Linux Media Centre

[sambonebs]

I guess this is for all the Linux bods out there. I'm currently looking into a Media Network, the hub of which was going to be a Windows MCE/Vista based PC, with 360s as the 'Terminals' that I could stream media to.

Now, what I want to know is if there's anyway I could do the same thing with Linux (which, I'll admit, I know pretty much bugger all about!). I 'think' there are various media solutions available for the Linux platform but do I still have the option of streaming to the 360s? Or is there a way to do it in Linux and stream to other PCs running Linux? I know there's probably a way I can make the 'Server' behave like a RealAudio streaming server for audio/video but I'd like to have a nice GUI for general media and an EPG for Live TV on the 'Terminals'. Ideas?

Cheers b'woys!

 

[Mells]

what distro are you using?

I'd ask on ubuntuforums.com they have a very busy forum and you'll bound to get someone who has/or doing what you need.

 

[sambonebs]

what distro are you using?

At the moment, I'm not! This is for a future project, so I'll use whatever is best!

I'm try the forum you suggested, cheers! :approve:

 

[KDF]

Mythtv.org

The best PVR media centre soloution on the market today.. and its free ! been using it now for a good few years and it rocks my world

 

[sambonebs]

Mythtv.org

The best PVR media centre soloution on the market today.. and its free ! been using it now for a good few years and it rocks my world

Cheers chap! That looks bloody ace, and I'd gather it'll be exceedingly stable as it's Linux based.

I've had a quick look through the features, just wondered what the deal is with access from other stations on the LAN, can I access all the features (i.e. as if I was sitting in front of the server) from multiple PCs at once?

 

[KDF]

Mythtv.org

The best PVR media centre soloution on the market today.. and its free ! been using it now for a good few years and it rocks my world

Cheers chap! That looks bloody ace, and I'd gather it'll be exceedingly stable as it's Linux based.

I've had a quick look through the features, just wondered what the deal is with access from other stations on the LAN, can I access all the features (i.e. as if I was sitting in front of the server) from multiple PCs at once?

It is brilliant..

The system works as a frontend/backend system, you can have as many frontends and backends as you want and they will all work in unison with each other for example.. in my work I have

MythTV Master - 3 freeview tuner cards (can record 3 stations at once)
MythTV Slave1 - 3 freeview tuner cards (again 3 stations at once)
MythTV Encoder - Master and Slave offload commerical flagging, encoding to other formats to the machine automatically
MythTV frontend - For watching back and scheduling new recordings, i have my system download 2 weeks listings which refreshes at 3am every morning. You can do cool things like tell it to record a whole series of a program instead of manually setting each one to record.. even if the time it is aired changes it will change the recording..

At home I have one system that does everything Backend/Frontend/Encoder. The limit on how many frontends you can stream recorded or live tv programs to is only dictated by your network speed and hard drive performance. I have successfully streamed live and prerecorded video to more than 10 clients simmultaneously.

The Master dictates what machine records what, you can schedule new recording via a frontend or via the built in web interface (which allows you to schedule recordings from any internet enabled device). To be honest i could keep going on and on about the features.. they are endless.

The only thing I will say is if you intend to build mythtv yourself you will need good linux knowledge.. you can however download certain linux distributions that come with everything included and pre-built.. for example mythdora is Fedora with Mythtv

Good luck