Knoppix Mythtv

[WarmFluffyUK]

I currently have a PVR setup that is XP running GB-PVR as the PVR software. It's pretty good but I am a little dissolution with a Windows based PVR as it's pretty clunky. I have been thinking of moving over to a Linux based PVR using MythTV, I have already downloaded the Knoppix MythTV build and ordered a 250GB HDD which is arriving on Thursday, I want to build this on a spare drive as I have a lot of recordings on my current PVRs HDD.
So I am going ahead and setting this up on the weekend, my question is: Has anyone else set Knoppix MythTV up before and if so, are there any gotchas I should be looking out for?

 

[Pickle]

Ive never tried the knoppix myth (isnt it a live cd?), but I use opensuse to run it. Theres also mythbuntu.
Some things to consider, does all your hw work on linux, primarily the tuners?
What video card are you going to use?
If the tuner works in linux mythtv is pretty simple to setup to use it.
LIRC can be a challenge at times.
Dont forget you need to use a source for tv data, like schedules direct ($20 a year)

 

[paeryn]

Dont forget you need to use a source for tv data, like schedules direct ($20 a year)

In the UK we have a free RadioTimes 14 day schedule. Also if you have a freeview digital tuner MythTV can get the schedules from that (don't know how good that one is since I don't.)

WarmFluffyUK:
MythTV might take a bit of setting up at first (I don't use a pre-built distro so you should have an easier time,) but once it is you'll love it! I've been using it for nearly 3.5 years. It's really nice to be able to check listings and set up recordings from my mobile phone too.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I have checked the compatibility list and all my hardware appears to be listed, for the Scheduling I can use something like XMLTV which is free.

May I ask paeryn: How responsive is MythTV, such as pausing and rewinding live TV etc? As stated GB-PVR is kinda clunky but I guess that's more to do with it being Windows based.

I'm really looking forward to getting this up and running

One more thing: I have an MCE remote, can it use this?
Also here's a list of hardware I currently am using with my PVR:

Intel 2.4Ghz Celeron
1Gb DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9250 (Using S-Video out)
Hauppauge HVR-1300 DVB-T Digital Tuner
Hauppauge PVR-150 Analog capture card
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card
Microsoft MCE Remote (Receiver connected via USB)

I can't remember the M/B model but I do know it's an Intel.

 

[paeryn]

Pausing and rewinding live TV is fine, it behaves just as it does for recorded TV - which is how MythTV handles it. Changing channels takes several seconds (about 6 for me) but you don't miss that much as it actually starts recording after about 1 second, it just doesn't start showing it until there's about 5 seconds worth of buffer.

The beauty of it is that the programmes that you watch in live TV are automatically saved just as timed recordings are - if after you've watched something you decide you want to keep it you can go to the recordings list and it's in there, you just need to change it's group from liveTV to default (as liveTV gets deleted after a day.)

Any remote can be used. MythTV uses LIRC to read remotes and so is fully configurable, I would think that there is a pre-configured setup for the MCE being as it's quite common. I use a Harmony remote (it controls everything - even my lights) and the ir sensor that plugs into the Hauppauge 150 (excellent TV card).

Processor-wise you shouldn't have any problems, mine used to run fine on an Athlon XP2000+ with 512MB RAM - I only upgraded it because the poor thing overheated (dust clogged the processor fan.)

XMLTV is the default schedule grabber and it's set up to use the Radio Times feed for the UK.

Unfortunately one thing MythTV won't do is make you a cuppa :-(

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Pausing and rewinding live TV is fine, it behaves just as it does for recorded TV - which is how MythTV handles it. Changing channels takes several seconds (about 6 for me) but you don't miss that much as it actually starts recording after about 1 second, it just doesn't start showing it until there's about 5 seconds worth of buffer.

The beauty of it is that the programmes that you watch in live TV are automatically saved just as timed recordings are - if after you've watched something you decide you want to keep it you can go to the recordings list and it's in there, you just need to change it's group from liveTV to default (as liveTV gets deleted after a day.)

Any remote can be used. MythTV uses LIRC to read remotes and so is fully configurable, I would think that there is a pre-configured setup for the MCE being as it's quite common. I use a Harmony remote (it controls everything - even my lights) and the ir sensor that plugs into the Hauppauge 150 (excellent TV card).

Processor-wise you shouldn't have any problems, mine used to run fine on an Athlon XP2000+ with 512MB RAM - I only upgraded it because the poor thing overheated (dust clogged the processor fan.)

XMLTV is the default schedule grabber and it's set up to use the Radio Times feed for the UK.

Unfortunately one thing MythTV won't do is make you a cuppa :-(

This is sounding better by the minute, too bad about the cuppa though .

Another Question:
When I have set a program to record, say during the night or while I am out, I can put my PVR to sleep but GB-PVR's recording service wakes the machine up to record the program and then puts it back to sleep. Does MythTV do the same kind of thing?

 

[paeryn]

Yes it does support auto-shutdown/wakeup although I've never used it because my MythTV machine does other things too which require it to be on 24/7. See Here

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Yes it does support auto-shutdown/wakeup although I've never used it because my MythTV machine does other things too which require it to be on 24/7. See Here


This is really gonna replace my current software solution.

I also use iTunes for playback in Album mode on the TV, it's especially good for parties and I have just found out iTunes will run using WINE

Looking at WINE I might just move my main PC over to Linux (probably Ubunto Studio), or at least dual boot it so I have XP available for Games/Apps that don't work on Linux(WINE).

