MythTV

Wow, great meeting this evening. Jeffrey Sharkey and Justin Krohn gave a presentation on MythTV and the HDHomeRun networked HD tuner. Ten people turned out for the meeting.

First Jeff gave us the history of MythTV, a feature overview, and then he compared it to other DVR software packages that are available. He explained the frontend software and the backend software... and how they didn't have to be on the same machine. He also discussed the TV listing providers.

Justin showed MythTV in operation (both the fancy GUI frontend and the web-based version) and shared some of his recent recordings made using his HDHomeRun network tuner. He mainly uses his setup with broadcast HD and reviewed all of the sources of HD content available in the Bozeman area. I was surprised at the number and high quality of the broadcast channels available although it was pointed out that one needs a good antenna.

Justin gave a complete overview of the HDHomeRun device, how well it works with MythTV and other software and said that he was very happy with the device.

Justin gave a good overview of all of the related signal types and showed that broadcast HD includes a lot of information embedded within the signal. He had to wonder around the building with his laptop and the HDHomeRun device before he was able to find a good broadcast signal... as the EPS building is pretty good at blocking them. He was able to demonstrate broadcast HDTV on his laptop with VLC and it looked fantastic.

Fantastic job guys! Thanks!

As many of you know Zap2it has stopped providing free scheduling infomation for MythTV users. The solution that the developers of MythTV came up with was to help start a company called Schedules Direct (http://www.schedulesdirect.com) to provide the data. According to the Schedules Direct website:

Ken Dyke asked me at the BozemanLUG meeting the other evening... if I had found any more good technical videos on Google. I usually search every day... but somehow hadn't found anything worth sharing for a while.

Practical MythTV by Michael Still, Aug. 16, 2007

The second video is about DTrace which is the kernel debugger for Sun's Solaris... but given the coverage on LWN in an article entitled, On DTrace envy which talks about DTrace vs. Linux's SystemTap kernel debugger... more info in DTrace is probably a good thing.

Thanks to everyone that showed at C4K in June for the MythTV presentation.

We successfully installed a complete digital video recorder system from scratch on a standard PC. The final product displayed its ability to watch live TV, pause and rewind live TV and record shows. The guide data is very nifty and pulled across the internet from zap2it. Which has recently announced that they will be discontinuing that service. So the MythTV developers are hard at work attempting to come up with a better (and hopefully truly open) solution.