Linux.com Article: Using Windows, Xbox, and iPod as Alternative MythTV Front Ends

Originally published at www.linux.com on December 09, 2008 at 09:00 AM; reprinted with the author’s permission. Digital video recorders (DVR) are becoming more and more mainstream. TiVo, in fact, has passed the truest test of any popular technology — having its name transformed into a verb. MythTV, a free and open source application that lets you turn a computer into a DVR, burst on the scene a few years ago, and has found fans among Linux users. However, with a little effort, it’s possible to run MythTV front ends on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Xbox, and even an Apple iPod Classic. When MythTV first emerged, only the bravest of the open source faithful dared to try it. Few had the specific hardware to make it work, let alone the...

Smart Home Media Project: Adding a Shortcut to XBMC

Well, it has been a while, so I thought I better at least complete this thought regarding XBMC.  Overall, it is one of the slickest open source projects I’ve encountered.  Well run, well designed, and very active.  However, there are some downsides.  Let me break this down as well as I can from my perspective: XBMC – The Good: Super fast and responsive Easy (ish) to setup Cheap hardware Active community Fantastic codec compatibility It just works XBMC – The Bad: Myth LiveTV Frontend ineffective Myth Schedules hard to read Adding shortcuts Remember, this is from my perspective.  XBMC is completely secondary to my MythTV needs–I am just not using it as a standalone. Right now there is no way to make the Xbox my only settop...

MythTV Frontend Article Published on Linux.com

Here is a link to my article on Linux.com.  It is my first effort, and while it turned out pretty well, I think I’ll do some things different next time.  And there will be a next time. http://www.linux.com/feature/144179 Give it a read and let me know what  you think!

Smart Home Media Project – Xebian

It’s been a little too long since my last post–apologies.  Here’s what I’ve found out since: The pre-built Xebian/Myth distro seems to have trouble finding my backend server.  Which is strange, as they are both on the same 100MB network segment.  It complains about no UPnP sources. Apparently no one can watch live TV on the XBMCMythTV script…I am giving up.  This will apparently be folded into the next major release of XBMC–the script developers are working directly with the XBMC team. The 1.3 release of PFSense will include support for OpenDNS via their DNS-O-Matic site.  This has nothing to do with XBMC…just thought it was cool.  All firewalls should be doing this! My PFSense firewall might be...

MySQL Authentication Woes – MythTVDB and XBMC

Well, this little issue hit me with a brief feeling of deja-vu.  It is the exact same trouble that I faced trying to get Nessus security scanner frontend to write data to a MySQL database.  I don’t know when exactly it changed, but new versions of MySQL writes passwords in a hashed table (and perhaps a new location, too) so that older apps trying to connect simply cannot read (or find) the password to authenticate the transaction.  In other words, the biggest issue I was having with the XBMCMythTV script was this authentication issue. And that was only after finding the sneaky place that Mythbuntu recorded the actual password in the first place!  The setup never asked me to assign one–it just popped a random password on the MySQL mythtv...