 

[sterling976]

Haven't used knoppmyth, but I'm a heavy mythbuntu user (2 backends, multiple frontends around the house). Once you get it configured, it's great. Mythtv's made a lot of progress in the last few years. A couple tips with the setup:

• lirc. lirc can be a bugger to get setup correctly if your distribution doesn't already support your remote. I have a Hauppauge remote and an ATI Remote Wonder controlling different frontends. The Hauppauge remote is plugged in to the capture card and worked just fine after I used mythbuntu's built-in control GUI to select it from a list. I'm sure Knoppmyth has a similiar facility. On the other hand, the ATI Remote-Wonder is a USB-based IR remote and had to be configured by hand. Not a huge problem, but you'll have to do quite a bit of reading. Also -- with lirc, you can very easily map different remote buttons to whatever function you want, so if you don't like the default button layout, you have options. Be prepared to edit /home/<mythuser>/.lircrc, /etc/lirc/lircd.conf, and /etc/lirc/lircmd.conf by hand. www.lirc.org is your friend.
• It sounds like you're only going to have one all-in-one myth box. If you decide to run multiple servers (backends and/or frontends), be aware that you may need to know some SQL and be willing to poke around in the mysql database a bit -- and you'll need to make a backup before you add more servers. The setup in mythbuntu is mostly solid and I assume Knoppmyth is equally together, but it'll give you an extra measure of comfort to know you have that backup.
• This one made me extremely happy. It may not do you as much good if you're not running multiple tuners. Once you get things up and running, start up mythfrontend and go to Utilities/Setup>Setup>TV Settings>General. On the fourth page, you'll see a "Time to record before start of show" and another one for "past end of show." If you find you're missing the first or last few minutes of a program and your cable/satellite provider is rude enough to not run an NTP server, set this to an appropriate number of seconds. Mine's set to 300, which gives me 5 minutes on either end of any scheduled recording; it's a default so you never have to manually build that extra time into your schedule. The added bonus is that this helps mythtv intelligently handle conflicts -- if you're recording two programs on the same channel in succession, and only have one tuner card, it'll ignore the additional time you've configured instead of freaking out and telling you it has a conflict.
• Depending on your display method, you may have an issue with bands of color above and/or below the image when playing back video. This will fix it. I can't remember exactly what the problem is, but it has to do with the way your display hardware deals with not-quite-matching dimensions on the image that it receives. If you're using a computer monitor, this shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, best of luck getting MythTV running, and welcome to the fold.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Can you explain something to me, this idea of backends and frontends etc, what's that all about?

 

[Pickle]

Can you explain something to me, this idea of backends and frontends etc, what's that all about?

backend is the brains, it stores the listing data and manages the capture cards, basically its the part that does the recording of your programs. It then serves the media to the frontends for viewing.
frontend is really just a client application that connects to the backend to access recordings.
In summary its just a server client setup.

The beauty of this is that you can have 1 backend, but multiple frontends. For example I have a pc with the backend and the frontend on it. But I also have the frontend on my laptop. So I can watch my media on the laptop streaming from the backend on the other pc. You can have multiple backends, but I think this for those that are doing massive amounts of recordings.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

That's really kewl, so if I get this right: I could have a low end PC in another room that can control the main back end in the living room, the front end can setup recordings, and do all the things that the main PC can do. It's basically like having two media centers, each doing their own thing but the main powerhorse PC with all the capture cards does all the main work?

 

[paeryn]

Yup, my MythtV machine runs both front and back ends and sits next to the TV in my living room. In my bedroom I've got a Hauppauge MVP running mvpmc which has a simplified frontend for MythTV so I can watch any of my recordings, liveTV, and schedule new recordings without getting out of bed ;-)

If you run a web server on your MythTV machine then you can use MythWeb to give you an internet frontend too. I've found it handy several times when I've been out and found that there's a programme on that I want to watch, all I've needed is either a friend's pc or my mobile and within a couple of minutes I've set MythTV to record it.

You're going to be in heaven once you've got MythTV set up!

 

[sterling976]

You're going to be in heaven once you've got MythTV set up!

+1

A little more info here. One other thing to remember is that you can have multiple backends/frontends interspersed among multiple machines - your frontend doesn't need to just be a dedicated frontend, it can also function as a backend and vice versa. Oh, and you don't need a graphical interface to run the mythbackend packages -- I have a headless backup server (no X environment) running as a slave backend, in addition to my master backend server which also has the frontend installed, and a dedicated frontend in the living room that's also running mythgame, which makes organizing various emulators much, much easier.

I'm glad Paeryn mentioned mythweb. It's fabulous for scheduling, and even allows for streaming your recorded programs and videos across the network (or the internet) to a machine that doesn't run mythfrontend, although I've found jinzora does a much better job of the actual streaming (less buffering, smoother playback, greater compatibility with non-Linux clients). I recommend VLC for the client end of the streaming video. You can even use mythrename.pl and scheduled jobs in mythtv to automatically create a user-readable symlink so jinzora doesn't present you with a series of links that look like Wq1xZ8ouyL.mpg, but something more friendly like 'Monthy_Pythons_Flying_Circus.How_not_to_be_Seen.2008-11-13.1800.mpg. I used to travel a lot for work and would frequently log in to the home network from my hotel to catch up on my watch list.

Anyway, good luck with your myth setup. Post back and let us know how it goes.