[HN Gopher] MythTV 33 Released - open-source all-in-one DVR
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       MythTV 33 Released - open-source all-in-one DVR
        
       Author : cf100clunk
       Score  : 128 points
       Date   : 2023-02-06 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.mythtv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.mythtv.org)
        
       | kvandy wrote:
       | Wow, had no idea this thing was still around. Takes me back to
       | neo Kodi/XBMC/Windows ME days. So much hardware and software to
       | accomplish what a small stick does today.
        
       | cptskippy wrote:
       | I tired for along time to get MythTV working with limited
       | success. The Silicon Dust tuners were new at the time and support
       | was spotty. I eventually gave up and used Windows MCE but it was
       | limited to a single TV.
       | 
       | I ended up replacing all of it with a 1st Gen TabloTV, Plex and a
       | Roku. I'm still rocking that TabloTV today. There's something to
       | be said for having an appliance that just works.
        
       | patja wrote:
       | I'm still rocking my 13 year old SageTV installation. Even the
       | hardware clients are still working well. So grateful they were
       | allowed to open source the software after Google acquired it.
        
         | drewg123 wrote:
         | I moved from MythTV to SageTV ~15 years ago or so, for the
         | hardware client.
         | 
         | A few months ago, I moved to Channels. What I like about it is
         | it works really well on Firesticks and AppleTVs that I already
         | have attached to my TVs, so that means I can finally get rid of
         | the hardware sagetv clients (one of which I've had to replace
         | the caps in) and simplify my setup.
         | 
         | When looking to move last fall, I first looked at MythTV. It
         | was still horrifically hard to setup. Given I'd never use a pc
         | client, I then moved on to tvheadend, which had its own issues
         | (mainly on the side of the kodi client). I finally settled on
         | Channels because they have FreeBSD support for the server, and
         | more importantly, It. Just. Works.
        
           | ubertaco wrote:
           | Can I run Channels for free if I selfhost everything, or do I
           | still have to pay them a monthly fee?
        
             | EricE wrote:
             | They have an annual fee - well worth it though as it
             | clearly funds development; the developers are VERY active
             | and constantly updating/improving it.
        
           | patja wrote:
           | for me, Comskip is the killer feature I would be very sad to
           | give up.
           | 
           | With Channels do you have to manually FF through ads?
        
             | drewg123 wrote:
             | No, it also uses comskip. I should have mentioned that..
        
           | gregmac wrote:
           | I did the same!
           | 
           | I ran MythTV on a PC connected to my TV for a while, but when
           | I wanted to add a second TV I had a really hard time getting
           | a decent fanless client at a reasonable cost (this was
           | mid/late 2000's). I ended up switching to SageTV purely for
           | the hardware client.
           | 
           | A year or so after SageTV was acquired, I moved to Plex. The
           | biggest miss was the hardware client. I went through several
           | sub-par iterations of PC-based hardware -- including mini-ITX
           | PCs and Raspberry Pi -- but never got a setup that could run
           | Plex, Youtube and Netflix and work 100% without a
           | keyboard/mouse involved. I also tried some hardware -- Roku,
           | original Chromecast -- but nothing was even remotely good as
           | the SageTV HD300's, even years later.
           | 
           | Until I found the Nvidia Shield -- though it's more Google TV
           | doing the real magic, I think. I still have the original 2015
           | model in my living room, still working perfectly. My newer
           | "media room" TV uses built-in Google TV stuff -- I originally
           | intended to use the Shield but it requires upgrading my just-
           | before-4K-came-out AVR to be able to do 4k, so this setup was
           | simpler. I also have a cheap "Chromcast with Google TV" on an
           | old smaller set in front of my treadmill.
           | 
           | Over the past few years, I have all but stopped using Plex,
           | though, as we went to pretty much 100% streaming services,
           | but it is still running.
           | 
           | It's really thanks to MythTV, though, that I started down
           | this path 15+ years ago. I've never had a cable/satellite TV
           | subscription in my name, ever. It's interesting now to look
           | back, because all my media sources have entirely changed
           | since I started. I do still have everything needed for OTA in
           | a box somewhere, but I never hooked it up in this house --
           | maybe it's time to give it a shot again.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Looks like only one small past thread:
       | 
       |  _MythTV: An Open Source Digital Video Recorder_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29634491 - Dec 2021 (3
       | comments)
        
       | aidenn0 wrote:
       | I loved MythTV, but I moved to a valley so I can't pull in any
       | OTA broadcasts anymore :(
        
         | ghaff wrote:
         | I'm right at the base of a hill and I've never been able to get
         | broadcast TV. A couple years back, I realized that I was
         | watching cable TV less and less and the odd show/sports
         | event/news broadcast just wasn't worth paying $1K/year any
         | longer.
        
