MythTV 0.20 Released

An anonymous reader writes "The latest version of MythTV, the open source PVR application for Linux, has been released. New features (as documented in the release notes) include a new menu system, an improved internal DVD player, support for DVB radio channels, and mouse support. There is also a new plugin – MythArchive – which allows recordings be written to DVD. You can download MythTV from MythTV.org."

I so wish this were on FreeBSD

It (and better TV Tuner drivers) are probably the only things that really make me want Linux over FreeBSD. Still, it's a nice release, even if I can't use it.

Questions

For you Myth users out there, I have a few questions:

1. Is it possible to create "playlists" of TV Shows? Say I wanted to rip all my futurama DVDs to a Myth box and play them at random. Could I do that?
2. Are there any reputable places that will put together a box for me?

Thanks. Congrats to the MythTV team

Re:Questions

http://mythic.tv/product_info.php?cPath=21_29&prod ucts_id=44 [mythic.tv]

A full system built with HDTV support.

Re:Questions

Playlist of TV shows have been available in 0.19 - works very nicely for my 5 year old!

(Not that I'm putting him in front of the tube with a playlist and walking away just like that. That would be wrong. But those darned Thomas the Tank Engine episodes are only 4 minutes long apiece!)

Re:Questions

Is it possible to create "playlists" of TV Shows? Say I wanted to rip all my futurama DVDs to a Myth box and play them at random. Could I do that?

I don't know about MythTV, but I have all my Futurama DVDs ripped to my Linux box, and have a "Random episode" icon on my desktop that runs this bash script:

#!/bin/bash
count=`ls /home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama |wc -l`
let "pick = $RANDOM % $count"
let "pick += 1"
kaffeine "/home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama/`ls /home/paradox/media_drive/Media/Futurama |sed -n "$pick"p`"

new features

Since the poor mythtv site appears to be slashdotted already:

Major changes

* Menus are now drawn by MythUI using OpenGL. This option can be enabled/disabled in the Appearance settings.
* Improved internal DVD player - now supporting menus and other missing features
* Added MHEG content implementation (Interactive TV in UK)
* Added Hotplug support for removable media in Media Monitor and MythGallery
* Added support for the HDHomeRun encoding device
* Added support for basic FreeBox recorders
* Added support for H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) TS decoding
* Added an MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC IP network recorder
* Added internal UPnP support for TV and Music
* Added experimental second commercial detector
* New socket class for backend communications
* OSD image cache which improves channel changing speed
* Fixed program transition while Watching LiveTV
* Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
* Support for DVB radio channels and guide data collected via EIT for them
* Added mouse support in menus, including gestures

* Menus are now drawn by MythUI using OpenGL. This option can be enabled/disabled in the Appearance settings.
* Improved internal DVD player - now supporting menus and other missing features
* Added MHEG content implementation (Interactive TV in UK)
* Added Hotplug support for removable media in Media Monitor and MythGallery
* Added support for the HDHomeRun encoding device
* Added support for basic FreeBox recorders
* Added support for H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) TS decoding
* Added an MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC IP network recorder
* Added internal UPnP support for TV and Music
* Added experimental second commercial detector
* New socket class for backend communications
* OSD image cache which improves channel changing speed
* Fixed program transition while Watching LiveTV
* Added beginnings of firewire capture support for MacOS
* Support for DVB radio channels and guide data collected via EIT for them
* Added mouse support in menus, including gestures

Re:new features

MythTV could really use a marketing guy to help with the new releases (actually, there are many open source projects that could benefit from this). The list of highly technical updates to MythTV don't really do justice to where MythTV is today.

