MythTV
From GTALUG
Contents |
MythTV
MythTV is an open source software Personal Video Recorder. It lets you build a box similar to the commercial TiVo or ReplayTV systems, but considerably more powerful - and more easily customised and modified. The "more powerful" part includes things like being able to:
- Auto detect and auto skip almost all commercials automatically
- Play music (MP3/OGG)
- Play video
- Play games (both Linux specific games and thanks to MAME, old video arcade games)
- See a weather forecast
- Talk on the phone with a software based SIP phone
- See an on-screen list of upcoming TV shows and select what show(s) you want to record by name or time
- Set rules on how many of a particular show are recorded and how long shows are kept
- Parental control option allowing a parent to block the recording of certain shows
Further the amount of disk storage available to MythTV can be as much as your budget or the Linux kernel can support.
MythGTA Mailing List
There is a greater Toronto, ON area MythTV oriented mailing list. To get on or off the list:
- Please send an e-mail to:
- Leave the subject line blank.
- And in the body of the message, place only:
- "subscribe" to subscribe or "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe, without the quotes.
You will get back an e-mail that offers additional information.
GTA TV Providers
Over the Air Television
With a semi-decent antenna, tuner and location you can get all the broadcast stations in the GTA (Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo). Depending on your antenna, tuner and location in the GTA you may be able to stations out of Rochester, NY.
Points to be aware of include you want the antenna to be as high as possible, you want line of sight to the transmitter locations. Also, be aware that some MythTV HDTV tuner do not handle analog TV properly, so you may not be able to get over the air analog with some cards (this will become less of an issue over time as analog TV is shut down (Feb. 2009 in the US, Aug. 2011 in Canada).
Schedules Direct Issue
For those doing over the air HDTV, there is an issue (as of May 2008) with "Schedules Direct"'s over the air digital listings for Toronto. They don't offer digital listings for people with a Toronto Postal Code. Work around is to set-up an over the air location in US ZIP code 14174 (Youngstown, New York). The 14174 ZIP code will make it painless to get listing data for the Buffalo, New York HDTV channels and most of the Toronto HDTV channels.
Rogers Cable
Rogers Analog Cable
There are no GTA wide issues here. In most areas you are talking about a good solid analog signal. Set your TV tuner card(s) for standard US style analog cable TV and everything should work nicely.
Rogers Digital Cable
This is ugly. In the US cable companies are required to offer all local digital channels unencrypted (with the option of encrypting the premium channels). In Canada the cable companies can encrypt all digital channels, and since August of 2007 this is what Rogers has done.
To get any digital channels from Rogers in any form into your MythTV box you need a Rogers digital box, an IR blaster (that can mimic a Rogers digital box remote control) and a MythTV compatible analog tuner. The idea being that the IR blaster controls the Rogers box and you read the result via the analog card. This is not true HDTV but at present it is the only way to work things with Rogers HDTV.
Satellite TV
Bell ExpressVu
More to come here.
StarChoice
More to come here.
Free To Air Satellite
More to come here.
Local Presentations on MythTV
Colin Smillie did a talk on MythTV for TLUG
Paul Mora did a NewTLUG talk on MythTV
Colin McGregor did an InstallFest for MythTV
Colin McGregor did a MythTV article for LinuxJournal.com
Colin McGregor did a TLUG Presentation on MythTV
External Links
Software
- MythTV.org - Main site.
- KnoppMyth - Knoppix-based MythTV installer.
- MythBuntu - Ubuntu-based MythTV installer.
- MythDora - Fedora-based MythTV installer.
- MiniMyth - For doing lightweight frontend only boxes.
MythTV Friendly Hardware
- PCHDTV - Linux friendly HDTV tuner cards.
- SiliconDust - Builds a tuner to Ethernet box.
- Hauppauge - PVR series (PVR-150, 250, 350 and 500) are great analog tuners.
- Silverstone - Some great home theatre PC cases.
Paid MythTV Friendly Information
- SchedulesDirect - TV schedule data for Canada and the US.
Documentation
- MythTV Wiki - The MythTV Wiki.
- MythPVR - A MythTV fan site.
Support Files
- TV logos - MythTV allows you to add channel logos to the listings display. Here is a source for those logo image files.
- Game files - MythGame allows you to run MAME (Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator) games. Here is a free source of some MAME games.
TV Providers
Greater Toronto Area - Over the Air Information
- GTA HDTV Channels - A list of GTA area digital TV channels with transmitter data, such as location and output power.
- FreeToronto.tv - Information about free TV, analog and digital, in the GTA.
Cable TV
Satellite TV
Vendors of note with a GTA presence
- Tiger Direct - Good source of home theater PC cases and of TV tuner cards.
- Canada Computers - Good source of TV tuner cards and of home theater PC cases.
Related Articles by Local Authors
- Linux Journal - Colin McGregor's 2005 take on MythTV. Warning: some of the material in this article is now out of date.
- Linux Journal - Colin McGregor's 2006 take on building a MythTV compatible IR detector.