       | fanatic2pope wrote:
       | Love mythtv. I've been using it since about 2003 or so. It was
       | definitely a janky experience in the beginning, but once I was
       | able to ditch needing an IR blaster it became an absolute
       | pleasure to setup and use.
        
       | deelowe wrote:
       | Oh man, I still have my hauppauge wintv card. Useless these days
       | with analog broadcasts no longer being a thing.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | The Tablo devices are what I use now for those few things on
         | broadcast TV I want to DVR. Fairly cheap, no recurring cost,
         | and reliable. The UI is a little wonky, but you get used to it.
         | And there's apps for things like FireTV, Roku, etc, so you
         | don't have to physically wire it to one TV.
        
       | mpnordland wrote:
       | If you're curious about the version number, it was changed from
       | 0.xx to xx.0 for release 29.
       | https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#When_...
        
       | harry8 wrote:
       | Wanna do it with a retired pc? I recommend ps3 usb tv tuners. aka
       | "Play TV" plentiful on second hand sights. Each has 2 tuners in
       | it. Do you even need 2 of these devices to get 4? Ever had a 3rd
       | thing to record or watch simultaneously? Might as well, they are
       | very cheap.
       | 
       | xbmc with the myth plugin on the frontend is great if you own the
       | thing that drives your tv screen. If you use appletv it seems you
       | don't own it and can't run xbmc or mythtv frontend on it. But you
       | can pay apple a sub and then also pay again for anything you
       | might want to watch out of their stunningly limited selection.
       | That's always apple's solution: Pay apple more to get something
       | that isn't what you wanted...
        
       | waynesonfire wrote:
       | the auto commercial skipping was the killer app feature of
       | MythTV. Really enjoyed MythTV.
       | 
       | Havn't looked at it; but, wish it would work with streaming
       | services / on-demand.
        
         | EricE wrote:
         | Channels DVR works with quite a few streaming services (via TV
         | Anywhere) and does commercial skip too. I use it with
         | YouTube.TV as well as Philo. My parents also pick up OTA with
         | an HD HomeRun on their channels DVR.
         | 
         | The downside to Channels (and to be fair, exact same with
         | MythTV) is the homebrew nature. I had to set up and maintain it
         | for them. But if you have the means to run one and you like
         | traditional cable channel content still, nothing beats
         | Channels.
         | 
         | They also have AppleTV and Firestick clients further sweetening
         | the deal. It's $80 a year - but if you have dealt with Tivo or
         | any of the other commercial products out there, that's not a
         | lot - and it directly funds development. And development on
         | Channels is very active, as is the dev participation in their
         | forums (always a HUGE plus).
        
         | cube00 wrote:
         | Streaming services are never going to open themselves up for
         | this.
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | I record streaming services with obs. I guess one could
           | script something with some browser automation and ffmpeg.
        
       | dsr_ wrote:
       | MythTV stats from my house media server:
       | 
       | Number of shows: 442
       | 
       | Number of episodes: 25061
       | 
       | First recording: Monday February 19th, 2007
       | 
       | Last recording: Sunday February 5th, 2023
       | 
       | Total Running Time: 15 years 11 months 16 days 5 hrs 30 mins
       | 
       | Total Recorded: 2 years 1 month 13 days 18 mins
       | 
       | Percent of time spent recording: 13%
       | 
       | Specs: 2-core Intel CPU, 8GB RAM, 250 GB SATA SSD root, 6TB of
       | mirrored storage, which is perpetually nearly full.
        
       | allenbina wrote:
       | I tried to get this to work multiple times around 2004. This
       | might be where I first dove into linux. I gave up every time. I
       | ended up using windows media center which worked flawlessly for
       | years. I moved on to plex and a hdtvhomerun when they released it
       | (it handles deleting old series, etc). About a year ago I
       | realized I don't really watch live TV anymore and unplugged it.
        
