MythTV Installation Video | MythDora

This three part screencast will walk you through a MythTV install using MythDora, an "all-in-one" MythTV linux distribution. As MythDora installs MythTV and Linux, it will format your hard drive, install all the MythTV components, and walk you through the configuration of the critical components. If you are new to MythTV and have a spare machine to install on, MythDora is an excellent way to try MythTV for the first time.

MythDora 5.0 Install Screencast

The first step is to install the MythDora operating system, which is based on Fedora. This first phase will format your hard drive and install the core Linux OS. It is very similar to the first steps of a standard Fedora install.

MythDora 5.0 - Part 2 In part two of the MythTV install screencast, we will configure MythDora. This consists of all the configuration that is needed to make the core MythTV software and hardware work with MythTV.

MythDora 5.0 - Part 3 In part three, we will configure MythTV itself. MythTV is a very powerful system, but all the configuration options and steps can be overwhelming. In this final part of the screencast, we will walk through the configuration needed to make my HDHomeRun, a network attached HDTV tuner, work with MythTV. We will conclude this part by actually watching a few seconds of live TV.

Below is the older screencast from MythDora 4, the previous version.

MythDora 4.0

MythDora 4.0 made huge improvments over MythDora 3.2 in the areas of hardware detection and ease of installation. I've put together a 3 part video walkthrough of the installation process on one of my systems.

Install MythDora

Configure MythDora

Configure MythTV

All in all, if you are building a system from scratch purpose built for MythTV, I highly recommend you give it a try. Download MythDora 4.0 from http://g-ding.tv.
It's heavily edited to keep things short and moving along quickly, so interstitial screens where user input isn't required have been cut. Also, the video footage was shot from one of the final pre-release versions, so there are a few minor differences from the final release. It ends up coving all of the critical screens in the installation process in user friendly screencast format.

PVR-350

I noticed you use a 350 for your examples..are you using TV-out on the 350 card or other...and if you are using tv-out....do you get any jitter and buffering? have you found a method to fix that?

thanks.

PVR-150

my mini-HTPC has PVR-150. I looked at the video above and completed mine in less than 90 minutes.

TV-Out on the PVR-350

After setting everything up within mythdora, and adding the ivtv and v4l drivers, it appears mythdora doesn't attempt to add the PVR-350 info to your xorg.conf file. I get a black screen on my tv and live tv video will not play on my monitor either. I get an error saying "Unable to initialize video" after about 5 seconds of trying to watch live tv. I'm currently going to edit my xorg.conf file and see if that helps... If mythdora doesn't do that for you, perhaps they could add that in the next release, or explain it to people in a part 4 video? :)

pvr 350

a video 4 showing how to get video out from your pvr350 would be great.

PVR 150

I just installed mythdora 4.0.. After myth dora install, and configuring myth tv.. it tells me to run the build after all items have been configured, but it hard locks. I've restarted several times, and have the same results.. Any advise..?

AMD 1500, 512mb RAM, PVR 150, 40gb HD, Intel board. onboard video.

My Solution =)

Hello,

Forgot to post my self sought out solution:

After setting up Mythdora...

1) I had to add various lines to my /etc/modprobe.conf file:

"install ivtv /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ivtv; /sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb"

and

"options ivtv-fb osd_compat=1"

2) I had to determine ivtv's framebuffer, in my case it was "fb0" Yours may vary.

3) I had to determine the PVR-350's PCIBus, in my case it was "PCI:0:10:0" Yours will most certainly vary.

4) I had to add seperate Device, Screen, and Monitor Sections in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file using the previous values I found for my PVR-350. I would post an example, but it is rather big for a comment section. There are examples on wiki.

After that, it booted Mythdora on my TV and MythTV has worked wonderfully.

ATI Remote Wonder 1

So far so good. Of all the Linux PVR solutions I've tried this has been the easiest - and works with all my hardware with one minor niggle. So far what I've got is an older Athlon XP 3200 with 1GB RAM and a Herculese Radeon 9600card and Hauppauge PVR250 together with an ATI Remote Wonder I control. Got the whole thing set up, installed and runing in around an hour thanks to the logical format and the video help. The Remote Wonder works well, but now ONLY within MythTV. Is there anyway I can also get it to work outside it, like to be able to power off the PC or fire up MythTV? To me that would be the final icing on the cake. You never know; I might finally be persuaded to use this instead of my Vista Home Premium set up for all multi-media :-)

Agreed

I got the TV-out working on an older install of MythDora, but it took some work. I'd love to upgrade, but I'd like to see how to get the TV-Out up and running first.

Watched Video Tried MythDora 4 Love It

I think this is the easiest and most robust Myth Distro Install I have done so far.

I have installed KnoppMyth a few times on a few systems.
I watched the MythDora 4 videos and decided to give it a try on my toughest system. My Via Epia system - I can never get it configured as a backend using the Distributions like KnoppMyth. Typically you would use the Epia for a Front End only. Well MythDora did it. It was not that great because the system was a bit under powered but it worked. I may try to build a Via Backend in the future. Using SATA drives and a newer Epia board. Or possibly a NAS and an HDHomeRun. For cost reasons I went with something more robust based on a known good set up. So I built a KnoppMyth Reference Platform(Specs for 2.0 version) Box and only had a small hickup in setting it up. As you can see I went to the MythDora forum and my issue was solved in a few minutes.

Now I just need 20 more hours a day to watch all the movies and TV I have.
Oh and about 75TB of space

Thank you very much for this excellent video walk thru.

I would agree with everyone that a PVR-350 output video would be nice.
I would also be interested in other videos like setting up a HDHomeRun and possibly a cable box using an IRBlaster. I understand that you showed us what you use and that was great.

Thanks again.

Rich Shumaker

The TV out will be added to

The TV out will be added to the 5.0 version for the PVR-350. But the TV out has been explained many many times on the mythdora forums. http://g-ding.tv/?q=forum There is also pre configured xorg files in /storage/misc/extras just for this :-/

PVR-350 TV out

There are lots of messages in the forum regarding setting up the TV out on the PVR-350. However, it is not easy to find the right set of messages and pull together all the right info to get this to work. A clear concise step by step document would be helpful and could then be the location all future questions on this issue are pointed to. Just a suggestion.

MythDora 4.0 install craps out 80% into install loadding X11.org

During the install in either Graphic or Text mode the install craps out loading a X11.org 7.1 something package which is 0 K in size?? I checked the media and it checks out fine. Everything else in the install works fine up to that point. It says "For the following Reason(s)" but doesn't provide any reasons??? TIA, --Bill C.

Others that have experienced

Others that have experienced this said that upgrading their bios made things work. Some have also said that by using an ATI video card they experience this. By doing a default custom install without choosing the ATI video drivers during install fixes this.