TvMyth

Zahc

Hi,
Anyone out there using MythTv? I have an old PC (PIII-700Mhz) and thought I'd play around and make a media centre. Just for music and pics really, but if I can find a suitable (cheap) graphics card that MythTv can live with I might have a go at making a more substantial machine (bigger HDD). So, if anyone knows about this software I'd appreciate a bit of direction; I've had a look at some sites but they've confused the whatsits off me!!

Zahc

PS I know the title reads TvMyth; that's how confused I am.

fwor

I've got a fairly extensive MythTV installation (master backend, slave backend, separate frontends), all running under Linux.

It works very well, and is now quite stable, though it was not easy to set up initially as I was completely new to Linux!

It's now easier to do, as the main Myth components are in the Ubuntu repositories, and there are special Myth distributions such as Mythbuntu, Mythdora, etc.

fwor

If you choose to go with Myth + Ubuntu, there's some very good guidance on Garry Parker's website:

http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php

And then of course there is the MythTV wiki, which has lots of pointers.

As you probably guessed, your 700Mhz PIII will struggle - it's only just at the threshold of being able to handle a single MPEG2 stream.

Zahc

Thanks. Yep, I knew it would struggle so I'm going to have a play, see if I like it, then maybe build a 'proper' set up. Thanks for the pointers,

Zahc

toasterman

I can't comment on Myth as I tried that and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to work.
I spent a lot of time trying to get the right graphics card, right tv card, right listings, programming remotes, and trying to get it to all playback properly though, using mostly GBpvr software on Windows.
Decent video playback (as good as original sky/freeview feed) is incredibly difficult to achieve.
The idea you can use any old bits and have it work well is a joke.

Eventually I gave up and bought a Topfield PVR and I can tell you I've never seen anything homebrew of mine that came even close.
For £200 with dual freeview tuner, and a 250gb hard drive, I can't fault it, nor could I build it cheaper to anything like the same standard. The only thing it's lacking is a network port - but it does have a usb port to update it/copy software to/from it, and copy off recordings.

The only things I miss from my homebrew setup is I could program it to control other devices, and share the files on my network.
The infrared device alone to control other things, was £40.