Introduction

Mythbuntu is a combination of MythTV and Ubuntu. MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems. MythTV is known to work on Linux and Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It does not run on Windows.

MythTV’s robust PVR functions allow you to do the following:

• You may pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.
• You may install multiple video capture cards to record more than one program at a time or use for picture-in-picture functions.
• You may watch and record SDTV and HDTV via firewire if you have a firewire-enabled cable or satellite tuner.
• You can have multiple servers (called “backends” in MythTV parlance), each with multiple capture cards in them. All servers are centrally managed and all programs are scheduled by the Master backend.
• You can have multiple clients (called “frontend” in MythTV parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Each client can watch all programs recorded by any of the servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view the content; a low-powered frontend, for example, will not be able to watch HDTV. Clients can be diskless and controlled entirely by a remote control.
• You may use combinations of standard analog capture cards, MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices. With a firewire capable backend, MythTV can control a variety of set top boxes often found in digital cable and satellite TV systems.
• Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from Schedules Direct, a third party provider that licenses the data provided by Tribue Media Services. Schedules Direct charges a nominal rate for the data, broken up into several month increments. Schedules Direct accounts can be made at their website, http://www.schedulesdirect.org. Program Guide Data in other countries is obtained using XMLTV. MythTV uses this information to create a schedule that maximizes the number of programs that can be recorded if you don’t have enough tuners.
• MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client may automatically see content from your MythTV system. N.B.: this feature has not been verified to work on every available UPNP client.
• Plugins from the MythTV community provide functionality for: DVDs, Personal Video Collection, Music, Weather, News, Gaming, Netflix and much, much more. See section 17.1.