Slashdot Mirror
The Mini-ITX Linux PVR Project
An anonymous reader writes "Home theater PCs have taken many shapes and forms, perhaps none more interesting than this Mini-ITX PVR. In part three of its Mini-ITX project, XYZ Computing has turned its Mini-ITX box into a Linux PVR, using Ubuntu and MythTV. This is a lot of computer in a very small package and designing it, putting it together, and then getting it to work was an interesting process. The article is a great guide for people who are interested in their own Mini-ITX Linux PVR, but also goes over the problems and pitfalls of a build like this."
It works, it's cool, just kind of a pain to build and more expensive than he wanted, but the DIY attraction and avoidance of fees make this an overall posititve experience for him. I'm still waiting for a distro that "just works" with a default PC you can buy, after throwing in a Haupage TV card. Plug in, boot from cdrom, try it out, like it, install it on HD...done. Is there such a thing yet, or should I wait for PVRuntu?
fak3r.com
Otherwise it's a pretty neat little thing, and seems to work well w/o much hassle. I'm still skeptical of those slimline DVD drives in media computers, though...
Is there such a thing yet, or should I wait for PVRuntu?
Knopmyth
My pics.
The major difference between the PVR-350 and the PVR-250/150 is that the 350 has video output (MPEG2 decompression). Seeing as the board he selected has video out built in (and a processor that is plenty-capable enough), the PVR-350 was an unnecessary added expense. Also, the PVR-350 is slow at outputting X-menus, cannot do OpenGL or any acceleration except for MPEG2, DVD decoding is slow, games won't work, etc. Basically, the PVR-350 is useful ONLY for MPEG2 TV output.
ALSO - the current stable version of MythTV (0.19) has a bug where fast forwarding and rewinding greater than 3X don't work properly. There is no timeframe for fixing the bug, as not all that many people are using the 350.
A better choice would have been to get a PVR-500 to get dual-tuners, or at least a MCE version of the 150 (take up less space in the teeny case) and use the onboard SVideo out (or VGA out converted).
I've been meaning to build the mythtv/ubuntu combo like the article says but because im a windows fart, its taking me a lot of time to simply build the box and understand it enough to fine tune it.
So what i did in the meanwhile is installing my hauppauge 350 on my own PC, a winxp box, with GB_PVR) http://www.gbpvr.com/. Its free, its windows-based (.net) and it works great. As far as i understand from it, its the closest thing to mythTv on the win platform.
in fact, it work so nicely that i dont even feel the rush of building my ubuntu pvr.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Unless you're not going to be very demanding on the system (i.e. actually use the best features), I wouldn't recommend using a Mini-ITX board for the main system.
One of the big advantages of Myth is its support for transcoding the recordings after they're done, removing commercials automatically, and archiving them to, say, DivX or XviD format. You're not going to be doing that with a 1 GHZ processor on a Mini ITX board.
Much better to get a real box for the backend, which does the recording, and network it to the Mini ITX box to use as the frontend, which runs the user interface.
Personally, I got sick of seeing my 2.8 GHZ P4 Hyperthreaded Sony desktop being used as the family web browser/email machine (such a waste!) so I replaced it with a nice little 2.4 GHZ Compaq EVO from Ebay and am building Myth 0.19 on Ubuntu on the Sony. It's big, it has space for two hard drives, it has a DVD burner and a CDROM drive built in, and it's SILENT, even when running 3+ hour video reencoding jobs at 100% CPU. Got a 300 GB Samsung drive for it, with room for another before I need to go external.
Today my PVR-350 comes, so that'll get me really going on the build. I'll try and use its video output, but I'm starting to see a lot of limitations with that, as the author mentions. I may get a cheap NVidea card with TV out instead. But the PVR-350's are the same price, if not cheaper, as the 250's right now, so why not get one?
Next thing to check out is getting a cable box with Firewire output from Comcast to record some HDTV on, even though I only have a standard TV. Supposedly they're required by the FCC to give me a box with Firewire that outputs at least all "must carry" (read: local broadcast) stations unencrypted, we'll see.
I currently have a Panasonic Showstopper (also known as a ReplayTV first generation) which has worked well for going on five years, but the Myth user interface simply blows it out of the water - killer searching and recording options, a remote REAL-TIME web interface (Replay has one, but the box only dials up once a night - wanna record something now when you're at work, you're out of luck). Plus weather, RSS, and a general video storage area that will also mean I can move my XBox running XBox Media Center to another room.
Once this is all happy, I may look into getting some Mini-ITX boxes with monitors for the kids' rooms and load Ubuntu on them - voila, web surfing and email that I can control and monitor, and Myth frontend machines for them to watch shows on, which I can also monitor.
Geek family nirvana!
Bingo. This is what I have set up in my house.
The cute little box that serves as my MythTV front-end is real quiet because there is no:
a) Hard drive
b) Fan
c) Optical drive
It *does* have a GbE connection to a noisier box in a closet. This one has room for lots of large hard drives and a DVD-RW. The little box boots via PXE (only because I wanted the experience), but has a 1 Gb USB 2.0 thumb drive for "local" storage or caching, just in case.
The down side? The little box is almost useless without the network connection to the big box. This can be fixed by booting from the USB flash drive, if you want.
The up side? I have over 300 DVDs and 100 CDs all ripped to the big box. Movies, recorded TV and music is all available at any PC in the house. I have room for a couple hundred more movies and CDs before having to buy more hard drives. It is super-silent since there are no moving parts.
[Note to the MPAA/RIAA: I have the originals of ALL of those DVDs and CDs boxed away nicely, in storage, to avoid scratches and deterioration.]
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.