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Practical MythTV: Building a PVR and Media Center PC [Paperback]

Michael Still (Author), Stewart Smith (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews) |
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Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1590597796 | ISBN-13: 978-1590597798 | Edition: 1

MythTV is a powerful open source personal video recorder (PVR) application that runs on Linux. Developed for several years by volunteers, it offers a stable and extensible platform for automating all of the things you would expect from a PVR, and much more.

Practical MythTV: Building a PVR and Media Center PC takes a project-based approach to implementing your own MythTV setup. You get to pick and choose the functionality you want to install for your PVR, and will learn the details of everything from selecting hardware to advanced customization.

You will learn how to record your favorite television shows, store your DVDs for later playback, create a music library out of your CD collection, and even use your PVR for voiceover IP. Your PVR wouldn't be complete without a remote control or the ability to play back content to other TVs in your home. You'll learn how to do both of these things in this book. You'll even learn to how to utilize your Xbox as a remote front-end to play back content.

Beyond these basics, you will learn advanced techniques like commercial detection and skipping, auto-expiring content, creating your own themes for MythTV, and utilizing plug-ins to do things like display weather conditions, RSS feeds, and photo slide shows.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Still released his first open source project in July 2000 and has been actively developing ever since. He has had a variety of articles published by IBM DeveloperWorks, and once made a tux out of fairy lights! He is the author of The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick (Apress, 2005). Michael grew up in Canberra, Australia, and now works for Google and lives in the Silicon Valley with his wife and two kids. Michael is a past committee member of AUUG, Linux Australia, and the linux.conf.au 2005 committee.

Stewart Smith is an Australian and a software engineer working for MySQL AB on MySQL Cluster. He started being a serious Linux user in the days of MkLinux pre-DR3 and remembers being thrilled with the arrival of a driver for his floppy drive. In 2003, he first saw TiVo and realized that TV could be made not to suck. Stewart had MythTV running very soon after that and has enjoyed enlightenment ever since. He has always liked writing his own software and continues to enjoy doing so. He is also involved in the local LUG (LUV-Linux Users of Victoria) and has been on the board of Linux Australia from 2003 to the present.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (May 8, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1590597796
  • ISBN-13: 978-1590597798
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Look, I'm not going to say that these guys didn't try, or that this is a cynically written attempt to cash in on something, but this book is as close to worthless as I can imagine.

Now, again, this is not entirely the authors' fault. MythTV is highly dynamic. What's true today isn't true tomorrow. I'm a journeyman MythTV builder, and a lot of what I've learned in the painful progress I've made simply does not apply any more.

That said, a lot of stuff =hasn't= changed, and it's here where the book falls apart. They should have started with the basics of content flow, i.e., where is the media coming from? Because that's the first thing you need to know before you even decide if MythTV is right for you. (Over the air content, for example, is easily handled by Myth, while controlling a set-top box from a cable, satellite or fiber optic company is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)

While support has been added since this book was written, the stuff they actually did mention that has been part of MythTV since its incpetion is not well covered. For example, to set up your MythTV backend, you have to select from various capture card types. There are V4L, MPEG2, DVB, etc.--how about explaining what these are? No explanations is the norm, and when there is an explanation it's often simply restating the on-screen text without actually clarifying.

Six months of having this book and I've never once found an answer to a question I had. Now, I don't go looking for product specific stuff, because (as I said) there's no way they could cover that, but just basic joints and cogs and so on.

See, the thing about MythTV is that if you have just the right hardware and a simple enough setup, it might take you fifteen minutes to set up. If you don't, it could take you weeks to set up, or you might never be able to do it.

To be useful, this book really should have explored =how= to troubleshoot. They couldn't do the actual troubleshooting for you--there are too many things that can go wrong--but they could tell you about the utlities and hardware settings that allow you see where your problems lie.

Maybe they just didn't have the space. But, as I say above, it makes the book almost completely worthless.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Great book - Buy It ! August 17, 2007
Format:Paperback
This book should be renamed "the MythTV / PVR Bible". It has everything you need to know about creating your own PVR using MythTV.

