MythTV 0.20 Released

An anonymous reader writes "The latest version of MythTV, the open source PVR application for Linux, has been released. New features (as documented in the release notes) include a new menu system, an improved internal DVD player, support for DVB radio channels, and mouse support. There is also a new plugin – MythArchive – which allows recordings be written to DVD. You can download MythTV from MythTV.org."

Comments

I so wish this were on FreeBSD

[jimstapleton]

It (and better TV Tuner drivers) are probably the only things that really make me want Linux over FreeBSD. Still, it's a nice release, even if I can't use it.

new features

[samsonov]

Since the poor mythtv site appears to be slashdotted already:

Major changes

* Menus are now drawn by MythUI using OpenGL. This option can be enabled/disabled in the Appearance settings.
* Improved internal DVD player - now supporting menus and other missing features
* Added MHEG content implementation (Interactive TV in UK)
* Added Hotplug support for removable media in Media Monitor and MythGallery
* Added support for the HDHomeRun encoding device
* Added support for basic FreeBox recorders
* Added support for H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) TS decoding
* Added an MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC IP network recorder
* Added internal UPnP support for TV and Music
* Added experimental second commercial detector
* New socket class for backend communications
* OSD image cache which improves channel changing speed
* Fixed program transition while Watching LiveTV
* Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
* Support for DVB radio channels and guide data collected via EIT for them
* Added mouse support in menus, including gestures

* Menus are now drawn by MythUI using OpenGL. This option can be enabled/disabled in the Appearance settings.
* Improved internal DVD player - now supporting menus and other missing features
* Added MHEG content implementation (Interactive TV in UK)
* Added Hotplug support for removable media in Media Monitor and MythGallery
* Added support for the HDHomeRun encoding device
* Added support for basic FreeBox recorders
* Added support for H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) TS decoding
* Added an MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC IP network recorder
* Added internal UPnP support for TV and Music
* Added experimental second commercial detector
* New socket class for backend communications
* OSD image cache which improves channel changing speed
* Fixed program transition while Watching LiveTV
* Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
* Support for DVB radio channels and guide data collected via EIT for them
* Added mouse support in menus, including gestures

Re:new features

[tji]

MythTV could really use a marketing guy to help with the new releases (actually, there are many open source projects that could benefit from this). The list of highly technical updates to MythTV don't really do justice to where MythTV is today.

As a MythTV user, here is what I see as important, and having improved in 0.20:

- MythTV is a free / open source PVR application, with support for analog, digital, and HDTV recording in most international standards (i.e. it's usable in the U.S., Europe, Asia, etc.). It includes many features not available in commercial PVR products.
    - Automatic commercial detection and removal, or manual skip forward/back.
    - Transcode of video to other formats/resolutions -- including DVD export in 0.20.
    - Network based structure, allowing 'backend' recording storage on different machine than the 'frontend' display. (i.e. stick the backend with all the cable connections, antennas, loud fans and tons of disk in the basement, put a small/quiet frontend near your TV for output.)
    - HDTV support: With supported HD capture card, terrestrial broadcast HD and Cable HD are supported (with the exception of encrypted cable HD channels - which cannot be decrypted on any PC PVR)
    - Improved MacOS X support. The 0.20 version has greatly improved the Mac support, especially for the Intel based Macs. Performance optimizations for HD video playback make the Core Duo Mac Minis a great choice for a small/quiet frontend box.

Re:new features

[Captain_Chaos]

HDTV support: With supported HD capture card, terrestrial broadcast HD and Cable HD are supported (with the exception of encrypted cable HD channels - which cannot be decrypted on any PC PVR)

Maybe not for ATSC (the American standard), but I can watch the encrypted HD test channels on my digital cable connection without problems via my DVB-C (the European standard) card. I did have to add the channels manually though, the channel scanner did not find them automatically (although this is one of the things that reportedly has been fixed in 0.20).

Re:Questions

[mbelly]

http://mythic.tv/product_info.php?cPath=21_29&prod ucts_id=44

A full system built with HDTV support.

A Year of MythTV

[feld]

I've been running MythTV for about a year now and let me tell you -- TV can't get any better.

I have the shows I want whenever I want them. Sure, sure, you can do this with Tivo. But can you also watch those recorded shows over your home network on other PCs? Burn to DVD? My MythTV box also is my torrent box, fileserver, IRC proxy, IMAP server....

Let's put it this way -- more features than Tivo, and they can't control what you do with it. Go ahead, skip all the commercials you want. Keep your recordings as long as you want. The Man can't keep you down when you're running this system.

Also, when that commercial flag becomes law (I think it's still up in the air), MythTV plans to use it to identify commercials and intentionally skip them. Eat that, capitalist pigs ;)

Re:A Year of MythTV

[jerkychew]

Well, it's all a matter of what you want. Like most OSS vs closed software, the question comes down to: How much is your time worth, and how much flexibility do you want?

You could run Tivo and have a quick setup, nice interface, and good support. But you gotta pay for the subscription, and you can't (legally) remove the DRM from the recordings or push anything from your PC to your tivo other than .tivo files.

You could run MCE with a little more tweaking. You could view movies stored on your server from your MCE box, and view, record, and archive TV shows at your whim. But, MCE has a very narrow list of supported hardware, you have the bloat of XP, and as with Tivo, the recordings are huge files, with no built in way to transcode (convert to a different format) files on the fly.

Or, you could use MythTV. You have a wide array of hardware to choose from. Setup is a pain in the ass, even following the Holy Grail of MythTV installs. After you install Myth, you still have to get the whole frontend / backend thing working, as well as a million other tweaks here and there (remote control, zap2it configuration, transcoding settings, etc., etc.). But, if you're succesful, you have a box that does everything you'd want it to... Records tv shows and transcodes them to smaller files, keeps them on a dedicated server if you want, plays all your music and other video files no matter where on the network they're stored, and as of this new release (which I haven't tried out yet; I'm still battling 0.19-fixes), the ability to burn straight to DVD.

