive VOIP and videoconference calls.
      Freevo: nope.

      Games:
      MythTV: yep (all the usual Linux emulators).
      Frevo: Same.

      Web/RSS:
      - MythTV: has web browser, RSS reader. Also, MythWeb, a web server interface for administering WebTV remotely.
      - Freevo: no web or RSS. More limited web server interface.

      Architecture:
      - MythTV: multiple back-ends for storage and tuners, multiple-front-ends for viewing the same media in different locations.
      - Freevo: all on one PC.

      To be clear, I certainly have nothing against the Freevo project. But having run both Freevo and MythTV, MythTV is far more mature.

      That being said, both projects basically work, and neither of them is as easy to set up and use as a TiVo. Luckily they both have tons of users and contributors, so they'll keep improving. We all win!

      --
      Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
    8. Re:What about MythTV? by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
      MythTV is nearly (if not completely) useless for watching movies, listening to music, or looking at image media

      I don't care much one way or the other about pictures or music, but you're flat-out wrong on movies. MythDVD works fairly nicely; it calls whatever DVD player app you want to use. mplayer is rather lacking (no menu support at all), but xine offers full-featured playback with menus and AC3/DTS passthrough. It even ignores PUOs (which others have said are frequently abused by Di$ney, though I have no firsthand experience), so you can start playing any commercial DVD with minimal delay.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  10. Xbox version ? by Paolo63 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know there is Xbox Media Center http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/ but i'd like to have something (easier for me) in Python like this to work on and not something depending on the copyrighted Xbox library... Linux can run on an Xbox, can Freevo too ?

    1. Re:Xbox version ? by notthe9 · · Score: 1

      It should be able to run, but to my knowledge no one yet has been able to make an X-box a freestanding PVR. But I don't see why playback should not work.

  11. 2 examples.. RIAA.. MPAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, seriously.
    I don't currently watch TV. BT and DC bring down 95% of everything I want/need (I'm now over a year ahead of the local stargate for example).

    This will allow people to easily connect up their house (see article) and enjoy media. Yay. Without MPAA or RIAA. Yay.

    As for the news.. I agree. Then again, I cnn.com, slashdot.org.. you get the idea :)

    Hmm. If anyone can point me in the direction of more 'naked news' torrents I'd be .. happier :)

  12. Can't you think of anything else to watch? by isolationism · · Score: 1
    I don't really watch any TV to speak of, and don't even have a tuner in my set-top box.

    I've been using Freevo on an EPIA 10000M exclusively for watching movies and listening to music on a little set-top computer (Mini-ITX) for at least a year before the Mac Mini appeared on the scene. It's also much more convenient for showing friends and guests our digital photos without all having to crowd into the office as Freevo has a great built-in image viewer. And the whole thing is 100% controlled via a remote using LIRC.

  13. this is all nice but by treat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All this linux machine as a DVR stuff is great, except that I can't seem to find a video card that will work with my TV. I just want to display 1080i and 720p without any pieces of the image cut off. I have a nVidia card with DVI outputs that I can't find any information on how to configure correctly with my TV. I would buy a new card if I know it will work flawlessly, but no one seems to have information on what cards are good, or how to get the timings to configure X.

    1. Re:this is all nice but by stoneymonster · · Score: 3, Informative

      I suggest you check out mysettopbox.tv (knoppmyth's home page). Their forums have lots of knowledgable people who have done just this. You might also search the mythtv-users group (available in archive or in a nicer threaded format on gossamer-threads.com). There are people there who have helped a bunch of others getting the correct X modelines, etc. Good luck! -C

    2. Re:this is all nice but by buck68 · · Score: 2, Informative

      My advice, if you want to try DVI to your TV, that's fine. But if you don't get satisfactory results initially, don't waste any more time. After huge amounts of research, I found out that my TV (a 30" Widescreen CRT by Toshiba) is basically impossible to get working (beyond 640x480) with DVI from a computer.
      I think the same is true of many TVs. The path of least resistance lies with VGA to component adaptors like the Audio Authority VGA to Component (Y-Pb-Pr) Transcoder (Model 9A60). The 9A60 is a bit pricy, but it was well worth it for me. My theory is that the component input (Y-Pb-Pr) circuitry in TVs is often much more flexible than their DVI interfaces.

