Preparing to Install MythTV for TV's
where the rubber meets the road - or perhaps leaves the road as the case may be
 
My Application Requirements
I will admit my requirements are far reaching. I don't simply want to watch TV on my computer. I want to watch TV on my TV. I just want computer(s) to help me do that frugally. Yep - I could be using Windows Media Center, and media center extenders but I don't want to have to buy a license for every client that outputs to a TV - not to mention the PVR itself. By the way, if it seems like I am not speaking enough geek-speak, you are either happy or you need to get over it. Sometimes it is necessary to speak clearly.
 
I (read, my family) need seamless support (simple mindless operation) for the following:
  • Recording for two programs at once
  • Playback of recorded content for (at least) two HDTV's in different parts of the house
  • Rewind, pause and fast-forward Live TV
  • Electronic Program Guide for TV's
  • Broadcast television throughout the house
  • Cable television throughout the house, hopefully SANS a Cable Provider STB
      Hey, it should not be a pain in the ass to watch TV, no matter how geeky you are. One thing we really have to face as consumers is that Cable and Satellite companies do make it easier to watch TV. Set top boxes, DVR's, and electronic program guides all distilled into an appliance is very convenient. The integration they go through is invisible to us mostly. Could they do a better job? Maybe, but if you think you can do a better job, and you are inclined to try, you are in the right place.
       
       
      Preparing Physical Connections
      Some things are important to know and do before you start a MythTV installation:
      • Plug in the HDHomeRun to your network and attach the cable TV and/or Antenna connections.
      • Plan ahead and assign a static IP address to your Combo Box. Changing later is just wasting time and can be frustrating. Just pick an IP address that falls outside the range of addresses that your network router assigns via DHCP. I picked 192.168.1.99, with a mask of 255.255.255.0.
      • The gateway address is the router itself (usually 192.168.1.1), and your DNS should be the same as your gateway (most gateways will act as your DNS server for P.C.'s on the LAN.
       
      Selecting the Operating System (distribution) 
      As I mentioned in other text, MythTV runs as a set of applications on Linux, although there are "solutions" for running it on alternate platforms. I use the term "solutions" loosely because a solution implies a tried and true method that is easily replicated. Personally, I was hoping that I could leverage a solution to build my PVR. Based on what I read, I thought this should be a piece of cake. Don't fall in to that trap! If you plan to build a combo PVR system where everything you do is self contained to that machine including the viewing experience, then you will likely have a much shorter learning and implementation curve than I had (or am still having). But if you plan to deviate from the self-contained application you will have more work to do. My plans fall into the latter, and hence this is why I am writing this series. So lets be clear, this is not a mainstream application yet. Even companies like HDHomeRun don't do a very good job of explaining how to use their product outside the scope of Personal Computer viewing.
       
      After reading many web sites about MythTV, I felt it made sense for me to try and use one of the purpose-built MythTV/Linux installation distributions available. There are a few, MythDora, MythBuntu, KnoppMyth, and others all of which are assembled on the MythTV Wiki page for MythTv Distros. Since I have more standalone experience with Red Hat products, I chose MythDora which is a build of MythTV on Fedora, and started my exercise with the 10.21 release. I picked the parts for my combo Back-End/Front-End system based on MythDora support, although I expect my hardware selections are applicable to other MythTV solutions, except perhaps those for Apple TV and X-Box environments. I'm sorry that I have to assume you know how to download a CD or DVD image file and burn a CD or DVD from it. It's not too hard. I use Nero 7 Essentials software to do this. The MythDora file is about 1.2GB which fits on a DVD. You can also download it in 2 parts that fit onto CD media in case you dont have a DVD burner or a DVD reader in your project machine.
       
      Well, as best laid plans go, I had issues getting the TV listings to populate my channel plans - one for cable and one for off-the-air. I expected MythTV to populate the channels with the listing data from Schedules Direct, but that didn't happen, and after 7 complete start-overs from scratch, I decided to download MythDora 5.0 and also MythBuntu 8.10 and see if they are any better.
       
      The other sections that follow will be a report on the installation attempts for the Myth-XX packages I downloaded. I will summarize them and hopefully give you something you can use.