MythTV how-to

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I've been considering building a media center project PC, and I was torn between choosing an open source, free software system like MythTV and Freevo, or a commercial OS like Windows Media Center. The thing that's kept me from trying the open source programs out was the complicated setup that requires some serious linux knowledge, and unknown device support.

MythTV looks fantastic, offers pretty much every feature of TiVo (recording, scheduling, playback, music and photos), and then some (picture-in-picture, weather reports, arcade games, downloaded movie playback, web front-end). Thankfully a step-by-step guide to setting up your own MythTV box has been written, and it looks very comprehensive and not insanely difficult for someone with basic linux experience. [via BoingBoing]

by Matt Haughey July 28, 2003 in How-To

Comments

MythTV may offer many of the functions of a box like TiVo, but what it, or any such software, cannot offer is the hardware form-factor and packaging. A general purpose PC is just that, general purpose. It does not fit as seemlessly into an A/V center as a PVR device. PC's are usually bigger, uglier, louder, draw much more power, produce a lot of heat, and they have a messy tangle of irrelevant cables and connectors because they are not designed for the purpose. Plus, if the 'media PC' is Windows-based, it suffers all the maintenance and reliablity problems of that OS. The heat, noise, and power are the most serious drawbacks of a modern PC in this application. So the first step of a MythTV howto should be throw away that PC and find a hardware platform that is designed for A/V.

Posted by: David Beckemeyer at Jul 28, 2003 10:22:36 AM

David, this myth how-to definitely has your concerns in mind and addresses them. They have instructions for using a file system (XFS) designed for large media files and frequent disk writing, and this how-to is based on using a mini ATX case (I'd use a Shuttle PC myself), which is very small (smaller than a TiVo in terms of footprint, that's for sure, though probably a tad taller).

Plus, many people see the strength of using a more general purpose PC over a specialized tivo box, because it can do more. Your media PC could also act as a wireless access point, or a backup fileserver for the whole house, etc.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jul 28, 2003 11:11:20 AM

I concur with Matt. Though I'm all for form factors and lo-heat there's nothing like a general purpsoe device which can jack into teh on-line world, provide tools and management capabilities and in general - gateway my digital lifestyle into the world of people, communities and web services. Stand alone boxes are 5 years behind PCs in this regard.

Posted by: Marc Canter at Jul 28, 2003 12:29:14 PM

For the past few months I have been pondering the idea of building a media center PC. I ruled out Tivo and Replay TV because I had no desire to spend $300 on the hardware and then pay a monthly fee (and I wanted my system to do more than just record TV). My attention then turned towards the Windows Media Center solution. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not sell the software alone, it must be purchased with a Media Center PC (and before you respond, I know you can download illegal copies of Windows Media Center software or aquire them through MSDN). But, I already had some of the basic hardware and all I needed was the software to start the project.

While watching TechTV one day, the Screensavers reviewed the Freevo software and basically stated it wasn't ready for prime time. However, they mentioned there were other PVR packages available. After researching a few other solutions, I selected the MythTV software.

First let me preface this with, I am a linux newbie. After a couple of failed attempts at installing MythTV on an XP1800 with an ATI TV Wonder, I finally succeeded on my third attempt. Overall, I am extremely happy with the MythTV solution. The list of features is too long to list here, but it is definitely a great media center solution.

Posted by: mygiotto at Aug 18, 2003 9:44:19 PM

That's great to hear. I'm not much of a linux person so I've been wary of trying out the MythTV package, thinking it'd be hard to maintain. Great to hear it is possible for a linux newbie to get it up and running.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 18, 2003 10:00:28 PM

I found MythTV, Freevo, and WebVCR+ all far too complicated to setup, so I created my own PVR. It is written in C and does not require a separate database process (such as MySQL) to be running. Despite this, it is very fast (faster than any interpreted language can be) and it has a full-featured GNOME front end.

It can be found at http://furioustv.sourceforge.net/

Posted by: Deraj at Sep 9, 2003 6:59:05 PM

There is a new user group at
http://mythtv.no-ip.com

With help on how to install MythTV

Posted by: Ed at Sep 16, 2003 1:44:42 PM

I have Directv. What kind of video card would I need to record the Directv signal? Thanks,
Scott

Posted by: Scott at Oct 13, 2003 5:24:27 PM

MythTV works well with DTV as long as your receiver has a serial port (they call it low speed data port) on the back.