      As for quality. The VGA route gives you perfectly clean text and menus, pretty much like you are used to on a proper monitor. Video quality is another matter. My set is HDTV capbable, but I don't feel the cost of HDTV where I live is acceptable. So my video quality benchmark is DVD quality. On my TV, watching a DVD via MythTV (actually xine) on my computer is indistinguishable from watching the same DVD via my progressive scan player (also made by Toshiba).

      I've researched this a lot, and the only other option I'm still curious about is using an Xbox for the front end. The Xbox can do Y-Pr-Pb directly, and the linux Xbox claim to have it working. My main concern is that the CPU may not be powerful enough in some cases. For example, some of my cable channels are of truly horrible quality (Shaw cable in BC). I use the MythTV feature that transcodes video to compact MPEG-4. This space savings substantial, but the quality on the poor channels is what I'd call VHS level (occassionally much worse). There are playback postprocessing filters that can help this, but they seem to need a lot of CPU.

  14. Good alternative? by Nik13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not that I've played with either (my HTPC has always been running on windows), but this sounds like a good alternative to us all using DVB captures instead of crappy analog captures (once you try DVB capturing, you never want to go back). Sounds like this could go nicely with VDR (unless VDR already has those kinds of things in it already?). It seems that the only kind of digital capturing that any companies are interested into is for OTA HDTV, but it would be nice to have something for digital cable or satellite (well, we already have DVB-S covered). For once, microsoft might be the only ones with enough money and power to convince big media companies to let them record the decrypted digital signal directly, as long as they use their DRM. At least you'd have good quality timeshifted/recorded shows, but that's never gonna happen. In some PVR software reviews, I remember seeing them mentionning how they've designed it to accomodate for things like rabbit ears (and analog cable). Here, everybody I know has either satellite or digital cable (probably twice as many with satellite).

    --
    ///<sig />
  15. Bring together video-appliances! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .. not just (SW)applications

    http://www.upnp.org/download/UPnPDA10_20000613.h tm

  16. Mac Mini by zhenga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has anyone tried Freevo on OSX?

    1. Re:Mac Mini by geckofiend · · Score: 2, Informative

      Myth runs under OSX. Current CVS (soon to be release .17) compiles clean for OSX out of the box.

  17. MythTV by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 1

    It can be a pain to install (much easier thanks to stuff like KnoppMyth, Jarod's HOWTO for FC, and emerge on Gentoo), but once it's running it is SWEET.

    I really like how Myth handles streaming to remote frontends, and it has a lot of nice plugins.

    I tried Freevo once and didn't like it at all. I use Myth and love it.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  18. Qt Embedded by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is possible to install Myth without X. It's a bit of a PITA nowadays, but it can be done.

    Now relying purely on framebuffer, on the other hand... BAD IDEA. Ditching X means ditching hardware scaling, hardware IDCT, and hardware motion compensation, critical to:
    a) Running a frontend on a slower system
    b) Viewing HDTV at all. It's a pain without hardware MoComp and IDCT, but there's no way in hell you're going to do it with software scaling.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  19. Freevo is leech-ware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Freevo's operation relies on scraping content off third-party websites without permission. Not only is this a dubious practice from a legal and ethical point of view, it's a bad long-term strategy. Should Freevo become popular, then the owners of the content that Freevo lifts will either take steps to cut off Freevo access, or will disappear because their business model is being subverted.

    I've been in contact with some of the authors of the Freevo project regarding this issue; their attitude seems to be "we are able to do it, therefore we will." What about should? Is it a good idea to bite the hands that feed you?

    1. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by ttrafford · · Score: 1

      I am fairly sure you can use the DataDirect service with it as well.

    2. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by TodPunk · · Score: 1

      I don't know that formatting freely available information into a medium that's useful to a different audience is a horrible practice...

      If nothing else, the entire news industry is based off of reporting other people's news and presenting it in a different format to fit the audience intended. Heck, that's all Slashdot is...
      --
      This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
    3. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There's that word again. "Free" (as in beer) doesn't necessarily mean "free to redistribute".

      Slashdot does not copy items verbatim; it quotes reasonable subsections and thus qualifies under the "reasonable" exemption to copyright laws. It's not "reformatting", like copying from one device to another.

      Courts have determined that factual information cannot be copyrighted, and government has directed parties to seek protection in usage agreements.

      This data costs real money to produce, even when you've found an semantic or ethical loophole to misappropriate it. The argument you're proposed is yet again the "we can, so we're going to" attitude.

