While I like the whole Myth TV idea as a geek I also know that it has a maintenance cost. I have a series 2 Tivo that I received free with a 2 year commitment of a monthly fee. I don't do software or hardware upgrades on the unit I just sit down and watch it. If the unit fails I do not hear from my wife that "I" need to fix it. I purchased the Tivo to take the TV recording duties from "MY" plate. While one can do all the features that a Tivo can do with several pieces of software and hardware. The Tivo does this without my intervention I just have to press the buttons.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Profile Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 10:42 PM To: Macintosh topics Subject: Re: [MacGroup] Tivo vs. Apple TV vs. ??? Lee, Ever think about creating a video of all your setup? It would be awesome to step us one thing at a time through the construction then put it all together with the way it is used. This could be burned to DVD's for us to use when we are ready and want to attempt putting together our systems and it would also save you time in putting on yet another presentation that may have small attendance due to our many varied schedules. I would gladly try to help with this if you would like. John On May 3, 2009, at 6:14 AM, Lee Larson wrote: > On May 2, 2009, at 11:41 PM, Andy Arnold wrote: > >> What does your hardware setup look like? > > It's a moving target and has been built up gradually for some years > as cheap -- mostly free -- equipment turned up. Mine is pretty > elaborate right now, but you can get away with far less. > > The main center of the Myth system is a Linux server in the basement > running Fedora Linux with the MythTV backend server program. Its job > is to grab programs off the cable and store them to hard drives. > Right now it has four Hauppauge tuners in PCI slots, so it can grab > four programs at once. The Hauppauge tuners need about 2GB/hr to > store their MPEG2 files. There are two drives in the box that add up > to a terabyte, so it can store 500 hours of video off the cable. > > To watch the video, we have three small computers networked > elsewhere in the house -- kitchen, family room, master bedroom -- > hooked to monitors or TVs. These are running minimal installations > of Ubuntu Linux supporting the MythTV front end program, which is > quite small, or Boxee, which also knows how to talk to a Myth > server. All three front ends are independent and can be showing > different programs as well as live TV from the server. > > With the Boxee front end, they can stream from sites like Hulu. (The > next big Hulu upgrade supposedly will allow Netflix streaming under > Linux.) > > In addition, the Mac in my basement office and my laptop can also > watch the Myth stuff. > > The networking is wired because when I first started this I quickly > found that B and G wireless can't support several simultaneous video > streams to the front ends. > > The Myth system can do lots of stuff besides time shifting TV > programs. You can rip DVDs into the system to store for later > watching. Video on the server can be burned to DVD for archiving. It > is also a music server so you can rip all your CDs onto the main > system and listen to them on any front end. There are plugins for > Internet radio. There is a plugin to make it run like a Slingbox. It > can be set up to automatically strip most commercials. There's a > Skype plugin. > > Most of this stuff I've not installed. > >> Can you use a remote to easily control it? > > I used to control them with standard remotes, but it has turned out > that a wireless keyboard with a built in trackpad is more versatile > because the machines can also run Firefox and Open Office. (It's fun > to watch YouTube on the big screen television in the family room and > the machine in the kitchen gets used a lot for writing disapproving > letters to our beloved government representatives.) MythTV uses a > standard Linux program called LIRC that lets you map the buttons of > any remote in any way you want. In the kitchen, for a long time we > used the recycled remote from a long-dead VCR. > >> Does your family find it easy to use? > > Nobody's complaining. Even my mother, who's quite tech-phobic, got > the hang of it after a few days. > > One thing I did not mention above was that in order to install such > a system, you need both a back end server and a front end on which > to watch the stuff. They can both be on the same machine, but I've > found is more practical to put a big noisy server box in the > basement and scatter smaller quiet boxes near the TVs. The front end > machines can be just about anything with a decent video card. The > front end software runs on the original XBox and any recent vintage > Mac as well as Linux and Windows machines. I'm thinking of buying a > refurbished AppleTV to run as a front end with Boxee as the software. > > The server back end need a little more horsepower, if you're going > to run with more than a couple of tuners and remote front ends. > Right now, mine is a home-brew AMD64x2/3GHz with 1GB of RAM, and > this is certainly overkill. You can put together such a machine for > well under $400, if you do sale shopping and eBay. I used to use an > old Dell P4/1.7 GHz machine that I got for free. It died last summer > and I had to throw together a replacement in a hurry because the > family hates watching commercials. > > You could run the server software on a Mac, but this is impractical > because you're probably wasting a good Mac to be a dumb server and > TV tuners for the Mac are too expensive. > > > > _______________________________________________ > The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will > be May 26 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. > Posting address: [email protected] > Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup _______________________________________________ The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will be May 26 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. Posting address: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup _______________________________________________ The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will be May 26 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. Posting address: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
