MythTV 0.19 Released

slummy writes "After much anticipation, MythTV 0.19 has been released. The release notes outline the new features and bug fixes, and the official announcement for this release is available on the MythTV site." From the release notes: "The major changes in this release [include]: LiveTV rewritten to support saving buffered content while watching. Signal Monitoring for DVB and pcHDTV recorders. Ending times may be changed while recordings are in progress. Playgroups allow for default playback options on recordings. Channel changes can be made across tuners without changing tuners manually first. New popup keyboard simplifies setup using remote. Preview schedule changes when making adjustments to recording schedules. Added ability to control MythFrontend through a telnet socket."

Comments

MythTV Usage?

[hunterkll]

I've been reading about MythTV, but was wondering, besides the bog standard DVR usage, what other usage people get out of it? Do you jack your game systems into it and record plays for later use? :) Do you play with vintage computers, and record demos? Do you have it record directly into an ipod compatable format? (can it do that?) What unique things can this system do?

Re:MythTV Usage?

[WTBF]

Do you have it record directly into an ipod compatable format?

I have mine encode certain shows ready for my iPod and they appear in iTunes as a podcast ready to put on my iPod.

I also enjoy how it can detect adverts, which is been getting better and better in recent releases - something that is unlikely to appear in some commercial PVR software.

The multiple frontend (and backend) ability is also great, as it means that I can record and watch a recording as someone else as watching something elsewhere in the house.

Re:MythTV Usage?

[zCyl]

Do you jack your game systems into it and record plays for later use? :)

With most TV capture cards, you wouldn't want to actually play the games through the capture card, since there is an added delay of around a second to a few seconds. For live TV this is not important, but that'd really mess with a gaming experience. But if you split the signal, play off of a TV, and route the spare signal through the capture card for recording, then you could do this.

What unique things can this system do?

One feature which I think is underappreciated is the networking ability. MythTV is split into a backend and a frontend, and multiple frontends can be connected to the backend at a time (although the number of sessions actively watching live tv is limited by the number of capture cards, a large number can watch recorded shows). You can even run MythTV via an ssh tunnel if you route port 3306 (for mysql) and port 6543 (for mythtv) through ssh. This means you can sit a server at home for your primary TV with a single capture card, and then watch recordings or live cable TV securely from any linux machine (laptop or desktop) that you have on a good network connection.

This is a convenient way to be able to watch different shows in different parts of the house without splitting the cable line or buying a lot of TVs, and also a convenient way to get access to cable TV in places that have good network connectivity, but no cable line or TV.

That's not a bad featureset for only requiring a $50 capture card and some time to set up MythTV.

Re:MythTV Usage?

[rogabean]

Using mythstreamTV you can stream anywhere with a net connection as well. I use my mythTV box to stream recorded TV and Live TV to myself at work during ummmmm "breaks" *wink*

The best solution I could find for doing that with a Windows solution was using Orb.com, but the experience wasn't as nice and had issues with some firewalls.

Re:MythTV Usage?

[Sven The Space Monke]

The RSS + bittorrent thing sounds pretty cool - got a link to how you did that?

MythTV legal?

[ZachPruckowski]

I'm not trolling or spreading FUD, but what is MythTV's legal status in regards to HD? I mean, if I was to consider such a solution (when I get a new Mac) over something like EyeTV, will it do broadcast flags if and when they come around?

HD Myth on a Via nano-ITX with CN400

[renehollan]

I've ben putting together a mythfrontend on a Via nano-ITX board in a Silverstone LC08 case.

What attracted me to this platform was the CN400 H/W MPEG2 decoder chip it includes that is capable of deciding HD MPEG2 resolutions (up to 1080i) -- xine plays 1080i on this platform with the 1.0 GHz CPU about 30% idle.

Of course, this is fairly bleeding edge, and there are the occasional dropped frames. Support for the CN400 comes from the openchrome project, which also supports dri/drm, and xine hooks for the resulting xxmc accelleration that takes advantage of the CN400.

It isn't quite fanless -- there is a processor fansink that puts out around 14 dbA. I'm told the 800 Mhz version of the same mobo is fanless, and once I get this stable, will likely spend the $$$ to try one.

