I have set up a home theater system using MythTV as the backbone. It is basically a single computer that runs both the mythbackend and mythfrontend. After experiencing the joy of grabbing free high definition programming from thin air using a hoop of metal, I wanted to spread that joy throughout my house. Now any computer can play TV, watch recordings, etc, not just the one in my living room. Since I use different distributions on different computers, I’m writing this howto as non-distro-specific as possible.
In the general section of mythtv-setup on your backend computer, be sure you specific the IP address of that computer so that other computers on the LAN can find it. Next, go to your new mythfrontend box (say in your bedroom…mmm tv from bed) and see if your distribution already has the mythtv packages in the repository. If not, hit up google to find out how to add them. After you’ve got them, install mythfrontend.
Next add users to the mythtv group. You need to add all users that will configure or use the mythtv frontend to the mythtv group. In gnome you can do this by going to Administration->Users & Groups->Groups and adding the users to the mythtv group using that interface. Next you need to log out and log back into your session to be sure the permissions take effect.
Next start up mythfrontend and replace “localhost” with the IP address of your backend when you come to that screen. At this point you should be cooking with gas. Lay back and enjoy your television.
An obvious point that bares repeating is that this is now a new frontend, completely different from the one you set up with your backend. That means you can fully customize it with themes, plugins, and features dependent on your local hardware.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Ed Windes // Aug 6, 2007 at 09:22
Keep us posted on how things are working for you!
I’m also setting up a MythTV box, with the eventual aim of distributing video around my home. My HTPC is working well now, and I’m attempting to blog some of the interesting parts of the setup.
I’ve been playing with various ways to access recorded shows from my PCs. MythWeb is pretty sweet - but I’m also looking at how well UPnP works - because I’d like to pick up some inexpensive UPnP Media players for remote TVs.
Keep up the blogging - I’ll be watching your progress.
2 nedsferatu // Aug 6, 2007 at 10:21
thanks Ed! I’ve been meaning to write a full article about my struggles with setting up an HTPC system. The problem is, this has been an almost three year long project. It has been fun but there’s just too many different things I’ve tried to capture in one article. I hope this little snippet was helpful and there will be more to come.
I just started using mythweb and i’m pretty impressed. Not only is a great interface now, but i’m just drooling over the thought of extending it to stream media.
I assume you are talking about thin clients for the UPnP Media players? There are lots of cool ways to achieve this and I look forward to finding out the one you choose to use.
I think LIRC is high on my list of future MythTV projects.
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