MythDora — MythTV 0.2 In a Box 197
peterdaly writes "MythDora 3 is the first MythTV 'in-a-box' style distribution to include MythTV 0.20. Based on Fedora Core 5, MythDora 3 is designed to format your hard drive then install everything needed for a fully functional MythTV System. Here is a walkthrough of the entire MythDora installation process, including screenshots and a screencast."
Um...KnoppMyth? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not panning MythDora, but it just doesn't seem totally unique, unless I'm missing some critical thing about it.
Re:Um...KnoppMyth? (Score:5, Informative)
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You can fairly easily upgrade the latest KnoppMyth (R5D1) to the developer-provided packages, provided you're capable of using a command prompt, as explained in this thread:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1155 8 &highlight= [mysettopbox.tv]
Unfortunately registration is required for the KnoppMyth forum (I'd encourage you to join as there's a wealth of information there and they're generally very helpful folks) so I've taken the liberty of posting the relevant info below:
[Posted by Cecil, KnoppMyth's lea
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Re:Um...KnoppMyth? (Score:5, Informative)
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exactly! [apple.com]
Don't forget the motherboard. (Score:2)
Perhaps modern motherboards are better.
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HT is not the same as multi-core.
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Second, because more CPUs is NOT directly related to how loud your machine is. Whether you bought good, powerful, quiet fans (case/PSU/CPU/GPU) is the single biggest factor in the noise, NOT the number of them.
Third, of course is dual-core chips...
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Well for one thing hopefully it'll work with SATA drives without having to jump through hoops.
Agreed, the biggest problem with installing myth (Score:2)
Re:Agreed, the biggest problem with installing myt (Score:2)
Huh? I had both a serial port IR emitter and transmitter working easily (heck, the blaster worked on the first try). Configuration of the receiver was a matter of running irrecord and following the instructions, and then tweaking the lirc key mappings until I was happy with them.
Honestly, I have no idea why people have so much trouble getting lirc working.
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Excuse me if I'm missing something, but what kind of IR remote doesn't require line of sight?
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An RF remote.
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The GP may not have understood this, hence my response. And if he *did*, then he's just being tediously pedantic.
RF to IR relay. (Score:2)
So it's basically: [Remote] -> RF -> [Base Station] -> IR -> [Device]
I've never used the Harmony series, but they also have USB interfaces, for program
Harmony on Linux Bounty (Score:2)
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Another benefit of RF remotes in general is that you don't have to worry about finding an HTPC case with a built in IR receiver, or where to put the external receiver so that it won't look tacky. Just stick the RF receiver
MythBuntu would be cool (Score:4, Insightful)
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I found it to be incredibly easy to setup, and there are some pretty good guides ready for anyone with the interest:
http://https//help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/ [https]
For what it's worth, I did try setting up my backend about 1.5 years ago with Debian, but the dependencies and everything proved to be a bit too painful for my use. I settled on using KnoppMyth and I have to give the guys credit--i
Re:Fixed Link (Score:2)
http://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/ [ubuntu.com]
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The other thing to note is that the 'live' CD is only good for the front-end. I've read on the site that they are trying to get a back-end running on a CD, but I think its still under development.
just my 2cents
harryk
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That _is_ an admission. My other handfull of machines are Debian and I use Knoppix disks all the time so Knoppmyth would h
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I have done an install of Myth on Fedora, but it's 95% done and I left it that way for a long time because there was some setup stoff that needed to be finished that I couldn't get to work reliably. Eventually I just gave up and bought an Ey
KnoppMyth as a LiveCD (Score:2)
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Crazy kids and their (Myth)Dora (Score:4, Funny)
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Computer, TV, Run MythDora
Again
Computer, TV, Run MythDora
Shiver (Score:2)
I am so glad my daughter is out of that phase. Of course, now she watches Handy Manny - which I'm amazed they actually produced. A show about a hispanic handy man? A short jewish shop owner with a cat and a combover? (the cat has a combover, too, btw). And I think there's just a
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Ah, you've never seen Balamory then.