Re:HD Myth on a Via nano-ITX with CN400

[mybecq]

xine plays 1080i on this platform with the 1.0 GHz CPU about 30% idle

If you use the VIA supplied driver (comes in binary and re-compilable versions), you'll get about ~25-30% usage on the (800MHz) SP8000E.

I have mythweb setup to run VeMP (VIA's enhanced mplayer) for playback, and never see dropped frames on any HD content.

It would be GREAT if VIA supported MythTV like they do the VeMP and ViaeXP players. I think this would really help them get those little motherboards to sell. (A native HDTV output would help as well.)

I think the main factor in getting a fanless system is the available convection airflow -- without that the system won't stay cool.

Re:HD Myth on a Via nano-ITX with CN400

[renehollan]

Sour grapes, perhaps?

Many ATI/NVidia/Intel videocards can do hardware MPEG-1/2 decoding. I have such a card, and I NEVER use it. You can't do any postprocessing, deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise removal, etc.

Hmm. xine -xvmc and deinterlacing works just fine. The openchrome drivers apparently route the decoded video back for further processing, rather than just feed the chip's display engine, though it wouldn't surprise me if this were possible.

I would STRONGLY recomend staying the hell away from VIA. I made that mistake once, myself. You can expect better performance from an AMD/Intel chip clocked at about half what a VIA chip is, and the AMD/Intel chips will be lower power as well.

I have not seen serious problems (like the infamous DMA problem) with the nano-ITX. It isn't cheap, at around $400 for the 1.0 GHz version mobo, but I was looking for a fanless (or close to it) small form-factor. mini-ITX and ATX boards would not fit the bill.

Find yourself a LV PIII-1.0GHz (12.1W max), an ULV Pentium M-753 1.2GHz (5.5W TDP), an Athlon 4-1.2G (25W max), an Opteron-840EE 1.4GHz (30W TDP), or a mTurion MT-34 1.8GHz (25W TDP) if you're dedicated to ultra-low power, fanless CPUs.

And for H/W MPEG2 decoding to HD resolutions...?

Personally, I'm perfectly happy with a cheaper system, and a few quiet, variable 80mm fans.

Smaller, and fanless, is the goal for me. The 1.0 GHz system doesn't quite get there (it has one fan around 14 dBa which really is whisper quiet), but an 800 Mhz system probably would.

To each his or her own, I suppose.

Same in Windows

[voxel]

I enjoy all of the above, but in Windows, using SageTV. (sagetv.com)

I also enjoy things like a real time-line progress bar w/ commercial markers.

Stability with ATI HDTV Wonder, and AverMedia A180 HDTV Tuners...

WebUI, Adskip, DVD rip, Weather, Full UI mods/skins, client/server, awsome HDTV support, and kick-ass driver support for every tuner card out there (No PVR250 needed).

All for the cost of some $$$.. Well worth it to me.

DVB Subtitles

[labratuk]

Now that DVB subtitles are available, can you imagine OCRing the (image based) subtitles, saving them into the recorded stream and having full-text-searchable tv programmes?

Time stretch in other apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why hasn't the time stretch feature of MythTV been ported to other apps? Gstreamer, MPlayer I'm looking at you. Time stretching is a great feature which allows you to speed up the audio (together with video) without changing the pitch (no chipmunk sounding people). Great for when you're short on time, catching up on a TV series or just more 'efficient' watching. You can get through a 30min show in something like 15 min when

The functionality is already built into a library (libsoundtouch? libsndtouch?), it just needs to be called for the audio processing.

Am I the only person that wants this?

(Please no derails about "do it yourself", etc).

Re:Enjoy it while it lasts

[ThreeE]

I'm with you brother. Unfortunately, I don't see the cable companies streaming intellectual property in lossless format down my broadband connection anytime soon. Thankfully, the analog hole will not introduce much noise -- certainly not enough for me to care much. In fact, I suspect I will introduce more noise via compression than by DRM avoidance via the hole.

