What is the real state of multimedia on Linux? [LWN.net]

What is the real state of multimedia on Linux?

Posted Feb 9, 2012 2:40 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
Parent article: XBMC 11 "Eden"

A while back, I purchased a Hauppage USB-based tuner (WinTV-HVR-850)hoping to use my Linux box as a TV (I live in Canada, which went digital over-the-air a few months back.)

The whole experience was a very rude awakening. Countless hours fiddling first with Myth TV and then with XBMC were sucked out of my life. I finally spend $200 on a cheap digital TV from The Source which Just Worked. No editing arcane config files, no messing with MySQL, no balky twitchy drivers, no mysterious desynchronization of audio and video.

So having been scared away from multimedia on Linux for a while, I have to ask: Have things improved? Is it worth trying to dive into it again?

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What is the real state of multimedia on Linux?

Posted Feb 9, 2012 8:01 UTC (Thu) by Klavs (subscriber, #10563) [Link]

unfortunately it's very much a question about purchasing the "right" tuner card. I used the list from mythtv's wiki about supported cards, and after finding (using google) the right frequency's to tell mythtv to scan for my country - dvb-t channels all worked very well with 0.24.

There's been massive improvement from 0.22 to 0.24 - so I'd definetely give mythbuntu a try - that's what I use - and it's pretty simple to setup - as long as you know the frequency - and has a remote that's in the list of supported remotes (I use streamzap remote for my frontends).

Unfortunately I'm temporarily on analog channels only, and I can't get it to find any channels - so mythtv is appearently digital only :(

What is the real state of multimedia on Linux?

Posted Feb 10, 2012 1:16 UTC (Fri) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link]

I used MythTV for about 10 years in Canada and loved it. As I have almost 2TB of recordings, I have now cancelled my cable and don't miss it a bit since I can go watch any episode of most of my favourite old shows at any time. I used an Hauppauge HD-PVR to record high definition off a Shaw Starchoice satellite receiver (the 505, I think it was).