Hey there.

As someone who's familiar and comfortable with Unix systems, I figured it's time to look at the kind of options that Linux has for me. I'm currently using a Windows XP Pro PC for serving media on the LAN, but I'm looking for something that I can just leave running and I don't have to worry about it deciding that it needs to reboot in the middle of doing something for me.

Some details in hardware: The PC I intend to run for this has a couple of extra IDE controller cards in it so that it can handle a bunch of hard drives. I've got almost a terrabyte in storage in the machine now, spread out over a bunch of 200~250 EIDE hard disks. There's also a TV tuner/capture card in it, (Leadtek TV2000XP Expert) The motherboard is an ASUS A7V8X-X, sound is onboard (Has SP/DIF, so I like it.) Video is some GeForce card (5500GT?), which is more than adequate for what I want here. The processor is an AMD Athlon XP2800+, it has 1 GB of RAM, and (naturally) a dual layer DVD burner.

What I want to do: I want to have a hunk of storage on there for media files. I want to be able to access those files for read/write from my main game/video PC (Which is of course connected to the projector.) I want to be able to record from TV sources to playable files on the media server, preferably with a timer function, since much of what I want to record will be playing while I'm not home, or asleep. (If I'm home and awake, I'll likely just watch it in realtime.) I want to be able to edit those recorded files to remove things like commercials, and then I'd like to be able to burn a DVD with those edited files. It would also be nice to be able to make backups of DVDs that I own, so applications similar to DVDShrink and DVD Decryptor would be real "nice to haves" -- I don't, for example let my 2 year old or my 5 year old handle original copies of "finding Nemo" so I give them copies. If they destroy the copy, no problem, I just burn a new one. (We're on #4 of "Finding Nemo" and #3 of "Monsters Inc.")

So, the question is this:

1. Will Linux do the job, or do I need Windows software to do all this?

2. If Linux will do the job, which distro is most likely to give me the fewest problems with obtaining/compiling/installing software to do these things?

3. Which Linux software package is recommended for PVR duty?

4. Which Linux software package is recommended for video editing? (Commercial non open source packages okay, but open source preferred.)

5. Which Linux software package is recommended for DVD ripping/shrinking

6. Which Linux software package is recommended for DVD burning.

Some of these, I have some ideas of software that will do the job, but I'd like to hear pros and cons. Keep in mind that while I know my way around sh/csh/bash/ksh really well, I hardly ever use X11/XWindows, and as such am not as familiar with the tools/utilities that are available. Easy to use tools get bonus marks. Tools that can be scripted from a shell (particularly PVR and DVD burning) also get bonus marks.

I am familiar with several variants on System V, and also work with FreeBSD on a regular basis, but so far haven't done a lot with Linux. I'm looking forward to answers and suggestions.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdispla...une=-1&f=39

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdispla...une=-1&f=26

Have fun!

Victor

my next project will be a distributed myth network so I've been doing some research and purchasing a part here, hard drives there... etc.

when i see this list; i automatically think you have a great foundation for a myth backend.

• couple of extra IDE controller cards in it Usually not a problem
• There's also a TV tuner/capture card in it, (Leadtek TV2000XP Expert) Have to check the hardware database on this one
• The motherboard is an ASUS A7V8X-X, sound is onboard (Has SP/DIF, so I like it.) Have to check the hardware database on this one
• Video is some GeForce card (5500GT?), which is more than adequate for what I want here. More than perfect! nVidia cards are sought after for Myth due to the proprietary driver's compatability with xV
• The processor is an AMD Athlon XP2800+, it has 1 GB of RAM, and (naturally) a dual layer DVD burner. People have backends that record 1080i streams that are less powerful than this... mind you they record only, not play

• I want to have a hunk of storage on there for media files. Anything can do this, but linux gives you LVM, which is awesome
• I want to be able to access those files for read/write from my main game/video PC (Which is of course connected to the projector.) Anything will do this as well, I still believe in the magical qualities of linux and think it's faster though.
• I want to be able to record from TV sources to playable files on the media server, preferably with a timer function this is what Myth does.. and so beautifully.. as of 0.19 all recorded files are no longer nuppel codec, but mpeg4
• I want to be able to edit those recorded files to remove things like commercials, and then I'd like to be able to burn a DVD with those edited files. with Myth you can do this via the remote control via the new MythArchive plugin and commercials can be removed via the new lossless transcoding feature
• It would also be nice to be able to make backups of DVDs that I own this is built in to myth

I have more for you but only had a little bit of time to do this... www.mythtv.org

Looks like there are issues with linux drivers for your Leadtek card.
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=TVCards


otherwise there is just too much info out there...
i can't get it all in cohesive form to give to you.

I'd recommend starting with the Knoppmyth wiki
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?id=KnoppmythWiki

I have been looking into this as well. There is an image which has a linux distro of Knoppix and the Myth TV materials in one cd so you can concentrate of the PVR aspect of the machine. You can find it at mysettopbox.tv. I have a leadtek card as well and have pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I will need a card with hardware mpeg encoding to really get things done. Sadly my card choice was an ATI, but I think it will still work okay.