As a MythTV user, here is what I see as important, and having improved in 0.20:

- MythTV is a free / open source PVR application, with support for analog, digital, and HDTV recording in most international standards (i.e. it's usable in the U.S., Europe, Asia, etc.). It includes many features not available in commercial PVR products.
    - Automatic commercial detection and removal, or manual skip forward/back.
    - Transcode of video to other formats/resolutions -- including DVD export in 0.20.
    - Network based structure, allowing 'backend' recording storage on different machine than the 'frontend' display. (i.e. stick the backend with all the cable connections, antennas, loud fans and tons of disk in the basement, put a small/quiet frontend near your TV for output.)
    - HDTV support: With supported HD capture card, terrestrial broadcast HD and Cable HD are supported (with the exception of encrypted cable HD channels - which cannot be decrypted on any PC PVR)
    - Improved MacOS X support. The 0.20 version has greatly improved the Mac support, especially for the Intel based Macs. Performance optimizations for HD video playback make the Core Duo Mac Minis a great choice for a small/quiet frontend box.

Win32 version

All I want to know is, is where is the win32 version? this would be SWEET running on WinME!
(yes, obviously my karma is too good)

A Year of MythTV

I've been running MythTV for about a year now and let me tell you -- TV can't get any better.

I have the shows I want whenever I want them. Sure, sure, you can do this with Tivo. But can you also watch those recorded shows over your home network on other PCs? Burn to DVD? My MythTV box also is my torrent box, fileserver, IRC proxy, IMAP server....

Let's put it this way -- more features than Tivo, and they can't control what you do with it. Go ahead, skip all the commercials you want. Keep your recordings as long as you want. The Man can't keep you down when you're running this system.

Also, when that commercial flag becomes law (I think it's still up in the air), MythTV plans to use it to identify commercials and intentionally skip them. Eat that, capitalist pigs ;)

Seconded!

Seconded! MythTV is friggin' awesome. It eats the commercials, shares the shows over the network (NFS and SMB), lets me dump my MP3s onto it for playing, supports multiple heads (and backends), and more. I don't even use half the features of the software, and it still blows me away.

I'm using KnoppMyth [mysettopbox.tv], and was totally amazed how easily everything installed. Yes I did have to tweak LiRC [lirc.org], and a few other things.

I'm getting ready do build another unit into my house, and look forward to the extra features in the new version.

Re:A Year of MythTV

Problem is, TiVO isn't really their main competitor in that space - that honor goes to Windows Media Center Edition.

I'd also point out that I've installed MythTV on several boxes in the past year, and I'm not nearly so ecstatic about it as you. Doing a secure setup is an absolute pain in the neck if you want to use that fancy backend/frontend architecture, and only slightly less so if you keep everything on the same box. I also found performance and stability less than I would have preferred - not bad, mind you, but not really all that amazing, either. The protocol changes were the most frustrating, though - I had embedded extenders become unusable frequently because the MythTV folks would change protocols often.

This is not to say WMCE is all peaches and cream, because it's not - but for people who can tolerate its limitations (which aren't terribly bad - yet), the easy setup and relatively cheap (compared to a new PC) Media Center Extenders give it some appeal.

I sound like an MS shill, I know, but for all of MythTV's strengths, it's not for everyone.

-Erwos

Re:A Year of MythTV

Comparing WMCE to mythtv is like comparing a burning car in a junkyard to a new fararri. Windows Media center edition is 100% pure unadulterated crap. it sucks so bad that it spawned people to build things like Mediaportal that blow away every bit of MCE in every possible way. I have helped convert many Windows Media Center machines from the buggy as hell Media center to Media portal + XP pro and gave the users more features, higher stability and removed ALL the damned MCE DRM it adds to your recordings.

Mythtv is far superior and wows the hell out of people... even the Diehard windows guys drop their jaws when I plug into CATV and start tuning the digital Cable channels directly... something that is 100% impossible under windows because of "safety" features built in the driver.

I personally prefer mediaportal, but nobody in their right mind can like Media Center edition.. ot simply sucks and feels half done in every part of it.

what about freevo?

has anyone a link comparing mythtv to freevo?
or any unofficial news on freevo 2.0 development?
Tanks

Any word on knoppmyth?

Any word on when this build will be on a Knoppmyth [mysettopbox.tv] ISO?

Re:Any word on knoppmyth?

