Thinkpads Forum

I'm planning ahead to replace my old DVR (LG 3410A) with a MythTV system, probably on a Thinkpad T40 or T60 and I wonder if anyone else has done it and what video cards, HDTV tuners, and HDDs, etc., they've used, and what experiences they've had with the software.

It was awhile ago but I installed the MythTV setup. It's actually quite difficult. I think many run the live cd (or is it dvd?) because of this. Anyway, it was alot of work and in the end I gave up. Mainly because of the difficulty in getting the TV listings (I'd gotten it to work). It uses MySQL (either that or one of the other databases) and this requires configuration.

Personally, I wouldn't bother again. I used a Hauppauge card, but in retrospect any supported card would have worked fine (even the cheap ones). If I wanted a pvr these days I would buy a ready made one--or a hackable one, but not a diy job. hth

I can understand that: the install looks formidable. I'd prefer a GOOD readymade DVR, one that I can get recordings off the HDD easily, but the manufacturers are making DVRs so difficult that you can't even pull the HDD out and dump files off it.

Is there a decent hackable DVR? At a reasonable price, like about $500?

I've installed MythTV backend on a server, and used the frontend on my laptop to watch TV.

From memory the TV guide was the last part of the install and usually not too difficult but there are no program providers for NZ. There were scripts to run against one online tv guide but then they stopped updating
I was running it with client/server system as well as poster above. My server was/is headless and there is a way to run the server without having X installed. I was on dial up at the time and the 20+MB downloads did my head in. If you want to spend some time learning some of the very basics of MySQL, maybe go for it otherwise I'd get a hackable PVR.

independent wrote:From memory the TV guide was the last part of the install and usually not too difficult but there are no program providers for NZ. There were scripts to run against one online tv guide but then they stopped updating
I was running it with client/server system as well as poster above. My server was/is headless and there is a way to run the server without having X installed. I was on dial up at the time and the 20+MB downloads did my head in. If you want to spend some time learning some of the very basics of MySQL, maybe go for it otherwise I'd get a hackable PVR.

Linux on an X-Box is a capable replacement.

You could try MythDora or KnoppMyth. Those are supposed to be fairly easy. I installed MythTV on a Debian server (mini-tower). It installed without too much trouble but I have quite a bit of unix experience.

I use 1st generation hacked XBoxes with XBMC and xbmcmythtv as frontends on my 3 tvs and MythTV Player on our Windows laptops.

I currently have 3 PVR-500s which gives me 6 tuners. A bit of over kill but leaves open enough for live tv since I only ran cat5 not cable-tv cable to my 3 tvs. I can also watch livetv on my laptop since beta version of MythTV Player has live tv support. I am looking at an HDHomerun to setup for digital before 2009. The HDHomerun is external and sits on network with 2 tuners so might be a good choice for a laptop server.

This is an interesting project if you have the time.