This allows your PC to change the channels for you.

Since you have a receiver you don't need a "tv tuner" card, just a video capture card. There are lots to choose from, so I would look for a common model listed on mythtv.org. The most common seems to be the PVR 250 and 350.

The one thing to watch out for is hardware versus software encoders. Mine is software so my processor has to do all the hard work to encode the video. If it was on the chip the processor requirements would be way down. (very deceptive box propaganda).

Posted by: Ed Alexander at Oct 19, 2003 1:01:20 PM

I'm going to be setting up a MM pc using MythTV here in the next couple of weeks. And for anone that is worried about the form factor, power, and noise concerns, I'm using a VIA EPIA M10000 motherboard for the base of my system, which is a 17cm x 17cm motherboard with the CPU and everything right on board. Just add a TV Tuner, memory, and hard drive and you're set. I'm building my own case as well, so this device will actually be a 9x9x9 inch square complete with DVD burner and all. I could make it a small, standard AV equipment sized box, but I think a cube will look better.

And not to mention that mysettopbox.tv has a linux distro called knoppmyth that makes installation as simple as entering a username and password, and saying install.

Posted by: TweakBox at Dec 7, 2003 8:58:23 PM

TweakBox, if you weren't building a custom case, what small form factor case would you get for the VIA EPIA M100000 (which looks great!)? I believe that it needs to be a mini-itx case. Also, how has the PVR been working?

Thanks a lot!
Scott

Posted by: Scott at Feb 2, 2004 5:16:09 PM

One more thing. Where is the best/cheapest spot to buy slim hard drives/cdrom-dvd combos? Or, is there a mini-itx case that uses standard sized components?

Thanks again,
Scott

Posted by: Scott at Feb 2, 2004 5:48:49 PM

I am working on a project currently that is going to develop in to a Media center based around a Via board. The computer has already been customized as a toaster. The whole article is here www.sample5.com

Posted by: Radon at Feb 2, 2004 8:55:00 PM

so if you have a direct tv box with out a serial port on the back (like me) you're screwed? Btw I'm a linux newbie, although have lots of windows/general computer experiance, and i've been workin on getting this thing working for at LEAST (no joke) 30 hours this week with a bt878 card (supposedly one of the easiest to set up) and I've had nothing but problems with mythtv as with freevo. It looks pretty but is way to complicated for anyone to set up if they just want to sit down and work on it for a few hours to get it working, too many details an average user shouldn't have to worry about, setting up a sql db, solving rediculous dependency problems, knowing very specific settings for your card (my bt878 was generic so no documentation for me.) It makes me want to reembrace windows.

Posted by: kenny at May 30, 2004 3:19:59 PM

kenny,
I just finished configuring MythTV (and everything is working except for remote control) using Gentoo. Gentoo solves the dependency problems for you, but probably the single biggest advantage is Gentoo's discussion forums available here: http://forums.gentoo.org. I installed MythTV using the Setup Guide/HOWTO on this page: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=152359&highlight=. Though it is specifically for Gentoo, most of it (save the beginning section on getting Gentoo installed) can be used by any distribution. If you are looking for the latest 2.6 ivtv patches/source directories you can download them here: http://kmos.org/~ckennedy/ivtv/.

Hope this helps,
Scott

Posted by: scott at Jun 1, 2004 9:17:15 AM

I noticed a nice article on the performace of the VIA EPIA M10000 board..
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/epia/index2.php

Posted by: Joe Wilson at Jul 12, 2004 11:43:29 AM

"KnoppMyth is my attempt at making the Linux and MythTV installation as trivial as possible. The current release is Release 4. For changes, take a look at the changelog. Installation instructions for the frontend(runs off of the CD! :) , auto install, auto upgrade and manual install."

http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

Posted by: Roger Larsson at Aug 21, 2004 2:17:58 PM

I was really interested in MYTHTV and FREEVO. My problem is: I don't know how to work around linux and I don't know what to buy. I would buy a ready box of Mythtv or Freevo for my family or for resell. If someone can sell me a remote control and a ready to use 160MB hard drive with everything on it, I could mount the mainboard, capture card, IR blaster, DVD myself in the case. I would even resell probably 50 to 100/year. Is it dangerous to do so? Anybody interested? Are those packages stable? Legal? Fast enough to use? TV lineups available? Is the quality of images on a tv decent? So many questions... and yet no ansers.