I'd like to know that too, because I don't bother with MythTV upgrades until it comes out as Knoppmyth on an ISO. Maybe it's just the nature of my particular setup, but it took me *weeks* of tinkering and pouring over message threads to get my Myth box working exactly like I wanted it to. I would have just given up in frustration if the main "core" of the thing wasn't made easier to get going via Knoppmyth.

In the past, it seemed like it took the Knoppmyth developers at least 1-2 months to release a new ISO based on a Myth update though, so this isn't something I'd really expect to see from them in the next few days or anything.

Insert subject

This article is misterious: the reader is anonymous even if he doesn't say anything that could be [insert-bad-reaction]. And the dept is "build your own" Build my own install? o.O
Anyway, I allways wanted to try it out but didn't ever download it. I guess it's the right time!

PVR for me

I have to pipe-up again, and say that MythTV is awesome. If you've got a tuner card, and a spare box, totally check it out. IT EATS COMMERCIALS, plays DVDs, MP3s, does a photo album, and other things that other units don't do, or don't do well.

It even has support for MAME.

Controlling Cablebox?

Can MythTV control my existing cablebox (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250)? It's got a USB port, what looks like a smartcard slot, and analog+digital audio/video outs.

If I could use the cablebox's tuner, maybe I would need only a video digitizer, or even just transcoder. It would be great to use the cablebox to covert digital video signals to TV. I've already got the cablebox and TV, I'd like to spend that money on better quality for the parts I actually require.

Cablecard

Will Myth ever support Cablecard? it is a better (imho) platform than WMCE but I and my friends still lease the catv MOTO DVRs because it is the only way to decrypt HD channels like ESPN, and watch sports subscriptions like NHL Center Ice., so untill cablecard is supported in these things, it is prettu useless for anyone without a tower and an antenna.

The funny thing...

I remember when using beta versions of software seemed super-cutting-edge, and <1.0 software was something almost no users had ever seen.

Nowadays, thanks to Netcscape and Google, beta is the final state of software. And after years of Linux, an escalation to 0.20 is a perfectly reasonable user upgrade.

DVB recordings with dishentwork are awesome.

I been loving it since.19. I have a DVB pci card a dishnetwork smartcard, and I can record digitaly with all and AC3 sound. I wish I could do that with directv, but linux does not have DSS support. There are DSS tuners, but they just work with windows. Other than that mythtv is awesome.

MythArchive for me!

I've been happily running a set of Myth boxen for more than a year now, and while I love the system, the one feature I had been sorely waiting for was an easy way to export to DVD. While a more involved method was possible, I look forward to being able to just create an ISO directly from Myth itself. Keep up the good work!

Digital Cable

Does MythTV work with digital cable boxes? IE is it possible to record movies from premium channels??

MythTV rules

I just finished setting up my home MythTV system. It rocks! I've got my digital cable connected directly to my backend using a PCI DVB-C card, and my projector is connected to my frontend using a DVI cable, so the backend can record the MPEG-2 streams directly to disk with no quality loss whatsoever (and including all the audio and subtitle tracks), and then the frontend can display them on my wall with not a single bit of quality loss in between! Plus it plays my videos and my music, it lets me skip commercial breaks (which it has automatically tagged for me), watch DVD's, play legacy games with MAME, etc., etc.

It really is a fantastic piece of kit. It can be pretty finicky to set up and you need to be prepared to invest some serious amount of time, but it's worth it!

Mac? Please?

I really, really, really wish this would run on my Mac, back end and all.

Is no one working on porting it?

HDTV Lockout

I love MythTV. I'm very excited to try 0.20 (UPnP especially). It's a great piece of software and IMO handily beats MCE (though I hear BeyondTV puts up a fight). The level of control is great, I absolutely like to OWN my media. I have a looming fear though that poor MythTV is about to get 'shafted' so to speak.

