byo pvr software help
#1
Hey everyone, I am trying to build my own pvr system and I am looking for some advice. I have researched all of the different systems/solutions and I think I have it narrowed down to a couple good choices. I know asking this in this forum is going to lead to some obvious bias, but please do your best to put that aside temporarily and lend me a hand Big Grin

The two options I have it narrowed down to are either XBMC with MythTV as the backend, or MediaPortal.

Hopefully, I am not way off here but that is what I have found so far. If anyone has any suggestions or input, please feel free to chime in. Thanks in advance and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Media Portal:
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

MythTV:
http://www.mythtv.org/
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

XBMC:
http://xbmc.org/
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#2
I use the MythTV 0.21-fixes branch.
If you want it for satellite, (and not just FTA signals) it takes a lot of work.
If you want it for cable-TV, then it works right out of the box.

I really love MythTV for the scheduling, and commercial flagging/removal.
The only complaint I have about MythTV is the GUI for the frontend. XBMC is **MUCH** better.

I have never really played around with media portal a whole bunch, so I can't really offer much there.

If you plan on ever going to a non-FTA-only satellite system... which has questionable scruples... then MythTV is the way to go Smile

FYI: xbmcmythtv on sourceforge will let you watch all your recordings.
FYI2: don't use knopmyth... if anything, use mythbuntu
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#3
Thanks for the reply furious. I am planning on building this for my parents as they are totally addicted to reality tv Oo. I was under the impression that you can run MythTV with XBMC as the front end? Is this right?

The end goal is for this to be a system for my parents that will allow them to record, play, store, chasing playback, and possibly download from bittorrent for the shows that they can't get around to recording. Also, a "season pass" recording schedule so that it automatically records certain shows based on their title would be great.

I just wonder if I am heading down the right path or if I should be looking elsewhere? btw, thanks for the heads up with mythbuntu.
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#4
I found that connector you were looking for
Cindy, is this the thing you were looking for?
http://www.liangdianup.com/computeraccessories_1.htm
It's on the list of computer accessories and parts. They have the DVI video thing to convert that jap monitor to work with your other computer. Just about any other kind of wire adaptor, usb connectors, monitor extension wires, ps2 extention wires, and all kinds of female and male swap connectors and things that I think would help your shop. If that above link don't work then goto http://www.lducompany.com and click on computer accessories. Let me know if that is what you need and give me your email address again.
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#5
bawlmer Wrote:Thanks for the reply furious. I am planning on building this for my parents as they are totally addicted to reality tv Oo. I was under the impression that you can run MythTV with XBMC as the front end? Is this right?

Well... yes and no.
What are your unning XBMC off? A computer (ie: linux / windows), or are you running off an Xbox?

There is a Python script that works on the XBox to play recorded episodes. It's not really a MythTV frontend. You can't watch live-TV from it (last I heard.. this might have changed). You can still schedule / alter / play recordings.

If you want to run a real mythtv-frontend off the XBox, you might want to look into something like Ed's Debian (aka: Xebian). It's very bulky and slow to run a MythFrontend... but it does work perfectly.

If you are running XBMC off a computer then it's more *do-able*. Linux is the way to go, if you are familiar with linux. MythTV recently added a M$-Windows port of mythfrontend. I know that Mac is do-able too... but I don't know how.

I have 2 xbox's that I run xbmcmythtv from (the Python script I wrote about earlier). You can get it from sourceforge's website. I prefer this method... but you might prefer something different.

bawlmer Wrote:I just wonder if I am heading down the right path or if I should be looking elsewhere? btw, thanks for the heads up with mythbuntu.

You are definately heading down the right path! Mythbuntu has much better driver support, and software repositores than Knoppmyth / Mythdora. I find a lot of the "less-honorable" Myth-tv patches I spoke about yesterday, are intended for Ubuntu based distros. Smile This is a good thing, depending on how far you want to go.
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#6
Sorry I wasn't clear in the previous posts - I will be running this off a pc. I'm not really concerned whether it is run off linux or windows as I have experience with both - my main concern is choosing the right software combo so that I don't waste a boatload of time.

I just checked out Mythbuntu and wow, it looks great. Would you still use that for the backend and xbmc for the front or just go with mythbuntu only? Is that even possible? hm...more research needed i think Huh
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#7
Yup, mythbuntu will let you run a frontend / backend combo on the same machine.

MythTV has a lot of nice features, and it's a really wild system to use.... but I can't really say anything nice about the "usability" of mythfrontend GUI. That's where I'm trying to get XBMC to mesh into my mythfrontend system.
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