         | nerdix wrote:
         | Similar for me but I never made a serious attempt at MythTV
         | because I never had dedicated hardware in those days. So I
         | ended up installing XP MCE on my main machine (you could
         | minimize/exit Media Center and it was just plain Windows
         | underneath).
         | 
         | Used that for a while then went down the XBMC path (for
         | windows..pre-Kodi for a while). Ended up with a Boxee Box
         | (first real dedicated hardware). Then moved to Plex hosted on a
         | Windows Home Server with various clients over the years (Sony
         | NSZ-GS7 Google TV, OG Chromecast, Nexus Player, one of the
         | older FireTVs, Chromecast Ultra).
         | 
         | The Home Server died so I moved to UnRaid with containerized
         | Plex. Had a HDHomeRun Prime integrated with Plex for a bit. But
         | dropped cable in favor of streaming TV services. That's the
         | closest I ever got to a MythTV setup.
        
         | deepspace wrote:
         | Same here. Tried multiple times, but it was just too rough.
         | 
         | I ended up creating a barebones DVR from scratch in FreeBSD,
         | which I was more familiar with than Linux. I kept adding
         | incremental features over the next few years, until it was a
         | very usable system, and exactly suitable for my needs.
         | 
         | Then the internet became fast enough to stream and download
         | content, and the old workhorse ended up in a closet somewhere.
        
         | matthewmcg wrote:
         | Similar for me, except I got it working after tens of hours
         | invested. After wasting time with nonstandard hardware, I got a
         | Hauppauge PVR series capture card with hardware MPEG2 encoding.
         | That made all the difference.
         | 
         | I was in college at the time and had free HBO on the dorm cable
         | network, plus completely unfiltered 100mbps ethernet throughout
         | the campus. It was fun to have a "DIY Tivo" server that could
         | automatically remove commercials and make my library available
         | to my suitemates.
        
           | matthewmcg wrote:
           | In case this resonates with anyone else's nostalgia, the
           | highlight of my time with MythTV was setting up a system to
           | automatically transcode episodes of selected shows to 320x250
           | for my _iPod video_ which I could then sync and watch on a
           | plane. Heady stuff for 2005-2006.
        
         | ericflo wrote:
         | I learned most of what I know about Linux trying over years to
         | set up and maintain a MythBuntu box
        
       | spear wrote:
       | MythTV was the reason I bought and assembled my first x86 PC. I
       | even bought a copy of Red Hat Linux 8 Personal (before Fedora) to
       | run on it. That system became my main desktop PC and is still
       | running more than 20 years later -- like a Ship of Theseus, with
       | every hardware and software component upgraded multiple times.
       | I'm not a progammer but I wanted to help fix bugs and add
       | features, so it was also the reason I learned C++ and MySQL.
       | 
       | I still use MythTV (with additional PCs as backends and
       | frontends) to record Comcast digital cable with HDHomerun Cable
       | Card tuners. It also serves my small library of music files and
       | can play DVDs and BluRay discs. I've ripped 4k UHD BluRay discs
       | using MakeMKV and MythTV can play the files but the colors are
       | wrong since a lot of the plumbing needs HDR support.
        
       | teel wrote:
       | First I thought I had clicked something that showed really old
       | postings. I had no idea MythTV would still be around. I never
       | used MythTV though; I used Freevo in the 2000s. Worked quite well
       | once I had it configured. Every once in a while I looked over the
       | fence to see if the DVRs were greener on the other side, but
       | never got around trying MythTV. I still have many shows and
       | episodes I saved with Freevo, on old hard drives somewhere.
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | Neat!
       | 
       | It'd be nice if there were consumer-ready hardware for something
       | like this. I know a few people with VCRs (yes, in 2023) that
       | still record to tape from their digital receiver and play back
       | over composite.
       | 
       | I'm amazed that you can't just buy a device that acts like a VCR,
       | with composite and line in and out, but records and plays back
       | via digital files instead of tape.
       | 
       | I want to try this, perhaps using an older Intel Mac mini, but
       | I'm wondering how to "sell" it to someone who just wants a VCR.
        
         | jaywalk wrote:
         | The reason you can't just buy a "VCR-like" device is because
         | everything is digital now, and it's much simpler/cheaper to
         | capture and record the digital signal than do analog/digital
         | conversion.
        
