Boston Linux Users Group Building a PVR Using Linux and MythTV May 19, 2004 Jeffrey Perry jeffperry_2003@yahoo.com.
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Boston Linux Users Group
Building a PVR Using Linux and MythTV
May 19, 2004
Jeffrey Perry jeffperry_2003@yahoo.com
Building a Linux PVR w/ MythTV
Introduction Planning Installation Demo Conclusions
What is a PVR?
PVR = Personal Video Recorder
A video recorder which records to the hard disk instead of a tape
Definition varies but most include: Electronic Program guide, pause/ff/rw live and
recorded shows Other possible features ... remote viewing, web
scheduling, music etc.
Motivation
TiVo is cool, wouldn't you like one too? How much does it really cost? Ok, I want to burn DVDs too. How much now?
Interesting project Practical - no VCR or DVD player already
Commercial PVRs
TiVo ReplayTV Others....
TiVo: How much does it cost?
40 Hours - $149 * 80 Hours - $249 * 140 Hours - $349 *
*= PLUS program listing service fee of
$ 12.95/month or $299 lifetime
PLUS $99 for Home Media Option
TiVo: Home Media Option
Web scheduling Digital photos Digital music Multi-room viewing
ReplayTV How Much does it cost?
40 Hours - $150* 80 Hours - $300* 160 Hours - $450* 320 Hours - $800*
*=PLUS program listing service fee of
$ 12.95/month or $299 lifetime
Cost of DVD Recorders
Q: How much to buy a consumer device which can record TV shows to DVD?
A: Consumer DVD recorders range in price from $200- $500
Consider: PC DVD Writers
Sony 4x for $118( Jan 2004, rebate)
Sony 8x for $160 (now @ compusa.com)
Enter MythTV: Features Record TV shows, scheduled, instant record Free Program guide - via Zapdata.com, others Pause/Fastforward/Rewind Live TV, recordings Store & play music, DVD videos Watch & record at same time Check weather, news, and browse web Play and burn DVDs Skip commercials – auto detect and flag Play SNES & other video games (Xmame)
MythTVArchitecuture Strengths
Distributed modular design Frontend - the UI you interact with Backend - Tracks schedule, records, streams playback
Highly Scalable Multiple tuners
Add tuners to machines and share
Multiple back ends A single master backend coordinates the rest
Open Source
Hardware: TV Tuner Tradeoffs Hardware MPEG chip
Faster encode/decode without load on PC Result: Can use slower CPU
Tuner only Requires card support video4linux driver (or bttv
driver) Requires high speed CPU for encode/decode See: PVR Hardware Guide http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-
page.php?pageName=install_guides
Hardware: Hauppauge Tuner Cards
WinTV PVR250 (~$100) Hardware Encode
WinTV PVR350 ($200) Hardware Encode Hardware Decode Radio Tuner Comes with an IR remote
Hardware: Display Options
WinTV PVR350 has TV Out Linux ivtv driver needed
Still under development Still a bit unstable with occaisional hangs
Video card w/ TV Out support This may be the better bet for stability right now. Still need a tuner card (either simple or w/MPEG
encode/decode in hardware)
Hardware: Motherboard, DVD, Hard Drive
Beware of cheap VIA chipset motherboards. MythTV problems await! (Don't panic yet- some workarounds exist which MAY cure it)
DVD Writer (optional) Used to install Linux, archive shows
Big Hard Drive approx 1G/30 mins @ 480x480 MPEG2 better compression possible with lower res or
tweaking
Hardware: Device Drivers for TV Card &Video
TV Card Hauppauge WinTV PVR250/350
ivtv version 0.1.10pre2 or newer stable version PVR350 only - Patches to X windows (framebuffer
coexistance with ivtv framebuffer interaction)
Other tuners Video4Linux kernel module
Video card w/ TV Out X windows driver for your card
Hardware: Remote Controls
Remote control functionality: LIRC package
Supports IR and RF remotes including home made receivers
My Hardware Setup Case: AMS gBox P4 Blue CF-968L ($230, sale) CPU: 1.7Ghz celeron ($65) Motherbrd: Socket478B Chyang Fun CFI-S968L 256 meg RAM ($65) Hauppauge WinTV PVR350 ($200) Sony DVD +-RW writer 4X ($118,rebate) Seagate 200 Gig (about 100 hours) HD
($100,rebate) TOTAL Cost: $778
Installation: Choosing a Linux Distribution
Suse 8.1 too many additions & probs reported KnoppMyth R4 is not the easy way out Choose tried and true Redhat 9.0
ATRPMs has most of the rest of what you need Apt-get for rpm is your friend Still some kernel packages issues, requires forced
loading of some rpms. Getting better. Use Jarrod's guide - updated now for Fedora
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv
Installation: Choosing a Filesystem
File system choice Ext3 (my choice, simple default for now) XFS (some report better perfomance) Generally good idea to increase inode size (default is
4k, 64 meg would be better)
Installation Overview1. Install Redhat
2.Install device driver for tuner (PVR2/350 reqs extract windows driver from cdrom)
3.create mythtv user
4.Install atrpms-kickstart
5.Get latest updates (Apt-get update)
6.Get mythtvsuite and dependencies (apt-get mythtv-suite) - 54 packages in all - not perfect
7.Mythtvsetup
Installation Overview (Cont.)
