[mythtv-users] The real basics...

[Kevin Kuphal]

Bill Sutton wrote:

>Hello All,
>
>I'm just embarking on this journey you all call MythTV.  I guess by now it has turned into morbid curiosity.  Oh well, enough with the small talk.
>
>1.  Where can I go to get some basic definitions like:  What is a frontend (I think it is the User Interface part), What is a backend, etc.  Perhaps if I am so ignorant to ask these questions I shouldn't try.
>  
>
One of these days I'll add this to the wiki at mythtv.info but,

Frontend - The user interface process for the TV watching as well as 
where the modules such as MythMusic, MythVideo and others run

Backend - The process that operates the tuners/capture cards and runs 
other processes like commercial detection, transcoding, etc.

You can have multiple of each if you want.  There is a MySQL database 
involved as well.  Most people seem to start with a single machine that 
runs the frontend, backend, and database processes as well as storing 
the actual video files.   As you get more comfortable you may move up to 
a separate frontend machine and backend machine for noise or performance 
reasons.  And as you get even more comfortable you will come to see you 
can have frontends all over your house and multiple backends with 
multiple tuners in them as well as a separate file server for storage 
and a database server for the databse.  The possibilities are endless.

Kevin