O'Reilly Builds a MythTV Box

enrico_suave writes "While the Broadcast Flag battle continues, it's still legal to put together your own HDTV PC HTPC/PVR. O'Reilly has posted part 1 in a series of articles describing the ins and outs of Building a MythTV Box" From the article: "For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC. Parts are now cheap enough that it is no longer ridiculous to build a PC specifically to handle TV for you, much like the VCR in Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency..."

Comments

I already have a PVR

[Approaching.sanity]

I am still waiting on the CVS camera!

Re:I already have a PVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Then get to hacking and quit your waiting.

I've already killed one of these for the cause.

Re:I already have a PVR

[Approaching.sanity]

I am a hardware guy, the firmware is beyond my ability.

However I can tell you that it's really fun to have a 14" moniter hooked up to this thing. If more than a little useless.

Myth firewire DTV support

[otis wildflower]

Hi,
How is Myth's firewire support for DTV cable boxes shaping up? Preferably HDTV. Is there a DTV howto yet, with tips for receivers generally and particular models particularly?

I'd consider swapping my TiVo out (given its really crappy slow performance lately, lack of digital audio or video, and monthly fees) but it's easy to use and having to go thru config hell wouldn't be worth it for me if I didn't get anything nifty in terms of features..

What?

[Bananatree3]

Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Is it just me, or is this some sort of geeky, nerdy analogy that nobody here is going to get? I wonder if it is just me.....

Hmm....

maybe.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dirk was one of Adams' other characters not in the Guide series. I presume he had a computer controled vcr or somesuch, but as I've only listened to the books once on tape years ago, and was thouroughly confused then, I don't remember.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a reference to a movie few people saw this year, but will later claim they loved it since it came out. It's destined to be a cult classic.

I'd mention the name, but the swarm of /.'rs looking to get into the cult at the ground level would trash the poor server.

I'll give you a hint. There is a vowel than can also be used as a proper noun for the first work in the title.

A symbol for the second word, and the title ends with huckabees.

--ofjbwbt these are the letter this script parsed from the image

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Re:What?

[wiml]

Yeah, we wouldn't want to have any geeky, nerdy references on a "news for nerds" site.

Re:What?

[isecore]

You have not experienced Dirk Gently until you have read it in the original Klingon.

Hmm...Interesting

[B11]

It will be interesting to see how it turns out. This is what initially brought me to the linux fold, and I'm working on my own project, which is following a lot of the same hardware paths as the author.

thin box type thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been thinking lately about building a simple computer a couple of firewire and USB2 ports, a norton commander-type interface, a good video encoder, and a bunch of good video decoders. Seems to me that's all you'd need.

Legal/illegal?

[daniil]

For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC.

Bah. The broadcast flag will not make it illegal for you to build your own home-theater. How could they stop you from doing it? You just won't be able to record (or watch?) anything.

---
"Follow the links," he said.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[nebaz]

Brilliant linkage troll.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[nebaz]

The first link, that is.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Original post is a new form of troll.
Follow all the fake sig links and it takes you to something that doesn't need seen.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just won't be able to record (or watch?) anything.

The stupidest, stupidest, stupidest thing that television could do right now is prevent you from recording television and watching it on your own time.

Most people in frustration would stop watching television altogether.

"What do you mean it didn't record Alias?!?"

-THREE WEEKS LATER-

"Nah, didn't see it. My stupid machine won't let me see it. I'm three weeks behind. I can't watch it now, because I tried to get back early to see it, and I'm totally lost."

Re:Legal/illegal?

[unitron]

I never have mod points when I really need them. Somebody boost parent, 'cause truer words were never spoken (O.K., in this case, written).

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Alsee]

I'd like to thank you for your insightful post.

I must admit I've been one of the Slashbots bitching about the broadcast flag. I actually thought it would make it illegal to build a system. As you clarified, I was wrong. It won't actually make it illegal to build a system

You just won't be able to record (or watch?) anything.

I now realize that they only want to throw you in FUCKING PRISON if you try to build a system that actually works. My bad.

-

Re:Legal/illegal?

[daniil]

I'd like to thank you for your awfully sarcastic reply. Unfortunately, you completely missed the point of my posting this comment. I posted it with the purpose of a) getting an early comment and b) getting modded up in order to c) make more people follow the chain of links in my double sig. Unfortunately, i had to sacrifice any actual content my post could have had in order to fulfil the aforementioned three objectives. Were i a subscriber, i would have had more time to put more thought into my comment. Unfortunately, i'm not one, so i didn't. I hope you'll forgive me :7

I now realize that they only want to throw you in FUCKING PRISON if you try to build a system that actually works. My bad.

You won't -- as long as the system you have built listens to the broadcast flag and discards all flagged content (or outputs it in degraded form)*. Yeah, it'd be almost fucking impossible to build a legal HDTV box, but there'd still be a tiny possibility not to break the law. I do agree that it's silly, though.

* Yes, i finally took time to actually read the article.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Alsee]

No, I didn't miss the purpose behind your post. I was mainly prompted by the fact that your post was modded 4 Insightful. I don't know if some dope modded you up or if you did it yourself using another account, but either way it warrants modding down.

I also found an extra heavy dose of sacrasm a particularly suitable reply to a troll post.

Yeah, it'd be almost fucking impossible to build a legal HDTV box, but there'd still be a tiny possibility not to break the law.

No, it's easy to build a legal HDTV box. You buy crippled off the shelf hardware and you get a crippled box that can't record certain flagged shows and that creates almost unusable encrypted files and which self destructs many of those recordings after a certain number of hours. A box that doesn't actually work most of the time for most uses.

It's just illegal to build an HDTV box that actually works, illegal to build the equivant working version of current Myth boxes.

I do agree that it's silly, though.

Ok, so we're on roughly the same side of the issue. However I think it's a LOT more than just "silly" to legislate technology and to impose crippled products on the public and to strangle innovation and most of all to imprison innocent noninfringing people.

-

Re:Legal/illegal?

[daniil]

I don't know if some dope modded you up or if you did it yourself using another account, but either way it warrants modding down.

You must be new here :p otherwise you'd know that all mods are on crack (they hand it out to moderators along with mod points, one dose per batch of mod points, as a stimulus to be a good moderator -- bad moderations, no crack). Getting modded up to +5 is so easy that it's not even funny.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[alva_edison]

The problem is, the current model is about to break down. To televison stations recording the shows and not watching the shows are the same thing. This is because television is funded by advertising. Recorders allow people to skip advertising. Note this is mostly only true for OTA channels, cable has subscription rates to cover this.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Alsee]

No, he's new here.

I've never gotten mod points myself. I'm not sure if it's because
(1) I posted in the Thread Of Doom
or
(2) I spend Too Much Time on here.

Either way I'm disqualified. Groan.

-

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Rakarra]

Yet it seems like most cable channels have just as many commercials. They'll cry just as loudly that "skipping commercials costs us money!"

Re:Legal/illegal?

[op2hacker]

Just another way the FCC tries to regulate anything that has radio waves. And George W Bush's idiotic plan to dominate the world, by caring more about himself and big business, than the citizens, the people who really mean everything.

I don't care. I'd go right ahead with building one. And if the feds find out -- well, thermite-and-matches.

I'm too lazy

[udderly]

Given the good enough performance and price ($5/month) of my Tivo, I just can't justify the time and effort. My brother-in-law (aka the King of DIY) made one and he is constantly wrenching that thing.

Re:I'm too lazy

[AuMatar]

There's a couple reasons to want to go DIY. Its not for everyone, but here they are:

1)I hate monthly fees. I refuse to pay them. I'd rather pay $100 up front than5 a month in fees.

2)Expandability. Want more RAM or another encoder? DIY just add it. Tivo- time to buy another Tivo

3)No comercials- Tivo is playing with adding commercials. My number 1 reason for buying one would be to kill commercials.

4)More (and easily expandable) storage. Add a RAID for reliability.

5)Additional features. You can pull any new feature when you want, and Myth is more than just a DVR (MythPhone, MythGames, etc)

6)The ability to do illegal stuff- like rent DVDs, and rip them to your hard drive for permanent sorage.

7)The ability to network it and add a file server. You may now watch your movie collection anywhere.

8)The ability to use 1 program for all media- music, video, and images.

9)No loss of features- you won't see disappearing features like 30 second skip.

I'm sure there's others people come up with as well. Tivo is nice hardware, but given the fact its subscription based and they're playing with commercials, its a no deal for me.

Re:I'm too lazy

[happyfrogcow]

9)No loss of features- you won't see disappearing features like 30 second skip.

this is one of the biggies i think. new products become popular for their features, then they become cheap when they cut those features.

Re:I'm too lazy

[modemboy]

Where are you getting Tivo for $5 a month? Even if you buy a year at a time it is $13...

