A screenshot of MythTV's main menu in the default theme, Terra |
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| Developer(s) | Isaac Richards |
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| Stable release | 0.24.1[1] / May 16, 2011 |
| Operating system | Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Windows (playback only) |
| Type | Personal video recorder |
| License | GNU GPL |
| Website | http://www.mythtv.org/ |
MythTV is a free and open source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living-room TV, and turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming[2] digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater personal computer.[3] It can be considered as a free and open source alternative to Tivo[4] or Windows Media Center. It runs on various operating systems, primarily Linux/Mac/FreeBSD.[5]
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The MythTV project was started in April 2002 by Isaac Richards,[4] who explained his motivation:[6]
| “ | I got tired of the rather low quality cable box that AT&T Broadband provides with their digital cable service. It's slow to change channels, ridden with ads, and the program guide is a joke. So, I figured it'd be fun to try and build a replacement. Yes, I could have just bought a TiVo, but I wanted to have more than just a DVR — I want a web browser built in, a mail client, maybe some games. Basically, I want the mythical convergence box that's been talked about for a few years now. | ” |
In early 2007, Apress published Practical MythTV on MythTV and its installation.
MythTV is capable of capturing HDTV streams from any source that will provide unencrypted video. This means broadcast ATSC and DVB content, as well as encrypted DVB content when using a tuner with an integrated CI module. Most U.S. cable and satellite providers use encrypted video only accessible through their own set-top boxes. Cable systems may provide some unencrypted QAM channels, but these will generally only be local broadcast stations, and not cable programming or premium channels.
OpenCable devices are available to access encrypted content on U.S. cable systems, but as this is a full DRM system, and not just CA like DVB CI, every piece of hardware and software on the playback chain must be tested and licensed by CableLabs. At current, Windows Media Center is the only DVR software to meet these requirements, and only it, and other software using its recording libraries, can use these devices. In 2010, CableLabs relaxed the DRM restrictions allowing unlicensed devices to record copy freely content using these devices[7], however it is still entirely up to cable operators what content they provide flagged as such.
As an alternative to direct digital capture, one can use an external decoder to receive the channels, and then capture using digital-analog-digital conversion. A popular means of doing this conversion is to connect the component outputs of a set-top box to the Hauppauge HD PVR.[8][9]
The MythTV software supports TV tuner cards fully compatible with V4L-DVB kernel drivers; lists of supported devices are available.[10]
MythTV also supports program capture via FireWire from digital set-top boxes. These include the Motorola DCT-6200, the STB used by Cogeco Cable in the USA and Shaw Cable in Canada for its HD services. It can also record directly from IPTV sources such as the Freebox service, as well as from the HDHomeRun network tuner.
MythTV's add-on modules (plugins) include:
The base system integrates well with its modules. A system can be controlled with an infrared remote control using LIRC, or radio remote control using kernel modules.
There are several projects which include a Linux distribution bundled with MythTV (and associated libraries) to make installation, configuration and maintenance easier and faster:
The default file format for software encoding is a RTJPEG or MPEG-4 video stored in a slightly-modified version of Roman Hochleitner's "NuppelVideo" (.nuv) container . NUV files are also playable in VLC media player and MPlayer, but can occasionally exhibit problems in A/V synchronization due to the MythTV-specific modifications. It also appears that MythTV is now the single authority on the NuppelVideo file format, since the original author's website is no longer available.
MythTV can also record via hardware-encoder cards and other sources of MPEG-2 digital TV streams like DVB, ATSC and Firewire (from HDTV cable boxes in the United States), so many users of MythTV rarely see NuppelVideo files unless they choose to transcode their files to NuppelVideo to save disk space.
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