Mission Penguin

If you’ve found your way to Mission Penguin you are no doubt familiar with MythTV.  But just in case:  

MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems. MythTV is known to work on Linux and Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It does not run on Windows.

Think of MythTV as TiVO’s scary fuel injected, turbo powered, roid taking cousin.  Where PVR products like TiVO leave off, MythTV takes over.  When setup correctly you get the ease of use TiVO users love bundled with all the features of an ultra high end commercial home media management system including many tools not found on any commercial solution.

I’ve been using MythTV since 2005, version 0.10.  On my first attempt I spent countless hours trying to get the huge number of dependencies working in a sweet symbiotic harmony.  I did eventually get it going, but not before version 0.11 was released later that same year.

In an attempt to build a better mouse trap I’ve rebuilt my MythTV solution a lot.  I’ve tried knoppmyth, mythdora, custom myth builds, and a slew of other potential winning solutions.  I also briefly tried Media Portal, the Open Source MS Windows media management device as well as XBMC, the xbox based media management solution with the MythTV plug-in.  Until recently, I’ve found the ideal configuration for me was a 0.18 version of MythTV on a dual PIII 800 backend server utilizing a modded xbox running the MythTV front-end.  This has been perfect for me because I only utilize the TV portion of MythTV and nothing else.  It’s fast, stable, cheap, and for the last 24 months or so I’ve had absolutely no complaints. 

If you decide to dive headfirst into your own MythTV solution, be warned, you will need to experiment.  Even hardcore seasoned Linux zealots will need to be prepared to install multiple times in order to find your own “sweet spot.”  There’s a million ways to skin the MythTV cat and the only way to find your perfect solution is to try as many as you can.  It’s going to be a frustrating project, but if you take your time and do your homework the payoff is well worth the pain.

 Hardware/Software

As part of a home remodel I’ve decided to open Pandora’s Box and revisit rebuilding my home MythTV solution.  As part of the rebuild I’ve decided to invest in some new hardware.

            TV Tuner

                        I originally purchased a Hauppauge 350 back in 2004 for my MythTV setup, thinking eventually FM radio would be added to the list of features.  The only problem is that way too many good shows air at the same time, I need more tuners.  I’ve added a PVR 500 with two built in tuners to the solution, giving me three total tuners.

            Storage

                        I originally used (a then huge) 400GB hard drive for TV recordings.  I’ve since added a ReadyNAS NV+ to my network and I’d like to utilize the content stored on that device.  I’ve found the 400GB drive to be more than sufficient for recordings, with my settings I get 600MB per hour with pretty good sound and video quality.  I get around 650 hours of TV on that drive, and that is plenty.  So the 400GB drive will be locally installed in the server, and the remaining media will be located on the NAS.

            PC Case

                        The new MythTV server will also be the first front end, located in the living room.  This means I need to retire the loud beige ATX tower case in favor of a newer HTPC case.  I picked the SILVERSTONE LASCALA 10 CS-SST-LC10B for its abundant interior room and the ability to accommodate a standard ATX PSU.  That goes against the grain for most HTPC enthusiasts, but I like the large, simple case design.  There is lots of room for all my toys and no extra features that I wouldn’t utilize.

            Server Hardware

                        I repurposed an unused Pentium 4 3.4 Prescott chip, leftover from an unused machine.  4GB ram, Soundblaster Audigy2 card, and an Nvidia display adapter, all brought together on a Gigabyte board.

            Distribution

                        With a new install I of course wanted to run the most current MythTV available, 0.20 or better.  I tried LinuxMCE, knoppmyth, Ubuntu with MythTV packages, and Mythbuntu.  Yes, I consider LinuxMCE a MythTV distribution because as far as I’m concerned, the best part of the entire application hinges on MythTV.  Just as an Asterisk user might claim LinuxMCE to be an Asterisk distribution.

After a few installs of the different platforms I opted for Mythbuntu.  LinuxMCE was a close second choice.  I was pushed over the edge by the stability and low overhead of the Mythbuntu distribution.  LinuxMCE is pretty cool but if you don’t need anything beyond your basic home media solution all of those extras features provided by LinuxMCE are just in the way.  Yes, MythTV can control your stereo components and automate many of the same things as LinuxMCE via an IRBlaster.  However, if you have a huge complicated home stereo possibly with intelligent non IR control, or want to add features like orbitals, Asterisk, IP Cameras, or functions like “Follow me” then you should take a closer look at LinuxMCE.