Most people just accept the current way (I've got to buy a Tivo and pay for listings and I can't move touch the files, etc.) and move on to other things in their lives. I guess they think as long as I'm not getting screwed a whole lot, I'm okay getting screwed a little bit.

Me, my last MS product was Win2K. I subscribe to basic cable. I have cable broadband. I give my cable connection away via wireless in return for an occasional dinner/beer and pet-sitting. It all comes out to nothing anyway.

Re:Perhaps they can make it possible to configure

[geckofiend]

So... Which closed source competitor do you work for now? That's about the only reason I can see for spouting nonsense like you have.

I have to lspci, then spend weeks messing around with mythtv-config and mythfrontend to try and get it to receive TV
If you have a properly configured VFL, ivtv or DVB card it's as simple as selecting the card type from a drop down list.

It's not like I'm uneducated in these things. I was a principle engineer on a DVB set top box in the past.I do have a clue.
So to break it to you but no... you don't

However MythTV takes all that is obvious about television and renders it obscure and crash prone.Wow, I guess I better do something about the Myth backend and frontends I've been running since 18.1 without a reboot or crash.

The thing they need to fix is autoconfigure code that scans for TV cards, asks you some basic questions
You mean like the channel scanner that's been in there for ages?

My TV gets by without knowing what channels are being sent. It just finds them. MythTV should be able to work out of the box in the same way.
Take your TV to China, the UK and Germany and see how many channels it finds. Then see check out it's handy on-creen guide...

It would be nice if it could actually watch or import DVDs, like it claims it can. WatchDVD drops out after the first intro section, playing only 1 section. Import DVD does nothing. Yes I did install the CSS library. It did not help.
Watch DVD launches the DVD player software YOU configured it to use. How is it Myth's fault if your own damn software doesn't work? As for Import DVD doing nothing sounds like you didn't bother to compile with it enabled.

Of course all of the above is readily avialable in the documentation but since you're such an expert and all I guess you can't bother to read that eh?

CableCard Support

[hoyty]

I know the likelyhood of official drivers for Cable Card PC hardware on linux being released are about zero. Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on the possibility of reverse engineering drivers and hacking them in to MythTV? Hopefully once the hardware gets out there even in pre-built vista machines there will be some more interesting stuff to happen.

Re:Does anyone know?

[ncc74656]

Does anyone know of a good PCMCIA TV Tuner card that is Linux compatible? I have been looking for one for a while and can't seem to find any.

By "PCMCIA," you meant "CardBus," right? PCMCIA (more properly known as PC Card) is too slow for frame grabbers; it's basically ISA in a smaller form.

Finding a CardBus video-capture card that works right under Windows is a big enough problem, let alone under Linux. The one I tried (a Kworld something-or-other that Fry's sells) had major problems doing clean captures at anything near maximum resolution. ADS sells a similar (identical?) card, and it behaved the same way. About the only non-PCI capture device I've run across that works reasonably well (under both Windows and Linux, BTW) is the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2. It has the same hardware inside as their PCI capture devices, but instead of a PCI interface to the computer, it has a USB 2.0 interface.

Re:Hardware?

[modemboy]

For a cable capture card I would suggest a hauppauge pvr-150 non mce. They can be had for around $70 (got mine from buy.com) in the non mce version (means no remote). It is a hardware capture card so no system load, good quality too.

For input I found the easiest way to go is to buy an infared keyboard mouse combo (liteon makes a nice one for around $30) and then also buy an ir learning remote of your choosing (as cheap as $20, Sony's are easy to setup). Then you use the IR keyboard to teach the remote whatever key presses you want to map to each button. Very easy to setup and infinetly customizeable without any pesky config files. Plus then you have a wireless keyboard handy for when you need to hack.

KnoppMyth is the best!!

Re:Perhaps they can make it possible to configure

[swillden]

Who has time to figure out that subsystems are involved, let alone configure them?!

Who needs to? That sort of work is what computers are for. To install MythTV, just use Debian (or a derivative), add the Marillat repository to your sources.list and then apt-get install the Myth components you want. Apt will work out the dependencies and dpkg will configure it for you.

Or, even easier, just download a knoppmyth ISO and install that.

Looking for Distros

[Kernull]

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

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

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