MythTV Allows Multiple Front-Ends On Wide Range of Platforms 254
As the DVR becomes a much more pervasive performer in home theater setups, the level of excellence demanded by the general consumer seems to continue to rise. The open source project MythTV has been in this arena for quite a while, and now offers the ability to have multiple front-ends on your MythTV install on a wide range of different platforms. Able to run on Windows XP, Vista, Xbox, and even an Apple iPod, the new flexibility is sure to interest many consumers (and many competitors).
It ain't news. (Score:5, Interesting)
As a proud MythTV user, this has been pretty common knowledge. Nothing in the article is new.
What make me really excited is if I could use my XBox360 as a generic frontend with it. If it could function as MythTV frontend + netflix player, it'd be perfect. It's doubtful since Microsoft has already spent so much time just getting it to play well(read not requiring WMV encoding) with an PC or SMBFS network share, which is still doable but no recorded programs or other goodies MythTV does so well.
If any MythTV Dev's are reading this, thank you so much for the hard work!
MythTV increasingly impractical (digital and HDTV) (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, with no capability to use a cablecard (much less switched digital video), MythTV is growing increasingly irrelevant in the DVR world. Sure, you could set up a complicated system using additional cable boxes from you cable company with some sort of IR channel switching, but the expense and hassle of that will keep MythTV on the far, far fringe. And if HDMI becomes the standard, MythTV is really screwed (it's able to record off of component outputs, but not HDMI).
I truly wish MythTV were practical (I hate DRM and the hassles of moving video from one form to another as much as anyone). But with an increasingly hostile cable companies (that want to lock you into THEIR DVR's), I don't think it is or will be again. It's hard enough to even get a Tivo to work on most cable systems today (with cablecards being wonky and Tivo still not able to do SDV), much less a DIY DVR.
XBMC + MythTV (Score:5, Interesting)
You can get a used XBox for $100. Put in a cheap hard drive. Purchase a mod chip on the cheap, or do a soft mod. Install XBMC and MythTV, and then suddenly you've got a pretty sweet setup on the cheap. I love it.
Re:Please reconsider (Score:1, Interesting)
Typical open-source bluster in a war that they are losing. The original poster is dead on in that HDMI is fast becoming the standard and that the IR blaster solution is far-from-ideal.
I'd love an open-source alternative, but unless 2-way CableCard becomes a workable option, then I would definitely say that MythTV will never go anywhere. Easier to just pirate shows than deal with MythTV.
Broadcast TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Why pay for TV? With the switch to digital, over-the-air TV is now probably higher quality than cable. Combine MythTV with one or two of these [pchdtv.com] and you're all set.
Re:MythTV increasingly impractical (digital and HD (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure for the states it might be becoming irrelevant, but over here in the UK, DRM is not a problem. Freeview/freesat has everything I'd ever want to watch, and by definition, it's free to use on whatever platform you wish!
I have a few TV cards in our home server, streaming to a silent little Apple TV running mythfrontend. It works a treat!
Re:MythTV increasingly impractical (digital and HD (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true. I just set up a Mac running the 0.21 backend/frontend via FireWire on a Comcast 6200 box.
It works very well, except that I have to use the PPC backend for the time being (on Intel).
I can't tune the 5c channels, but there are only a few that matter that are encumbered.
I am testing out Plex (osxbmc) with the Myth Frontend extension currently.
The stability of this setup leaves some things to be desired (especially, coming from a TiVo background), but it is great fun to play with.
small format pc for myth? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to put together a small format PC for this sort of thing. Alas, I can't use a cheap tower, it needs to be one of those small form factors that can fit in an entertainment center. I'd like to spend as little as possible but it seems like I could easily price myself into the $500 range putting one of these together. Any good guides out there?
Windows Media Extender? (Score:2, Interesting)
So in other words, this works as a Windows Media Extender app, just with a different name because we all hate Windows. XBox and PS3 could care less what is actually serving the media. I use TVersity [tversity.com] myself. The concept of reencoding your videos using FlashVideo or some other video format to allow viewing from a webbrowser (on the iPhone, Wii, etc), is also nothing new.
However, I have no clue who was first, TVersity, MythTV, Nero, or Microsoft, but they all do pretty much the same thing. I just had a bit better luck with TVersity than the others on streaming media that is not supported natively by my PS3 or Xbox
Re:MythTV increasingly impractical (digital and HD (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's stop the namecalling.
The firewire boxes are a special order item in my market with a significant lead time (I guess to comply with the FCC). They don't even stock them at the local office, so 99.99999% of customers don't have them. --AND-- from what i've read, the firewire output only works for unencrypted channels in my market (so you can't record any of the premium digital cable channels).
Re:As a former MythTV User-NO TIVO, NO TIVO... (Score:3, Interesting)
But by the same token - I don't decide when my grass gets cut - or how low - my landscapers do.
I don't decide what cleanser my toilet gets cleaned with, my cleaning people do
When any of these become unsatisfactory, I'll get rid of them for something else.
MythTV may be good for some people - but I was tired of sitting down on the couch in front of the TV after a long day of work, to debug why something wasn't working right.
Love it or hate it, TiVo is always there. Always on. Always working. Anything I need a a second or two away from happening. And I've never had to put an ounce of thought into it.
Don't get me wrong, I wanted to love MythTV - I still do! I envisioned spending time tying it into my house lights, alarm and sprinkler, etc. etc. etc. and having all sorts of fun. It just turned out to be so much work that I never got around to the "fun" - I never got it all working correctly - (OpenGL issues, driver issues, remote control issues).
When I had it my (then) 2-3 year old son loved penguins. The KnoppMyth windows desktop (which would display in the background when the Myth front end would crash/close/disappear) show Tux sitting on a couch watching TV. My son loved seeing this! But it kind of became a joke - whenever we'd go to watch something, it would be "Oh, oh - Penguin watching T.V. again!"
(Funnyness aside) - so then what - I get a call about if from my Wife, and have to SSH in from work to re-launch the Myth front-end? It was really cool that I could do this - but quite unfortunate that I had to.
Level of effort / cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
How well does myth now deal with HD on cable providers, like comcast?
Rather than fight the system, and spend the money on tuners, backend hardware, etc, I just got comcast's HDDVR. It works well enough (the only way I can even attempt to watch the few shows I'm interested in viewing on my schedule .. otherwise the cost of cable isn't worth it).
I have my house wired with audio/video/cat5 jacks in each room. So, I really don't need to spend the money on front end systems in each of those rooms. IR receiver to IR transmitter over cat 5 to control the DVR. S-video out on the DVR downsamples to a regular TV (I'm not about to buy a bunch of flat panels while my old sets work just fine in the basement, bedroom, etc), so I can watch DVR stuff anywhere in the house, even stuff recorded on high-def channels.
The disadvantage with my setup is every room in the house can only watch one thing at a time (from the dvr...cable is fine, of course). Which is fine for me. But...if I wanted to I could connect video or cat5 to any number of sources in the future via the patch panels in the basement.
Cost was wiring (which I wanted to do for whole house audio for my soundbridge anyway), and a $50 distribution amp from radio shack. And I got to use all of my old equipment and not have to buy or build anything for a media server or multiple front ends (which have the requirement of being *silent*).
It'd be nice to have a system where I could save and organize things indefinitely, but really, I have other ways of doing some of that and it just doesn't seem like the effort to me, when the scientific atlanta box is "good enough" IOW, the consumer appliances have somewhat caught up, with the advantage of supporting HDTV and Digital channels with no effort and no tricks with IR and stuff.
how about a version for Tivos? (Score:2, Interesting)