[mythtv-users] Record on Backend, Watch LiveTV on Frontend?

[Chris Palmer]

Albert Santoni wrote
> Hello,

howdy!

>     I'm quite curious about how the frontend-backend thing works.
> 
> Does the backend machine do the recording?
> Would it be possible to have a bare-bones frontend machine connect to the
> backend machine and watch livetv (the tuner being on the backend machine)?

that's exactly right.  My setup has a single backend running on a P-III/866
and I *can* run a frontend there, but I usually run a frontend on my desktop
P4 machine with TV-Out going to my TV.

You basically have to setup everything on the frontend machine as you did for
the backend, except for the xmltv requirements (assuming you do NOT want to run 
the tv listing grabber on your new setup).  Then you run the Myth setup and 
configure the "master server IP address" as your backend machine (should use 
the same IP as you setup in your backend, NOT using the 127.0.0.1 address, but 
the real network address of that machine).  Note: this is the initial setup
and not the setup screens you get to when you're inside MythTV.

You can run multiple backends to provide more tuners, and you can run multiple
frontends anywhere your network can reach and as long as you have adequate
bandwidth to stream during playback.

-Chris