Re:I'm too lazy

[hawkbug]

DirecTV

Re:I'm too lazy

[KillShill]

the one and only reason i or any other reasonable person who has insight into this situation is:

you don't !control! the hardware you purchased. tivo can do things behind your back with the help of forced updates to negate any "hacks" aka things that help you wrest control away from people who have no business telling you what to do with your hw.

tivo = DRM

frankly, all i want is a digital VCR. i don't want listings, i don't want recommendations. i don't even watch much tv anyway and the occasional programs i do watch, i just want to record to watch later and i want to do that manually but have it recorded digitally on a small appliance with a Hard drive.

people really will get what they earn... keep buying DRM-crippled devices and the terrorists really will have won.

Re:I'm too lazy

[BenSnyder]

I've had a Tivo for years and have nothing but good things to say about it. But if pressed, I'll tell you my only real problem. They need to build their boxes with two TV tuners. In 2005, recording one channel while watching another should be a no-brainer. Yes, Tivo tells you how to wire a workaround with a cable splitter but the way I see it, if I'm buying the box, let the box do the work. Other than that, I love the thing. I considered your 9 DIY points (among others) when I first bought my Tivo and here's what conclusions I came to:

1)I hate monthly fees. I refuse to pay them. I'd rather pay $100 up front than5 a month in fees.

Me too. That's why I paid $300 up front for lifetime service. The break even point was 17 months. I've had the service for over 2 years now.

2)Expandability. Want more RAM or another encoder? DIY just add it. Tivo- time to buy another Tivo

As far as I know, Tivo encourages hacking their boxes and plenty of people have dropped bigger drives into their Tivo.

3)No comercials- Tivo is playing with adding commercials. My number 1 reason for buying one would be to kill commercials.

I suppose you could find some software (or write your own) that looks for the black fade ins and outs to cut the commercials on the fly - but chances are, you're still going to see a commercial here and there with your own system. For Tivo, for my tastes, they've reduced the commercials to a level that I find acceptible. I don't need the complete lack of commercials to enjoy TV - I just need the ability to blow right by them. Look at it this way, Tivo *asked me* if I wanted to record the King Kong world premiere of the trailer. You can call that invasive advertising if you want, but *damn right* I wanted to see it. And yes, it ruled.

4)More (and easily expandable) storage. Add a RAID for reliability.

Personally, anything I want to save, I use Tivo ToGo and move it to my PC. There's a hack that automates turning a .tivo file into a .mpg file - so transferring is painless and I'm not locked into their (admittedly PITA) DRM. Oh, it goes without saying that I can then use whatever setup I chose to store my data... RAID, whatever.

5)Additional features. You can pull any new feature when you want, and Myth is more than just a DVR (MythPhone, MythGames, etc)

At some point, I pull over on the feature highway and just want my DVR to be a kickass DVR with the best remote I've ever used. Tivo is that for me. My computer is 5 feet from my Tivo. I think I can manage VOIP and games on my computer. And honestly, wouldn't you rather use your TV with a game console? It's the old mobile phone idea. We all want easy simple mobile phones that are great at being mobile phones. I don't need a half assed PDA attached to it. Same thing goes for my DVR.

6)The ability to do illegal stuff- like rent DVDs, and rip them to your hard drive for permanent sorage.

Again, why not just do this on your PC?

7)The ability to network it and add a file server. You may now watch your movie collection anywhere.

Tivo offers that with Tivo ToGo.

8)The ability to use 1 program for all media- music, video, and images.

Tivo allows you to put music and videos in a shared file so you can view them on your Tivo.

9)No loss of features- you won't see disappearing features like 30 second skip.

As far as I know, Tivo doesn't really lose features. Though I don't lurk on Tivo messageboards either. I know that Tivo doesn't allow a 30 second skip, but I also know that they built in an easy remote control command to enable it. It's a hack, but it's an official hack.

All in all, I see your points. It comes down to wanting one box to do it all vs. being happy that I have a computer and have some game consoles and a Tivo and can use them all for their intended purpose. If the point is to record TV and not to turn said recording into a hobby, then Tivo is clearly the best option. However, if you enjoy DIY - then that's really the only reason you need to go that route.

Re:I'm too lazy

[sirra462]

No excuse. Knoppmyth, pop in the disc and 30 minutes later you have time shifted TV. I built my first myth box from scratch and scoffed at Knoppmyth, many moments of blood, sweat and tears later I realized that I wanted it to work, not prove that I was a god among linux users. I tried knoppmyth and haven't been back since. If you spend time wrenching on it, that is because you are a tweaker at heart.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Frogbert]

Heres a good one:
How about I'm not in North America and can't get Tivo.

Re:I'm too lazy

[enrico_suave]

AuMatar: Bravo! I couldn't have said it any better... although with the current climate (i.e. grokster SCOTUS decision) maybe not so much on number 6, eh?

Re:I'm too lazy

[lythotype]

Tivo allows you to put music and videos in a shared file so you can view them on your Tivo.

I know that you can use the Tivo server on a network to push both picture and mp3 files to your Tivo, but I don't know how you can do this with video? The Tivo ToGo api doesn't mention anything about pushing video to the Tivo. How do you do it (other than hacking the Tivo HD)?

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

> But if pressed, I'll tell you my only real problem. They need to build their boxes with two TV tuners.

They do. If you have a DirectTV TiVo you can indeed record one channel and watch another if you have a two-signal dish.

TiVo solved this problem years ago.

Re:I'm too lazy

[pebs]

Me too. That's why I paid $300 up front for lifetime service. The break even point was 17 months. I've had the service for over 2 years now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the lifetime service only apply to a single Tivo box? Meaning if you purchased another one you couldn't transfer the subscription over?

Re:I'm too lazy

[slothman32]

6)The ability to do illegal stuff- like rent DVDs, and rip them to your hard drive for permanent sorage ...
Since you are telling people to get a product because of an illegal option does that mean you can be arrested as per a previous /. arcticle?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/27/15 5212&tid=123&tid=103&tid=17

Tell me when the MPAA, er FBI, come though your door locking you up for breaking the DMCA.

Personally I would have said, "the ability to do stuff that while illegal is generally not thought of as immoral by most people."

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

How about I'm in North America and can't get Tivo either. North America != USA.

Luckily, I still get a nice sat PVR that blows Tivos, ReplayTVs, MythTVs and others away ridiculously :) I've long quit this PC HTPC/PVR setup and don't miss it one bit.

Re:I'm too lazy

[ffejie]

They do. If you have a DirectTV TiVo you can indeed record one channel and watch another if you have a two-signal dish.

TiVo solved this problem years ago.

And for those of us without DirecTV? Those of us with Cable -- like most of the country? What about HD? Again, no DirecTV, no HD TiVo. Instead, we're forced into Digital Cable (with an extra 200 crappy channels no one watches), more monthly service fees, renting the equipment (which is sometimes a good thing - like upgrades), and absolutely terrible DVRs that don't have half the features TiVo had years ago.

TiVo really made it too easy for the cable companies. They made a great device, sold it, got people used to it, and then stopped innovating. Now, almost everyone with Cable uses the DVR provided by the cable company. And, I think, it's mostly because of the stupid two tuner issue. I want to record two shows at once (or watch one and record another) -- is that so damn hard?!

And to those of you who say, "buy another TiVo and hook it up as another tuner" -- give me a break, now I have to manage which TiVo does which recordings, and which TiVo stores which recordings -- I'll just suffer through my Digital Cable DVR crap.

This was a lot longer than it was supposed to be.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Awptimus Prime]

I don't feel like digging on google right now, but do a search for 'tivo advanced codes' or something. I have a $60 Tivo and all I needed to do was a few key sequences on the remote to enable the feature forever.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's ANOTHER good one:
I AM in North Amercia and can't get one.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Lumpy]

do you realize that I get to do almost ALL that stuff with my ReplayTV??

I upgraded from a 40 hour to a 240 hour easily, adding another replaybox act's as a networked recorder so it's the same as adding another tuner and playback location, and adding a storage server is brain dead easy as well as ripping DVD's (on the server)

and I do not have to mess with getting spammed silly by the zap2it poll process every 3 months so I can have for now free listings but will turn into pay for listings in the future.

Yes I had a mythbox and a freevo both for 6 months. I preferred the freevo over myth but both suck horribly compared to replaytv and it's braindead easy hackability.

I now have 3 replaytv units, all 3 upgraded and all 3 can archive to the master video server, or view from the master video server or each other or even schedule recordings on each other.

I basically have EXACTLY what you want but cheaper up front (adding another tuner and playback location is $100.00 + $6 us a month) and with better hardware.

I really like the idea of the homebrews, but HDTV or even DTV is still a fringe thing 90% of everything you want to watch is regular analog tv.

hell most people do not own nor plan on buying a HD television in the near future.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the lifetime service only apply to a single Tivo box? Meaning if you purchased another one you couldn't transfer the subscription over?

