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Goldchannel status update.....
Jan. 20th, 2018 12:19 amA couple of years ago, I assembled a home theater PC out of components. (Read about it here.) Since then, I've upgraded the system to have 16 GB of RAM and three 3 TB hard drives. (There's room for a fourth hard drive; I'll install that in the next few months.)
There were some bugs and problems, and through trial and error -- believe me, there were lots of errors -- and referring to online forums and support sites, I have most of them solved.
* I found the volume control app, through which I can select the audio output to go to either the TV or the stereo system.
* Made a couple system configuration setting changes, enabling me to use the mythmote app on my smartphone to act as a remote control.
* Brasero still doesn't like my optical drive, or recognize when I swap discs. I can't burn multiple copies of discs without having to stop Brasero, swap discs, and restart Brasero.
* I found a blue 20-pin connector inside the case that didn't have a corresponding socket on the motherboard. This turns out to be a USB 3.0 connector. (No wonder the USB 3.0 connector -- and the card readers -- in the front doesn't work!) So I ordered a PCIexpress USB 3.0 card that has that socket.
* I can't use the DVR capabilities of MythTV with my cable company's system (Spectrum). I would need a PCMCIA card reader in order to get their service (and their channels) through the PC. (I don't want to shell out money for a DVR that I'd hardly use.)
Now that most of the bugs have been shaken out, it works great, and meets most of my needs. I bring up the MythTV backend, which includes running a MySQL database, then bring up the MythTV frontend, and I can watch all my digitized videos, complete with controls like jump-ahead, skip-back, pause, and set bookmark.
A few months ago, one of my college friends told me he's running a Plex server. At his suggestion, I looked into Plex and installed the software on my system.
I also re-examined what I want out of this system:
1) a centralized file server for my videos, pictures, and music.
2) A workstation to perform audio and video digitizing (from audio cassettes, video tapes, etc.) and editing digital media files.
3) The ability to watch videos/play music/view pictures (i.e. play media) from anywhere in the house (bedroom TV, loft TV, laptop, tablet, phone).
4) To act as a DVR, if not for cable TV, but for streaming services such as SlingTV, Netflix, Britbox, et al.
5) To run an ftp server, eliminating the need to transfer files between my systems via flash drives.
In my opinion, where does MythTV fall short?
1) Constant tweaking and reconfiguration. It doesn't work out-of-the-box.
2) Can't start it sometimes. It will find an error and give me a box with a big red X.
3) Not finding videos. I have to manually regenerate the database. Thankfully, it's easy to do.
4) Can't run mythfilldb to populate the schedule grid.
There were some bugs and problems, and through trial and error -- believe me, there were lots of errors -- and referring to online forums and support sites, I have most of them solved.
* I found the volume control app, through which I can select the audio output to go to either the TV or the stereo system.
* Made a couple system configuration setting changes, enabling me to use the mythmote app on my smartphone to act as a remote control.
* Brasero still doesn't like my optical drive, or recognize when I swap discs. I can't burn multiple copies of discs without having to stop Brasero, swap discs, and restart Brasero.
* I found a blue 20-pin connector inside the case that didn't have a corresponding socket on the motherboard. This turns out to be a USB 3.0 connector. (No wonder the USB 3.0 connector -- and the card readers -- in the front doesn't work!) So I ordered a PCIexpress USB 3.0 card that has that socket.
* I can't use the DVR capabilities of MythTV with my cable company's system (Spectrum). I would need a PCMCIA card reader in order to get their service (and their channels) through the PC. (I don't want to shell out money for a DVR that I'd hardly use.)
Now that most of the bugs have been shaken out, it works great, and meets most of my needs. I bring up the MythTV backend, which includes running a MySQL database, then bring up the MythTV frontend, and I can watch all my digitized videos, complete with controls like jump-ahead, skip-back, pause, and set bookmark.
A few months ago, one of my college friends told me he's running a Plex server. At his suggestion, I looked into Plex and installed the software on my system.
I also re-examined what I want out of this system:
1) a centralized file server for my videos, pictures, and music.
2) A workstation to perform audio and video digitizing (from audio cassettes, video tapes, etc.) and editing digital media files.
3) The ability to watch videos/play music/view pictures (i.e. play media) from anywhere in the house (bedroom TV, loft TV, laptop, tablet, phone).
4) To act as a DVR, if not for cable TV, but for streaming services such as SlingTV, Netflix, Britbox, et al.
5) To run an ftp server, eliminating the need to transfer files between my systems via flash drives.
In my opinion, where does MythTV fall short?
1) Constant tweaking and reconfiguration. It doesn't work out-of-the-box.
2) Can't start it sometimes. It will find an error and give me a box with a big red X.
3) Not finding videos. I have to manually regenerate the database. Thankfully, it's easy to do.
4) Can't run mythfilldb to populate the schedule grid.
