HDTV Viewing update
Not much earth-shattering to report here. The good news is that I have been recording like a madman, and trying to perfect the process before the new fall season begins. I think I have a pretty good process down at this point.
Hdtv
Fedora Core 2.0 update
I'm still waiting to upgrade to Fedora Core 2.0, for two reasons.
- The nvidia driver does not compile against the native kernel
- I haven't had the time
Remote happiness
I have followed the advice of Jared Wilson (archive link) a few months ago and went to Radio Shack and picked up a remote. I got the 15-2117 (with the RF command center). I pretty much followed his directions for setting it up verbatim, but I have always had problems navigating. Sometimes I have to press a button on the remote several times in order to get it to move around the MythTV menus. The latest CVS release (for some reason) really exacerbated the problem. I actually had to revert to my wireless keyboard just to watch a movie.
Trying to solve the HDTV dilemma
I have a basic dilemma in regard to HDTV. I can capture this amazingly high quality video (1920x1080), but cannot play it back on my system. I have a few choices here:
Fedora Core 2.0
It looks like Fedora Core 2.0 is out, and I've heard that HDTV playback is significantly improved with Linux kernel 2.6. I think my next step is to create another partition and install FC 2.0 and try to get this thing going again from the ground up.
Mission accomplished
The antenna was installed, and now I can reliably receive HDTV signals for all the major channels in the area. Just as I suspected however; I still can't view a show... Maybe the 2.6 kernel will be my savior.
HDTV Here I come?
In my continued quest to create a completely usable HDTV tuner, I am getting closer. Tonight, I have a 'cable guy' coming over to install my UHF attic antenna. At first, I (naively) thought that I could do it, but going up two stories, drilling, wiring, cabling, and digging through mountains of attic insulation is not my cup of tea.
Once the attic antenna is installed, I should be able to get a reliable DTV signal, then I can focus on getting my system tweaked to decode and display TV.
Enter MythTV
In order to view TV through a Linux based HDTV you need a solid client. I wanted something similar to my Dish Network PVR (the 721) where I could do things like pause live TV, record shows from a guide, etc... There are a couple projects out there that seemed interesting; Freevo, and MythTV. MythTV is a much more active current project, and since HDTV is a newer technology, I decided (good decision) to go with that.
How I use MythTV
As you might have read (if you checked out the MythTV.org web site) MythTV has a boatload of features. I really only use a few of them, but what I do use, I love.
Enter the HTPC
After researching the ins and outs of HDTV, I decided that building my own Home Theater PC was the way to go. No, really... Stop laughing. I could put the whole thing together really cheaply, and it would have more features than you can imagine! I found this amazing front-end called MythTV. MythTV is like a free version of TiVo with even more functionality. It all runs on Linux, and is quite stable.