Lo hicimos! (Score:2)
With your help, we just installed a new Linux operating system!
***cue mariachi band music***
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I have to go ask my kids what the hell that means.
Why does Myth think it's an OS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS (Score:5, Informative)
Also I'd imagine that most mythtv installs are deployed on single-use machines - the set-top box that does TV and nothing else. Thus Knoppmyth or this example are very much useful. Just slap it on and go.
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(Although that was on Debian, which is not the easiest platform to install MythTV on, by a long way)
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I don't know what to say but if it requires one to jump into console mode and isn't dead simple it won't get widespread market penetration. Even though i'm an experienced windows user and a little better then a newbie I gave up after
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Since every mythtv box might be unique in terms of hardware and sofware configurations, things might be complex at installation. The options for the TV card alone are numerous. Also MythTV has many options that you could or could not install. Like I use the MythWeather but not the phone. If everything was the same everytime, you could just put in a CD and run do a yum install and it would be done.
Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS (Score:5, Informative)
I tried getting MythTV installed from the Knoppix disc. Plenty of things didn't work. It took me a few days to track down DVD playback problems. I then had to mess with getting the NVIDIA binary drivers installed and xconf configured properly. And then after that I still didn't have sound support (lack of drivers for my onboard soundcard). Oh, and I still had to deal with subscribing to a program guide service (with a one month renewal process). It got to the point where it was no longer worth my time. $150 for Windows MCE, and $40 for the NVIDIA mpeg encoder and I was up and running with everything working within a few hours.
People who want to use MythTV or Windows MCE, for the most part want it run as a dedicated Tivo-like appliance. They are going to be doing little if any desktop computing on it. For that reason, it makes perfect sense to have a full OS configured specifically for it, with default large fonts and display in the GUI, drivers and codecs pre-installed for most media types, auto-boot directly into the TV/Media interface, etc.
Sure, it's nice to be able to install something like this on top of your pre-existing, pre-configured OS. But for most people who want to use this technology, they'd rather wipe the machine and start clean.
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Works far better with way more features.
Mediaportal is so much better than MCE It's silly to pay the premium and have a wonky XP install (Yes MCE is a wonky XP install not PRO and that is silly in their design)
My biggest problem with Myth is that the menus are wierd, non intuitive and not customizable. I want to remove the TV functions as I only view video content I snake over the network... Myth takes an advanced programmer to do that, MEdiaportal takes
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Actually not true at all - the MythTV menus are fully customisable, and are all written in XML. A great guide on how to modify the menus can be found here [myhdbox.com].
I have customised my menus to have the top level screen only show the wife-friendly options (Watch TV, watch recordings, listen to music and TV guide) with all the nuts and bolts hidden under an admin menu. Also added a number of functions (update guide, ena
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Speak for yourself - while that's certainly true of my one dedicated frontend, my backend serves as all sorts of server type things (mail, web, database, storage)
I didn't find it overly onerous installing from the gentoo portage, and the feature list can't be beat. It's also nice that I can (and do) run a frontend on any other machine in my house - laptop, mac mini, xbox. There are some rough
Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS (Score:5, Insightful)
And how was I supposed to know this. Why wouldn't I assume that the NVidia drivers are going to be the best solution for my NVidia card? And knowing this obscure technical item doesn't mean I know the obscure solutions to the other problems, let alone the problems I anticipated having (like optical digital audio support or swapping out the analogue CRT TV for a digital LCD with HD) that I never even got to the point of being able to work on.
Sure, I could have spent a lot more time finding solutions to all the issues that I had. And I probably would have figured them out eventually and increased my knowledge of Linux at the same time. But there comes a point where I don't have time, and a commercial solution becomes much more attractive. I would have loved to have the OSS solution in place. And in the future, when I would really want some of the MythTV-only features (like one machine doing the recording/storage, and as many front-end devices as I'd like) I'll probably come back and take another look at it.
It's like the old adage: "Linux is only free if your time isn't worth anything."
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Or if you enjoy spending your time hacking hardware and software. I happen to, and so Myth is quite fun for me. Obviously, not everyone will feel the same.