         | ThinkingGuy wrote:
         | It's not a fully Free (as in speech) Software solution, but
         | Tivo does make a device that works with digital OTA broadcasts.
         | 
         | https://www.tivo.com/products/edge-antenna
        
         | rascul wrote:
         | > I'm amazed that you can't just buy a device that acts like a
         | VCR, with composite and line in and out, but records and plays
         | back via digital files instead of tape.
         | 
         | You can. They're called digital video recorders (DVR). I had
         | one around 15 years ago (I don't remember brand or model). A
         | quick search on Amazon had this one as the first result:
         | 
         | https://www.amazon.com/ClonerAlliance-Recorder-Playback-Conv...
        
           | johnklos wrote:
           | Wow! Thank you :D I've been looking, but every time I've
           | searched for anything like "DVR", I get boxes to record
           | surveillance camera feeds.
           | 
           | This is expensive, but may very well be worth the money.
           | Thanks!
        
             | rascul wrote:
             | Yes, you have to dig through the DVR results. PVR (personal
             | video recorder) might be a better search term, I didn't try
             | it. I'm sure there's some that cost less, that was just the
             | first one I found.
        
         | bobleeswagger wrote:
         | >I'm amazed that you can't just buy a device that acts like a
         | VCR, with composite and line in and out, but records and plays
         | back via digital files instead of tape.
         | 
         | HDHomerun does this.
        
         | EricE wrote:
         | Tivo has a pure OTA model that is a reasonable deal. And their
         | UI still beats the pants off of everyone else. Heck they
         | finally embraced commercial skipping too.
         | 
         | If you don't something cheaper/more DIY oriented I'm really
         | happy with channels dvr. It interfaces with Youtube.TV and many
         | others (anyone who partners with TV Anywhere) and can do Over
         | the Air recording with HD Homerun. What I really like is it
         | provides one unified, central location for the majority of the
         | services I care about.
        
       | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
       | Wow MythTV! This is a blast from the past. I was using this back
       | in ~2006 or so. It sorta worked haha.
        
       | Prolixium wrote:
       | It's ashame that MythWeb isn't under active development
       | anymore[0]. The MythWeb change log in the 0.33 release doesn't
       | have any commits newer than June 4, 2022.
       | 
       | Maybe I'm weird but I use MythWeb exclusively even though I run
       | MythTV on my office workstation. mythfrontend is nice but I find
       | it easier (read: more window manager-friendly) to use mpv to play
       | recordings.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythWeb
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | There's now a built-in web frontend, which I guess let the
         | sails out of mythweb. :/
         | 
         | I've never been interested in scheduling through the frontend,
         | I just use it to playback recordings with a remote control. I
         | find it much easier to search and browse the guide through a
         | web browser.
        
       | daveevad wrote:
       | Big fan of MythTV here and daily user forever now.
       | 
       | Paired with an HDHomerun and Jellyfin, MythTV really gives one a
       | pretty good poor man's Youtube TV with no recurring fees. One of
       | mine runs in a virtual machine in the garage at my family's farm,
       | with a custom script beaming me my childhood local news to enjoy
       | over coffee in the morning.
        
         | ed25519FUUU wrote:
         | Childhood local news? Like news episodes from 20 years ago or
         | the current stations you watched when you were young?
        
           | daveevad wrote:
           | The local stations I watched when I was a child. There are a
           | handful of newscasters still around from when I last lived
           | there 25 years ago. It's a pretty fun way of keeping a pulse
           | of back home.
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | Damn, nostalgia. MythTV, DVR's, ahem, pirate keys for deco's...
       | good times.
       | 
       | Now I don't want a TV near me in kilometers.
        
       | slindsey wrote:
       | I used MythTV extensively in the late 2000s to capture over the
       | air (OTA) tv. My kids were young and it was a terrific way to
       | capture tv shows for them (and for me when doing 2AM feedings).
       | 
       | It's ability to identify and skip commercials was awesome and I'm
       | sure it's gotten better. The biggest issues I had were hardware
       | related to the capture devices and getting remotes to work.
       | 
       | Honestly, given the state of streaming (40 different services all
       | carrying different content), it might be worth looking at again.
        
         | bshep wrote:
         | I had a similar experience!
         | 
         | We had 3 TVs hooked up, each with its own instance and a
         | central recording instance with 3 capture cards. It worked
         | great, you could record or playback from any of the TVs.
         | 
         | Main issue we had was getting the remotes to work correctly. I
         | remember editing configs constantly to get correct behavior
         | from the remotes.
        