1.Mythfilldatabase
2.Start mythbackend
3.Start mythfrontend, visit setup section and config
4.Configure each module - (see docs at mythtv.org)
5. (some modules )Additional tweaks outside GUI (example: Installing a new Video for MythVideo)
Installation tweaks Turn off automount of Cds (mythmusic ripper) Turn off esd or artsd Remove ~mythtv/.kde/Autostart/Autorun.desktop Chkconfig autofs off, apmd off, httpd on
(mythweb) Ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/dvd (MythDVD) Edit channels (~mythtv/<sourcename>/.xmltv &
tweaks to associated DB tables) Turn on DMA on HD (hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda)
Demonstration MythTV
MyhtvSetup Mythfilldatabase MythFrontend Setup TV Video DVD Music
News Weather Web Images Games (not setup)
Conclusions: MythTv Rough spots
PVR250/350 record to MPEG2 directly so Commercial cutting must be done manually. Still not perfect. A/V sync is a challenge for MPEG2 w/o having to rencode whole file (takes hours)
Integration is not as seamless as it may seem (ex: Remote control of MythVideo requires edits to your lirc config file) [mplayer]
Installing videos not ripped from DVD is done outside the GUI by copying, then back to GUI to "scan" for new files
MythTV Rough Spots (Cont.)
Mythfrontend UI
Selecting exit, then yes does not shutdown the machine
Icons for recorded state non obvious - MythWeather (simple, easy to use, does it's job well :-)
A few small bugs Zip code feature is not obvious.
MythTV - generally non existent end-user documentation.
Conclusion: MythTv Strengths
Recording scheduling flexibility & prioritization Playback features including FF, Pause, Rewind More features than TiVo Excellent modules: MythTv, MythMusic,
MythDVD, MythWeather and MythNews Flexible distributed architecture Clever design makes apps appear mostly
seamless (xml config files control app integration & gui themes)
Conclusion & RecommendationsBuilding a reasonably priced full-featured Tivo
alternative with more features including DVD writing is possible - the result is very usable and enjoyable but will take some effort
Recommendations TV Out: Buy a video card with TV output Tuner: PVR 250/350 Redhat 9.0 / Fedora & Jarrod's walkthrough DVD Writer, Hard Drive (BIG)
Resources - Start Here
MythTV http://www.mythtv.org IVTV (Hauppauge PVR250/350 Driver)
http://ivtv.sourceforge.net PVR Hardware Guide
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php Jarrods Redhat 9.0 and Fedora Install Guide
http://www.wilsonet.com/mythtv
Resources - MythTV
Myth TV Main site (download, docs, etc) http://mythtv.org
MythTV Mailing list archives (links to lists at bottom) http://mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInfo
MythTV forums http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/
Windows front-end for MythTV http://winmyth.sourceforge.net/
Jarrod's MythTV install walkthrough for Fedora, other info http://www.wilsonet.com/mythtv/
Resources - LIRC & IVTV
LIRC Remote control http://www.lirc.org
Ivy Wiki (ivtv community)http://ivtv.writeme.ch
IVTV Sourceforge pagehttp://ivtv.sourceforge.net/
IVTV Development list archiveshttp://www.poptix.net/ivtv/
Resources - PVR Hardware
PVR Hardware Newshttp://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_articles.php
PVR Hardware Guidehttp://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php
PVR Hardware Install guides for MythTV, others http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tikipage.php?pageName=install_guides
Resources - Edit/cut commercials
Avidemux http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/
Note on running dvdauthor w/ avidemuxhttp://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=152219&postcount=9
Gopchop http://sourceforge.net/projects/gopchop/http://outflux.net/unix/software/GOPchop/
Cinelerra Video Editorhttp://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
MythMkMovie (output not mpeg, requires transcoding)http://www.icelus.org/
Resources - DVD Burning Dvd-rw-tools & growisofs http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW
DVD Author http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
GUI front-end for dvdauthor http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
DVDStyler - GUI front-end for dvdauthor http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/
DVD Slideshow http://dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net/
Linux Journal artile on DVD authoring http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6953
Linux Gazette DVD burning howto http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue83/stoddard.html
Cdrecord (limitation on burn size w/o agreeing to license and getting free key)http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html
Computer burned DVDs - info on compatibility w/ consumer DVD players http://www.videohelp.com/
Resources - Misc.
Libmpeg http://libmpeg2.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
Transcode http://www.theorie.physik.unigoettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/
Commercial DVD burning package - GearPro for Linuxhttp://www.gearsoftware.com/products/ProLinux/index.cfm
Linux video studio - GUI for editing http://packages.debian.org/stable/graphics/linuxvideostudio
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