Posted by: tos at Aug 31, 2004 7:44:36 PM

Posted by: tos at Aug 31, 2004 7:45:26 PM

ok, I tryed to set up a myth tv box when I was new to linux and fount this site --> http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php to be the best just follow along. My first time all I did was copy and paste. enjoy!

Posted by: Reed Stone at Sep 26, 2004 6:56:14 PM

I am looking to set my computer up for a video capture...and yet want gaming ability, anyone have ideas in regards to what card I should use to bring the cable from the wall to my tv?

Posted by: Chucchio at Nov 4, 2004 12:26:24 AM

I am very supprised no one is selling a mini-atx pre-installed MythTV box. looking at all the comment here, it looks like it is needed.

Posted by: Jack at Nov 18, 2004 11:27:11 AM

MythTV is easy to setup and easy to use if you use Jarod's guide along side apt-get (or whatever system installer your linux distro uses). He details everything from installing linux to installing and setting up mythtv. Follow it step by step and you won't have problems.

If you use mythtv I recommend an nvidia video card since nvidia makes linux drivers that are as easy to install as their windows counterparts. For tuner cards I recommend a Hauppauge 250 or a Hauupauge 350 since there is linux support.

The only change I'd make would to Jarod's guide would be to get the video driver directly from nvidia's site and not in the way Jarod describes.

I'm using MythTV and I LOVE it. The biggest advantage for me is that this is in fact a general purpose PC (no offense to the previous poster). I can use myth to record the shows in 720x480 48Khz and then use freeware linux tools to burn them directly to DVD for archiving and playback on my dvd player. I'm learning how to do that now and I'm having some trouble getting the audio/video synched up but I've got some ideas on what to do.

I have no problems recommending mythtv. The linux knowledge needed is trivial since the machine will do nothing but boot up directly into mythtv and mythtv takes over from there. My machine boots up, autologins as my myth user, boots up directly into KDE (A linux desktop like windows) then boots directly into mythtv. All I do is hit the power button and I'm set. Using simple google searches has answered all questions I've had thus far.

Posted by: art at Nov 29, 2004 8:16:41 AM

I have used for MythTV for quite a while now (since about the .15 release) and most of my major problems have been because of my stupid mistakes or hardware. My setup is a P3 600mhz in another room recording shows on a 120gb hd (just got it for 60 bucks!!!). That backend uses a pvr250 which has hardware mpeg encoding. This means when i show is recording my cpu is around 2%. The frontend is a bit more powerful although I used to have my backend as my frontend (just a one computer setup and not 2 as i have now). The frontend uses a nvidia card to do tv-out beautifully. What makes me really happy is that Tivo is started to get MAJOR endorsements from ad companies and will be showing you ads all the time while you are trying to fast forward throught them(http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-tivo17nov17,0,3236496.story?coll=la-home-headlines). MythTV is not very popular and so probably won't get these people excited.
I would like to ask the person that said they were thinking about just using windows what distro they are using because i use Knoppmyth and it is great. MythTV computers have one purpose and so will not need to be cutomized to the users needs. Knoppmyth takes advantage of this. I'm glad to see that people that have little or no linux knowledge can get this working because i had a few months of experience prior to trying mythtv (mainly in the terminal and not at much in the X environment). Mythtv is already a great program and is only at the beginning of its long journey. Not being held down by a major corperation opens up so many opportunties. One thing I would like to point out is that ID has released Doom 3 binaries for linux (demo and retail). I put that in my MythGame just to see how it goes and its pretty cool. I can play Doom 3 on my TV. I can't see windows every having this kind of functionality. I think the reason people have not made alot of commercial boxes is because that would bring MythTV out into the open and exposed to the media. MythTV is not illegal but commercials is the only thing keeping broadcast TV alive and if there is a company using free software that automatically skips commercials that may do something like the broadcast flag for all tv (http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/). That is just my opinion and vision of the outcome.
May MythTV live on!!!

Posted by: Joseph McWilliams at Dec 4, 2004 11:52:13 AM

Not all PCs are whiteboxes you know. By now there are quite a few small form factor cases which look at home in a stylish glass component rack. And even come with remote controls. I use a black Antec full tower chassis, and it doesn't look out of place at all next to all the other hardware.

Using something like via's micro-itx fanless motherboard also lets you bild a cheap, low power usage box that's absolutely silent when combined with a low power fanless graphics card (eg FX5200 or 440MX or Hauppage 350) and quiet hard drive (WD, Seagate)

Do some research on your own, or clone hardware of someone who has a working mythtv box, and it's really quite painless and inexpensive to get it to work. It's tivo with DVD burning ability on steroids!

