I have a full blown post on hacking an AppleTV to get it to play nice with MythTV in the works, but it is something that benefits from step-by-step pictures and that is something I can’t get while I am in New York. To help bridge the gap, I am going to just point you to the patchstick creator and give a general outline of what needs to be done. If you are going to follow this to modify your AppleTV, please do research to fill the gaps. I can’t be held responsible for you bricking your AppleTV.
- Head to http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/ and download the patch stick creator
- Make said patchstick
- Unplug your appleTV
- Plug the patchstick in to the usb slot
- turn on the appleTV
- let the magic happen
- Reboot aTV
- Update the Software Menu
- Install updated versions of NeroTV, Boxee/XBMC
- Install all extras (debian, video codecs, etc)
- Configure NFS mount to point to MythTV recording directory (Needs to be -P)
- SSH in to aTV, add the NFS mount to rc.local
- restart aTV
- Boot up Boxee/XBMC
- If going with XBMC, ssh in to aTV, install MythBox plugin
- Set up mythtv connection inside Boxee/XBMC
- profit
Like I said, I will have a full guide once I get home to take some pictures, but this will have to do for now.
This is the long awaited follow-up to Part 1, where I assembled the actual system that would serve as my ultimate HTPC. After the system was built, I needed to get some software on the system. I chose to go with MythBuntu since it was the distro that I had used in the past and was the one I was familiar with. There are a few options for MythTv:
- Getting the backend and frontend software from the Synaptic manager
- A multitude of distros. For some comparisons of the popular ones, check out this (slightly out-of-date) comparison
- Finally, as it seems to be with everything on a Linux system, you can compile from the source.
Since I chose to go with MythBuntu, I downloaded the 64-bit live cd image, as that was what I needed for my system. I burned the cd, put it in the system, and followed the prompts.
That was it. Well… mostly.
I had issues with the install hanging at the last step. At first it was an issue with the live cd, and after that the problem was betwixt the keyboard and monitor. I had become impatient, since I had built the system and started installing all the software on the same day.. I was already a good 4 or 5 hours in to this (remember: I had no idea what I was doing putting the system together). Just remember, let the final step finish on the install. It takes a little while, but if it does not finish properly, your install will not work.
Once everything installed properly, that was it. The system recognized both of my capture cards without an issue, was able to use all three hard drives I have installed, and played nice with setting up a static IP.
Speaking of static IPs… if you are planning on only having a single machine run as a backend/frontend combo, then you should be fine without setting up a static IP for the machine. If you are like me, and want this one machine to serve content to every TV and computer in your house, you are going to need to assign a static IP to the backend. This is because all of the various frontends need to know where to look for content, and not having to change settings every time your router restarts will save you tons of headaches.
The only issue I had on this backend/frontend was getting the HDMI audio to work properly. Some quick googling led me to the changes I needed to make in the audio config files. It was pretty much toggling a 1 and 0. After that, I had the foundation of my HTPC system in place. The backend was able to record 2 different cable stations, store all my video/music, and play back all this content to the TV it was attached to.
In the next installment, I will show how I set up the AppleTV. It was a smidge more “fun” than setting up the backend system. And by fun, I mean it made me pull out my hair.
As you may remember, a while back I posted a shopping list for the MythTV system I was revamping. After almost two full weeks of tweaking, I finally have the full system built. It was an adventure, to say the least. Thankfully my wife was very understanding… I know she was getting frustrated watching me tinker with all these various machines without results for a while.
What is MythTV?
In short, MythTv is an open-source DVR system built for linux systems, with the ability it interface with Mac and Windows systems. It is a system that manages recorded television, movies, music, photos, and much more (with the use of additional plug-ins). A MythTV system will consist of at least two parts, a backend and a frontend. The backend is the server of the operation; it stores all the content, manages recordings, and makes everything go. The frontend is the part that you interact with; it displays lists of recordings & movies and plays back the content.
The Beginnings
When I first started messing around with MythTV, I was using my wife’s old pc tower. This was a computer put together in 2002, and when it had Windows on it, it would struggle to just start up. After moving all of her old content off the computer, I did a clean install of Ubuntu, as I had read it was the easiest Linux distro to get working with MythTV. I was far from succesful when I tried to install MythTV as a seperate package.. After some more research I decided to give Mythbuntu a try, since it is a special version of Ubuntu compiled specifically for MythTV use.
Hit the jump and we’ll start tinkering
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