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MythTV 0.25 Released, New HW Acceleration and Audio Standards Support
unts writes "The highly configurable Linux PVR, MythTV, has reached the 0.25 release, over 500 days after the previous full release. New features include VAAPI support, E-AC3, TrueHD, and DTS-HD audio, the ability to control other home entertainment devices via HDMI CEC and additions to the API to allow HTTP live streaming. The release notes for 0.25 don't reflect the release status at the time of writing, but should contain most of the relevant changes. MythTV can be used as a backend (recorder) and frontend (viewer), but can also feed other frontends such as appropriate versions of XBMC. Hopefully the new HTTP streaming API will lead to even more ways to get your video fix."
I think MythTV is in dire need of a more polished and coherent UI. And a comprehensive user and installation guide.
New tech feats are ok, but they'll probably make the whole thing even less useable.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I think there is one that works on Windows. For other platforms, the setup involves running Windows in VirtualBox or similar. Unfortunately this is a requirement because Netflix streaming uses Silverlight with some DRM that is not compatible with Moonlight, so is only available on Windows. Want to fix it? Write to the movie studios and tell them that this is why they're not getting any of your money.
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Good luck with that. I'm pretty sure they're trying to kill netflix not get them more subscribers.
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Legit question, for several reasons, and I'm a huge MythTV fan, have been for 8+ years, but I still use it. Here's why, and why not:
1.I no longer frequently use the video and music plugins, since so much content is streaming over the Internet or other devices. I have some old DVD/BluRay rips still on it that I sometimes watch.
2. I no longer use it to watch any DVD's, for the same reason above, AND the DVD player in it sucks at playing 50% of the DVDs I have, and it doesn't play BluRays.
3. I still use it constantly for the TV recording features. It's still the best DVR by far than any thing else out there, F/OSS, or commercial. Yes, I understand, lots of you college kids and hippy-types watch everything on Hulu or wherever else on your laptops in the coffee-shops, but I like recording shows, watching them later THAT SAME NIGHT or the next night, AUTO-SKIP commercials, on a big 65" TV in HD. All my HD content is from an antenna - I only watch network shows, no cable, don't need it. So it works perfect for that.
Doesn't do me much good if I can't use it on my cable system without a jerry-rigged IR blaster/multiple tuner setup.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I wish they would integrate mythnettv into the mainline. Its an addon that shoves video podcasts into your "recorded tv shows" list as if they came over the air (or cable or satellite or whatever). Most of what I watch on "TV" is from revision3 or twit.tv or ted talks rss feed now rather than the old fashioned "tv" networks and it all comes from mythnettv run by a cron job every night pulling a bunch of RSS feeds.
Another thing thats bugged me for years with my myth setup at home is they've got all this psuedo-intelligent magic AI post-processing after recording that makes commercials disappear... literally hands free you're watching TV, a break comes up, it skips the commercials. Very nice, very impressive, something no other DVR has, a killer feature that makes it impossible to even consider trying another. However, for years and years they still can't figure out a way to auto-zoom widescreen content on a narrow channel shown on a wide display (in other words, a tiny pic in the center of a giant black border). You'd think tech smart enough to detect and autoskip commercials could figure out when a TV show gets "framed" and adjust the zoom appropriately. Maybe this is something they added back in 0.23 and I just haven't noticed yet, donno.
Another thing that bugs me is digital dropouts make a star trek like sound in addition to ugly picture and I wish the backend could be convinced if the mpeg stream turns to crap that it should cleanly eat the bad checksum frames and mute the sound stream. Doesn't happen often. But the concept of a squelch function when the input drops doesn't seem like rocket science to implement. Even a cheap TV can bluescreen on lack of input signal, why not my myth backend?
If you sign up for schedule data from schedules direct, how come myth can't tell you when it expires other than your listings disappearing?
Back around 0.20 there was a really nice streaming audio player and I found it amusing to listen to various world wide stations on my TV. That disappeared in recent versions, a rare feature regression. I miss that.
Honestly 0.24 is/was about 99% perfect, its just these weird corner cases that still bug me after years and years, and it sounds like 0.25 has fixed none of my real issues while adding support for stuff I simply don't care about.
