Introduction

MythTV is a Free Open Source digital video recorder and media center hub. It is released under the GNU Public Licence (GPL).

Features

MythTV's robust PVR functions allow you to do the following:

  • View, pause, fast-forward and rewind live television.
  • Use a single or multiple video capture cards or a network tuner to record more than one program at a time, use picture-in-picture functions, or view live television while recording another channel.
  • Watch and record HDTV via firewire if you have a firewire-enabled cable tuner or satellite tuner.
  • Have multiple servers (called "backends" in MythTV parlance), each with multiple capture cards in them. All servers are centrally managed and all programs are scheduled by the master backend.
  • Run multiple clients (called "frontends" in MythTV parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Each client can watch all programs recorded by any of the servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view the content.
  • Use combinations of standard capture cards, MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices. With a firewire capable backend, MythTV can control a variety of set top boxes often found in digital cable and satellite TV systems.

  • Display electronic program guide (EPG) data. In North America and some other countries, this can be downloaded from schedulesdirect.org (a non-profit organization) for a small fee. This service provides MythTV with approximately two weeks of scheduling information. Program guide data in locations not served by Schedules Direct can be obtained using other XMLTV sources. MythTV uses this information to create a schedule that maximizes the number of programs that can be recorded if you don't have enough tuners.

  • Run a UPnP server. MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client may automatically see content from your MythTV system. N.B.: this feature has not been verified to work on every available UPnP client.

  • Add plugins from the MythTV community that provide functionality for DVDs, a personal video collection, music, weather, news, gaming, and much more.

Installation and Configuration

MythTV has been in the Ubuntu Multiverse repositories since Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake).

MythTV can also be installed using the Mythbuntu MythTV Updates repositories. Using the Mythbuntu MythTV Updates repositories is recommended because the software is updated more frequently. Mythbuntu Control Panel can be used to make the installation and system configuration easier, faster, and less prone to configuration errors.

If you would like to build MythTV yourself from source, it's recommended that you follow the instructions on the MythTV wiki.

CategorySoftware