MythTv

Man, it's been a bit since I posted anything here...what a slacker.

Well, here's my newest time waster, MythTv. Several years ago, I bought a Sony 400 disc DVD changer, to keep little fingers from destroying my DVD collection (problem #1). Alas, the navigation in the unit was crummy & digging through the "library" to find a movie never really worked. I wound up putting labels in the DVD cases telling what spot the DVD was in, but this left problem #2, all the cases were still cluttering up the living room.

So, after 6+ years, I think I'm at the point where we need to move away from the beast, to a more useful solution, enter MythTv!!!

MythTv is a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) & multimedia server of sorts. It will let you watch all of your "stand alone" movies, view your pictures & listen to your music. In addition to all of this, it'll also allow you to record/pause/rewind live TV with the use of a TV Tuner Card.

Right now, I'm still infatuated with AT&T's U-Verse, so I don't really care about the DVR aspects, since U-Verse comes with a 4-tuner DRV (2-HD & 2-SD).

What I DO care about, is it's built-in ability to RIP & Playback DVD's, in addition to all of your other Media Files.

I've cobbled together a PC out of old parts, to play around with. My first cut is using MythDora which is a complete Linux distribution, based on the Fedora Core distro. Another great benefit of MythTv is that it lets you break off the server/storage part & run a dedicated "front end" for MythTv. Assuming I'm happy with how this performs, I'll be looking for a small front-end to put by my TV, while keeping the monster hidden away downstairs, or in a closet.

Ideally, there would be some way to access MythTv from my Wii, that's already taking up space. Wiire.org has some promising info based on streaming video from MythTv (Using MythWeb) to the Wii, using the Internet Channel.

Okay, enough for now...I'll post again, once I make more progress on this.