Is MythTV still "it" for Linux DVR?

MythTV is still a great choice, you won't go wrong there.

I've been working real hard on my project and could use some help testing in the not too distant future. I'm hoping to have something downloadable in the next week or so. Just need to do more testing on my own to try to catch as much as I can before I ask other people to invest time.

My project is http://www.jflicks.org and have a distro based upon Turnkey Linux and for folks who prefer a desktop another distro based upon Mint 11. Or just install programs that can go on Linux or Windows.

I also have written a "channel" for the Roku. I managed to squeeze enough DVR functionality in the channel to make the Roku a decent frontend. The downside is recordings need to be transcoded as the Roku can only do mp4 and rather low bitrate mp4. But it is all working - just need some patience for the transcoding job to finish before being able to watch on the Roku.

I'm also planning a GoogleTV frontend for "Ice Cream Sandwich". The nice thing is that the Logitech Revue is much more beefier so I'm hoping transcoding isn't necessary. I'm still at the early stages of this and don't even own the hardware yet - but it seems very doable - Android is Java and this whole project is Java. I just need to learn some google-java-ways first.

And like MythTV I also have a regular client frontend - not real flashy but it works.

I'll report back here when I have something that folks could download.

I have continued with MythTV for backend, but moved to XBMC using the Myth protocol as my frontend. Advantage is that I can run on my Win7 laptop and have the same basic experience so it doesn't confuse my wife.

I am having second thoughts since I mostly want HD and my cable system doesn't expose all those other HD channels like USA and ESPN. One option I have thought of is going WMC and either HDHomeRun Prime or the Ceton cable card devices. If you are staying with analog for now, MythTV works great.

This is something that I would be interested in. I recently picked up some refurbished Rokus from woot.com. For $40 bucks I couldn't resist.

I have been underwhelmed by the availability of free media. If it is available at all, it is usually of horrible quality. I found one app called Roksbox that allows me to stream mp4 media from my PC. I set up an Apache server on the PC, and Roksbox works just fine.

Roksbox has a 30-day free trial, and I am nearing the end of that. I will then have to register to continue to use it. There is a fee, but I don't know what it will cost.

I would like to try your Roku channel. How can I get it on my Roku box?

I got in on that same roku woot sale. Pretty nice little box!

I've looked at Roksbox and it's a $15 one time fee. Really not too bad.

Like their Roku channel it's a matter of adding a "private" channel for the jflicks media system channel. But it is 100% dependent on the jflicks server that you have to run on your local network. I've been working hard on getting installation programs and distros ready so people can try it.

I have two distros:

1) Based upon Turnkey Linux Core. Turnkey Linux is an appliance distro based upon Ubuntu. The idea being for server side functions like web servers and the like. The nice thing for this project one can nicely install it either on bare metal or in a virtualbox. In a virtual box it works great especially when using a network recorder like the HDHomerun. Of course if you have PCI based cards I don't think it would work. A USB could work but I've never tested it. Virtualbox makes trying it out pretty painless.

2) Another distro based upon Mint 11. Lots more overhead with X and everything but sometimes it's nice to have a GUI desktop.

The non-distro installation is a set of 3 installation programs created with Install4j.

Otherwise, jflicks media system programs can be categorized in 3 ways. The server which could run on a headless computer. A set of 5 desktop apps that are used for configuration etc. These run on any machine on your network - usually a desktop machine. The third are the TV user interfaces. I have the Roku channel and my own client that runs on a PC. I am next going to work on a GoogleTV app, and if XBMC has that PVR plugin interface stuff I don't see why one couldn't be written that talks to the server the same way the Roku does and Google TV will. It's just a REST API and parsing XML.

So, the hold up is me getting these installs/distros done. Hopefully a few more evenings of work.

Not sure what your use case is - whether you just want to serve up your own rips and/or recordings. Would you be making recordings? The trick with the Roku is encoding the right mp4. The server is configured to do this after a recording finishes.

Cheesy video but gives you an idea of the user interface. I took it with my video camera and it does have a few auto focus glitches - thats in the recording not on the Roku.

I don't want to hijack this thread for discussing Jflicks. Is there an existing thread covering Jflicks? If not maybe we should start one.