Ideally you should have a working knowledge of Unix to get the most out of the book. While the authors have included step-by-step instructions for installing Ubuntu, if you haven't used Linux before, most of it will be "over your head". However, the good news is that there are tonnes of gold nuggets to be found - even in the first two chapters. As such, the Microsoft "point and click" people should buy the book purely on the basis of a good sanity check - eg: have you considered all the available options relating to hardware?

Something that most authors leave out of books is the setup they use at home. Stewart and Michael (the authors) include their own hardware and cover in detail why they use it. If you combine this information with the lists of recommended hardware, you will avoid the most common mistakes that people make when creating a PVR.

While I've done a lot of research into building PVR's and have a Unix background, I managed to get a lot out of it. Expert users will find the information relating to plug-ins, advanced TV recording and expanding MythTV worth the read.

If you are thinking about building a PVR, do yourself a favor - stop everything you are doing and buy this book first.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Great overview July 25, 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had been playing with Knoppmyth already to get a feel for MythTV and see if I wanted to use it to replace my TIVO. There are so many options and features that I was looking for a good book to cover an overview of MythTV and talk about install options/pitfalls etc. in more detail from a practical standpoint.

This book addressed many of my concerns and questions I had going into reading the book and helped me follow through and a make a fully educated decision in moving forward with building and installing my new MythTV box.

For anyone considering MythTV or looking for a good guide to get it up and running, I highly recommend this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Sorely need a update
The amount of tips I did pick up were few and far between. I had to refer to the Wiki when this book had only three lines of text to cover what was a huge job. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Andrew D Stairs
Good Reading
Very informative book. I am building a Linux media box and the book helped a lot.
Published on May 6, 2010 by L. B. Little
Great Book...
Got this to install MythTV on an old PC with a PVR-150 MCE TV Tuner. Even though the book is more than helpful... Read more
Published on July 9, 2009 by Furball
Practical MythTV
The books was out of date in some areas. Mythtv has come really come along in the configuration and setup.
Published on April 13, 2009 by Timothy C. Darr
How to wathc TV using Linux
This book is about how to watch TV using Ubuntu Linux. Nevertheless that in book is described for Ubuntu Linux after reading this book you may use this for other Linux... Read more
Published on February 24, 2009 by Krasen Davidov
An Excellent Book
If you are interested in getting a Mythbox up and running, this is a great book to start with. True, all of the information you need is available on-line, but here it is organized... Read more
Published on April 15, 2008 by Stanley Mortel
Not for the Novice -- Unfortunately
I have been using Windows for as long as it has been around. I have done web development. I have even been exposed to Unix a number of years ago, so I thought I would be able to... Read more
Published on April 10, 2008 by C. Denney
Perhaps Dated; Wasn't Very Helpful
I fall within the vast range of Linux users who know just enough to be dangerous, but at least realize that this is where they happen to be. Read more
Published on March 21, 2008 by B. Wolfe
Not worth the money
The book is outdated for the state that mythtv has advanced to. I used MythDora to set my system up and most of the hard work has been done. Read more
Published on January 26, 2008 by M. Henderson
Good book, marred by some errors and lack of publisher support
I wonder if the previous reviewers have actually tried following the installation directions given in chapters 2 and 3. Read more
Published on December 16, 2007 by J. C. Kennedy
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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funny bunnies, new partition, play settings, ubuntu linux, synaptic package manager, commercial flagging, network control interface, lirc daemon, remote frontends, lircrc file, tar xfj, master backend, more tuners, digital capture cards, playback group, backend machine, guide data source, recording priority, recording profiles, upcoming recordings, built plugin, analog card, recordings menu, commercial detection, playback menu
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Network Control, North America, Media Settings, Whose Line Is It Anyway, Google Talk, United States, Xbox Linux, Create Primary Partition, Days Later, Sun Jun, Optical Disks, Ivan the Bearable, Applications Places System, Quit Choose, Information Center, Matching Shows, Wed May, Microsoft Xbox, Setting Up Your Scheduling Options, Media Library, Tue May, Archive Files, New Video Source, Done Building, Info Center Settings
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