MythTV has HDTV support for broadcast and Cable HD, but lacks a means of decrypting these streams. In fact, PCs in general do at this point, but I suspect that will change. Vista MCE will undoubtedly have encrypted HDTV playback support, Tivo as well (if it doesn't already). How is a free OSS solution like this to compete against imposed proprietary restrictions? I smell a DeCSS debacle all over again. Perhaps it will get cracked. Maybe I can still watch my streams if I subjugate myself to a DMCA violation or two.

Lets face it, another case of a superior product getting kicked to the curb by an industry that likes to wear tinfoil hats at the detriment of its consumers. I guess I have a decision in the future. Use the software I love and watch the shows it can view, or relinquish control impair my viewing experience and broaden my media options. I think I'll stay with Myth, the studios just lost a viewer (though I doubt they'll notice).

One Problem

I just dropped my myth box which I had struggled with for the last few months. Admittedly, I didn't know much about Linux beforehand, just the basics so I wanted to use myth as a learning tool. I didn't mind that struggle at all. Setting up in the end was easy and relatively painless once I understood some Perl basics etc. Myth's qualities are not overstated above. Authoring DVDs of recordings was a bit of a hassle, but it seems with those release notes it might have gotten better. I could even archive to DVD all my old VHS easily with the right tuner card! But there are two basic reasons I dropped Myth: 1) I was never happy with the media players available aside from watching archived videos, including DVDs (never got that to work). 2) the picture quality tended to be pretty poor (maybe that's the fault of ivtv? but still can't get myth without drivers). My friend tried two windows alternatives--gbpvr and media portal--and the picture quality for live and recorded TV is leaps and bounds better than anything I could find after hours and hours of tweaking my myth setup. I can't imagine how it would look on a nice TV. Blue lines on the top and bottom of the feed, terribly flat blacks, fuzziness on certain channels pervaded my myth experience and haven't occurred with media portal. I have other problems with media portal and wouldn't mind going back to myth, but it just seems the limitations of the drivers out there really kills the experience for me.

MythTV light

Below is my PVR. I "at" to schedule a program:

#at 18:00
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
at> rectv 1 1h simpsons
at> <EOT>
job 18 at 2006-09-12 18:00

#!/bin/sh
 
if [ -z "$3" ]; then
    echo "too few arguments"
    echo "Usage: record-tv channel duration name "
    echo "channel: 1-9"
    echo "duration: 30m, 1h"
    echo "name: simpsons"
    exit 1
fi
 
CHANNEL=$1
DURATION=$2
NAME=$3
 
BITRA TE=4000000
 
VIDEO_DIR=/home/claes/media/video/re cording/
 
FCHANNEL[1]=E5
FCHANNEL[2]=E7
FCHANN EL[3]=SE16
FCHANNEL[4]=E6
FCHANNEL[5]=SE19
FCHA NNEL[6]=SE20
FCHANNEL[7]=SE17
FCHANNEL[8]=SE13
    FCHANNEL[9]=SE14
 
#Set channel
ivtv-tune -teurope-west -d /dev/video0 -c ${FCHANNEL[CHANNEL]}
 
#Set quality
ivtvctl -d /dev/video0 -c bitrate=$BITRATE
 
#Start recording
mkdir -p $VIDEO_DIR #Just in case it does nto work
cat /dev/video0 > $VIDEO_DIR/$NAME.mpg &
 
CAT_PID=$!
# $! is PID of last job running in background.
 
sleep $DURATION
kill $CAT_PID

The resulting simpsons.mpg I play using XBMC.

Google Summer of Code

Any idea when the Google Summer of Code projects will be included in MythTV? I am guessing .21? These projects are going to be very usefull to MythTV, especially the AutoConfig, Make Myth Multi-user, and the Windows Port. http://code.google.com/soc/mythtv/about.html [google.com]

It does indeed kick ass.

I've had one of these for about five months and while it was a PITA to install, it definitely increased my e-penis with the local LUG. It looks great and is popular in the household.

