MythTV on FreeBSD
Introduction
MythTV is an open source PVR software project.
It is well-known in the Linux world as a complex application with many dependencies, difficult to install. The FreeBSD ports system simplifies much of the process, but there remain components that must be set up manually. This page attempts to walk you through the tough parts.
Hardware
MythTV can work with HDHomeRun ethernet connected tuners from Silicon Dust. They are simple to set up and work well.
MythTV is also designed to utilize V4L to access video input devices (encoders, tuners). At this time MythTV works best with USB DVB-S/C/T cards supported by multimedia/webcamd because webcamd provides an V4L userland implementation. See WebcamCompat for a list of known working cards but any DVB card supported by webcamd should work fine in MythTV. There are also drivers available for Hauppauge cards (multimedia/pvr250 and multimedia/pvrxxx) but they only provide a non standard driver interface which does not work with newer MythTV versions >= 0.23.
Have a look at HTPC for a list of all DVB drivers.
Dependencies
MythTV is flexible and modular which gives you the possibility to separate frontend and backend and have them on different machines.
Frontend: multimedia/mythtv-frontend
- X Server (ideally using a video card that supports XvMC)
- LIRC-compatible remote (optional)
Backend: multimedia/mythtv (also requires an X-Server and monitor for the Setup or use display forwarding)
- MySQL
- Tuner (optional)
- Storage for recordings (optional)
Setup
Install MythTV from the port:
# cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv # make install
Setup the mythtv database:
# mysql -uroot -p < /usr/local/share/mythtv/database/mc.sql
Configure the backend:
# mythtv-setup
Start the backend:
# echo 'mythbackend_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf # /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mythbackend start
MythTV on PC-BSD
If you prefer an better out of the box experience you should give PC-BSD a try because they have a MythTV PBI with an install script.