thelinuxlink.net

A few people asked me about MythTV and TV cards at last weeks BCLUG meeting but I can't seem to sign onto the mailing list, so I'll post some info here:

My current setup uses a Hauppage WinTV card. 40$ card from CompUSA, has basically an S-Video jack, and an antenna jack. I run TV Time (http://tvtime.sourceforge.net) and followed the on-site directions to setup XML TV and Lirc (for my remote control). I've setup Freevo and MythTV before, I just stick with TV Time because I prefer to watch TV in a small window in the corner of my screen while I work; the Tivo clones are only sizeable down to 640x480 :oP

Anybody looking to install those Tivo clones to setup a box purely for that, make sure to install XML TV ahead of time. It's not necessary but you'll be glad you did. I did this on a SuSE box, so I can honestly say that APT-Get for SuSE is the best way to do it (and that would apply to Debian, Gentoo, Redhat/Fedora, and Mandrake) since XML TV has so many weird dependencies you'll desperately need something to manage them for you. Regardless, expect a lot of work getting XML TV to run. My reccomendation for this is just to setup Cron to update your XML TV listings once a week.

As far as MythTV goes, follow the README instructions religiously and have fun :oD Freevo lasted on my box for about 10 minutes, I don't reccomend it. Although if you decide to use it, Mplayer or Xine is required, as it uses these for output.

Anybody needing help setting these up or configuring their TV card feel free to bug me :oP

I plan on giving this a shot at some point this summer, so I may be bugging you for info..... thanks for sharing the experiences.

I picked up a Hauppauge TV-350 a couple of weeks back. I haven't configured it in linux yet. It works o.k. in windoze. I need to recompile the latest kernel with the Ivytv driver for it. I should hopefully get around to trying myth in the next couple of weeks. I'll let you know how it works out.

When I was shopping around folks told me to work with the BTTV driver, as well as something else (bt**?). I was also told to stay away from ATI. I heard (if the card even worked) that the picture was very grainy, and never very good. I was also told that All-In-Wonder cards don't work at all, but some folks at the BCLUG told me differently. Anybody have input on that? I'd be interested in seeing what open-source projects work on ATI drivers other than ATI themselves.

I have an all in wonder card that I was given for free, which I had considered using for the project. Unless you strongly suggest otherwise, I suppose we could find out how well it works...

I'd be interested in how well it works, I never tried it. Everybody I talked to told me Hauppage is the best. But hey, if it's free, why not eh?

I have just built a machine for mythtv and spent alot of $ for a high end machine (ovekill but what the hey).
I have all the software for mythtv up and running but can not for the life of me get the pvr 350 to work.
I don't know what I'm doing here (compiling drivers).
I can be reached via skype as djash34 or 610.258.1918 this evening.
I'm willing to pay for some to get this going I'm at my wits end and am even thinking of installing windows to run it if I can't get it to work (egads...lol).
I can setup Xorfb (vnc) and someone could control the box and I can watch.
Please someone contact me and help later this evening.

Well the first thing to do is to compile the ivtv driver and get it running. Have you gotten that far? You should only be compiling the stable version and not the development or patched versions. For the most part I'm a Slack man and could not get the ivtv driver to work correctly. I heard about Jarod Wilsons Fedora2 How-To and decided to try it on a spare hard drive:
http://www.wilsonet.com/mythtv/

I don't care for Fedora2 for everyday use but I got Myth runing fairly easy following his instructions. If you are doing a dedicated install this might be the way to go. Another alternative would be trying Knoppmyth:
http://mysettopbox.tv/

The Fedora2 install might take a little longer than Knoppmyth but the system will be easier to maintain and upgrade.

I can contact you tonight to discuss. Let me know what a good time is.

Hello once again all.
Patrick thanks for your help with fedora on Monday.
But I did not like fedora as much as Mandrake and the cd-burner/player would not work.
Patrick and I were at least get to the point of recording mythtv but I never could get the tv-out to work so I scrapped Fedora and attempted to get it working in Mandrake with all the newfound experience to no avail.
So I'm posting to this list for some paid help.

System hardware url: http://djash.com/system/

OS Mandrake 10.1
Status installed.
Mysql ok.
Software repositories Ok (thacs rpms etc.)
Mythtv Installed.
IVTV drivers problems.
Need to configure pvr-350
Need to get tv-out from the pvr-350.
Need to configure mythtv
I have skype as user djash34 can be reached there later in eveining.
Or 610.258.1918
I can give vnc access to machine for remote troubleshooting.
Can pay via check or paypal.
Please contact as I'm greatly frustrated trying to get this system up and running to it's full potential.
Please send me a price for help.

--
Regards
Dave Ashmore
MDK 10.1 Official Mozilla 1.7