[InsideMyth]
A look inside an Open Source PVR.A Look Inside
This site takes a solid look at MythTV, and open source PVR (Personal Video Recorder). In April 2002, Isaac Richards started work on MythTV. MythTV is an open source project that runs on Linux computers ranging from game systems like PS2 and XBox to high end Home Theater PCs.
MythTV: mythical convergence box
MythTV is more than your standard PVR. The original goal of the project was to build software that would finally create that mythical box where all of your home entertainment converged. It plays your DVDs, VCDs, MP3s, and more than these. It organizes your photos, surfs the web, and fetches the news. Even with all of these great features, it's still a fully-functional PVR rivaling commercial products.
The program guide
Perhaps the key component to any PVR is the Program Guide. MythTV gets its listing through a service called DataDirect. They have a lab that graciously provides free listings to PVR hobbyists.
Program guide
Scheduling recordings
From the Program Guide, you can directly schedule shows. MythTV additionally provides a Program Finder that allows you to search through your listings for shows that you're interested in. From there, you can set MythTV to record the show based on a number of options.
Program finder
If you're not sure about the showname, keyword searching can be used to help find programs. The ease of finding programs along with a rich set of recording options makes it straight-forward to start recording everything you're interested in. If the number of scheduled recordings grow, it's more likely that you'll have some conflicts. When encountering a conflict, MythTV tries to find another airing of one of the shows. If that fails, then it can rely on priorities that you set for different shows. There's a screen where you can check up on upcoming recordings to ensure that there are not unresolved conflicts.
Upcoming recordings
Managing recordings
MythTV organizes all of these new recordings in a simple fashion that lets you browse through recordings. A video preview of each show is displayed when you highlight it.
Recordings
And all the basic stuff
MythTV has all of the basic features of PVRs covered:
- Pause live TV
- Automatic commerical flagging with option auto-skip
- PIP: in case you really want to watch live tv while watching a recording
- FFW, REW, 30s skip, 10m skip, and commercial skip
Sample recording
This video is an example of a video recorded with a PVR-250 card from a analog cable line.
Survivorman: Arctic
Additional information: MythTV was made possible because of the contributions of hundreds of Open Source Developers.