I am pleased that its 1998 in mythtv land so they finally support ipv6... I'm thinking of setting up a frontend at my mother in law's place and this saves me the effort of putting a vpn client to make her house part of my network. Then she'd have my full library of media and a decent DVR. From multi-room DVR to multi-house DVR, here I come!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
and it doesn't play BluRays.
LOL the only BR I play come from Us**et and torrents as video files not old fashioned optical disks, but a glance at the readme for 0.25 shows that adding native blueray support was a major focus of 0.25.
If they're into adding legacy physical media, I'd like an 8-track interface for mythmusic while they're at it. Maybe sony mini-disc player support?
so much content is streaming over the Internet
One of the pains of being an early adopter is you get your attitudes set in stone from ye olden days. For me, streaming will always be shitty breaking up and stuttering realaudio from 1997. Has it improved any? I tried watching a couple youtube videos on my phone recently and they're all stutter and buffer but maybe real devices work better now? Or does streaming still suck?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
MythTV has great backend and XBMC has a great frontend. The combo is fantastic and I don't think there's anything in the proprietary space that offers anything on par. Truely jewels from FOSS.
ayottesoftware.com
I've been using MythTV for a couple of years on Mac Mini (running OSX rather than Linux), talking to an HDHomeRun network tuner connected to a broadcast antenna in my attic. The team has really improved the OSX port in the last few years, with the only lack of Linux parity being in the realm of hardware-accelerated playback.
After dealing with the confusing setup screens and active channel scans, it has worked brilliantly, especially since the 0.24 release. The scheduling software is really good, especially using the web frontend. Watching TV on any computer in the house has been very convenient, and the automatic commercial skipping is pleasant.
Between broadcast and online sources, I get most of what I want to watch, the exceptions being Game of Thrones and some cable-only basketball and hockey broadcasts. The complete, uncompressed HD signals over broadcast TV are perceptibly clearer than HD cable (or, worse, HD satellite) signals, which suffer from the compression.
Dear TheRaven64,
We here at the movie studios are writing you back to let you know that we don't agree with your open source stance, and that is why don't get the privilege of viewing our totally awesome content. You can keep your money, and we'll use your illegal downloading of our content to show how we've lost 10 billion trillion million dollars, and use that as a case to filter the internets, get the courts to allow us to rifle through any/all social networks whenever we want, place surveillance cameras in your home, and threaten to sue you until your grandkids go bankrupt.
Thank you,
The Movie Studios
Projected support costs of Linux version vs. Projected revenue from it would be my guess. It's oft-repeated unfortunately.
Yes, it is a frequently cited reason, but not necessary the true one. Netflix used to work on Linux (until they switched to Silverlight). The last explanation from a Netflix executives of why they still have not restored Linux support was a long string of technical gibberish which basically boiled down to "because it isn't Windows". It was clear that he had no idea what it would take to get Linux support back.
It is not just Netflix that does this. Estimates of how hard it would be to support Linux often assume a separate from-scratch development effort would be required. Often all that is really needed is to provide what they already have in a slightly different form. Sometimes this just means a new installer. In other cases all that is required is a few web pages. Very often the effort would benefit all of their uses. For example, if Garmin were to provided direct links to firmware files and instructions for copying them to the right place on the GPS, it would save users a lot of trouble when the just-click-this-and-don't-worry-your-pretty-little-head-about-it programs fail.
Actually, for some of us that want to watch TV without commercials, Netflix has been a god send. I have watched thousands of hours of TV shows I missed when I was a kid or young adult and working weird shifts. Mission Impossible, Stargate SG 1, Battlestar Galactica,Top gear, Dr. Whp, Torchwood, MI-5, Magnum PI, Hell even Knight Rider.
You might not watch those shows, but I do, and with the thousands of hours of content available of different shows, I won't be getting satellite or cable anytime soon. You are entitled to your opinion, but 8.99 a month for the amount of content I use is well spent for me.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
So you sned your cable company $80/month because the $8/month cost of Netflix streaming is just outrageous? One cannont argue against logic like that. I find that Netflix (with some DVDs) is all the TV I need, no need for the cable at all, but to each his own.
What's a "commercial"?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.