[mythtv-users] Getting started questions

Richard Morton richard.e.morton at gmail.com
Sat Sep 18 18:26:22 UTC 2010


agreed, we dont watch live tv at all... not even for live tv
programmes like Formula1. We simply schedule it to record and start
watching it at some point after the start time, even if that is only a
few seconds after the start time.

I have a very similar setup to what you are looking at, although in
the UK, so the capture card part is a little different to what you
will require and I have no idea what Verizon FIOS is (I presume it is
a TV service in the US which is cable and is presented as a locked
down Set-top box which tunes to a single channel at a time.

Anyway, I built my box some time ago (0.21 was out). I started by
looking at LinuxMCE which includes a very old version of MythTV. In
the end the only features I wanted were the MythTV aspects, although
some of the additional features are funky, in reality they are
expensive and/or difficult plus the UI (in my opinion) wasnt as great
as I first thought. I think LinuxMCE does a fantastic job for whole
house home automation, but as I said, it was too much for my install.

My system comprises, a combined master backend (MBE) and frontend(FE)
with two additional networked (Cat5e connected) FEs

The backend I think everyone would agree is overkill on the processor
side, it is a QuadCore Intel Q6600 with 4GB RAM and three drives, a
160GB OS drive and two media drives totalling 3.5TB. It is used for
MythWeb over the internet so I can schedule programmes remotely. It is
also used for ripping&transcoding dvds and as an NFS fileserver (not
that Myth needs this so much now, but it is the fileserver for the
house).

The remote frontends fun over gigabit ethernet but 100megabit is known
to work fine even upto HD playback, but with 100mbps the link may get
a little full with 2 or 3 full HD shows being played back on remote
FEs simultaneously - I dont know I havent done the calculations.

One of my frontends is a Intel/NVidia Atom/Ion system with 512MB
shared to the graphics chipset... currently this seems to be the
recommendation from everyone when starting afresh.

I also have a VIA SP13000 board I use for music playback only, this is
linked via wifi. I wouldnt recommend buying a VIA system for myth when
Intel/Nvidia Atom/ION systems are so low cost.

 I do also use my laptop as a Frontend (which also runs Ubuntu 10.04).

To control them all I use PS3 BD remote controls (bluray remotes for
Playstation3). These work well although they seem to go through
batteries quicker than I would like. It is nice that you dont have to
have another IR receiver lying around, you can simply use a low cost
bluetooth receiver (mine cost less than $5 each). Total for bluetooth
receiver and remote £20 a room and I have a consistent remote and
interface for each room. You have to do a bit to set them up but I
like it. There is a wiki page for setting them up.

A lot of people use learning IR remotes, and they program them with
the codes out of an IR keyboard... its a simple way to do it.

The other way is to pick nearly any IR remote use a standard PC IR
receiver (even a home built serial port IR receiver - the frequency
has to match between the remote and the receiver I understand) and a
program called LIRC which works out what keypress should be generated
for any given keypress in any given context (different programs having
focus).

All the systems were built with Ubuntu (9.04, 9.10 & 10.04) with
MythBuntu daily/auto builds, I didnt install with MythBuntu as I like
having GNOME as the desktop - I know it is inefficient to have a full
desktop but I prefer the common interface across all my systems.

I hope that is helpful, any more questions feel free to ask.

R


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