This book takes a project based approach to implementing your own MythTV setup, from selecting hardware right through to advanced customization. You will learn how to record your favorite television shows, store your DVDs for later playback, create a music library out of your CD collection, and even use your personal video recorder (PVR) to do Voice Over IP. This is a book for hobbyists and technology do-it-yourselfers that wish to create their own PVR or media center. With this book as a guide they will be able to choose the right hardware (or recycle existing hardware) and then install all the necessary software.
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For the uninitiated, MythTV is a video recording and handling package for Linux - it turns your humble Linux distribution into a home theatre and TV handling machine.
I originally bought this book for two reasons: one - I was struggling with MythTV and getting nowhere at the time, and two - if I did succeed in getting it working, I wanted to learn how to do more with it in the future.
This book has been only a partial answer on both fronts. It is a walk-through of installing MythTV on a Ubuntu based system, and as such has little troubleshooting help in it beyond avoidance of any pitfalls you may encounter along the way.
It does have some advanced uses documented in the book, and has yielded some nuggets of information I previously didn't have on how to use and operate MythTV, but in the end it is for new users of MythTV, and fairly Linux-literate users at that.
Do buy if you want to install and use MythTV for the first time. Don't buy if you want help with troubleshooting or advanced hacking of the system. That having been said, this is a well-written and competent book.