Is it easy to install? No. Myth isn't an application, it's a platform inside Linux relying on MySQL, Apache, PHP, tuner drivers, lirc drivers, and the willingness to tweak the things which aren't guaranteed to work correctly out of the box (e.g. PHP5 not registering itself as a MIME type with Apache 2, streaming requiring not only hardcoding your box's IP in Myth's settings but having to run a SQL query to update all references to 'localhost').

Daniel Hyams' advice for installing Myth under Ubuntu makes it clear that there's some room for improvement in terms of startup and housecleaning -- creating a system that automatically logs in without passwords, that backs up its own databases, etc. -- and structure (putting /home in a separate XFS partition for faster disc access on large files than ext* can do, resetting Myth's own pointers to this location). It's frustrating to try to rip your own DVDs only to find that this requires opening a terminal and starting a service which isn't normally running. Users of bttv based tuner cards received a nasty shock when the L4TV kernel module maintainers inadvertently wrecked audio support with recent kernel updates.

And yet, even with all the negatives mentioned above, the end result is hella impressive. Your rules for recording can be simple, complex or even regex based. With a Hauppauge card with MPEG2 encoding chips, you can run it on a 450MHz P3.

However, what it needs most is a wrapper installation program which installs the AMP stack, requests a master AM password and configures it into Apache, MySQL and Myth, manages dependencies, establishes services at startup, bypasses login, sets a database backup schedule, ties DVD ripping to the necessary background services, and runs checks to see that Apache and MySQL are behaving themselves.

MythTV should be included with OS X.

Myth TV is exactly the type of application that should come standard with a Mac.

People have been asking for a DVR application to be added to the Mac Mini,
it should be added to all versions of OS X (as well as video in / out jacks for all systems).

Apple could learn a few things from Myth TV.

Amazing

As I surf mythtv.org I can see it slowly being slashdotted into oblivion...

Cataloging with MythTV

I'm a little curious if anyone has had any experience with scripting the recording of live content with MythTV? I have a database that I want to use that will determine what the file should be called. Any pointers on this would be greatly appreciated. I thought about doing it with ffmpeg and a perl script but I'm new to both and can't find syntax that will work with more than one tuner at a time. I am trying to capture, encode, and catalog 4 video streams all at once. I've done it with virtual dub but I can't script virtual dub so that won't work for me since I can't catalog them.

OSS Versioning

Has anyone else ever wondered why so many OSS projects are afraid to ever reach v1.0? Here's an example of a project that has been in development since 2002. It's undergone cycles of feature additions and bug fixes, and it's just now hitting version 0.20?

Happy User

It's been 2 or 3 years since I set up Myth and had it working and I'm still very happy. Current setup is an Athlon 700 with a PVR250 card. My wife can pick out shows she wants and they just get recorded. Moving them to a DVD is a little clunky, but sounds like that might be improved in .20. We record all kinds of stuff, then they get moved to DVD-RWs and they move around the house to TV to TV (or portable DVD player). Movies get archived to DVD-R. I'd like to hook the cable box in and access the hundreds of channels, but it just hasn't been a priority. Recently I found a patch for nuvexport that included a "Mobile" profile. Now, not only can I export to DVD, or VideoCD, or DivX, or variations.. but I can easily export to my Motorola E815 and watch Futuruma on my phone while shopping with the in-laws. I should have an X-box soon to make a silent front-end for one of the TVs. In the meantime, I watch my shows on the Myth box, or on one of my other PCs running a Myth front-end.

Getting the TV program is the hassle

As far as I went with the install MythTV looked nice.

However, it dependes on an electronic TV program. And getting this TV schedule depends on where you live. The support in middle Europe is rather lousy. For the German speaking channels a PERL script is used which screen scraps the web page of a TV magazin. Whenever the TV magazin changes there web design... pure joy!

Myth is awesome!

