[mythtv-users] Netgear EVA9150 and MythTV

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Wed Jun 23 23:01:41 UTC 2010


On Wednesday, June 23, 2010 04:14:45 pm Jason Ward wrote:

> > If you mean actually *run* MythTV on the device I'd say no chance at all.
> 
> Yes, I did mean *run*, any reason why you say "no chance at all"?  I'm
> pretty certain its base OS is Linux already, and its clearly capable
> of video playback including HD (so I'd hope playback performace should
> MythTV ever be able to run on the device would be great).

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess it's running some sort of SOC, probably ARM9-based like the Sigma Designs chips. This 
is what Myka runs. Video decoding is done in hardware.

You would need to have a Linux distro for the ARM-9, not impossible, but how it ties into the decoding hardware is unknown 
to  me. I'm not aware of any successful Myth install on an ARM, but I suppose someone may have done it by now.

It would be great, as it would mean you could run Myth on a Popcorn Hour, or other Networked Media Tank. There was some 
initial talk of Myth on a PCH here long ago, I don't think it went anywhere.

Since units that use hardware decoding generally have very weak CPUs, I suspect running Myth is out of the question. I'd 
bet MySQL alone would bring them to their knees.

TiVo runs Linux, but you'll never see Myth run on one. I think the WiKi sums it up well.

If anyone's aware of Myth running on non-Intel CPUs (ARM or MIPS) I'd be very interested.

> 
> > I would have thought you could use it as a player/renderer for the UPnP
> > server in Myth, but I don't see any mention of UPnP capability in their
> > ads.
> 
> Their uPnP integration is badly broken, requiring a special piece of
> Windows software running 24x7, so in my view, not uPnP but something
> else proprietary.

Sounds like the Kodak Theatre HD, it also requires special Windows software running all the time. Silly, it's not like 
UPnP is really really hard to do. Maybe they are trying to avoid license fees?

> 
> > Seems like a lot of money for something that's just a local media player,
> > it won't work with any internet source like Netflix.
> 
> At the time of launch Netgear promised much, and indeed for many
> months continued to release beta versions of their firmware, but last
> December they just stopped without explanation and left those of us
> that though we were getting something really good high and dry.  There
> are ways to get Netflix etc working with the Netgear, but you need to
> run PlayOn on a Windows machine.

Again, it sounds like a Myka to me, but Myka has a decent UPnP/DLNA implementation.

PlayON is a very useful tool, but, as you say, it requires a Windows machine (and a fairly beefy one at that). The price 
is (was) reasonable, though I do not like the move to a subscription model for pricing. I suspect that was demanded by the 
program suppliers.

I don't think you will ever see Netflix running purely under Linux, there's no way to protect the programming if it's 
available to the Linux OS, after all, we all know that Linux users are all just a bunch of pirates. MediaMall says this is 
one problem with porting PlayON to Linux.


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