You are correct. Buying a Tivo for each TV in the house with lifetime subscription would get expensive very quickly. Also note that you cannot get lifetime subscription for DirecTivos.

Compare to $150 for an Xbox for each TV with a Myth frontend running on it, pulling video off of your (admittedly more expensive) backend server, and the Tivo price advantage isn't so great...

Re:I'm too lazy

[Specter]

While playing back content:

Select -> Play -> Select -> 3 -> 0 -> Select

That should restore your 30 second skip if memory serves.

What really annoys me about having to 'hack' the 30 second skip is that all the content providers complained bitterly about Tivo's 30 second skip function but it's ok for them to provide it themselves. I was out at my parents over Memorial day and they've got the Dish?/DirectTV? PVR which has a very handy, no hack required, 30 second skip.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

> I now have 3 replaytv units, all 3 upgraded and all 3 can archive to the master video server, or view from the master video server or each other or even schedule recordings on each other.

Is there a site with good ReplayTV hacking info? I bought a Tivo because it was hackable. At the time, ReplayTV wasn't other than upgrading the drive, and what you could do with it was somewhat more limited (no way to get video off of it).

Re:I'm too lazy

[jdavidb]

The number one draw for me is the ability to save to DVD. Several DVRs offer that now, and my wife and I own a Tivo with DVD-recorder, currently on extended loan to my inlaws. We liked it a lot, but there were some bugs in the implementation.

For example, if you record two three hour shows and want to burn them to DVD, each show will be split into a two-hour segment for the first DVD and a one-hour segment for the second. You should be able to combine two one-hour second segments to make one DVD, but you cannot. The minute you select a show longer than two hours, you are stuck in a sequence of events that has you select which segment to burn, and then burn, with no option to get back and add another segment. (At least if you have shows shorter than two hours, you can combine them.)

So I guess it's no longer the DVD-burning feature that's a draw for me, but the hackability. Tivo may never fix that problem, but if it exists in MythTV or Freevo I know it will be an annoyance to other people as well and will eventually be fixed. (Or I could take a stab at it myself.)

The other big draw, as you mentioned, is the commercial skipping, which is all the more important when you're talking about burning DVDs. Basically what I want to do is collect television shows I like and make my own season sets.

(Another minor draw I can think of is the ability to add chapter breaks. I don't know if that exists, yet, but I bet it will.)

Re:I'm too lazy

[mutterc]

MythTV also never questions your sexuality, regardless of what you watch... I can record all showings of Will & Grace, or a bunch of chick flicks, without fear of recrimination from my appliance.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

start here....

http://dvarchive.sourceforge.net/

find the latest copy of dvarchive. it act's like a replay unit on the network, then search avsforums for the tools to edit out commercials and burn to dvd your shows easily (simple windows app+tool suite) the replay hacing is simply the drive upgrade, everything else is server side which makes things great.

Re:I'm too lazy

[evilviper]

6)The ability to do illegal stuff- like rent DVDs, and rip them to your hard drive for permanent sorage.

What's illegal about that?

Systm's Video How To

[Noksagt]

Systm had a video how-to of building a MythTV box. Having seen the short segment (and having assembled a PVR before it), I am surprised that the article is "Part 1."

Re:Systm's Video How To

[superpulpsicle]

There is a link to Zap2it, but wasn't there a slashdot article not too long ago about Zap2it beginning to block users due to high traffic etc. Something like changing their format would render MythTv useless? I am really curious to know if it's possible.

Re:Systm's Video How To

[enrico_suave]

" There is a link to Zap2it, but wasn't there a slashdot article not too long ago about Zap2it beginning to block users due to high traffic etc. Something like changing their format would render MythTv useless? I am really curious to know if it's possible."
Have a link?

Unless I'm mistaken (or there was a 2nd incident), Zap2it had an open letter to the community about some certain commercial (shareware?) PVR software makers abusing the free datadirect service they were providing to freeware and OSS projects.

In addition if someone was THAT concerned about the future of their listings could check out LxMSuites is offering robust EPG data tailored for MythTV as a subscription where some of the profits are re-invested in to the MythTV project.

e.

It is just you...with quote

[Noksagt]

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Douglas Adams is definitely fair-game for geek-speak. His writings are even well-read by non-geeks.

Re:It is just you...with quote

[tolkienfan]

But you have to be a geek to really appreciate his work.

Re:It is just you...with quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use "is" lightly.
Don't use "definitely".
Don't be so sure of things.
Especially those of which no one should be sure.

---

OT: Konqueror no longer renders the "random letters". The practical effect is Konqueror users are not welcome to post here.

Since I'm an AC, and we're treated like second-class, I won't warn about this... but if someone cares...

Re:It is just you...with quote

[Anonymous Coward]

since *i'm* an AC, and we're treated like second-class, i can tell you to go fuck yourself with the karma and post your fucking message.

seriously, certain users being so fucking concerned with their precious karma levels, as if it where ambrosia or some other food from the gods, have gotten so carried away with the value of points that are, in all seriousness, given away, that the academic contributions to each post has fallen by an astounding amount.

seriously, just say what you have to say, and be done with it. no one cares if you're burning karma. no one cares if you have anything to lose (and, again, what the fuck does that mean?). just post it.

five thin mints to the person with the most creative "speak-for-yourself" post. ten boxes if you're non-AC.

Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-marke

[victorhooi]

What I'm really waiting for is the O'Reilly "MythTV in a Nutshell", or "MythTv Hacks"...now that would be sweet...

Until then, I'm stuck with consulting the massive tome of Myth links I've collected over the years, half of which are out-of-date, or unmaintained (although the official docs are a good effort). Would be nice if O'Reilly brought their professionalism to it.

One thing I've never figured out - why aren't there more companies mass-marketting and selling these? How come say, Phillips or some other company hasn't picked this up and prettified it to sell to the end consumer who's never heard of Linux? (It's not like companies haven't taken Linux and put it inside devices to sell to the "Just Works" crowd - all that embedded stuff, for example, a lot of routers/firewall products etc.)

Looking at the article, I'd have to say it rates 5 out of 5 - truly up to O'Reilly's normal standards - well set out, doesn't talk down to users, and pretty pictures...*in colour* (man...talk about innovation...I have *never* seen a colour O'Reilly article/book...althought since this is /., I give it 5 mins before somebody finds one, in some random alternative universe somewhere).

Another re-hashed article?

[EvilStein]

This is the second article in as many days about something that that already has had 2,000 articles written about it.

"Results 1 - 10 of about 30,400 for build mythtv box. (0.28 seconds)"

Interestingly enough, the O'Reilly article is the #1 Google hit, and it has a publication date of 6/22. Today is 6/28. Wow, that's pretty fast!

Re:Another re-hashed article?

[Jozer99]

Google ranks pages according to the number and "reliability" of sites that link too it. Since O'Reilly's website is already linked to by many, anything he posts to the net will be considered useful by Google. It's a great system huh? Too bad it is easy to fool.

Why?

[jerw134]

The article fails to mention why Bill O'Reilly decided to build a MythTV box, and why I should care.

Oh wait, it was the other O'Reilly? Nevermind...

Re:Why?

[Leiterfluid]

No-Spin MythTV.

Sweet.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The article fails to mention why Bill O'Reilly decided to build a MythTV box, and why I should care"

Hey, wasn't there an episode of "King of Queens" where Bill O'Reilly builds a MythTV box, and it thinks he's gay.

Very odd coincidence...

[millennial]

I'm currently building a MythTV system on a P4 1.5GHz. I've got it running pretty well so far in Gentoo under EvilWM. The instructions I'm trying to follow are here. They're pretty complete, and even though they don't match my setup exactly, I've only run into a couple hiccups so far. It involves using Zap2It or XMLTV to download the listings, setting up your IR remote, configuring X, and more. I highly suggest using it if you want to set up your own MythTV box.

Dilbert

[The Big Ugly]

"Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"

I bet he calls it HDTV PC HTPC/PVRbert. HAHAHAHA!!!!!11 (ala Catbert, Dogbert, etc)

ohh shit. i just realized that was Scott Adams. I'm a 'tard. i'll save you guys the time and punch myself in the nuts....

Re:Dilbert

[B11]

"Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" Didn't that come out in the summer of '69? Oh wait, that's Byran Adams!

Re:Dilbert

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see you guys are a least putting all of the really stupid jokes under the same thread.

Read Jarod's HOWTO

[bitdamaged]

Everyone eelse has and it worked for me.
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/

Re:Read Jarod's HOWTO

[Op7imus_Prim3]

Dude, Hydrogen and Oxygen are ATOMS, not chemicals. Fix your sig.