Using Knoppmyth really takes the sting out of setting it up. I built a back-end box with 500GB (~220 hours SD), 3 PVR-150 tuners (USA, Cable), and an HD-3000 card (USA, HD-OTA). It makes my 320 hour TiVo jealous. I don't use the Mame/Weather/DVD/Video file features since it just sits in the basement and records stuff. We watch everything but the 1080/720 HD recordings with a Modded XBox (XBMC + xbmcmythtv), the HD stuff is just getting started for us, but we can watch that on the Ubuntu systems temporarily until I get a better front end box for the HDTV.

Overall, Myth is a very serious contender, not to say that it doesn't need some spit and polish here and there. Better cooperation from hardware companies would certainly help too, especially for TV-Out capabilities and Tuner-Chip-Du-Jour companies (I'm looking at you, ATI and Hauppage...) The web interface is fantastic! How many times have you been at work/school/the office and heard about a new show that you might want to see. You can find and schedule that show from your computer anywhere or even your phone (I use a Treo 650).

Being able to convert recorded shows into XviD, Divx, vcd, etc. is extremely handy too, and works with PSPs, iPods, GP2Xs, Treos, etc. I really don't care to pay $1.99 for a show I already recorded just to get it into the right format to watch on an airplane/train/boat.

Making compilation DVD's of the kids cartoons without commercials is great for those long car trips, as is being able to record the decaying laserdiscs and the occasional 8mm video or VHS tape into DVD's with full menus.

Just my $0.03 (inflation, you know.)

ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder cards support?

Is there still lack of support for ATI's All-In-Wonder cards (9600 and 9800 Pro)? The last time I checked, there was no driver or the TV tuner because ATI didn't open up their drivers. Even MS Windows Media Centers (even Vista RC1) don't support it. From what I read, ATI is not making any more AIW cards. I think the support is going away. :(

Stand alone front end

I've been using MythTV for about a month now, and I'm very happy with it. It took a couple hours to get everything worked out on Fedora Core 4. Many thanks are owed to http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ [wilsonet.com] for the MythTV repository. That guy does an awesome job!

The one thing I haven't found is a stand alone front end that streams the data from the recording box rather than requiring an entire download before playing. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to have.

downgraded to Etch

Dammit! I guess I picked the wrong day to downgrade from Debian unstable to Etch. Now I'll have to wait for 2 years to use 0.20 if it doesn't make it into Etch.

Perfect Timing

I just, and I mean JUST went on newegg to find the last pieces of the PVR I'm making. I haven't ordered anything yet, but I've organized what I'm getting. I had some, tiny, almost insiginficant doubts about making one now simply because the mytharchive plugin was only in svn up until now, and for something like this I want to build it once and not worry about it as far as updates go until there's significant reason to update.

Although I've never made a PVR with it, yet, I've used MythTV a lot. MythTV (and Freevo to a lesser extent) are great examples of what linux can do to work its way into the life of more end users. Most people using other operating systems (which shal remain nameless) are far too intimidated to use a terminal for much of anything, and quite a few seem to dislike the look of GNOME/KDE/XFCE desktops simply because they aren't exactly like what people are already familiar with. MythTV, on the other hand, has a friendly interface that I've found few people can dislike, once they find (or make) a theme that suites them.

For everyone using knoppmyth, although that's certainly an acceptible way to make a mythtv box, especially if you're not particularly familiar with linux, there are probably better ways. (I'm still trying to decide between gentoo and ubuntu for my box, or possibly slackware. Either way I'll be building the mythtv application itself from source.)

Satellite ?

Can MythTV work with Satellite systems? I'm specifically interested in getting it to work with Sky Digital in the UK, but I've never been able to get a definitive answer as to whether or not it can be made to work :(

and that is not all

I also play WoW on my mythtv box. with HDMI connection to a LCD TV it looks sweet. Mythtv is a wonderful piece of software. It stores hundreds of hours of programs and music for my viewing pleasure, and leaving the underlying computer in a fully functional state is an excellent way to save buying another computer for those occasions when you wish to play games socially (you know, when you have a real person visiting)

I admit the software is not perfect yet - these are the hurdles I've either fixed or are living with...