Impressions

            I won’t delve too far into the actual install, as there are already far too many MythTV installation and configuration tutorials available.  And like I said above, your solution will be unique.  I will take a moment to highlight some of the major changes I’ve noticed in MythTV 0.20 from 0.18, as well as some of the things I feel need to be added.

            Live TV

                        Live TV has changed a lot.  It used to be a feed from the card to the screen, now it’s an ad-hoc scheduled recording.  I believe this is the explanation for the huge speed increase for channel surfing.  Initially this sucks because you end up with a lot of partial recordings in your “View Recordings” menu.  However, these will auto expire after a day and there is a setting to group live recordings instead of seeing those listed among your other recordings.  If you watch live TV your life will be easier if you change the default grouping of live recordings to their own group, this is found under TV options.

            Parental Controls

                        Parental controls are exactly what you would expect, except you need to modify them for each file, rather than for entire groups or directories.

            Music Player

                        The default visualizations suck.  But, MythTV does get huge points for the speed and accuracy of inventorying my entire MP3 collection.

            Image Viewer

                        MythTV modules are totally independent.  Meaning, you cannot queue a play list and then listen to music while browsing images.

            DVD/Video Playback

                        MythDVD has come a long way since my last version, and it relies heavily on MythVideo for movie playback for saved content.  I’d like to see both modules merged into a single solution.

            Audio ripping

                        You can set this through some custom scripting, but I’d like to see better control over where ripped music gets saved.  I have a very specific way of organizing my music and I’d like to be able to set MythTV to follow my file naming rules.

            Default Resolution

                        Mythbuntu and LinuxMCE both maxed out the resolution on my graphics card as a default post install setting.  Most people will be setting this up on a TV so it would be nice to see the default resolution go to something more generic and widely supported, even if they started as low as 800x600 and let the user opt into increasing the resolution during install.

            Video Thumb nailing

                        Many video formats will not auto-generate a thumbnail preview.  This sucks if you have a lot of home video or downloaded pr0n.  That’s right, I’m not proud, I have a lot of pr0n.

            Video file queuing

                        The video player will not automatically recognize the next file in a play list, and there is still no way that I can see for a directory of media to be queued all at once, as you can with the audio player.  It would be nice to point the video player to a directory and simply say, “Play it” start to finish.  That would accomplish the playback of many of the multi-file videos I have.  Yes, many are pr0n.  This may be fixable via some custom player scripts.

            More Hardware Support

                        Not for PC devices, rather for “smart” home theater devices.  These are devices controlled by a serial connection, usually a DB9 or headphone style jack.  My Sony receiver has the Sony “S-Control” interface; other manufacturers have their own standards.  This is a feature with very limited support in Pluto, and in turn LinuxMCE (via Pluto) but it would be nice to see some native MythTV support.  You’ll see more demand for these devices as the status of a device becomes more important on sophisticated home theater equipment.  For example, going from TV to AUX input on my Sony is two presses of the input button, but three presses to get to AUX if you’re in SA/CD instead of TV.  Using a “smart” interface the controller can poll the existing status of the equipment to more accurately issue commands.

 A few notes about Mythbuntu

            I love it.  I’m not sure what else to say.  The only way to really appreciate the Mythbuntu distribution is to go back and build an old MythTV version from scratch.  It’s a huge pain in the rear, almost enough to make you swear of Linux.  Once you’ve completed the utterly painless install of Mythbuntu in 45 minutes or less, you’ll really appreciate the work that was put into this distro.  Not only can you have the system running in under an hour, you also have the Mythbuntu control center, useful for reconfiguring any portion of MythTV you could possibly need.  If you plan on a "liveCD" MythTV setup MythBuntu beats knoppmyth hands down.  There's better configuration support during setup, better post configuration support via MythTV control center, and the ability to save settings to a thumbdrive.

            It’s a gorgeous, small, stable system that does everything I want.  It’s easy to backup, restore, and reconfigure.  Hopefully, the tight integration with the Ubuntu project will keep it that way for many future revisions.