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I don't know if Windows MCE can do this, but MythTV has this neat playback feature where you can watch shows with the audio and video sped up, but the audio stays at a normal tone instead of sounding like chipmunks (I guess it reduces the pauses between speech). It's great for slower-moving sporting events.
Between that and auto-skipping commercials, I figure my Myth system has saved me far more time than it's initial se
Vesa drivers don't do MPEG-2 decode, do they? (Score:2)
If there are OSS drivers that support th
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I've found that many online instructions make things much less painless, also.
Personally, I had my backend installed on FC5 in an afternoon.
I prefer my backend to be installed on the couch most afternoons
My frontend took a little longer, only because I'm using a fairly recent VIA EPIA board
I'm not even gonna touch that one.
Seriously, though, good link, and I'm glad it worked out so well f
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Er, lets see: do you use satellite or terestrial TV? Is that analogue or digital? European-style DVB or the US equivalent? Does your tuner card need a firmware blob to work? Does your tuner card have onboard MPEG decoding? If not, does your video card have MPEG acceleration and is it supported by Xorg? How do you enable TV-out and set it to native PAL or NTSC resolution with sensible overscan? (anybody using a low power Via Epia system as a HTPC should b
My 2 cents (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it's just because I have kids... (Score:5, Funny)
(totally OT now) (Score:5, Funny)
I'M THE MAP!
*proceeds to play Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver*
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Core 6 mythtv in my living room (Score:2, Informative)
It's easy to set up. "yum install mythtv-suite" installs -all- the myth packages including mythweb and such. Pretty minimal configuration involved. I'd say that starting wit
MythDora won't install for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that my desktop has no legacy interfaces. In particular, the DVD drive is SATA, and the keyboard is USB. Knoppmyth and Mythdora cannot currently handle installing from a SATA optical drive. Knoppmyth kindly popped me out to a shell when it couldn't find the installation source directory, but the drivers for the USB keyboard apparently hadn't been loaded, so I couldn't type anything anyhow.
I'm currently installing Myth 0.20 over Fedora Core 6 with the help of the MythTV on Fedora HOWTO [wilsonet.com] by Jarod Wilson. It's been very helpful, but I still find myself spending a lot of time tweaking things to get everything working correctly. MythTV installation is just plain hard.
Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box distro (Score:3, Informative)
Or, install Windows Media Center and have it all work out of the box. MythTV may be GORGEOUS and offer tons and tons of functionality Windows Media Center will never provide, but Windows Media Center can be installed and fully configured out of the box in a half hour to 45 minutes.
I like Myth, really, and plan to put time into getting it to work perfectly, but it's hard to put aside an entire day to devote to setting up a TV/PVR application.
Re:Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box dis (Score:2)
I just went to the driver homepage and selected the option consistent with my kernel version.
More than anything else, it looks a little Mickey Mouse to have different releases for different versions of the 2.6 kernel but it was by no means difficult.
While it will be nice once the ivtv takes it's place with the classic bttv drivers in the kernel and in the distros, the sad fact remains that you can't follow simple instructions. If not for TV dinners and canned foods, you would probably starve.
Re:Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box dis (Score:2, Informative)
Or, install Windows Media Center and have it all work out of the box. MythTV may be GORGEOUS and offer tons and tons of functionality Windows Media Center will never provide, but Windows Media Center can be installed and fully configured out of the box in a half hour to 45 minutes.
Given hardware that works with Linux, KnoppMyth can be installed in under 30 minutes. One user reported getting it working in 10 minutes. That is from a bare hard drive to watching TV in 10 minutes!
A new KnoppMyth is just around the corner! It is smaller, faster and offers more features. Just be a little mo
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Re:Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box dis (Score:2)
Re:Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box dis (Score:2)
What are you going on about? The 150 *captures*, it doesn't display, so I don't know what this "500ms or so delay on the display" that you're talking about is. Nor do I understand how said delay could "
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That has nothing to do with the Hauppauge cards and everything to do with Myth and, in fact, ffmpeg (which apparently chokes if you give it a partial frame, and so Myth buffers conservatively in order to ensure this doesn't happen). The same
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With the Hauppauge, I get the exact same behavior in Windows.