Re:Read Jarod's HOWTO

[coopex]

If you deal with atomic hydrogen and oxygen on a regular basis, and you're not in a industry that uses high tech chemistry, I suggest you quickly write a will.

Newsworthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what's the difference between this story of someone setting up yet another MythTV box and the previous dozen? The story was rather pointless in the first place... This is making me wish for yet another case mode "review" instead...

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[osmodion]

I have *never* seen a colour O'Reilly article/book...althought since this is /., I give it 5 mins before somebody finds one, in some random alternative universe somewhere).

While I don't have a color O'Reilly book, my copy of Practical PostgreSQL, which I bought at Barnes & Noble, has the wrong spine colors. The black part at the top is pink and the large pink area is white with pink writing.

NEWS FLASH

[Anonymous Coward]

No one gives a shit

Re:I JUST WANNA SAY

[ToasterofDOOM]

You must be new here ... wow that's the second time i've said that today! I'm on a roll

Bill O'Reilly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill O'Reilly: Linus, haven't you... I mean... let's take it from the top here. You make a program, for lack of a better term, that enables people to use computers without paying for any software whatsoever. Isn't that considered illegal in the court system? Isn't that piracy by any modern standard?

Linus: Well, the system is an operating system that is maintained by many people. I just make the kernel. The userland is built by academics ar...

Bill O'Reilly: Wait a second! Wait a second! You are saying that academics build this, and trying to give it away for nothing, for the purpose of running commercial entities out of business?

Linus: No, that's not true at all... we build software to give it away to anyb...

Bill O'Reilly: And what's this I hear about writing software to enable pirating of television programs? You understand that we have men and women, DYING OVERSEAS, to protect our way of life, and our way of life is CAPITALISM... where's the logic in what you are doing?

Linus: Bill, I don't think it's a matter of capitalism but rath...

Bill O'Reilly: Awwww come on! COME ON! You're just... you know, you smug academics elites are all alike. You just want to take and take and take... and give away at the expense of the America pulbic! Well, I'll tell you -- we AIN'T buying it on the Factor. We ain't buying it one bit. And if you're smart, you'll wise up... next up on the Factor, some people claim that liberals eat live human fetuses. We'll investigate and show you how they're right and what you can do to stop it.

Re:Bill O'Reilly?

[themoodykid]

Oh man, that was good.

Re:Bill O'Reilly?

[boster]

Thanks for making my month! Seriously ... I needed oxygen and Jolt.

Re:Bill O'Reilly?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to have him ask Linus what he's wearing.

What a load of bullshit

[stubear]

It will STILL be legal to build your own DVR even with the broadcast flag, you'll just have to purchase a broadcast flag enabled TV card. Don't let facts stand in the way of your warped reality though. What's illegal now, and still will be even without the broadcast flag, is distributing digital recordings on the internet. The broadcast flag simply adds a layer of enforcement not currently present.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[happyfrogcow]

Yeah, that broadcast flag enabled TV card will just have to follow the rules and not let you record what you aren't allowed to record.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[enrico_suave]

granted it's pretty extreme/reactionary to say that it will be illegal to build HD PC PVR's if the BF comes to fruition, the end game will essentially be that.

1. if your broadcast flag enabled HDTV PC card is told to not to allow record/save anymore, it's not much of a DVR any more is it?

2. Look closer at the BF spec... If I'm not mistaken it would prevent/limit/restrict/outlaw the ability to have open source BF enabled HDTV card driver. So a project like this one would be illegal in that hypothetical BF enabled future.

*Shrug*

e.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[trix7117]

Yeah, that broadcast flag enabled TV card will just have to follow the rules and not let you record what you aren't allowed to record.

Who decides what I'm allowed to record? Or how long I can keep it? Would you say I'm allowed to record free over-the-air programming? The broadcast flag would allow the studios to say that I'm not, or that I can only keep the recording for a few days.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't be illegal, just pointless (at least for people buying new hardware).

Re:What a load of bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

From everything I've read, my understanding is that the broadcast flag enabled capture/tuner cards just reduce the resolution to standard TV res (704x480) instead of HDTV (1920x1080i) for all programs encoded with the flag. This goes for all cards except the one mentioned in the article which doesn't have broadcast flag recognition.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it would prevent/limit/restrict/outlaw not the ability to own, but to manufacture and sell the uncrippled HDTV card.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[mutterc]

The best solution to all of this is to try to get good DVR penetration before the broadcast flag hits. That way, a large number of people will be affected and outraged ("what do you mean the Law & Order episodes I'd saved for a rainy day expired!").

For the FreeBSD users:

[toadlife]

Here is a good mythTV on FreeBSD howto:

http://mythtv.son.org/tiki-index.php

Personally, I use xdtv for watching/recording tv on my FreeBSD machine.

heh...

[Mad_Rain]

In my recent quest to build a MythTV box, I have discovered that building the system is not the difficult part. The challenge has been to get MythTV running smooth and stable.

[rant mode ON]
I think that it's a terrific project, I just wish that there was a little more consensus and standards between all these different components for the project. MythTV's compile reference system is Debian. The drivers for the HD-3000 are Red Hat/Fedora. Knoppmyth, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Mandriva, all seem to have their little quirks - can't we all just get along? ;)
[rant mode OFF]

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[Anonymous Coward]

1394 from cable boxes is a no-go. Basically, the cable companies are encrypting the signal with 5C so you can't get at the picture. Different providers are doing different amounts. Mine blocks the lot. :(

Author's harware skills suck...

[modemboy]

Heh, hasn't the author ever heard of a rheostat?
He is frentic about the sound of his system but is using a case with a bunch of little buzzy fans.

And he didn't notice that the motherboard had a fan? Ha, I can tell he researched real hard.

But he does make a valid point, all of these nifty entertainment center type cases that I have seen use little noisy fans. For that reason I ended up going with an Antec Sonata for my mythtv box, it has 120 mm fans and a special molex connector off of the power supply that is just for fans and auto slows with a temp sensor.

Plus he spends extra on a gig of ram which is of no use to mythtv but then admits saving ten bucks for 40 gigs of hd space, the most important thing to mythtv. What a moron...

Re:Author's harware skills suck...

[mikolas]

I wanted to have a quiet setup so I decided to build a diskless MyhtTV frontend box. That way the only component that really needs efficient cooling is the CPU and the noise level is quite low, when compared to DVR boxes available in Europe (DVB based DVR systems).

Of course you need a server for this kind of setup, but you can have it in your cellar/closet/somewhere where noise isn't the problem. As an added bonus you'll have all the movies, music and recordings available from anywhere, anytime. I actually have my server on 24/7 so I can listen to music via Ampache from work and my other house.

Re:Author's harware skills suck...

[modemboy]

Yup good thinking, my apartment is way to small to have a server somewhere so all in one it was for me. If you do go for a frontend box look into the VIA nano itx boards, the lower power ones have no fan whatsoever, even for the cpu...

KnoppMyth

[Anonymous Coward]

For those impatient, there is KnoppMyth - a Knoppix based Live CD that runs MythTV. Link here It looks good, but it doesn't run so well on my P3 450 Mhz. ;-)

Re:KnoppMyth

[Anonymous Coward]

My 566 Celeron runs it ok. Guess it's time for an upgrade, AC.

double plus ;-)

Re:KnoppMyth

[BlurredWeasel]

If you think about the hardware you buy, you can have a very nice time setting this up. I had hardware that took 2 weeks getting mythtv on gentoo up and running, took 30 minutes to have knoppmyth up and running. Granted, I knew a little more than I did the first time, but damn, 2 weeks -> 30 minutes.

Re:KnoppMyth

[Anonymous Coward]

No astroturfing plz.

Thanks!

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[assassinator42]

AFAIK, not with comcast. Their HD DVR box at least transfers the video through firewire unencrypted. Not sure about other boxes, but I would not call firewire a "no-go".

Re:I JUST WANNA SAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the number of digits in your userid #, you're not exactly an old timer, either.

Encryption anyone?

[DaHat]

I hate to be the barer of bad news... however more and more cable companies, at least here in the US are moving towards having most, if not all of their digital offerings encrypted.

Buying a QAM demodulator is easy, getting it to decode an encrypted cable network is not, and such cards that are capable of this sort of work on cable are... really non existent.

While such a PVR is nice, if you want HD programming, you are effectively limiting yourself to OTA ATSC stuff, which as we know is pretty feeble and will remain that way, just as OTA analog tv was feeble, as an encouragement to have you spend a few bucks a month for more channels through your local cable company.

Don't even get me started on the subject of QPSK (the modulation method used for digital satellite television).

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Bruha]

And current federal law requires cable companies to provide at request a receiver with a firewire port that allows you to receive the encrypted video.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[bitdamaged]

Um Just record the output of your cable box. Switch channels with either a serial or IR blaster and you don't have a problem

Re:Encryption anyone?