To play World of Warcraft I am using Wine plus about a 30 line patch to fix mouse clicks. Then run "WoW.exe -opengl" (I'm running nvidia's drivers, and have an X configuration that mirrors the HDMI output with the VGA output). There are a few minor issues with sharing this computer between Myth and Wow - It works perfectly whilst recording, showing a framerate of about 25fps, but when transcodes kick in my framerate gets slaughtered, the TV crops the edges off the picture (which can be slightly irritating) and my Wine installation has a bit of trouble with WoW patches. On the Mythtvv front I've not got the infrared controller working, and the mythtv windows drivers now have a version mismatch, but they are minor issues.

Re:i don't understand

I currently have a patched version of 0.19 with DVB-T radio support (which has been merged into 0.20 - excellent). So I can record the radio too, and receive the broadcast programme guide. Er, and save to disk should I so wish.

Has been excellent for recording this seasons Proms [bbc.co.uk] concerts - for those of us in the UK, anyway. Time to shake the neighbours up with Rite of Spring again...

Re:Figures

Yeah, seriously, I just set up my myth 0.19 box YESTERDAY.

Re:Sounds fascinating

No, but it costs time. I've used Linux as a server OS since Slackware 1.0, and have no problems configuring most things, but to date I've spent three solid days over the last 18 months on various attempts to get Myth working. Hell, I went out and bought components based on recommendations for them being good video card and capture card to use with Myth, and I still couldn't get anything that worked.

The most recent time, after blowing an entire weekend screwing around, I finally restored my Win2K backup that I'd made before I started, installed GBPVR and in about 5 minutes was up and running, and have been happy with that ever since.

Re:Hope its better then .19

I've installed Myth from scratch a half-dozen times (different OS flavors, testing configurations, generally tinkering around on my non-operation-environment mythtv box), and I've not had the problems you report. Your problems could possibly relate to your hardware, some odd configuration you have, or even glitches because of package versions of libraries. To be fair, you seem to have had a rough time of it, but from the posts on the mythtv-users mailing list I wouldn't say your results are typical. .18 did, indeed, work great, but .19 also worked flawlessly for me, and I can't wait to try .20.. just have to archive 50 more shows....

Re:enough of the tuners, how 'bout TV out support?

Hmm, I've been running KnoppMyth for over 1.5 years accross a few versions, with different Nvidia drivers, and have great tv output. I am usuing a geforce mx420 with an s-video output into a 32" CRT tv. I am running it at 1024x768 resolution. Maybe try a newer version of the nvidia drivers or a better nvidia card, they just work in every case I've seen, plug in the svideo and go...

Re:enough of the tuners, how 'bout TV out support?

I use DVI. Looks great.

Re:How OSS dooms itself to failure

I think you're trolling, but I'll bite. There are other, easier guides to follow for the installation of MythTV. The Wiki on MythTV [mythtv.org] is helpful, and so are the numerous forums for each distribution of linux. (At least, the ones where I've searched have been helpful).

I don't see how you can predict the death of OSS based on the documentation. The documentation for other OSS projects is just as convoluted (see MySQL [mysql.org] or Apache's HTTP server [apache.org]) and they're not going away anytime soon.

Re:Figures

Me too. At v .20, I think we are in for quite a ride.

I already want to see MythSecurity, MythAutomation for X10, and MythVideoConference.

I'm just afraid I won't live long enough for MythHolodeck.

 

Re:Tivo Too!

Don't forget the unofficial MythStream plugin, From the couch I can go from local HiDef news to streaming ugh-def BFM 24-hour news out of Paris.
 

Re:Optimizers! Optimizers! Optimizers!

Apache isn't needed at all. You only need it if you want to use the web interface, which is not necessary as you can do all the same stuff on the regular frontend. Also, even if you do want to use it, it doesn't need to be on the same machine as either your backend or frontend.

As for mysql, it's my understanding that they did do some experiments with other methods but they simply were not as effective. All of the various recording rules and custom records etc can make for some complex queries and mysql does the job well.