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Booting MiniMyth from a Compact Flash card is a great way to build a Silent MythTV Frontend. Although many MiniMyth users boot their systems by booting over the network, this may add a level of complexity that you would prefer to avoid.

Hardware Requirements:

• MiniMyth Supported Base System
• Compact Flash to IDE Adapter - This is what will enable your MythFrontend to boot from the compact flash card.
• Compact Flash Card - The card MiniMyth is loaded onto. 64MB may work, but I’d go with 128MB or more. You can find 1GB cards for under $40.
• USB Compact Flash Card Reader - This is what we will use from another system to load MiniMyth onto the compact flash card.

For more information have a look this article on MythPVR.

• Linux System - We will need a Linux system to use to install onto the compact flash card using the USB Compact Flash Reader.

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After running Debian on PS3 it’s time to turn it into PVR. Here is a list of its additional components: MythTV and a Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U, a pretty nifty little box that has a TV tuner, a variety of video inputs for handling cable and satellite broadcasts, and support for MPEG-1/2/4 and DivX compression. You’ll also need some Linux drivers for that PX-TV402U, and a couple of patches to help the driver work on the PS3.
Hoverer, I don’t see any practice reason to do this hack. Because if you want to make sure you never miss a recording, you have to keep your MythTV running all the time, meaning you can’t play PS3 games. It’d be much more sensible to create HTPC instead.

[via PVR Wire]

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MythDora 3.1 - based on Fedora Core 5 distribution included the latest MythTV is released.Changes include:

• Turned off mythbackend at boot time
• X now restarts after the setup menu and allows Nvidia module to be probed
• Created workaround for network connection during setup
• Updated to MythTV-0.20-147
• Redid saa7134 capture card setup
• Added in newer k9copy package
• Readded Imon remote control
• Split MySQL mythtvsetup commands into two files
• Added the pcHDTV 5500 to setup menu
• Removed stale release notes with new ones
• Added in powersave program with dependencies

You can Download the ISO, read MythDora Installation HOWTO or see screencast.

[via MythPVR]

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MythTV, the open source Linux PVR software, is going to be a standard de-facto. The new book - “Hacking MythTV” may enunciate this thesis. You can buy it on Amazon just for £s;13.59.

For whom who’d like to get some MythTV hacks immediately ExtremeTech.com have published an extensive guide on how to export and convert recordings from your MythTV PVR to other devices. The guide is an excerpt from the “Hacking MythTV” and covers following topics:

• How to browse your recordings outside MythTV and make sense of them based on filename alone
• MythTV’s Recording Profiles,
• Specific details on Export for Burning to DVD, Video CD, iPod, and More
• Configuring Third-Party Components as Post-Processing Jobs and;
• Wireless Networking in MythTV

Personally, I’m interested in using VDR. But I’m going to buy “MythTV Hacks” as well.
[via PVR Wire]

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TVMax which is made by Miglia Technology brings you all the basic PVR features you would expect for a Mac including:

• Watch, pause, rewind and skip forward Live TV, timeshift on your Mac.
• Record and edit your favorite shows with a built in EPG (Electronic Program Guide).
• One click Apple iPod (writes directly to iTunes) or Sony PSP export.
• Hardware compression to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX
• Convert VHS and Hi8 tapes to DVD

It seems the TVMax is good solution till the Apple iTV is not ready. Detailed review of the TVMax is available here.

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