Selecting the right capture card is fairly tricky, since there may or may not be a driver for newer cards. Other than that, the setup for gentoo is completely painless. Download a 50 meg image, follow install instructions. type emerge mythtv and wait a day or two for the custom compile for your hardware. sign up for a zap2it account, set up cron to run mythfilldatabase. Enjoy your new PVR.

Posted by: Leo at Dec 7, 2004 9:34:17 PM

quote:
"I found MythTV, Freevo, and WebVCR+ all far too complicated to setup, so I created my own PVR. It is written in C..."

Good thinking. Next time you lock your keys in your car, just build yourself a new car...

Posted by: cyn at Dec 8, 2004 11:41:37 PM

For those of you concerned about hardware form factors, I suggest checking out the Asus Pundit (upon which I am currently running MythTV with two PVR-250 capture cards), or the Asus Digimatrix. Both are very attractive case/motherboard combos. The Pundit has dvi, vga, s-video, composite video and spdif and stereo outputs built in. I think the Digimatrix has about the same. I don't know for a fact that there is good linux support for the Digimatrix, but Fedora Core 3 installed no problem on my Pundit.

Posted by: Dan at Dec 9, 2004 6:46:34 AM

I picked out MythTV from amongst the others because it has the best looking front end. Since this was going to be my entertainment center, looks are everything. I also picked out the Antec overture case, again, for looks. MythTV takes some effort, because there are a lot of parts to put together in such a system. But this box has come in handy for other uses.

It links to the network over a wireless adapter, and by adding an ethernet card, it also acts as a router to forward my XBOX system onto the Internet for XBOX live. Couldn't have done that with a TiVo. And hooking it up to an HDTV through a VGA cable is awesome.

There are plenty of online resources including blog sites, newsthreads, and IRC channels to get the answers you need. You just need to be willing to go find the information instead of depending on Bill Gates to serve it up on a silver platter.

Check out my specs and a couple of pictures by clicking on my posted name below.

Posted by: Greg at Jan 25, 2005 9:08:27 AM

Hi. From the postings, many people have successfully made their own MythTV box. How much did it cost you to make one (working one)?

Posted by: Sonny at Jan 30, 2005 6:21:09 PM

Basically the cost of a normal PC. Ironically the case will probably be one of your most expensive components since something that looks good enough to sit in your living room is not cheap. My system cost upwards of $700 but you must realize that I built my machine totally from scratch. From motherboard to keyboard and mouse I had to buy totally new components for everything and I wanted good to decent quality hardware (no "wal-mart" brand components).

Posted by: art at Jan 31, 2005 2:25:19 PM

Also remember with MythTV all the software (and I do mean ALL the software) is free.

Linux is free, MythTV is free, dvd burning tools for archiving shows is free, all the GUI's and window managers are free and not only is it all free it's all legal and open source.

Posted by: art at Jan 31, 2005 2:34:49 PM

art, $700 is not bad. Commercial Media Center System cause at least $1,200 and some as high as $3,000(which is ridiculous).
I'll build one if I get more time. I will most likely use the VIA EPIA motherboard and a custom box so it can be small.
Anyway, I'll post more when I made one.

Posted by: Sonny at Feb 1, 2005 7:17:40 PM

Well the good news is at least you won't need a monitor :)

Posted by: art at Feb 4, 2005 9:47:53 AM

Has anyone used the Hauppauge PVR-500 in conjunction with Media MVP? I thought this may be a more flexible option than using just a PVR-350.

Also, I was considering using a pcHDTV card instead. Is this limited to digital only signals? I don't have an HDTV yet, but I would like to build a system that could handle analog and still work when The Man forces us all to use digital.

Posted by: pat at Feb 10, 2005 8:39:29 PM

I found a helpful web site for sorting out issues with your install - http://pvrguide.no-ip.com

Posted by: Peter at Feb 11, 2005 3:57:12 AM

Hi. I heard the new the VIA EPIA-SP Motherboard that is coming out in April is best suited for Media Center/PVR which has the MPEG-4 accelarator. Do you think it is important to have such accelarator in building a PVR/Media Center? If not,what mini-itx board will be sufficient.

