MythTV

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MythTV is a powerful media center and video recording software system. The distributed architecture allows analog and digital media to be captured, organized, and streamed over the network to other MythTV instances or network attached devices.

Installation

MythTV is a complex and capable system and during the first install can be a little daunting to configure if there is no familiarity with the software. Once the backend has been set up properly and configured with recording devices/sources (DVB or analog capture etc.), there is usually little maintenance here and there in the future.

Kernel

Depending on how MythTV is going to be configured, there may be options in the kernel that need to be enabled. If support is required for recording media from DVB devices or controlling with a remote control, the relevant devices need to be enabled in the kernel before MythTV or any other applications will be able to access them.

KERNEL Example enabling support for DVB devices

Write kernel feature instructions here.

USE flags

MythTV has quite a few USE flags to customize configuration according to hardware specification and software requirements.

USE flags for media-tv/mythtv Open Source DVR and media center hub

`+X`	Add support for X11
`+lame`	Prefer using LAME libraries for MP3 encoding support
`+opengl`	Add support for OpenGL (3D graphics)
`+wrapper`	Use Ubuntu mythtfrontend wrapper
`+xml`	Add support for XML files
`+xvid`	Add support for xvid.org's open-source mpeg-4 codec
`alsa`	Allows MythTV to directly output sound to ALSA devices
`asi`	Support for DVEO ASI recorder
`autostart`	Use a custom autostart configuration
`cdda`	Add Compact Disk Digital Audio (Standard Audio CD) support
`cdr`	Add support for CD writer hardware
`cec`	Allows control of CEC enabled TVs via HDMI
`ceton`	Ceton InfiniTV 4 a CableCARD-enabled tuner support
`debug`	Instructs Qt to use the 'debug' target
`dvb`	Add support for DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting)
`dvd`	Add support for DVDs
`exif`	Add support for reading EXIF headers from JPEG and TIFF images
`fftw`	Support visualizations via sci-libs/fftw
`hdhomerun`	Silicondust USA Inc.network-attached tuner support
`ieee1394`	Firewire enabled Cable boxe support
`jack`	Allows MythTV to use JACK as your sound output device
`java`	BD-J support for Blu-ray discs
`lcd`	Enable use of app-misc/lcdproc data display
`libass`	SRT/SSA/ASS (SubRip / SubStation Alpha) subtitle support
`lirc`	LIRC remote control device support
`nvdec`	Enable NVDEC (NVCUVID) hardware accelerated video decoding
`oss`	Add support for OSS (Open Sound System)
`perl`	Build the perl bindings for MythTV
`pulseaudio`	Add sound server support via media-libs/libpulse (may be PulseAudio or PipeWire)
`python`	Add optional support/bindings for the Python language
`raw`	Add support for raw image formats
`systemd`	Enable use of systemd-specific libraries and features like socket activation or session tracking
`v4l`	Enable support for video4linux (using linux-headers or userspace libv4l libraries)
`vaapi`	Enable Video Acceleration API for hardware decoding
`vbox`	V@Box Communications network-attached tuner devices support
`vdpau`	Enable the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix acceleration interface
`vpx`	Add support for VP8/VP9 codecs (usually via media-libs/libvpx)
`x264`	Enable h264 encoding using x264
`x265`	Enable h265 encoding using x265
`xmltv`	Support media-tv/xmltv TV listing - not used by Schedules Direct]
`zeroconf`	Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2025-01-02 04:51 More information about USE flags

Emerge

root #emerge --ask media-tv/mythtv

Configuration

(Explain how to configure the package/software/tool/utility in this section.)

MythTV includes a backend which handles recordings and manages databases of media, this has to be configured and running before the a client, mythfrontend, or other media player can interact with the MythTV system. MythTV also requires a running MySQL compatible database server such as MySQL or MariaDB to function, this is handled through the database modules of Qt.

Database

A database will need to be set up before the MythTV backend can be started. The emerge command should have already pulled in MySQL or MariaDB but the database server may not have been configured yet, if this is the case please refer to MySQL or MariaDB for information. The following command will set up the MythTV database using the emerge config phase, this will require a root user and password for the database.

root #emerge --config media-tv/mythtv

Mythbackend

At least one backend must be running to use MythTV, this can be on the same host as the frontend or a different host on the network.

Start the MythTV backend on the chosen host(s) and add it to the default runlevel.

root #

/etc/init.d/mythbackend start

root #

rc-update add mythbackend default

Usage

Warning
This page is a work in progress by Gavlee (talk | contribs). Treat its contents with caution.

(Explain how to use the package/software/tool/utility in this section.)

Invocation

(Remove this section if not applicable.)

MythTV frontend

The mythfrontend application is the frontend process of MythTV for viewing media on the MythTV system.

user $mythfrontend

Troubleshooting

Removal

Unmerge

Removal can be as simple as running an --unmerge:

root #emerge --ask --unmerge media-tv/mythtv

External resources

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ - Official MythTV Wiki
http://www.linuxtv.org/ - Television with Linux
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page - The Television with Linux wiki providing lots of information on configuring specific devices