         | iwanttocomment wrote:
         | I was a big MythTV fan in the aughts, and this was a blast from
         | the past.
         | 
         | These days I use an HDHomeRun Flex 4K. Four tuners, 4K ATSC
         | support, clients for virtually all platforms (including Smart
         | TVs) so you don't have to connect a proper "computer" to the TV
         | or fumble with remotes, has cheap "bring your own storage"
         | network DVR support, it's a real neat device for $200.
         | 
         | It picks up _82_ OTA channels where I live. Just crazy how much
         | content is on OTA TV these days.
        
           | lizknope wrote:
           | I just connected to the built in web server in my HD HomeRun
           | and it shows 105 channels. I always see people complaining
           | about having to pay for cable to watch sports when 90% of
           | them are available for free over the air.
        
             | nerdix wrote:
             | Do you get ESPN OTA? Or your local sports regional network
             | (likely owned by Bally Sports) OTA?
             | 
             | Because that's usually what people really mean when they
             | say that they need cable for sports. They want to watch
             | some big game that ESPN paid big money for the broadcast
             | rights like the college football national championship. Or
             | they want to watch their local professional NBA or MLB team
             | and the regional network paid big money for exclusive
             | broadcast rights in the area so it's blacked out on League
             | Pass (NBA) or MLB.tv
        
               | lizknope wrote:
               | I see people talking about NFL games on reddit
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl
               | 
               | So many people complain about having to pay for cable. I
               | watch all of my Sunday football for free OTA.
               | 
               | ESPN of course has monday night football and Amazon now
               | has Thursday and you are right that there are thousands
               | of other sports events on pay channels. But I am
               | surprised at how many people in the reddit game threads
               | don't realize that you can watch CBS, NBC, and Fox over
               | the air for free.
        
               | evancox100 wrote:
               | The NFL is the exception and has done a good job
               | maintaining OTA availability of most of the games.
        
             | JamesSwift wrote:
             | One thing that you learn pretty quickly if you go deep on
             | the cord-cutter route is that every single consumer
             | situation is unique. The feasability/enjoyment of cord-
             | cutting is going to _heavily_ depend on your _very
             | specific_ viewing habits and physical setup (i.e. nearby
             | towers and your line-of-sight to said towers... in addition
             | to direction of towers if you need to combine multiple
             | sources).
             | 
             | Sports are actually one of the pros of cord-cutting in some
             | scenarios, as you will generally get much higher quality
             | streams OTA. But if there are black-out rules or you care
             | about specific national/international teams then all of a
             | sudden completely cut off. It all just depends on the
             | specifics.
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | That really depends on the sports and maybe the teams you
             | want to watch. Looking at my TV schedule for the next two
             | weeks or so, I get three NHL games OTA, none of which
             | feature my local team (which is playing seven games in the
             | same time frame). There's usually a lot of baseball and
             | football, but whether you teams you want to follow is up
             | for grabs.
             | 
             | There's lots of channels, but nothing to watch :P with
             | cable, there'd be a lot more channels, and still, nothing
             | to watch :)
        
       | TheRealDunkirk wrote:
       | I used MythTV for several years, until Comcast went digital in my
       | neck of the woods, and my tuner card was useless. What do people
       | tune to content with now? Is it all IR control of a cable box?
        
         | klinquist wrote:
         | I still use a cablecard with Comcast (in an HDHomeRun Prime),
         | currently using ChannelsDVR as my DVR.
        
           | TheRealDunkirk wrote:
           | Oh, wow. I never expected Comcast to actually support such an
           | idea. Nice!
        
         | simbas wrote:
         | Good old OTA tv! ATSC
        
       | m3galinux wrote:
       | I've used MythTV since something like 2004. Still great to use
       | for Digital OTA broadcasts (and free-to-air satellite / DVB if
       | that's available in your area). Cable DRM has unfortunately made
       | it much less useful for recording cable broadcasts, thanks to
       | them being allowed to encrypt all QAM signals, and now aren't
       | required to support/provide CableCards either:
       | https://www.nexttv.com/news/charter-cuts-off-cablecard-suppo...
        
         | vaporary wrote:
         | That's interesting. I setup a new MythTV box two years ago on a
         | Mac mini running Ubuntu, using a Hauppauge HD PVR 1212 capture
         | device connected over USB. I've been able to record HD cable
         | without dealing with any DRM by using the RCA jacks of my
         | Comcast box, which has worked great.
        
