1st Phoenix BSD... MythTV

[Leslie Williams]

Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> Hi Leslie,
> 
>   Thanks for the reply.  I am currently working with a local 
> entrepreneur to prototype a linux based 'PVR'( Personal Video Recorder 
> ).  I see a great value in Linux due to its open nature and the ability 
> for 3rd parties to contribute to whatever basic functionality we deem 
> necessary for our market.  Naturally, MythTV came up( also Freevo is 
> being investigated ).  It would be really great to hear your experiences 
> with MythTV.  Do you consider it to be a toy?  A useful platform?  What 
> hardware did you use( Hauppauge card )?  any info would be great!
> 
>  Thanks, Josh Zeidner
> 

I had the Cox DVR, but got tired of paying the $15 a month and whatever 
premium I was paying for Digital Cable, plus when I heard they were 
going to expire "Six Feet Under" episodes after 2 weeks, I assumed that 
they'd eventually start limiting everything, so I decided to try MythTV 
and have never looked back.  Also, with Cox, I had it stop recording 
everything several times, one crash where I lost all my recordings, and 
a few spontaneous resets during a recording.

I have a dedicated myth box running Gentoo and serving as both backend 
and frontend. It's an Athlon 1700 with a Hauppauge PVR-250 and a 
PVR-150, nVidia 5200 video card, plus 3 250GB disks using LVM to make 2 
partitions - one for tv recordings and one for video.  The 3 disks are 
overkill, but obviously provide much more space than the Cox DVR. I only 
have standard definition tv and analog cable, so it's a pretty simple 
setup.  HDTV and/or digital cable complicate the situation.  It is also 
in a plain beige case and is noisy but I haven't bothered to spend the 
time or money necessary to make it cool, quiet, and pretty. I also have 
frontends running on another Linux box and my Mac Mini - these just play 
on monitors.

My first install was trivially easy, as I simply added the PVR-250 card 
and emerged the necessary packages on an existing Gentoo system with a 
120GB drive, connected to a monitor.  It just worked.  However, I had to 
start fiddling with it, of course.  At one point I had a separate Master 
Backend and a Slave Backend/Frontend, each with a capture card, but 
discovered (the hard way) that the Hauppauge PVRs don't play nice with 
motherboards with Via 266 chipsets.  I also had a bad PVR-150 and spent 
a long time trying to make it work, convinced that I was doing something 
wrong.  I got a replacement and popped it in the system, and it worked 
immediately.

I've had some other problems, too and have spent a lot of time 
troubleshooting, but for me, that's fun.  I wouldn't recommend MythTV 
yet to anyone who doesn't enjoy geeking around with computers, so in 
that sense, it is not as useful as a Tivo or something similar. Also, if 
you want something that looks like a Tivo, it won't be cheaper, and 
could be a lot more expensive, even without the monthly fee.

But what you do get is control and features. Featurewise, it blows the 
commercial PVRs out of the water.  I pretty much use it just to record 
tv, then watch, then delete, so I've barely scratched the surface.  But 
two features I love are commercial skipping and time stretch.  Time 
stretch allow you to speed up (or slow down) playback of the recording, 
but adjusts the pitch so the voices don't sound like chipmunks.  Using 
both of these, I can watch a 30 minute "Jeopardy" in about 13 minutes! 
I'm learning Spanish, so I watch the Spanish channels and slow down the 
playback. I also like being able to schedule recordings from any web 
browser.

I think there would be a market for a prebuilt myth-based PVR if it was 
in a sleek, quiet case - even if it was just a frontend only.  However 
  it gets problematic because the number of people who are satisfied 
with SDTV is shrinking daily, and making an HDTV product could be risky 
since it's likely Congress will pass some sort of Broadcast Flag and/or 
"Analog Hole" legislation, in which case you'd probably be somewhat screwed.

I think MythTV, despite being at version .18 (.19 should be released 
very soon - like in a few days or weeks) is robust enough for it as-is. 
    Most of the problems I have alluded to have been when I've changed 
or added hardware, upgraded my kernel or other software.  Most of the 
time it has been fine and just worked.

You might want to take a look at http://www.plutohome.com - they have 
put together a commercial system incorporating MythTV (as well as 
Misterhouse and Asterisk I think), and they have the source available 
for download.

I hope this is useful.  Let me know if I've been unclear or if you have 
any other questions.

-Leslie