Custom DVR

As I said in my last post, I run MythDora 10.21 for my custom DVR solution. MythDora is a combination of RedHat's Fedora [?] 10 and MythTV [?] 0.21 which bundles into an install most of what you need for a DVR solution. Here are a few screen shots I took today.

MythTV's MythFrontend with custom TV-G filter

This shows what the kids have access to by default. They can pick any show in the TV-G filter I've created. Shows which are fine for Saturday morning while the parents are sleeping in and don't need much supervision are here. I would say don't need any supervision, but there is no such thing these days, but it's 99% approved. A feature that makes MythTV more family-friendly is that it auto-skips commercials. Commercials these days are worse than anything we ever watch on TV. Our rule of thumb is that if we wouldn't watch it with the kids (use age-appropriate logic here, when say they're older teenagers), then we don't need to be watching it either.

MythTV's MythFrontend with custom TV-PG filter

In the background here you can see some of the TV-PG shows that our filter has. These are shows which we'll watch as a family and discuss. Especially shows like Nature and Nova, where scientific opinions and theories are so often stated as fact.

Both of these menus are accessed with a standard remote control, up and down arrows, ok, back, delete, etc. buttons like you would a TiVo or any other TV-type remote. It all shows on our "TV" which is really just a large flat panel computer monitor. To get to the filters that are not either TV-G or Christian, a parental password si required.

MythTV's MythWeb view of Recorded Programs

MythTV gives the ability to access the DVR via a web browser from anywhere I have network access to it - which depending on how you setup your firewall/vpn, could be anywhere you have internet access. If I'm at home, I can pull up a list of shows and do a direct download to watch the show locally in the native original recording. This is only possible at home to watch the original as it is about 1GB per half hour in Standard Definition (SD) and 2-3GB per half hour for High Definition (HD), and not something I can stream fast enough across the internet. In fact, I couldn't stream it fast enough across my old 802.11b 11mbit wireless and had to upgrade to 802.11g 54mbit to be able to handle it. However, I'm not out of luck for viewing when I'm remote.

MythTV's MythWeb Program Detail

I can also choose to have MythTV's MythWeb interface stream the show in a compressed format which has no problem playing across the internet. This quality is comparable to Youtube videos, but can be set even higher if you have a really fast upload speed out to the internet.