       | kris_wayton wrote:
       | Sort of waiting for some new iteration of what "popcorn time"
       | was. With all the fragmentation of content across different
       | providers, and more aggressive actions on account sharing,
       | crossing region restrictions, etc...it feels like average people
       | are now starting to complain a lot.
       | 
       | There is an opening for a very beginner friendly pirate platform
       | to rise again. Not because nobody wants to pay exactly, but
       | because doing it legally is complex now.
        
         | jedberg wrote:
         | https://movies123.video/
         | 
         | Tons of ad spam, but seems to work eventually.
        
         | bobleeswagger wrote:
         | > Sort of waiting for some new iteration of what "popcorn time"
         | was
         | 
         | No. Popcorn time was a massive free rider/tragedy of the
         | commons problem and a new version of it will continue to erode
         | the good parts of piracy culture that exist.
         | 
         | If you're too lazy to contribute effectively to these cultures,
         | you should just keep paying for Netflix or IPTorrents.
        
           | kris_wayton wrote:
           | I wasn't trying to compare paid/free, just that there's a
           | renewed opening for a beginner friendly pirate platform.
           | 
           | Yes, popcorn time failed, but I was referencing the thing
           | where it had once made inroads with non-technical people in
           | some part because of the ease and not just the "Free" part.
        
             | bobleeswagger wrote:
             | You missed my point entirely. Popcorn time was net negative
             | for piracy. It led to the current state of things IMO;
             | Netflix, Hulu, etc. may have had fewer ads, more features,
             | and lower prices if Popcorn time had not led to so many
             | non-technical people having ease of access.
             | 
             | Culture matters. Understand what maintains it. Protect it.
        
               | kris_wayton wrote:
               | Tends to happen when you call people lazy, etc. They miss
               | your point.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | hbcondo714 wrote:
             | Popcorn Time Is Back:
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31972681
        
         | jasondoty wrote:
         | Private services like this exist. For $40 a year one lets me
         | stream any show/movie on apps across all platforms including
         | android tv. Seamless netflix-like sync across devices, family
         | profiles, selectable video/audio quality up to 4k, etc
        
           | niteshade wrote:
           | Are they on the dark web? Perhaps I've just been (un)lucky,
           | I've never seen any.
        
             | jasondoty wrote:
             | No, tor can't handle bandwidth of movie streaming.
        
             | kris_wayton wrote:
             | Feels like they are referencing something that includes the
             | google-able tagline "lower price than the majority of file
             | hosters while still offering"
        
               | jasondoty wrote:
               | I use this service as well for other things, but not what
               | I was referring to, it barely fits the description.
        
         | slfnflctd wrote:
         | I'm fairly certain we're close to the point of a la carte
         | streaming reaching parity with at least some major cable
         | package offerings.
         | 
         | This became more clear to me a couple weeks ago when my Boomer
         | parents started exploring 'cutting the cord'. To get them
         | access to everything they are now being offered by their cable
         | company (including multiple on-demand streaming options) won't
         | actually save them that much money and would introduce a
         | nontrivial amount of hassle.
         | 
         | They still may be doing it, but it's going to involve a lot of
         | help from me. I almost would rather have just paid them the
         | difference to not deal with it. I suppose teaching our elders
         | the new ways has some value in itself... I just need to keep
         | telling myself that...
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | Forget the pirate part, I wish there were just a very beginner
         | friendly FOSS "smart" TV platform that seamlessly integrated
         | antenna, cable, auxiliary inputs, and streaming services (DRMed
         | or otherwise) with PVR functionality that could be thrown on a
         | minimal system and bolted to the back of a monitor. Basically a
         | MythTV or Kodi minus minus.
        
           | intelVISA wrote:
           | LibreELEC on a Pi/cheap SBC?
        
       | podiki wrote:
       | This takes me back! The first home server I ran had a TV capture
       | card, ran Gentoo with MythTV, was hooked up to the living room
       | TV, and was a pretty good source of entertainment for the
       | gradstudent apartment I shared. Saving broadcasts, trimming out
       | commercials, ... and of course fun with running a Linux server.
       | 
       | Good to see the project still going 10-15 years after I first
       | heard of it (though I haven't used it in a long time)!
        
