[vox] mythtv anyone?

[Sameer Verma]

Wes Hardaker wrote:
> Anyone in town set up a mythtv box yet?  I have a Tivo series one that
> I likely need to replace in the near future and I'm looking at doing a
> myth solution instead...  I think the software install doesn't look
> too bad, assuming you have the right hardware.  It's picking the
> hardware that looks more tricky ;-)
>
> Anyone done it?  Do ya like it?  Want a visitor in your livingroom for
> a demo?  (heh)
>
>   
Although I'm not exactly "in town" I've had a myth box running for a
while. My experience has been good when it works. Two problems I faced are:

Myth uses a backend (server) and frontend (client). If the same machine
runs both, you are in good shape. KnoppMyth
(http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html) is a great distro for this.
However, if you want to run multiple frontends (say an xbox in the
living room, your laptop, your desktop in the office, etc) mismatch in
protocol numbers between the backend (say Knoppmyth) and the frontend
packages (say Ubuntu or Xebian) will throw the whole thing out of sync.
All units must follow the same protocol versions. Then there are other
incompatibility issues. For example, my xbox runs Xebian, which uses the
same protocol as my backend, but MythMusic won't install due to some
broken package dependency.

My way around it has been to use Ubuntu Edgy Server for the backend and
Ubuntu Edgy Desktop for the frontends. Needs some compiling, but works
well once it is set up. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV

So, do your homework on the frontends you want to use and the protocol
version it will support.

Second problem is how MythMusic (a plug-in) handles discovery of music.
The plug-in does not rely on the backend for music. All your music must
be on the frontend machine or be available a remote (NFS, in my case)
mount. A bit of a pain to configure, but again, works well once it is
set up.

In my opinion, its best to start off with KnoppMyth and one box for both
ends and go from there. Also, get a tuner card that crunches in
hardware. That way any slow box will work. Mine is a Hauppauge Win-PVR
250 (http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr250.html) in a PIII
700MHz, and the CPU barely warms up.

As always, your mileage may vary.

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/