FreeBSD video recorder (was: FreeBSD as a HTPC!)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday, 27 November 2008 at  7:34:52 +0100, Anders Troback wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for a HTPC application for FreeBSD!

I'm assuming you're talking primarily about TV reception.

I started on this track a while back, but the main problem I've had is
that FreeBSD doesn't support any digital tuners.  Here in Australia we
have digital TV with resolutions of up to 720p (1280x720
non-interlaced) or 1080i (1920x1080 interlaced).  720p is better.

So I ended up using a Linux box running MythTV to do the recording,
and a FreeBSD box with an nVidia card and XvMC to do the playback to a
1280x720 projector.

When I set this up, I also committed the MythTV port, but since then
others have taken it over.  Parts of it are excellent, but I've found
that I don't like the MythTV front end very much.  On the other hand,
the back end isn't too back, notably MythWeb.

So what I do is to copy the saved MPEG files to the FreeBSD machine
and use mplayer, along with a series of scripts, to play it.  I'm
using a DVICO remote control (the one that came with the tuner), and
not coincidentally this is one of the few TV remote controls which
FreeBSD supports.

There's a lot more stuff on my multimedia pages
(http://www.lemis.com/grog/videorecorder), but I'm afraid it's a bit
of a mess, and I haven't updated it for a long time.  If you have any
questions, please ask on this list, and if I have something to add,
I'll do so.

Note that, until the MythTV port gets updated, there's nothing
seriously wrong with the current version: just remove the BROKEN line
from the Makefile and it should install OK.  The only "breakage" is
that if you remove it again without using it, it may leave a user
'mythtv' behind on the system.  But note also that MythTV front and
back ends typically need to be exactly the same version, since they
keep playing around with the network protocol.

Greg
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