I am planning to use the KnoppMyth dist.
Hauppage 350 PVR card (Or should I use the 500MCE, will this work with Linux). 1GB memory, 1 DVD/RW, mini-itx case.
What else do you think am I missing?

Posted by: Sonny at Feb 28, 2005 12:30:16 PM

--------------------------
I am planning to use the KnoppMyth dist.
Hauppage 350 PVR card (Or should I use the 500MCE, will this work with Linux). 1GB memory, 1 DVD/RW, mini-itx case.
What else do you think am I missing?
--------------------------

What kind of hard drive will you have? I currently have a 200GB and want to expand later via LVM as soon as I get a spare 100 bucks to get a new drive. I recommend you either configure your drive to be compatible with LVM so you can expand it at a later date. Either that or use a stand alone raid media server :)

Also I'm not sure on the status of the PVR 500 (and the PVR 150). I *think* the cards use a different base architecture than the current pvr 250/350 so the linux driver writers are having a tougher time with them.

Also your RAM may be overkill. I have 512MB and that may even be too much.

Posted by: art at Mar 2, 2005 8:26:08 AM

Can anyone speak or point me to a site that compares the features of mythtv vs tivo. Specifically I'm wondering if MythTv has program guides and sophisticated recording scheduling like tivo's "Season Pass".

Thanks

Posted by: Carlos at May 5, 2005 2:08:17 PM

I have installed and began using Knoppmyth. The problem I am recieving is the only way to get my box to record a showing is to go to that channel on my Direct Tv box, then set the recordings, basically it doesnt change the channel to record on its own. I could use some detailed info on how to fix this, feel free to email me at vipernightwolf85@hotmail.com
also I am using a ATI Tv Wonder Pro card, which is plugged into my direct tv box via s-video.

Posted by: Zonen at May 22, 2005 11:47:40 AM

I haven't built a myth system yet and I am very interested in doing so. My only concern is how to record a show on one channel, while watching another channel. I know you need to add an extra tv-tuner card, but which card should do what? and also does the quality of the second card matter if the first one is high quality? I haven't been able to find any documentation on doing this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by: Sanjay Acharya at Jun 1, 2005 6:23:33 PM

Zonen: you need to buy an ir blaster which will send ir signals from your myth box to your set top box. You can get them from www.irblaster.info.

Sanjay: Regardless of how many cards you use you can set the priorities of the cards within the mythtv menus. Myth tv has a very VERY extensive menu system and it's all GUI based and can be done with your remote.

Carlos: Myth does have program guides as well as a program finder which will look for programs based on name, genre and other criteria. When you find a show your options are "record only this showing", "record in this time slot each day", "record in this time slot each week", "record at any time on this channel" and "record at any time on any channel".

Based on what you choose myth will set up recording schedules and you can resolve conflicts by assigning priorities to a particular show so if "star trek" and "all my children" are coming on at the same time and you want star trek then you simply give star trek a higher priority and it will be recorded in place of all my children.

Posted by: art at Jun 3, 2005 1:23:07 PM

I would suggest a professional if blaster for www.irblaster.info
They look great and will save you the time/effort of trying to make one yourself.

Posted by: ir blaster at Jan 15, 2006 9:18:18 AM

for those that don't know myth tv has a home page at http://mythtv.org/ and a wiki site at http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I am planning on installing mythtv on an old compact using a the convertX mpeg4 hardware usb 2 encoder. from what I have read this should work fine. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the old ati card with svideo out will work. if this old machine works well with this I may upgrade to something like a shuttle. also anyone with satelite systems check to see if you have a firewire port on your set top box. if you do you may not even need a tv tuner you can just plug a firewire cable in and your up and running. if you don't have a firewire port check for a serial port (it may say low speed data port) this will make changing channels work. (you hit button on your remote to your computer and in turn the computer will send a signal through the serial port to the satelite box)the IF blaster works about the same (most use USB) but they can be less reliable.

Posted by: onesojourner at Jul 3, 2006 8:03:59 AM

MythTV is great. For anyone with even a small amount of computer acumen, it is a no-brainer over TIVO. If buy a video in/out card like the Hauppauge 350, most of the video processing is handled on the card and you can get by with a minimal used PC that you can stick out of sight somewhere. The current program guide is Schedules Direct which will set you back $20 per year. Get the biggest hard drive you can afford for storing video and you are good to go. I am using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and everything is working great.

Posted by: Doug Leins at Nov 12, 2007 5:49:40 AM

MythTV how-to

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