[mythtv-users] Does MythTV support HD video and media libraries

[Nicolas Will]

On Tue, 2008-12-30 at 08:19 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote:
> First let me say that installation of MythTV under Ubuntu 8.10 is not
> exactly straightforward. I am a sysadmin with years of Linux and MySQL
> experience, and yet installing that stuff (via apt-get) and then
> configuring was a big pain. After about an hour of screwing around, I
> finally realized that it did not set up any database or permissions
> and was able to just configure MySQL databases by hand by issuing
> various "create database" and "grant" commands, editing mysql.txt,
> etc, something that I think the distro should do. Anyhow, this is
> mostly a complaint about Ubuntu. I think that I got that to work. 

Your experience is very, very strange with Ubuntu.

Ubuntu contains all the necessary packages, which create everything
properly. The Mythbuntu team is active and doing great work.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/



> 
> Now that I got this off my chest, here's my question. It pertains to
> use of an "entertainment PC" that I set up next to my big screen LCD
> TV.


Like most people here.



> 
> 1. Does MythTV support HD video such as satellite video.

It does support DVB-S for satellite. DVB-S2 is coming soon.


>  If so, what
> capture card (component input, I guess?)


For TV cards, head over to http://www.linuxtv.org/ as they are the
sources for all drivers.



>  and IR transmitter would you
> suggest that would "just work out of the box".

On Ubuntu, I would suggest to get the mythbuntu-control-center package
and look at the remote control section. All those work out of the box,
the list is quite extensive.

Those Vista MCE remotes work quite well.


> 
> I am specifically not interested in anything that will not work out of
> the box.


Then I will suggest that MythTV may not be for you. It is a great
system, with many possibilities. But it requires some time and
involvement to get the best out of it. Some parts are a bit rough, some
take time to understand, some need UI love, etc... I still discover new
capabilities after 1.5 years of using it. But that time put in will
return a lot.




> 
> 1a. Bonus question is that we happen to have two satellite feeds (Dish
> Network and DirecTV) and supporting two feeds would be awesome, if
> possible. 

You will not have tuners doing those 2 directly. You will need to either
capture Std Def though a video capture card, or use an HD-PVR capturing
through Components cabling for High Def.

HD-PVR support is not out of the box.


> 
> 2. Does MythTV support having a media library (libraries), that is,
> file system repositories of videos and music, playlists etc.

It does, for music, videos, and pictures, out of the box.


>  I was
> hoping to find a solution that would let me use MythTV as that main 10
> foot interface to support all media viewing that I may want to do. 

It is. But it requires interest, time, and some efforts.


> 
> My platform is Ubuntu 8.10.

Look at Mythbuntu, all their packages are in Universe.

It is my platform too:

http://www.youplala.net/linux/home-theater-pc

Nico