         | lp0_on_fire wrote:
         | Same. I attribute a good portion of my linux knowledge today to
         | setting up and running a MythTV machine. I ditched cable and
         | moved to a place that has little OTA broadcasts so haven't run
         | it in years but that box is still sitting in my basement.
        
       | klinquist wrote:
       | Check out channels dvr (getchannels.com/dvr) as a modern,
       | actively developed DVR. I love it. I'm running Channels on an
       | ESXi host and just use the AppleTV app as the interface.
        
         | LouisvilleGeek wrote:
         | Channels DVR is a fantastic piece of software that I have been
         | running for a few years now. It's reliable and does not need
         | much in terms of hosting hardware. Currently running it on a
         | 2012 Mac Mini with USB attached SSD with an Apple TV as the
         | client.
        
       | nickcw wrote:
       | I was always very impressed with MythTV. It was the first project
       | that I saw that made really good use of versioning their mysql
       | database with SQL queries to change the schema linked to the
       | software version.
       | 
       | I used it extensively. I obsessively recorded everything off over
       | the air digital TV and wrote it to DVDs. I had a little script to
       | look up ratings of movies in IMDB, apply weighting factors due to
       | personal tastes and record all the ones which made the grade. I'd
       | then edit the commercials out and burn to DVDs all losslessly.
       | 
       | However, this all came to an end when my 2 year old son took the
       | running hosepipe from the garden one summer, through the open
       | patio doors into the house and proceeded to fill up the MythTV
       | computer with water (along with the TV, VCR, DVD player and
       | sofa!).
       | 
       | I never quite had the heart to resurrect the system after that
       | and it was an end to my MythTV obsession. It was fun while it
       | lasted.
        
         | scarby2 wrote:
         | Does home insurance cover act of children while they are in
         | they are in their probably possessed by demon stage?
        
           | technothrasher wrote:
           | By default, no. But if you've got an accidental damage clause
           | in your policy, it would generally cover such losses.
           | Although it would probably help to characterize it as an
           | unfortunate accident caused by your little cherub rather than
           | the spiteful act of your devil spawn.
        
           | intelVISA wrote:
           | Would guess that daemonic possession falls under force
           | majeure.
        
         | fullstop wrote:
         | I love my children with all of my heart but they can be so
         | destructive in learning through mistakes.
         | 
         | Mine deleted my game save slots in Metroid Prime 2 when I was
         | about 99% through. I didn't have the heart to start over, so it
         | will remain forever unfinished.
         | 
         | That doesn't even come close to watering the electronics,
         | though, I can't even imagine the patience required in that
         | situation.
        
         | midasuni wrote:
         | Back in 2096 I had myth running on a cube shaped PC by my TV.
         | It had one fan, with a fancy pipe work to shift heat from the
         | processor.
         | 
         | I got an email while I was at work on a night shift with a cou
         | temperature increase. Sshed in and could see the temperature
         | rising and rising. 70, 80, 90, 100 (c)
         | 
         | Then my ssh command died.
         | 
         | Finished work at 10am and started the 90 minute drive home,
         | wondering if there's be a home to sleep it. Fortunately on
         | inspection it was the fan that failed. Everything had died,
         | couldn't get it to boot, and so ended my mythtv adventure.
         | 
         | It was great, had a little usb box which plugged into my sky
         | box and send remote control command to switch sky chal lens. A
         | hardware mpeg2 pci capture card to record, etc.
         | 
         | But for me it was a product of its time. I haven't watched
         | linear tv since 2016 except for a few special live programs.
         | 
         | I thought it morphed into xbmc to be honest.
        
           | fullstop wrote:
           | You were living in the future, my friend.
        
         | xp84 wrote:
         | This is very relatable. I guess I should count myself lucky
         | that my then-3yo "only" hurled a remote and smashed the TV in
         | retaliation for TV time being over. And that I only buy the
         | "cheap" $4-500 TVs instead of the high-end ones.
        
         | olddustytrail wrote:
         | "What on earth would make you do something like that?!!"
         | 
         | "Poor genetic material?"
         | 
         | ...
         | 
         | "Bad guess."
         | 
         | (Calvin and Hobbes)
        
         | Eduard wrote:
         | Oof. Good to know for any upcoming parenthood :). Though I
         | guess any data loss was small considering you burned (water-
         | resistant) DVDs?
        
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       (page generated 2023-02-06 23:00 UTC)