[DaHat]

Recording the output of your cable box is not so easy, if you are having it modulate the video on to channel 3 or 4, you are stuck at nice low res. If you are going to capture some of the higher quality outs... be ready to pay up the rear.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[DaHat]

I think you have confused a law with a mandate from the FCC. Just because there is law authorizing them to act in certain ways does not mean that their decrees are inherently law.

Anyway, this mandate, you are of course referring to: FCC 03-225 around page 50. There is something not specified here though, the cable box is not required to give you over firewire the high-def stream that you are viewing, it just has to supply a stream, and it doesn't take much for such a unit to take a pristine 1080i (or better yet, 1080p) video and dither it down to a nice low bitrate 480i, exactly what many boxes are known to do at the mandate of the cable operator.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[bogie]

That solution works but does suck ass. Who wants to go back to the days of only being able to watch the channel your recording? That's lamer then lame and defeats the whole purpose. If your multimedia/gaming/music/mythtv or whatever box is in your living room(as most are) then you've just eliminated being able to use your main TV.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[TheoMurpse]

I'd really like a link to this one, I'm skeptical. The law mentions firewire?

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

only being able to watch the channel your recording? That's lamer then lame and defeats the whole purpose.

With MythTV your number of choices is always your number of inputs +1. The extra choice being all of the other stuff that you've previously recorded.

If you want to watch 2 shows that are on at the same time, you're screwed, but that's the cable company's fault for making you use their box. You'd be equally screwed if you had multiple TVs, a VCR, or a Myth Box: they have you needing as many cable boxes as there are hit shows with competeing time slots.

As long as good-old boxless analog holds up, you can record as many shows at a time as you have tuners in your Myth Box. Myth scales to use them all, even if they're in different machines.

It's simple to visualize if you just think of each tuner card in your network as a VCR, and MythTV is just an interface that lets you coordinate them all from one location. I turned my dad's infamous 4-VCR stack into one Mythbox and he still won't shut up about how awesome it is 1 year later. And he doesn't even have cable.

The bottleneck is the cable boxes, which is a fucking racket whether you're using MythTV, a VCR, or just want cable in the damn bedroom too. I say keep analog. The extra quality isn't worth all the restrictions. If I love a show enough to want to have a high-quality archive of it, I'll buy the box set of DVDs.

Sory this was supposed to be a quick thing but it turned into a big stump speech. My appologies.

VIVA LA MYTH!

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe OTA is feeble where you live, but I get more channels of free OTA digital TV than my cable company offers with its cheapest package.

This was a tough choice: more channels for free, or fewer channels at a monthly charge. I've watched the NBA Playoffs in HDTV, NASCAR in HDTV, and two channels of PBS HDTV. There are another half-dozen SD PBS subchannels, too. The OTA channels are at higher bitrates than the cable offerings.

If I want premium channels, then I'll have to go with cable or satellite. But I'm getting more than I have time to watch with free OTA.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[yellowbkpk]

A couple paragraphs down from where you looked it says that the cable operator has an option to provide bitmapped (decoded?) graphics:

(4)(iii) Ensure that these cable operator-provided high definition set-top boxes shall comply with ANSI/SCTE 26 2001 (formerly DVS 194): "Home Digital Network Interface Specification with Copy Protection" (incorporated by reference, see 76.602), with transmission of bit-mapped graphics optional, and shall support the...

Re:Encryption anyone?

[evilviper]

Who wants to go back to the days of only being able to watch the channel your recording?

Absolutely everyone who is paying for Satellite or Digital Cable.

The only way to watch one channel and record another is if you don't need a reciever box, which means only analog cable, or broadcast.

That's lamer then lame and defeats the whole purpose.

If you think it defeats the purpose, you don't know what the real purpose is...

I have analog cable, and can watch live TV while recording something else, but I practically NEVER use it. I've got a large enough backlog of recorded programs I haven't yet watched, why would I watch live TV with all the commercials?

Additionally, you could get a second digital-cable/sattelite reciever and get the dual-channel capability back. The downside being the $5/month extra most service providers charge for each additional box.

Did Anyone Acturall R TFA?

[frank_adrian314159]

Of course not - this is Slashdot, after all.

So far, the guy has video working, but his audio stutters and he doesn't have a remote. The article doesn't even mention which MythTV distribution he uses (or if he's rolling his own from the packages). In short, this article should have been titled "Here's Some Stuff I Thought Would Make a Low Noise Box (and I Was Even Wrong About That) That I Could Slap a Couple of Tuner Cards Into and Watch TV With (and Maybe Someday I Will Be Able To, But Until Then, I'm Keeping My Tivo Plugged In)".

This has got to be one of the most disappointing articles I've seen on the subject. You'd do better sticking with the MythTV FAQ's.

Re:Did Anyone Acturall R TFA?

[enrico_suave]

in fairness to the author, it's only Part I "Hardware" I'm sure Part II and beyond will better answer your gripes (at least I hope so!)

Besides, sometimes posting about the trials and small failures of a project is more meaningful than just saying everything worked swimmingly, i.e. his example could help steer people towards less noisey stuff and to his credit he does point people to the excellent silent pc review resource.

*Shrug*

e.

Re:Did Anyone Acturall R TFA?

[Velox_SwiftFox]

Considering how much money and noise the guy could have saved buying a tower with 120mm fans, I'd have to agree.

Some people would put up with the noise for having it pretty, I guess.

Cost?

[swiggidy]

How much does this thing cost?

The video cards are $180, +new high end processor, mother board, etc. Wouldn't this run over $2000? I don't think 2 TIVO boxes are anywhere near that expensive.

Ya, it's a hobby, but I wouldn't call that cheap enough, I think it's still ridiculous

Re:Cost?

[bitdamaged]

Actually you don't need that hi end a processor. All the encoding is done on the card. I just built a Myth box from scratch and it cost about $600 all told. I could have kept the cost down a bit using an older processor and a cheaper case (I got a nicer case because this is in my living room).

Re:Cost?

[krbvroc1]

Its not that expensive - no where near $2000. The thing to keep in mind is that by purchasing a capture card that does encoding in hardware, the CPU does not need to be powerful. With a PVR-250 card you could even use a Pentium II if you wanted. If you want a cheaper capture card that requires the CPU to perform the encoding then you need a more expensive/moden CPU

However, I am willing to pay a premium for an open source solution. I do not want to pay a monthly subscription or have Tivo corporation monitoring and selling my viewing data. I dont want Tivo corporation to change their 'terms and conditions' whenever they wish and remove features such as commerical skip or insert advertisements, etc.

My Mythtv box has 3 250GB disks in a sw raid configuration for more storage. It also has 2 PVR-250 cards so I can record more than one show at the same time.

Re:Cost?

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Yeah, but you don't have to worry about:

• TiVo increasing fees
• If you have a 'lifetime' subscription, the lifetime of your box ending
• TiVo disabling even more features

Re:Cost?

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Oh, and forgot:

• TiVo adding even more advertisements
• TiVo selling your viewing habits

Re:Cost?

[tverbeek]

I just built a Myth box from scratch and it cost about $600 all told.

OK, but that's still enough to pay for a TiVo and lifetime service plus enough pizza and beer to last all weekend. I love a DiY project, but I had almost as much fun hacking my TiVo when I got it 4 or 5 years ago, and it didn't cost as much.

Re:Cost?

[masdog]

At one point in the past year, I was looking at building my own PVR, and I did some research to price out how much it would cost. Building it from scratch and using the cheapest parts available, I figured I could do it for about $900 if I include the DVD burner.

Re:Cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I built one that works quite well for recording TV shows and playing various emulators. Total cost: Around $550, and that's more than I originally planned on spending (decided to give it more capacity and make it really quiet).

Re:Cost?

[oncebitten]

and with the pvr-150s being supported via ivytv on linux, it's much cheaper (about $65/card on amazon).

Re:Cost?

[CreatorOfSmallTruths]

Don't forget: TiVo going bankrapt and don't honor their life-long service agreement....

With Myth I'll always have the source.

Re:Cost?

[swv3752]

Considering the pricing it probably has greater storage, dual tuners and a dvdrw drive.
I have priced out several combinations and they run between $400-$700.

Re:Cost?

[evilviper]

Actually you don't need that hi end a processor. All the encoding is done on the card.

This makes so little sense it's not even laughable...

First off, HDTV cards don't do encoding on the card, the signal is already digitized.

Also, HDTV is very high resolution, so you need a pretty high-end processor to decode it.

However, if you have a videocard that has MPEG2 decoding built-in, and it is supported under Linux (mainly only NVidia cards), THEN you can get away with a low-end CPU.

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[tgd]

Local OTA channels only. Here, out of the 15 or so HD channels, I get 4-5 unencrypted. All the cable networks, premium channels, INHD1 and INHD2 are encrypted.

