Media Center Live

Create a home theater PC and get the full media center experience within minutes

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

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Remember the TataSky ad that comes every day, which says you can play, pause and record your favourite programs and watch them later. We'll show that it's not necessary to have a set top box to take the advantage of this feature. With PCQLinux 2009 Media Center you can experience the same within minutes. It hardly takes couple of minutes to setup the PCQLinux Live Media Center. The best part is that you don't need to install it on any computer. Try it first, and if you feel it's good enough, then install it and have a permanent media center solution at your place.

How to setup
You will find PCQLinux 2009 DVD with this month's magazine. So just boot your machine with PCQLinux 2009 DVD and choose media center from the boot menu. Wait a couple of minutes and the live OS with media center capabilities will be booted. It is assumed that you have installed a TV tuner card on your computer. After the OS gets booted, login with username 'pcqlinux' and password 'pass@word1'. Then start terminal from Applications > System Tools. Run the following command to setup MySQL database which will be used by MythTV:

#su (press enter and then enter the roots password)
# service mysqld start
#mysqladmin –u root password 'password'

This will set the MySQL password as 'password'. Now run the following command which will create a database for MythTv along with all necessary tables.

In the input connection assign the appropriate video source else the media center will not work.

# mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/doc/mythtv-docs-0.21/database/mc.sql

Next we will set up the backend of Myth TV. For this open MythTv setup from Application > Sound & Video menu. This will open up Myth Tv backend configuration interface. Now select the first option and press Enter. This opens up a configuration wizard. Check whether the IP address that is specified in the IP address is correct. It should be either localhost or 127.0.0.1. Click on Next to proceed. In the TV format, choose PAL-D format and click on next to proceed. Now press enter until the general configuration wizard is finished.

Now select the second option 'Capture Card' and then select 'New Capture Card' for adding the capture card to Myth TV. Now select 'Analog V4L capture card' in the card type option and in the the default input, choose the appropriate input. For example, in our case the default input was 'Composite 2'. No more configuration in this wizard is required. Proceed further to finish this wizard. Next select 'Video Sources' and then select 'New Video Source'. Now give a suitable name for the video source for example 'pcqlsource', and in the 'Listing grabber' choose 'No grabber' as there is no grabber for India. Else, if you are setting this up for elsewhere then choose the appropriate grabber and click on Finish.

From the schedule recordings option you can schedule recordings for programs that should be shown in future.

Now select the third option, 'Input Connections' and then select the first option 'V4L: /dev/video0 (television)'. In the video source option select 'pcqlsource' or the one you have specified earlier. And then click on Next and then Finish. Repeat this step for the rest of the three options. Once it is done go to the next option 'Channel Editor'. Click on 'New Channel', give a suitable name to the channel and provide a channel number, for eg channel 1. In the video source select 'pcqlsource' and in TV format select 'PAL-D' and click on Next. Again click on Next and finally click on Finish. Now select 'pcqlsource' in the video source and see that the newly created channel is shown in the list. Again go to the input connection option and then for each option select the starting channel as 1.

Apart from TV and music, it also offers you the option of viewing news feeds, weather forecasts, web, etc.

To enable recording you have to first specify a storage place. Hence choose the 6th option, 'Storage directory' and select default. Then select 'add new directory' and specify here the path where you want to register. For example in our case we provide '/home/pcqlinux/'. And then exit the Myth TV backend setup.

To start the Myth TV backend server, execute and fill the database, and run the following command:

# service mythbackend start
# /sbin/chkconfig mythbackend on
# mythfilldatabase

Now connect the TV input to your TV tuner card and it's done.

Experiencing Media Center
Now start the Myth TV frontend for Application > Sound & Media > mythtv frontend. On the frontend you will get the following options: Watch TV, Media Library, Manage Recording, Information Center, Optical Disk and Utilities/Setup. From the first option you can watch live TV. Second option shows media library like recorded programs, movies and playlist of your favorite MP3 files. The Manage Recording option lets you schedule recording of your TV channel and records the programs at specified scheduled times and automatically records them for you if you are out. You can watch them later from the 'Managed Library' option. The 'Information Center'gives you updated real-time news feeds, the 'Optical Disk' section lets you view DVD movies and/or listen to music from CD. With the help of Utilities/Setup you can import CD/Files, change appearance, edit keys and so on.

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