    4. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by lachlan76 · · Score: 1

      As long as they obey robots.txt, why not?

    5. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox's operation relies on scraping content off third party websites without permission. Not only is this a dubious practice from a legal and ethical point of view, it's a bad long-term strategy. Should Firefox become popular, then the owners of the content that Firefox lifts will either take steps to cut off Firefox access, or will disappear because their business model is being subverted.

      I've been in contact with some of the authors of the Firefox project regarding this issue; their attitude seems to be "we are able to do it, therefore we will." What about should? Is it a good idea to bite the hands that feed you?

    6. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are not redistributing anything, so you have no argument.

      The users of Freevo are downloading information available on the web. All freevo does is parse it to make it useful. The same as any web browser.

    7. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MythTV does the same thing via IMDB for movie info, so this issue is not limited to Freevo.

    8. Re:Freevo is leech-ware by Dischi · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm the main developer of Freevo. I don't know what you are talking about. We only parse the imdb website and unlike many other projects pulling data from imdb, we have the permission to do so. And you were in contact with us? I can't remeber someone saying something like this and I would never say "I don't care" about such things. And BTW, we don't rely on pulling data from websites, it's only a small add on.

  20. What is with all this controversy? by TodPunk · · Score: 1

    All this controversy of "MythTV vs Freevo" is kinda silly. I mean, we're all geeks, right? Are we so lost in our preferences to realize that they're designed with different priorities and functionality? For instance, Freevo will appeal to a market that has more of a "I want it simple" market because of it's clean development and ease of install/maintenance. Does this make it better than MythTV? Heck no. MythTV appeals to an audience that wants to do more out-of-box and doesn't care about the simplicity value. This is the camp that thinks of using more than for video playback or music playing. They want to play games, rip DVDs, run torrents off shows they're automatically re-encoding, etc. Does this make it better than Freevo? Again, not at all. Take my situation for instance: I'm a father of 3 young children. I want my $800 Theatre box to do as much as possible, and I have needs of simplicity in interface for the kids to be able to get to their movies/shows on the occasion that they are allowed to do so. Backing up DVDs is a priority. It's important to note that NONE of these things necessarily apply to why YOU are setting up a Linux Home Theatre box, and your choice is going to be different. Freevo and MythTV are different. One's not less stable than the other, or a horrid interface compared to the other, or whatever your argument may be. They're just designed with different priorities in mind.

    --
    This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
  21. Freevo vs MythTV by LoveTruthBeauty · · Score: 1
    It seems that Freevo and MythTV both have their strengths and weaknesses. They both sound good to me. I'm wondering why nobody has said anything about running both on the same machine, perhaps even at the same time.

    Is that feasible? Can they read eachothers meta-data and media storage?

    --
    Which nations do you trust to use nuclear weapons responsibly?
    1. Re:Freevo vs MythTV by TodPunk · · Score: 1

      It's definitely possible to have them both installed and playing happily on the same box. I don't think you could have them both running at the same time doing the same thing in all cases, and it really depends on your setup as to how you'd do this.

      As far as meta-data goes, you'd be hard pressed to get them both playing nicely without modifying one or both. Where one uses and SQL backend, and the other flat-files, the different schools of thinking would be a bit of work to get to play nicely. They could both play the same media files, though. It's just reading them from the hard drive anyway.

      Still, when all is said and done, I personally don't think it would be worth it. It's a lot of work to get a few extra features from one to the other, and even if you got them going, you're still most likely going to choose to use one over the other most of the time. You're better off picking one and modifying that one to include features it didn't have that you wanted. That's kind of the whole point behind them both, and open source in general. Modify it to fit your needs.

      --
      This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
  22. What HW to use by aagha · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been thinking of putting either a MythTV or Freevo box together for some time. However, before starting out, I want to find some decent HW that won't bankrupt me. A friend of mine reccomended an ASUS Pundit box, but I'm wondering what others have found? Anything cheaper or smaller?

    1. Re:What HW to use by TodPunk · · Score: 1

      Hop on Newegg or and look at their cases. If you look at all their Micro-ATX Desktop cases, many are meant to be home theatre boxes, and are made for flexible uses.

      I'm sure there's entire sites devoted to this sort of hardware, so google may also be your friend (as is always). I haven't looked, but this is, after all, the internet.

      --
      This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.