DIY vs. Buy

[Noksagt]

I have built PVRs. I still watch TV through my Matrox G400TV quite frequently. However, I am happy with my ReplayTV. Mainly because:

1)Uses less power than most PC solutions.

2)Cheaper. I got it for $250 with lifetime subscription. Admittedly, the MSRP is much higher. But it still isn't as much as putting together a system, even if you get one of the $200 Dells to start it.

3)It just works. No messing with drivers, LIRC, etc.

Now, some of your points for DIY just don't hold.

1)I hate monthly fees.

You can purchase PVRs with lifetime subscriptions. You can't rely on Zap2It to always give you free listings for MythTV!

3)No comercials- Tivo is playing with adding commercials. My number 1 reason for buying one would be to kill commercials.

My ReplayTV 5040 still has Commercial Advance. Newer models don't, but they have "Show|Nav." You press a single button & it skips the commercials.

4)More (and easily expandable) storage.

Ditto most PVRs. You can network them & pull content onto a computer or you can drop in a larger harddrive or two.

7)The ability to network it and add a file server. You may now watch your movie collection anywhere.

Both ReplayTV and Tivo have this.

8)The ability to use 1 program for all media- music, video, and images.

ReplayTVs store images. You can upload video. It is space-inefficient, but you can upload audio encoded as video with whatever moving images you want.

9)No loss of features- you won't see disappearing features like 30 second skip.

This is a good point. But I think the bottom-line is that features may become illegal (which could take them out of the project's trunk). You can also prevent firmware upgrades on PVRs you buy.

The bottom-line is that we need to promote legislation to keep the features we want LEGAL.

Re:DIY vs. Buy

[NotWulfen]

1)I hate monthly fees.

You can purchase PVRs with lifetime subscriptions. You can't rely on Zap2It to always give you free listings for MythTV!

so instead you want to rely on some company that could quietly implode and take away all support for your proprietary box at any given time? if Zap2It took away the XML feed people would just switch back to the old method (scraping it from HTML with scripts)

Re:DIY vs. Buy

[isecore]

This is a good point. But I think the bottom-line is that features may become illegal (which could take them out of the project's trunk). You can also prevent firmware upgrades on PVRs you buy.

Boy, it sure is a sad world when it becomes illegal to ignore/skip commercials. Goodbye free will.

Re:DIY vs. Buy

[Noksagt]

No argument from me, but it is already legal to litigate developers of machines which skip ads out of business. EFF summary on Newmark (Craig of Craig's List), et al. v. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. et al.

Re:DIY vs. Buy

[isorox]

This is a good point. But I think the bottom-line is that features may become illegal

In your country may be, but the day it becomes illegal to have software that allows you to fast forward your own movie stream in every country arround the world?

Re:DIY vs. Buy

[Noksagt]

I'd prefer not to break the law! But one law can hurt developers and users in ANY country. Just ask Skylarov!

Furthermore, laws and litigation isn't a good argument for choosing software over hardware--you can import hardware which would do it from other countries.

uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

the LC10M come in silver too...

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[KJE]

One thing I've never figured out - why aren't there more companies mass-marketting and selling these?

Because then you would be competing with TiVo. I've got a myth setup going and it's fecking awesome. It also took a ton of time to get working, but that was mostly because I'm using a shitty old Compaq and had non-MythTV related setup problems.

So even if these systems were all set up nicely by, say, Phillips, there are still tons of maintenance issues with MythTV. First off, there is the problem of channel listings. In North America Zap2It has been nice enough to offer free (with registration) listings to Myth users, and many other countries are left to scrape webpages for their listings with XMLTV. Then you come to the problem of tuners for different signal types... e.g. North America vs. Europe...and last but not least, cost. You are using generic components for a very specific task, this does not make things cheap. It is almost impossible to get TiVo size, style, and functionality for the price of a TiVo, starting from scratch...but for many geeks, and Do It Yourselfers, it's quite rewarding and worth it in the long run.

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[rogabean]

The support is fine with MythTV itself (MythTv user myself for a long time now).

The issue of it working solely resides with your cable provider. Alot of them cripple that port.

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[Anonymous Coward]

How come say, Phillips or some other company hasn't picked this up and prettified it to sell to the end consumer who's never heard of Linux?

Philips was one of the two original manufacturers of TiVo boxes.

In other news...

[Brandybuck]

In other news, the Food Network shows you how to make a souffle, while it's still legal.

MythTV and Tivo outside the US

[retostamm]

Does this work outside the US? I've tried to get a TIVO for my parents in Europe, but I could not find any, except with a Sky package.
What are others using?

Re:MythTV and Tivo outside the US

[enrico_suave]

Yes it works outside the US... where in Europe are your parents? What cable provider?

e

Re:MythTV and Tivo outside the US

[Gax]

>Does this work outside the US?

Dear God! You cannot make it work outside the US. Electricity does not work in the same way in other countries and it would be dangerous, nay DEADLY, to try it. If you want to buy something for your parents, get them one of the new wind-up radios. They will be able to receive local programmes and will get some exercise.

OT: Jingle (was Re:Legal/illegal?)

[ArielMT]

A bloody brilliant string of links that spell out a shaving cream jingle. But yes, it does end in something that shouldn't be seen, not even on Slashdot.

On the plus side, the picture it's based on will, when viewed by any man questioning his heterosexuality, scare him straight for a very long time. http://bash.org/?42262

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[Jerry Rivers]

HD through Firewire works perfectly with my Comcast box. And with OS X there is already software in the developer kit that allows me to (manually at least) capture it. All I need to do now is work on using Automator and Applescript to schedule it and I'll have my very own HDPVR with most of the hardware and software work already done for me.

what turns me off about MythTV and FreeVo...

[true_majik]

what turns me off about MythTV and FreeVo is that it seems like not just anybody can build a box for this specific purpose. a few years ago i was looking into getting a PVR and MythTV andFreeVo were two opitons. because of all the work that seemed to be required to get all the hardware/software working, i decided to get a manufatured standalone unit....i ended up with ReplayTV.

i like my decision i upgraded the HD of my first unit within the first week of buying i. i paid the lifetime subscription free soon after which by now has paid off when compared to paying per month. however, i have a second unit that i've been paying 6.95/mo (discount from the regular 12.95 for single unit owers b/c i have multiple units) for a few months now. i've been lazy about picking up the phone to get the lifetime subscription (if it were 12.95/mo i would have gotten the lifetime sooner). now, i can't seem to justify paying for lifetime of $299 when i can a SageTV with a dual tuner and remote for my PC...at less than that. This product seems to be (i haven't tried it myself yet) a cleaner setup than MythTV or FreeVo. SageTV also offers its service with no subscription required....so yeah that's the conflict i have now.

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[mattyrobinson69]

radiotimes (bbc) offers the listings in xml format for free in the uk (hooya!)

compared to FIOS and BOOL

[kupojsin]

Im wondering how this will compare to fios once its rolled out here? And whether or not there will be any port blockage, caps. I tend to take speed claims with a grain of salt. Im even on Business Class optonline and they also institute caps and port blocks on 25 and 80

Re:compared to FIOS and BOOL

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck are you talking about?

El Fuego

Re:compared to FIOS and BOOL

[/dev/trash]

You pay extra for a Business class account and still have 25 and 80 blocked?

Re:compared to FIOS and BOOL

[kupojsin]

yeah unless im getting screwwed here and they just messed up

So let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point, we have an article about what the guy bought down at frys, and deatiling his ability to shove two pci cards into slots.... impressive

bad connections

[VforVendetta00]

Parts are now cheap enough that it is no longer ridiculous to build a PC specifically to handle TV for you, much like the VCR in Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency... Just don't connect your electronic monk to it!

Maybe a stupid question

[Stone316]

How do you integrate MythTV with your cable or satelite provider? Anything above a certain channel I need to use their setup box...

Re:Maybe a stupid question

[enrico_suave]

" How do you integrate MythTV with your cable or satelite provider? Anything above a certain channel I need to use their setup box...
"

The same exact way you would if you bought a standalone series 2 Tivo... You route the digital cable box's (or satellite box) video/audio outputs into the PC PVR's tuner/encoder card's video/audio input and setup an IR blaster which will allow MythTV et al to change the channel on your cable box (just like your existing cable remote control) at the appropriate times to record "E's Wild On!" or what have you ... =P

Note: this is obviously not a good option if you want HD content via cable/satellite but for regular Standard Definition "digital cable" and satellite works fine.

e.

Re:Maybe a stupid question

[kebes]

It's an excellent question. In case the other post didn't fully answer your question, check out this how-to guide.

Using an IR-blaster to change the channels on your set-top box may seem like a bit of a strange hack, but I'm doing it and it works great. I no longer bother watching "live TV"... I just program it to record shows, it changes the channels as needed, and I watch everything time-shifted. Works like a charm.

