Sunday 2 September 2007

MythTV setup

I spend a bit of time yesterday and today, in between watching footie games, setting up my Mac Mini as a MythTV machine, after having tried it out successfully on my laptop.

The low-down:
  • I needed to buy a USB keyboard with a proper cable. My 2 wireless USB Logitech keyboards weren't kicking off early enough to be able to press 'C' to boot from the CD.
  • Colin's guide to installing Fedora on the Mac Mini is still up-to-date, pretty much.
  • Getting the display to work (ie. outputting to the TV) was a real pain. The DVI-to-HDMI output didn't work under Linux (and even if it would, it would have clipped the image to the 720p resolution, 1280x720, when the full resolution is 1280x768). The manual only advertises 1024x768 as a resolution for the VGA input, but a lot more got listed when using my laptop with the XRandR 1.2-capable drivers. 1280x768 works.
  • Wireless works, given the right version of the firmware.
  • MythTV is pretty easy to install if you follow Jarod's guide to the install (the RPM is mythtv as opposed to mythtv-suite).
  • I already had the firmware for my DVB-T tuner, I don't remember where I got it...
  • I wondered what the reason for no menu items was when starting MythTV, but a quick Google fixed it.
I'm sure there's plenty to be done still. I'll probably switch to a different recording solution, if Sony's PlayTV ends up being any good. Now to get recording and fill the HD up a bit.

Does anyone know where I can get screen quirks added, so that people don't struggle like I did setting X up?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can also use the Apple Remote to influence booting, so you wouldn't have to buy a new keyboard.

According to Wikipedia, you have to press and hold the menu button, and you'd get a list of devices to choose from.

Bastien Nocera said...

This is a PPC Mac Mini, so it didn't come with a builtin Apple Remote. Instead I use a Keyspan Frontrow Remote. I wonder if that would work.

Thanks for the hint though, I'll have to try it out!