I've used XP MCE, Tivo, Xbox Media Center, and I'm just finalizing my MythTV install. I can't tell you which is best yet, as they all have their hits and misses, just like most software packages.

Re:Questions

[bshensky]

Playlist of TV shows have been available in 0.19 - works very nicely for my 5 year old!

(Not that I'm putting him in front of the tube with a playlist and walking away just like that. That would be wrong. But those darned Thomas the Tank Engine episodes are only 4 minutes long apiece!)

Re:Any word on knoppmyth?

[King_TJ]

I'd like to know that too, because I don't bother with MythTV upgrades until it comes out as Knoppmyth on an ISO. Maybe it's just the nature of my particular setup, but it took me *weeks* of tinkering and pouring over message threads to get my Myth box working exactly like I wanted it to. I would have just given up in frustration if the main "core" of the thing wasn't made easier to get going via Knoppmyth.

In the past, it seemed like it took the Knoppmyth developers at least 1-2 months to release a new ISO based on a Myth update though, so this isn't something I'd really expect to see from them in the next few days or anything.

Re:Questions

[ParadoxDruid]

Is it possible to create "playlists" of TV Shows? Say I wanted to rip all my futurama DVDs to a Myth box and play them at random. Could I do that?

I don't know about MythTV, but I have all my Futurama DVDs ripped to my Linux box, and have a "Random episode" icon on my desktop that runs this bash script:

#!/bin/bash
count=`ls /home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama |wc -l`
let "pick = $RANDOM % $count"
let "pick += 1"
kaffeine "/home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama/`ls /home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama |sed -n "$pick"p`"

Seconded!

[drewzhrodague]

Seconded! MythTV is friggin' awesome. It eats the commercials, shares the shows over the network (NFS and SMB), lets me dump my MP3s onto it for playing, supports multiple heads (and backends), and more. I don't even use half the features of the software, and it still blows me away.

I'm using KnoppMyth, and was totally amazed how easily everything installed. Yes I did have to tweak LiRC, and a few other things.

I'm getting ready do build another unit into my house, and look forward to the extra features in the new version.

DVB recordings with dishentwork are awesome.

[guantamanera]

I been loving it since.19. I have a DVB pci card a dishnetwork smartcard, and I can record digitaly with all and AC3 sound. I wish I could do that with directv, but linux does not have DSS support. There are DSS tuners, but they just work with windows. Other than that mythtv is awesome.

Re:Controlling Cablebox?

[SvetBeard]

Can MythTV control my existing cablebox (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250)? It's got a USB port

You basically have to Google around for more information specific to your setup, but MythTV can control external boxes (by calling external scripts). You'll need either an IR blaster or a proper cable and know how to interface with your cablebox's USB port. Don't forget that you'll also need A/V in on the tuner card.

It can be frustrating, though. I have DirecTV now. The box has a USB port, but it requires a USB-to-serial converter (for some reason). Another user wrote a script to tune the channels, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet. It doesn't help that I haven't had time to tinker with the box for several months, though. IR blasters are notoriously fickle, but you may be able to find better support for them.

If you have the option, it's easiest to just use a direct line in from the cable. MythTV can then control the tuner card directly essentially out of the box.

For all the information to get a working Myth box using Fedora Core, check out http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php/

Re:Win32 version

[Aladrin]

No, I think he got the joke and did it one better.

In case you missed it, WinMCE is Microsoft's lame attempt to make their version of MythTV. It is much less complete, much more annoying, and costs a lot more. Plus, it's counted as a fully ready product, while MythTv is only saying they are at 0.20. In other words, Nowhere near done.

Man, explaining jokes always takes the fun out of them -sigh-

Re:Sounds fascinating

[WwonderLlama]

While it's true that not everyone has an easy time of setting up MythTV, the other side is that there are tons of people that have no problems at all getting it working.

My first installs of MythTV went decently well, but I had some hurdles due to the Linux flavor I used. However, there are _great_ guides that walk you through the install. There are also some "install a MythTV system" distrobutions (KnoppMyth, MythDora, etc) that do a basically complete system/Myth install with minimal configuration. And above all, the user community is fantastic. If you have problems, search the mailing list archives (lots of problems have been addressed before). If you can't find an answer, just show us your problem and say "can you help?".

I'd suggest that anyone not comfortable with Linux and mailinglists first attempt an install with Knoppmyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/)(or MythDora). The hardware is autodetected for you, and the forum-based support is very helpful.

Re:Insert subject

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

I would recommend this excellent guide for installing it on Fedora. I use FC3/myth at home currently, and it works wonders.

Re:Cablecard

[SkiItIfYouCan]

I think you are wrong about transfering the service. I believe the lifetime service option is for the life of the box, not transferable to other Tivos. Sorry.

Priority recording

[Andy Social]

Yes, absolutely. I've seen a number of shows get recorded at 1 am instead of their first showing in order to ensure that I get everything I have scheduled to record, even if it's not the earliest showing of each episode.

Re:Controlling Cablebox?

[LazyBoy]

I believe that's one of the boxes Myth can control via firewire.
If not, you'll need an IR emmiter (Tivo would need this too).

LB

Re:Mac? Please?

[Anaerin]

Erm... Excuse me parent, but is starting to support recording from Firewire in OSX, and it DOES support FreeBSD. RTFA, and look at the release notes (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Note s_-_0.20). It's all in there:

Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
and
Fixed FreeBSD compilation