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
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
lame	Prefer using LAME libraries for MP3 encoding support
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
opengl	Add support for OpenGL (3D graphics)
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	Enable VP8/VP9 support for media-libs/libvpx
wrapper	Use Ubuntu mythtfrontend wrapper
x264	Enable h264 encoding using x264
x265	Enable h265 encoding using x265
xml	Add support for XML files
xmltv	Support media-tv/xmltv TV listing - not used by Schedules Direct]
xvid	Add support for xvid.org's open-source mpeg-4 codec
zeroconf	Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-03-10 01:51 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

Removal

Unmerge

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

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

See also

• MythTV/MythPlugins - Plugins for MythTV handling games, news, weather, etc.
• MythTV/MythWeb - Web application for allowing control of MythTV from a web browser.
• Kodi - A media center application (formerly known as XBMC), a plugin is available to interface with the MythTV backend.

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