Introduction
This series of pages describes the construction
and operation of a MythTV based home PVR. At first, I was seeing
the MythTV dream: A mythical convergence device incorporating a
game machine, music machine, web browser, picture browser, and of
course, a Television Time Shifting computer. In reality, the
machine is best suited in my environment for Time Shifting, and not
much else. If you don't know the MythTV project, get to know it
from their website
here. I found it to simply be the best PVR system available, free or otherwise.
Requirements
Keeping
track of the requirements is the best way to make this project
successful. I originally wanted a system to record Star Trek: The
Next Generation episodes, and found out there was a lot more of
which MythTV is capable. Unfortunately, the more I wanted to
do with it, the more software I had to download (oh yeah, and compile).
Evertyhing must be accessible by Remote Control, and I wanted to
have a fast machine. Video output using SVIDEO and an optimized
video output (with hardware assistance) seemed necessary.
TV
listings must be free, and the system must be able to burn DVDs.
Originally, all media was to be accessed from this one system.
Since then, I've centralized the media to a media server, and no
longer required Myth to handle the media. Although it would be
nice to have, it is no longer a requirement.
Gaming and Web
Browsing is not a large requirement for me, at the end of the day.
I don't do gaming, and the emulators haven't been kind to me.
So continue to the hardware link to see what I chose.