Anyone know if Myth works with Xandros?
(newbie in this area...)

there's a lot you can do with myth... here's a quick rundown of my plan to give you an idea of the flexibility.

current plan - ability to record analog cable, edit video, burn dvds (with menus), transcode (with commercial skip)

• add my hauppauge pvr-150 tuner to my current workstation
• install myth; frontend via terminal window
• use my xbmc xbox as a frontend as well via python scripts to schedule and view recorded shows

next step - add more centralized storage, speed up server, ability to record ota hi-def (recording hi-def doesn't require more speed; transcoding everything does though... as well as my other services that run on the server)

• upgrade my dual p2-450 server with my current p4 2.6G desktop
• add my 2x400G + 1x250G + 1x150G to server for a total of 1.2TB of storage
• i'll need a new desktop at this point as well.. but will probably piece together a POS machine
• add a pchdtv 5500 card (with non-broadcast flag technology) to the server

future - add myth box for living room for playing, pausing, rewinding live tv... create a diskless frontend clients for viewing live tv from the bedroom

• replace server hauppauge card with hauppauge pvr500 (dual ananlog tuner)
• create mythfrontend (powerful enough to view hi-def = 3Ghz+)
• add spare 150G drive to frontend
• stick pvr150 into myth frontend in living room
• add another pchdtv to frontend
• dvd burner in frontend allows dvd creation via remote control
• can edit video files via remote control with stop/end points

I don't know if I told you anything with this that I didn't already say... but it was nice to write out my plan of attack for myself to see This should replace everything my XBMC is used for (viewing videos, listening to my mp3 library, viewing photos, weather, light web surfing) except for playing actual xbox games and the python script I use to download torrents and ftp them to my monitored azureus folder...

At the end, I'll have the ability to record 2 analog shows and a hi-def show all at once, while viewing an analog or a hi-def show with pause/start/rewind capabilities. The server will be transcoding all my content in the background while eliminating any commercials. The server will also stream live tv content to any client on my network as long as a tuner is available. There is a web interface I can use to schedule recordings of shows while I'm at work. I can open up my network and stream live tv to my cell phone.

I'm sure there is more that I'm not thinking about... but this is the main gist of what I want to be able to do. The weird thing is... I don't watch a lot of TV.

We have been using centos. It is Red Hat Enterprise Server with all of the Red Hat branding and artwork removed. Plus they also have an update server so you can get updates for free.

http://www.centos.org/

A couple of clarifications.

This is more for a media server application, not necessarily playback. I might do SOME playback on this machine, but it'll be connected to a 19" CRT, not the projector. (No plans to connect it to the projector anytime soon, either.)

The playback machine will be running Windows, simply because I use it for games too.

If there are issues with the TV tuner, then I can replace it. I like this one simply because I find that it has excellent recording and live TV image quality. It's not like I can't find another hom for the card if I have to buy another one. It merely would have been nice to not have to replace hardware. I wasn't impressed with the Hauppage tuner card that I've seen, it was definitely inferior to the quality that I get with the Leadtek.

So what I'm gathering...

MythTV is the software that I want to do the recording/editing. This also does DVD extraction.

I'm still not sure on the DVD burning, but I think it's safe enough to presume that this is available.

I've got some info on the Linux distros, but more, and specifics on why would be good. (I'll look up info on the MythSetTopBox.tv as well.)

K3B is an excellent piece of software. Haven't burned video DVDs myself though, but it handles data DVDs very well. Don't know if you can add such external programs to MythTV (which looks really great btw).

Personally I use openSUSE for my boxes, I'm still not very good at Linux though.

as of 0.19 the myth archive plugin is supposedly completely functional:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MythArchive

Main Features of the DVD creation part of MythArchive

• Creates DVDs complete with a themed menu structure
  
• New menu themes can easily be added
  
• By using different themes you can do things like create auto play DVDs that have no menus etc.
  
• Can use not only Myth recordings but also files from MythVideo and any file accessible from your file system
  
• Can use mythtranscode to cut out commercials from mpeg2 recordings.
  
• If a file isn't an mpeg2 file or the file doesn't have a DVD compliant resolution it will be re-encoded using ffmpeg so it is DVD compliant.
  
• Can use any video file that ffmpeg can decode and re-encode to mpeg2.
  
• When a re-encode of the video and audio is neccessary you can choose what re-encoding parameters to use using easily selectable encoding profiles.
  
• New re-encoding profiles can be added by simply editing an xml file.
  
• Can re-encode the audio stream to ac3 for better compatibility in NTSC countries.
  
• Tries to select the best audio track based on what you have selected as your preferred languages in Myth
  
• Can support two audio tracks per title. (not tested fully)
  
• Can use single layer or dual layer dvdr's
  
• Can use rewritable DVD+/- RW
  
• Can force an erase of a rewritable disc
  
• Can create an ISO image that can be moved anywhere on your file system possibly so you can burn it on another machine.

Main features of the raw archive format

• Can create backups of both MythTV recordings and MythVideo files.
  
• Saves not only the file but also all metadata belonging to the file like its title, description, cut list and markup map etc and any preview or coverart files.
  
• Creates an easily parseable xml file containing all the metadata.
  
• Can archive to any directory on your file system or can also create an ISO image and optionally burn that image to a DVD.

my exuberance for completing my mythTV installation is spilling out in to your thread.

I've got a finalized myth tv installation that I am doing pretty much what you wanted. Samba shared both Raid 5's (about 4TB of raid 5 storage space total 1.5 for mythtv television storage, the other 2.5 for whatever (mostly archived movies/hdtv/games etc.)

My myth setup wiki page

that is very nice blackoper...
yeah... you have what i want to end up with.

just accumulate it all slowly. The DIY route definately lowers the cost on things

naslite