Also, the video quality for the uber-cheap MSI is vastly superior. Fewer compression artifacts at even LOWER bitrates, no interlacing artifacts with the MSI, the only thi
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Typical ! (Score:2)
I have tried getting my tv cards working on a currently installed FC4 but had no real luck, and didn't fancy ruining a perfectly functioning media server just to experiment. The cards definitely work BTW (dvb_bt8xx Zarlink MT352). I have a spare HD so I tried installing a live cd [tlm-project.org] version of PCLinuxOS which has been remastered to concentrate on MythTV. Unfortunately, the damn installer kept complaining that I needed to reboot to make the chan
iMediaLinux has had MythTV .20 for a while... (Score:2)
And like many before me, what is so special about MythDora? If I want to do a MythTV install I'll use the iMedia distro (SFF / small install footprint) or KnoppMyth.
The wonderful thing about distros (Score:2)
No cablecard support = dead end for linux PVR. (Score:2)
What we need is to hire some lobbyists to get the US government to mandate that the standard be opened up. Otherwise we're going to be stuck with Standard Def and over the air HD.
No Dish, DirectTV, or cable High Def.
I'd throw a couple hundred $'s in.
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Well, open source HD-capable PVRs. You'll always be able to pull an SD feed from an external tuner.
This is an incredibly bad installation... (Score:2)
The bottom line is if Linux folks (and make no mistake, I am one myself) keep deluding themselves about what's "easy", we're not going to gain acceptance fo
Been down this road! (Score:3, Informative)
Myth is not an easy thing for even the experienced admin to make work. Because of the dependencies and the hardware involvement, this is more than just installing an application and having it work. For people new to the Myth infrastructure, it's actually rather nice to have a live CD install everything that's necessary. For 90% of the folks wanting to try it, they're going to have a dedicated PC for it anyway. Of course, if you want to just throw in a tuner card and try it that way, you can compile it too.
If you're a Suse person, you can check out a HOWTO I put together for 10.1 and PCHDTV cards here [pchdtv.com]. It covers all the stuff one has to do to make a Myth box work with HD under Suse 10.1. While there are RPMs available for Myth 0.20 on Suse 10.1, the package doesn't support HD, which is what my project was specifically designed to be.
If you do plan on doing HD - be vigilant in your hardware selection! HD playback takes a considerable amount of computing horsepower. I really recommend getting an nVidia 5200 card for playback - not only are they super cheap, and sometimes fanless (read: noiseless), but they also support the nVidia XvMC playback driver, which accelerates MPEG2 streams, offloading decoding from your processor. It also does a fine job at Bob2X deinterlacing, required for watchable HD.
MySQL is t3h suck (Score:2)
Re:Typo: Myth is at .20 not 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
That's the same number, right [slashdot.org]?
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So you're saying it's a bit hit-and-myth then?
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Fanless:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211786&o p=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid= 17241772 [slashdot.org]
But in my experience, even their fanned solutions have incredibly quiet fans (including the rackmounts with a row of little fans)
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Fanless:
http://www.logicsupply.com/index.php/cPath/49 [logicsupply.com]
But in my experience, even their fanned solutions have incredibly quiet fans (including the rackmounts with a row of little fans)
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2.0 -> 1.4
2.2 -> 1.6
2.4 -> 1.8
2.6 -> 2.0
to get to 3.0 we have to have 5 more even numbered releases.
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Frontend - UI and plays video.
The only link between them is the network.
So yes, you need a video card and sound card on your frontend, or some other integrated solution that provides both. I'm using an epia front-end, which has integrated video with TV-out and SPDIF digital audio out.
Or if you want simple you can run the backend and frontend on a single box, but then you need a bigger box in the living room, and lots of cables/tuners/etc. I keep all the
Re:Now I wish I could get my Torrent Shows on Myth (Score:5, Informative)
In my apartment, the MythTV system acts as my file server. The