[mythtv-users] Possible tiny mythfrontend?

Norm Dressler mlists at dressler.ca
Wed May 18 17:08:25 UTC 2011


On 05/18/2011 12:58 PM, Robert Longbottom wrote:
> On 18 May 2011, at 03:27 PM, Raymond Wagner<raymond at wagnerrp.com>  wrote:
>
>> On 5/18/2011 07:35, Anthony Giggins wrote:
>>> I know this will probably be shut down but in a perfect world :)
>>>
>>> http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/25-computer-is.php
>> Until such time as MythTV supports whatever video decoder exists on that
>> chip, it will be useless.  At such time as the video decoder is
>> supported by MythTV, it will still be useless because mythfrontend will
>> not be useful at 1080p resolution and only 128MB of memory.
> All sadly true :(
>
> Is there not a case for someone to write "mythfrontend-lite"?
>
> A cut down version of mythfrontend that could run on low spec hardware like this ( assuming it has a useable hardware HD video decoder ) that simply presents a list of recorded programs and allows the user to pick one and play it. Along with seek control and advert skip, etc. I.e. Just the features you need to watch recordings ( and maybe basic live tv - oh dear I'm getting carried away already! ), so no plugins, no scheduling, no tv guide, etc.
>
> Would be nice for secondary frontends in bedrooms or kitchens or study's. Of course you would probably still want to have at least one of your frontends running a fully fledged mythfrontend, or have access to mythweb.
>
Well, I have an Archos 101 tablet - its a 10" tablet with micro-HDMI 
out. The built-in player, which is optimized to show 720p HD, sees uPNP 
which in turn sees all of my recordings and videos.
It's an Android tablet with:
• ARM Cortex A8 at 1 GHz with DSP
• Graphic accelerator: 3D OpenGL ES 2.0
All the details are here: 
http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_101it/specs.html?country=us&lang=en

Live TV won't happen unless you start it recording first (mythweb 
perhaps?). Anything higher then 720p will not playback without 
conversion. All this to say it is possible to some extent. There are 
even some Android apps for Myth - although no native type frontend, 
mainly for remote control.

I imagine that some of the set top media devices like WD Live, Boxee 
Box, or others must also have the ability to playback the video content 
and some of those are available between 100 and 200 dollars.

The other option to consider for SD is an older Dreambox STB - although 
designed for the FTA world, it runs linux so you should be able to get a 
frontend on it. They are available used on Ebay these days for less then 
$100 (I haven't tried this myself but had only heard it was possible).

Norm


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