O'Reilly Builds a MythTV Box

enrico_suave writes "While the Broadcast Flag battle continues, it's still legal to put together your own HDTV PC HTPC/PVR. O'Reilly has posted part 1 in a series of articles describing the ins and outs of Building a MythTV Box" From the article: "For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC. Parts are now cheap enough that it is no longer ridiculous to build a PC specifically to handle TV for you, much like the VCR in Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency..."

Legal/illegal?

[daniil]

For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC.

Bah. The broadcast flag will not make it illegal for you to build your own home-theater. How could they stop you from doing it? You just won't be able to record (or watch?) anything.

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"Follow the links," he said. [slashdot.org]

Read Jarod's HOWTO

[bitdamaged]

Everyone eelse has and it worked for me.
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ [wilsonet.com]

Re:I'm too lazy

[AuMatar]

There's a couple reasons to want to go DIY. Its not for everyone, but here they are:

1)I hate monthly fees. I refuse to pay them. I'd rather pay $100 up front than5 a month in fees.

2)Expandability. Want more RAM or another encoder? DIY just add it. Tivo- time to buy another Tivo

3)No comercials- Tivo is playing with adding commercials. My number 1 reason for buying one would be to kill commercials.

4)More (and easily expandable) storage. Add a RAID for reliability.

5)Additional features. You can pull any new feature when you want, and Myth is more than just a DVR (MythPhone, MythGames, etc)

6)The ability to do illegal stuff- like rent DVDs, and rip them to your hard drive for permanent sorage.

7)The ability to network it and add a file server. You may now watch your movie collection anywhere.

8)The ability to use 1 program for all media- music, video, and images.

9)No loss of features- you won't see disappearing features like 30 second skip.

I'm sure there's others people come up with as well. Tivo is nice hardware, but given the fact its subscription based and they're playing with commercials, its a no deal for me.

heh...

[Mad_Rain]

In my recent quest to build a MythTV box, I have discovered that building the system is not the difficult part. The challenge has been to get MythTV running smooth and stable.

[rant mode ON]
I think that it's a terrific project, I just wish that there was a little more consensus and standards between all these different components for the project. MythTV's compile reference system is Debian. The drivers for the HD-3000 are Red Hat/Fedora. Knoppmyth, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Mandriva, all seem to have their little quirks - can't we all just get along? ;)
[rant mode OFF]

Did Anyone Acturall R TFA?

[frank_adrian314159]

Of course not - this is Slashdot, after all.

So far, the guy has video working, but his audio stutters and he doesn't have a remote. The article doesn't even mention which MythTV distribution he uses (or if he's rolling his own from the packages). In short, this article should have been titled "Here's Some Stuff I Thought Would Make a Low Noise Box (and I Was Even Wrong About That) That I Could Slap a Couple of Tuner Cards Into and Watch TV With (and Maybe Someday I Will Be Able To, But Until Then, I'm Keeping My Tivo Plugged In)".

This has got to be one of the most disappointing articles I've seen on the subject. You'd do better sticking with the MythTV FAQ's.

In other news...

[Brandybuck]

In other news, the Food Network shows you how to make a souffle, while it's still legal.

Re:I'm too lazy

[Frogbert]

Heres a good one:
How about I'm not in North America and can't get Tivo.

Re:Legal/illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just won't be able to record (or watch?) anything.

The stupidest, stupidest, stupidest thing that television could do right now is prevent you from recording television and watching it on your own time.

Most people in frustration would stop watching television altogether.

"What do you mean it didn't record Alias?!?"

-THREE WEEKS LATER-

"Nah, didn't see it. My stupid machine won't let me see it. I'm three weeks behind. I can't watch it now, because I tried to get back early to see it, and I'm totally lost."

And the bad news...

[turbidostato]

"For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC"

The bad news are having a legal system that make the above sentence make sense.

Re:But don't try to get cable on that thing

[kebes]

Everything the parent says is true... The situation is annoying to be sure. That having been said, I don't think the "analog hole" is such a miserable hack. I have a digital set-top box, and use the S-video output into my MythTV's capture card. The resulting video is of very high quality (better than conventional analog cable and obviously much better than over-the-air). The cable companies are going to make it hard for us to get access to the raw digital signal... but a high-quality analog signal will be essentially indistinguishable. At the end of the line, your TV has to take whatever signal and turn it into something it can display. I would say that for most modern TVs you are not going to notice the difference. If you spent alot of money on an HDTV, then yes you'll have to play by the rules set by the broadcasters to get your HD signal (until computer capture cards and innovative work-arounds catch up, that is)...

Re:I'm too lazy

[Specter]

While playing back content:

Select -> Play -> Select -> 3 -> 0 -> Select

That should restore your 30 second skip if memory serves.

What really annoys me about having to 'hack' the 30 second skip is that all the content providers complained bitterly about Tivo's 30 second skip function but it's ok for them to provide it themselves. I was out at my parents over Memorial day and they've got the Dish?/DirectTV? PVR which has a very handy, no hack required, 30 second skip.