But don't try to get cable on that thing

[Dachannien]

There's one little snag for those of us who would like to get more than the broadcast channels on our PVR boxen. "5C" copy prevention (so called because five companies worked on it) prevents your untrusted device from communicating over firewire (IEEE-1394) to receive your cable company's digital signal. Each 5C-compliant firewire device must negotiate with the devices they communicate with to ensure that they are operating in a trusted fashion (meaning that the signal that one device sends another must comply with the 5C flag that is specified by the TV network, indicating whether the signal can be copied or not). Compliance is mandated by causing an upstream device not to transmit to noncompliant downstream devices.

The end result is that what the broadcast flag failed to achieve over-the-air is currently a fact of life in the cable arena, due to the puny content distributors pressuring the gigantic electronics manufacturers for some form of DRM, without legislation and without public comment. If you want to record digital media from your cable company at the resolution you receive it at, without going through the "analog hole" to get to it, you'll have to use the cable company's PVR. There's no way that you can trust your cable company not to cave in to the content providers - they can easily make it impossible to do things like watch a show more than once or to skip commercials, essentially rendering the PVR concept pointless.

Re:But don't try to get cable on that thing

[kebes]

Everything the parent says is true... The situation is annoying to be sure. That having been said, I don't think the "analog hole" is such a miserable hack. I have a digital set-top box, and use the S-video output into my MythTV's capture card. The resulting video is of very high quality (better than conventional analog cable and obviously much better than over-the-air). The cable companies are going to make it hard for us to get access to the raw digital signal... but a high-quality analog signal will be essentially indistinguishable. At the end of the line, your TV has to take whatever signal and turn it into something it can display. I would say that for most modern TVs you are not going to notice the difference. If you spent alot of money on an HDTV, then yes you'll have to play by the rules set by the broadcasters to get your HD signal (until computer capture cards and innovative work-arounds catch up, that is)...

Not Jarod again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, enough about Jarod already. Yes, yes, he lost a lot of weight eating those stupid sandwhiches. I'm impressed. But I don't understand why that qualifies him to be a motivational speaker or why I should take his advice when building my own MythTV box! Next thing you know, Subway will be giving away a "Jarod's Home Manicuring Set" with the purchase of a party sub! Stop this insanity, people!

And the bad news...

[turbidostato]

"For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC"

The bad news are having a legal system that make the above sentence make sense.

Re:And the bad news...

[Sjobeck]

touche'. :) :(

If you want a silent front end ...

[oncebitten]

... and are willing to do some hacking, I've always thought that the Roku Photobridge and Prismiq Media Player would make nice little MythTV front ends due to their hackability, wireless support, hardware decoders and digital outs.

Don't know much about the Roku (except that they're pretty open with developer support), but as administrator for a project that does open source for the Prismiq it should be doable to port mythfrontend to the box. Particularly since Prismiq released the source.

(plus, you can probably get one dirt cheap on eBay).

Re:If you want a silent front end ...

[PXE Geek]

The Roku Photobridge does indeed make a nice Myth front end, by all accounts - http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245 8

Re:If you want a silent front end ...

[enrico_suave]

another silent front end/client to consider is a MediaMVP which has a very active hacking community.

e.

Re:Maybe a stupid question - GOOD QUESTION

[freeze128]

KnoppMyth has an option to capture video from a range of sources, including FIREWIRE. The included docs don't really say much about how that works. The IR Blaster route is klunky, and looks kinda tacky. Firewire is certainly a bi-directional standard. Why would the set top box not allow you to capture video via firewire, and also use firewire to send channel commands?

This is the kind of question that we need answers to. There is limited documenation on the inner workings of many set top boxes. Hell, the cable companies barely give you instructions for programming your remote.

How about something realistic?

[pair-a-noyd]

"Well, since my employer has given me a blank check for this project, I'll be using the best stuff I can lay hands on.."

Come on you jerks, how about building one on a budget, something that the little people that WORK for their money can afford.

Firewire

[Nit Picker]

See link in previous comment to yours, page 50. It actually says IEEE 1394.

Just Anounced, MyTv is just that, ..

[Anonymous Coward]

A Myth.

Maybe I'll buy the book since I'v tried everything else to get mythtv to work in the past, including knoppmyth, which won't even give error messages.

I still say gates is behind this... no wonder it's called *MyTh..*

Re:Just Anounced, MyTv is just that, ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's all a big joke on your dumb ass.

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[waferhead]

Use recommended hardware,stick a Knoppmyth CD in it and boot.

I don't run Knoppmyth myself, I'm running MDK 10.2, but have set up several systems for family that way, as well as using it to troubleshoot MY system to see what the audio setup SHOULD be when it works.
(Before I had it memorized)

It tends to JUST WORK. OR NOT.

Has anyone else hurd of this *Max* guy!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just found a great *new* way to record tv stuff!!

I was rooting through my attic just today, and found this old electronics looking device with tons of dust on it, with av outputs and inputs for tv's!

I'll let everyone know what happens after tapping bushes bologna tonight!!

Oh yea, it was made by a company called: Betti Max,i think :)

Nice walk through at Systm.org

[Enhypnion]

Kevin Rose and Dan Huard did a nice 14 min episode on systm.org http//systm.org/ that demonstrates how to build MythTV box for about $350. They walk you through the entire installation as well as demonstrate some of the features.

Enjoy

Re:Nice walk through at Systm.org

[Anonymous Coward]

..just like i sed above.. it's nothing but a myth!! ( your link is borken!!) :(

Yet another Bill O'Reilly jab

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, when I see "MythTV" and O'Reilly in the headline together, it's hard not to think about Fox News.

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[yo_tuco]

"MythTv user myself for a long time now"

The author of the article set up a pretty high-end box for his project. But it was unclear to me what would be, say, the minimum system you would find acceptable for a MythTV box. Do you have any experience you'd like to share on that?

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

MythTV builds YOU!

I gave up Mythtv

[Anonymous Coward]

After month of research both on hardware and software i decided to try to get mythtv to work. After 20 hours of work and mutch googling i got ivtv and lirc to work. After 20 hours more work i still didnt get tvout from my hauppage 350 to work. I found lots and lots of working X configs, but no one worked for me.

So i installed windows, 10 hours later i had a complete working system. Now, thats why people still uses windows. I still think that windows shouldnt be used as servers, but thats another story.

I use GB-PVR

[Timberwolf0122]

GB-PVR is free and supports most Hardware encoding PVR cars (In my case the PVR-250). It's free to use and has quite a few plug-ins and a TV guide.

I currently run it under win2k but I'll be upgrading to XP soon to take dvantage of some of the other features.
Cost of PVR - £240
Cost of DVD R to store films £12

Recording TV with out VCR resolution loss and in digital Stereo with free Bleb TV guide to boot.
Priceless.

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[mbelly]

I built one myself, and for HDTV I'd say you'd need ~2.5GHz+ if you have a combined front-end and back-end. If you separate the 2 systems, the back end doesn't need that much requirements, probably just a decent speed Hard Drive, because all it does is writes the data streams to the Hard Disk. The front-end on the other hand (The part that actually decodes and displays the data) would need a decent processor to decode the HDTV signal and the usual video card picked for Myth boxes is a GeForce 5200 because they are a decent card with no fan (quiter). If you are trying to build one that just does analog TV signals the requirements drop a lot. A great source for information is http://mysettopbox.tv/

Which video cards to use?

[Dougmeister]

Can anyone point out some good sites that review/give options on which video cards to get? Was gonna jump on a HD-capable capture card earlier this year just because of the mess with the Broadcast flag, then it was okay again, then it was a mess again, etc.

Re:Which video cards to use?

[enrico_suave]

"Can anyone point out some good sites that review/give options on which video cards to get? Was gonna jump on a HD-capable capture card earlier this year just because of the mess with the Broadcast flag, then it was okay again, then it was a mess again, etc."

I assume you mean tuner/encoder card right and not video card? And you're kidding about looking for a review/options site, as there were two listed in TFA!

It depends on what you want to do (SD vs HD) what platform/software you're thinking of using.

The Broadcast Flag right now shouldn't influence your decision too much at this point (although be active in voicing your displeasure about it to your local congresscritter), it's more of a matter of what HD content is available Over The Air (OTA) in your area (see Antenna web for a rough idea of what DTV stations are in your area ), what your budget is, what platform, etc...

*shrug* The author of TFA used the venerable HD-3000 which is a good choice for linux use... I think the air2pc card has both linux/windows drivers but I'm not sure about that off hand...

