[mythtv-users] VNC as a Single remote for Multiple Frontends

Mercury Morris mercury.morris at gmail.com
Sun Apr 24 15:14:17 UTC 2005


Recently, I

 1. Built a MythTV Frontend/Backend combo.
 2. Added an RF remote, the ATI Remote Wonder.
 3. Wanted more Frontend/Backend combo's for redundancy, backup, etc.
 4. Realized multiple ATI Remote Wonder remotes would be Very hard to manage.
 
Here's the solution I've decided to go forward with:

 1. Place a small, silent laptop (DELL I-7500 running Fedora 2,3,4)
    on a table between easy chairs.
 
 2. Add VNC to the xorg.conf file on each Frontend, as shown here
 
     http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/x0.html
 
 3. Use vncviewer on the laptop to operate each Frontend.
    I've tried this already, and it works really well.

The MythTV boxes, and their noise, will be in an adjoining room, 
cables running along the floor and back wall into a Marantz SR-18EX.
Each Frontend will connect to one of the Marantz' multiple VCR,
LaserDisk, DVD, or AUX ports.

The result should be that only one remote, the laptop, will be 
needed to control all the Frontends.  And several VCR's can be retired.

For watching Live TV, I bypass MythTV entirely and watch the TV set
directly.  With enough MythTV capacity, watching Live TV will be the 
exception.  Watching MythTV will be the rule.

-- 
MM


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