Linux and Media PCs

[Unit21]

Hi Fester,


Linux as a MediaPC is possible and qorks quite well.
I personally recommed MythTV as it most has all the functionality you need and also has Client/Server capabilites.
It uses mplayer as the media layer and some other straightforward OpenSource software like MySQL for the server-part,
so it shouldn't be too hard to set up.
Even I managed to get it running on my Mandriva-box.
It is a bit of a resource-hog though, so your hardware might not be up to it...

Anyway, you can read more about it here:

http://www.mythtv.org/

And download a ready-made distribution built on Knoppix (Debian) here:

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/

As far as I can tell the distro can be used as a LiveCD.
Have fun!

 :-)

[Unit21]

Howdy Fester.

Long time no post... Just thought I´d update you on my experiences with Linux MediaPCs so far...

Since I last posted here I have changed my Linux-box from Mandriva to Suse, or rather OpenSuse. MythTV installs and runs like a charm. It is easily added by connecting to an online upgrade-server within Suses update utility.
As an added perk installing Myth onto OpenSuse also puts multimedia-stuff into OpenSuse.

My setup is a 2.4Ghz P4 with an old nVidia GeForce 4200 card.
MythTV runs smooth and plays pretty much any media-file I can throw at it, but my gfx-card is a bit sluggish sometimes. Not so much during playback, but the menus can sometimes slow down to a crawl...

I also have a MediaPC in my livingroom running Windows MCE since this is the only software that integrates with my SetTopBox. I receive TV through my DSL as a streaming service kind of deal...
But to be fair, Windows MCE really doesn´t work as well as I hoped and I therefore have all my mediafiles hosted on the Linux-box. It just feels safer to have the files on a system that doesn´t crash a couple of times a week.
Besides, Linux systems are built for client/server tasks so I can boot pretty much any PC or MAC in the house to display mediafiles from my Linux-box using the MythTV interface.

Anyway, if any of you guys want to play around with Mediacenter PCs on Linux, based on my experience, I think you should have a minimum setup of:

P4 2Ghz CPU
nVidia Geforce 6600 or better
1Gig memory

I also think that MythTV is the best Mediacenter application for Linux. Especially because of it´s client/server model. If you install it using OpenSuse 10.2 you get a really neat system that is easy to maintain and installs MythTV real easy. It will also host a nice MythTV-backend server that you can connect thin clients to. Anything above Via Epia 600Mhz Eden systems should work fine as MythTV frontends.

The Knoppix-based KnpppMyth is even easier to install, but is a bit picky about hardware. It is really easy to use for booting any PC that it supports into a MythTV-frontend.
A  nice and easy way to have a Mediacenter in the kitchen...   ;-)

By the by,

Has anyone of you guys played around with the thought of an Amiga-based Mediacenter. At least for playing music and video - and maybe watching TV?!
An Amiga-PPC with a PCI-expansion should be up to the task... And the frontend for the system can be built in Hollywood or even Scala...

Any thoughts??
Did anyone try it??