Xbox Frontend
Contents
Xbox as a MythTV Frontend
An Xbox makes a wonderful standard definition MythTV front end due to its reasonably powerful CPU and graphics subsystem.
Running Mythfrontend on Linux
Install a Linux distribution
MythTV can be installed on an Xbox by installing a Linux distribution on a modded/softmodded Xbox. One distribution that works well is Xebian - see the [1].
For the purposes of this HOWTO, follow the Xebian HOWTO but ignore the sections on digital audio output and Compiling the ALSA kernel-module.
Installing the MythTV front end
There are several options to install the MythTV front end:
- Install MythTV on Xebian stable (sarge) with pre-compiled binaries - see the Xbox_Frontend_on_Xebian_stable for more information.
- Install MythTV on Xebian unstable (sid) with pre-compiled binaries - see the MythTV on Xebian HOWTO for more information.
- Compile MythTV using the released source code
- Compile MythTV using the latest SVN snapshot
Configuring the MythTV front end
Section for Configure the Xbox MythTV to talk to the MythTV Backend
Other configuration issues/notes
Section for other Xbox configuration issues eg. Digital sound eg. Video quality eg. Overscan
Running XBMC MythTV Frontend
The XBMC (XBox Media Center) is an Open Source project (nothing to do with Microsoft!) that is based on MPlayer.
The XBMC MythTV frontend is a Python Script that works in a similar fashion to the original Mythfrontend without the overhead of running Linux or XWindows on your xbox.
Install XBMC
There are CD Images (somewhere on the net - due to legal reasons) that will boot in a modded xbox and install XBMC. Or you can use Xebian to transfer the XBMC files onto the C:\ and E:\ drives.
Install XBMC MythTV
Download and install as per the XBMC MythTV instructions.
It is possible to add this to the XBMC menu system...
Other guides and sources of information
Installing MythTV with MythTV-Xbox (MXB) Installer by Dennis Cartier - 0.4.5 seems to be for MythTV 0.18 only (Good reference, but out of date and the install script is not maintained anymore, which means it doesn't work.)
