[NCLUG] mythbuntu?

[Brian Wood]

On Sunday, October 24, 2010 01:33:29 pm Degutan White wrote:a few:

> Does anyone have any recommendations on setting up a linux system to watch
> hulu or other free streaming services?  I bought one of the CSU surplus
> computers (dual core, 2.6 ghz, 2gb ram) last week.
> 
> I'm looking at mythbuntu, or just using debian and downloading things and
> using mplayer
> 
> any recommendations out there?

Hoo Boy,

Sorry of this is somewhat disjointed, just my initial thoughts after many years of playing with the various ways to do TV 
with computers and the internet.

Mythbuntu is a pre-packaged version of MythTV and the Ubuntu OS. Just like Mythdora and LinHes are also "all in one" 
packaged versions of MythTV.

MythTV is non-trivial to get up and running, and may be overkill if you are not recording from outside scheduled sources 
with capture cards.

There are TONS of ways you can use online streaming services, way too many to list here, but here are a few:

I use the PlayON server:

http://www.playon.tv/playon

Basically it can access most of the online content, including Hulu, Netflix and many others, like PBS, CBS, NBC, VintageTV, 
and many many more, including live streams from all over the world. It exports them as a UPnP server, so you can watch on 
an XBox-360, a PS3, a Wii, and any UPnP capable player, of which there are many.

Two of the best are the Myka for $89:

http://www.myka.tv/buy.html?page=shop.browse&category_id=6

This unit can play anything I have throw at it, and it works well with the PlayOn server. The only problem is DTS audio, I 
have to convert to AC3.

It can also play anything downloaded from that thing we never talk about (starts with "Use"), I'd not suggest Torrents, 
way too easy to get prosecuted.



There is also the Roku player, originally designed for Netflix, but will work well with PlayON, now avalable for $59.



The drawback to the PlayON server is it needs Windoze, but it will run in a VM. It's also commercial, but very reasonably 
priced IMHO.

The combination of PlayON and the Myka lets me watch just about anything available on the net from streaming services 
(except the BBC iPlayer, since I'm not in the UK). The Myka will find anything on my network via NFS or Samba, so it's 
truly a universal solution.



MythTV is a DVR, for recording and playing back cable TV, off-air or satellite sources. The latest version does have some 
ability to  play internet streaming sources, though not as well as PlayOn, and obviously it can't do Netflix, due to the 
DRM. I have a functioning Myth system but since I have got my streaming setup working I almost never use it anymore.




Personally I think Netflix is a must for any internet streaming setup today, they have a wide selection and are extremely 
reliable. Hulu has commercials and is nowhere near as reliable as Netflix.

Plugins and scripts available for PlayOn allow for so wide a range of sources it's hard to list even a portion of them.

Some sources for plugins/scripts are:

http://www.playonscripts.com/
http://playonlabs.net/

This is in addition to the built-in features of PlayOn, like Netflix, Amazon VOD and many other sources.

Just too many options, you'll probably want to try several of them and decide how you want to do things. If you want to 
run Windoze on your new machine you might start by trying out PlayOn, assuming you have a device that will play UPnP/DLNA 
sources (even some TV sets do that now). That machine will run MythTV, but be prepared for many hours of setup if you go 
that route. Myth operates on a "backend/frontend" architecture, the BE doing the scheduling, recording, commercial flagging 
and runs the database, the frontend(s) handles the playback and user input, though you can run both the FE and the BE on 
the same machine. The many ION-based little machine around today make great Myth frontends, they can use the nVidia VDPAU 
for decoding HD video with little or no CPU power required (an Atom is fine).

Feel free to mail me if you have questions, but I can't tell you the best way to go, there are just too many options. I 
have tried as many as I can, the result being more TV than I can ever hope to watch, and a garage full of computer 
hardware :-)

The bottom line is the question "what's on" has totally lost all meaning to me, it's all on, all the time, and to a large 
extent for free, except for hardware.