In windoze the ATI HDTV wonder had a bad rap, and rightfully so, for crap drivers at launch, but seems to have rectified that... I'm interested in trying the really cheap OEM Avermedia A80 which is MCE 2005 certified, but don't know anything about it first hand. The Dvico fusion III QAM seems pretty popular for those that want to try there luck at QAM 256 digital cable streams.

e.

Re:Maybe a stupid question -- Tuner??

[CrazyMik]

Big question...if you are using the satellite or cable box as the tuner, why do you need a tuner card for the computer?????

I understand that tuner cards encode to MPEG as well as tune, but couldn't this be done cheaper with a decent CPU and a video card with video in?

Its funny but this question has kept me from moving forward on PVRs.

easier: VDR linux distributions

[Lio]

Building your PVR is much easier if you are using VDR with one of the numerous VDR distributions that are based on Debian, Gentoo or SuSE. Check out the English version of the VDR-Wiki for information on hardware, installations etc.

Lio

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[swb]

I think there is a business opportunity there.

The challenge of a software-only solution is, of course, the hardware compatibility issue. So maybe it should be a $xx bundle of software and a cheapie PCI encoder card, perhaps ideally having the encoder card handle NSTC output as well as tuning, remote control, etc.

The "commercial" aspect of this might also benefit from the ability to handle cablecard, which an OSS project seems less likely (or in much longer timeframes) to be able to use.

Perhaps a commercial version of Myth could even be used as a for-profit arm of a non-profit foundation to support Myth development.

*I* don't have the time to build HTPCs anymore -- work, wife, house, other hobbies eat my time up. But I would consider doing it if the right software + hardware solution were easily available.

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[sjwaste]

Are you able to capture all HD programming via firewire, or is just the OTA coming through? AFAIK, all they're required to provide unencrypted is the stuff that would come OTA.

Re:Typical O'Reilly Standards ; Commercial mass-ma

[mutterc]

why aren't there more companies mass-marketting and selling these?

They'd be competing against the cable companies and their DVR offerings. Plus, some of the nicest things about the project come from its open-source nature (like commercial skipping, non-DRM storage formats, etc.). If a commercial entity tried to sell a product with those features, expect them to get litigated out of existence.

Now a cable company could probably put the code (with all the nice plugins for music, weather, etc.) into their DVR offerings as an easy way to add value. However, they'd have to remove the non-content-industry-friendly features to avoid litigation, and they'd have to make it difficult to put on your own firmware (to prevent people from taking the provided source, adding the features back in, and using the full-featured version).

How is this MythTV's fault?

[Rufosx]

The HD-3000 drivers you're talking about (the old ones) were written by the company that makes the HD-3000. They chose the distribution to support. The new DVB drivers are included in the 2.6.12 kernel and work just fine for me.

As for the little quirks for each and every distribution : Myth does its best to support as many distributions as possible, but until they all handle shared libraries, udev/modprobe, locations for user compiled source, etc, in a reasonably similar fashion, there will be some differences.

And really, in the end, Myth compiles and runs on just about anything (my Macs, even), it's just the drivers for capture cards, video out, remotes, etc, that have problems in different environments.

This is where Jarod's guide (wilsonet.com) comes in handy. It's thorough, regularly updated, handles a wide range of hardware and can be used by even the newest Linux user. Why try anything else when this one works?

Re:How is this MythTV's fault?

[Mad_Rain]

I didn't really mean to blame Myth for my problems ;) (and yes, Jarod is the Man). I'd just like to see better support all-around - from distrobution maintainers and developers, the driver authors, and other appropriate "professionals". I think this is the type of application that will continue to push linux into the mainstream, as it can clearly outperform other similar devices, and (as the expression goes) "a rising tide lifts all ships".

Protocol rewrite to P2P?

[phorm]

Sounds like a good use for a P2P-type protocol. It could gather listing in a bittorrent-like format, wherein the first few are seeded from the main server and then share the listing with new clients.

Why can't someone

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't someone(not me, don't know how) make a PVR/DVR software that supports the crappy PCI tv cards you can get off ebay for $15?

If there is such a software, where can it be downloaded?

Re:Why can't someone

[enrico_suave]

" Why can't someone(not me, don't know how) make a PVR/DVR software that supports the crappy PCI tv cards you can get off ebay for $15?

If there is such a software, where can it be downloaded?"

There are plenty of software options that support the cheaper "software encoding" TV tuner cards including MythTV (hauppauge winTV go for example or other BTTV chipset ones).

Since you will be relying on your main CPU to do the MPEG encoding you'll want a decent machine.

I usually strongly recommend (FWIW) ponying up a bit more for a hardware encoding tuner/encoder card as it's usually better supported by the different software out there and you don't have to worry about dropped frames because you opened a web browser or something...

Spend a little more on the tuner card (like 70 bucks on a pvr150 MCE -- or at circuit city this week a Hauppauge wintv PVR 150 is 59.99 after evil rebates ) and then use the excellent and free GBPVR ( http://www.gbpvr.com/ if you're on windows that is, else mythtv/knoppmyth again)

e.

Re:Why can't someone

[tommck]

It IS supported.. The problem is encoding the video into MPEG, which, with these crappy cards, is done by the CPU. THe video signal through those cards is usually shit too. So, you can buy a cheaper CPU and a more expensive card, or a cheaper card and a more expensive CPU. IT's up to you.

Of course, realize that you will need dedicated 400-600MHz worth of CPU time per card in order to encode the video. That is for LOW definition. Many people have multiple cards to record more than one channel at once. I have 4 cards myself.

T

Re:Myth firewire DTV support

[yo_tuco]

Thanx

MythTV box

[notyourmom]

I dont use Myth TV or Linux for that matter. my equipment predates Windows media Ctr edition's creation. I built the first edition of my box in October of 2002. I built it because i was tired of watching movies, music videos and tv shows id downloaded on my small computer monitor, and my tv was too far away to lace in. so i built a cheap box and served all the videos accross my network. there generally isnt all that much tv thats on that i want to watch. I download almost all the TV i watch from BitTorrent. its easier that way, and saves me alot of money on my cable bill.

That, and i also rent movies from blockbuster, rip them with DVD Decrypter, and encode them into Xvid with Auto-Gordian Knot. Oh, yeah, between my two machine im now up to 1.2 terabytes of HD space.

Re:MythTV box

[notyourmom]

btw, my current machine specs are: AMD Athlon xp 2100+ Abit AN7 nforce 2 ultra 400 mboard (w/soundstorm) 1 gb Corsair ram 2x 160 gb ide hd's 1x 250 gb sata hd ATI All in Wonder 9700 pro Antec Overture case (will soon be switched for silverstone case w/ better cooling - the 9700pro overheats frequently)

HTPC DVR For Sale

[Red Leader.]

I've got one brand new high performance computer for sale. I built this machine about a month ago - but have barely used it! The computer comes in a very elegant Silverstone PC case and is fully loaded with lots of great componets. $1200 (below cost) gets you all of the hardware fully assembled, tested and known to work! Right now Debian Linux is installed on the computer, but I'm sure you can very easily install Windows on it. Everything will be delivered in a shipping-safe box with all of the original manuals and extra supplies.

This would make an excellent home theater PC (HTPC) or gaming machine. The case is very elegant looking and would be at home on your desk, or in with your other stereo components. The Tira infrared (IR) transmitter/receiver has been mounted inside the front plexiglas panel of the case (invisible from the outside), allowing you to use a standard IR remote control with the computer. With its 64-bit processor, this is sure to be a very good machine for a long time! It will scream through modern 3D games, or serve you very well as a HD PVR.

The parts:
1 Silverstone SST-LC04 Lascala Series HTPC Case - black
1 MSI "K8T NEO-FSR" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU
1 AMD Athlon 64 2800+
1 Viking 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-2700
1 pcHDTV HD-3000 High Definition Television Card
1 eVGA nVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP
1 Seagate 7200.8 400GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3400832A-RK
1 Lite-On 16X, DVD Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive, Model SOHW-1673S Black
1 Nexus 80mm Real Silent Case Fan
1 extra ATA-133 Cable - 24in
1 Tira USB IR Transmitter/Receiver (remote control your computer!)
1 IR Blaster
1 flexible PCI riser card that allows the use of larger PCI cards with the system (i.e., TV cards).

I will ship the computer double-boxed via insured USPS mail. The inner shipping box will be the Silverstone case's original shipping box and the motherboard box will contain all of the original paperwork and a few extra parts.

Video card: Model "e-GeForce FX5200(128-A8-N304-LX)"

chris at beefstew dot net

Cost, if anybody is interested

[serutan]

Since the author didn't mention cost I checked around for the components he mentioned and here's what I came up with, not trying to get the absolute best price on anything:

video capture card $169
case $226
power supply $55
cpu $183
mbo $140
graphics card, couldn't find the 1Gb version, best guess $160
optical drive $60
memory $90
hard drive $90
remote $24

grand total $1197