There's a starman waiting in the sky
By now, you should have a pretty powerful home media server set up. But what about the future? One unfortunate problem with writing articles which target single versions of software is that they date quickly. So it's worth taking some time to gaze into the future a little.
Firstly, what to do if this article doesn't work 100% correctly for you? You should start off by checking web-based documentation - if it's an obvious MythTV problem, check the MythTV wiki or MythTV documentation. If it's an Ubuntu problem, check the Ubuntu wiki. Or you could always search Google for your problem - someone else may have posted a solution already. After that, consider using IRC - use any IRC client (such as the "xchat" package in Ubuntu) to connect to the Freenode network, then consider #ubuntu for general problems, #mythtv-users for MythTV-specific problems, or #ubuntu-mythtv for integration issues between the two.
Next, how about hardware support? Well, the LinuxTV and IVTV projects continue with their good work on TV cards, and other good work on assorted hardware support carries on. Of interest to the enthusiast crowd however is the first sign in years from ATI that it wants to get serious about Linux support - high quality open-source 2D drivers should be forthcoming fairly soon, and maybe 3D somewhere on the horizon afterwards.
What about the versions of things I'm using here? Ubuntu 7.04 will soon be outdated, and 7.10 (and beyond) will behave slightly differently. Best-case scenario is any workarounds or tweaks I've used are no longer necessary. In general, keep your wits about you when using this article with a different distribution version, but almost all of the explanations and screenshots should be close enough to the mark to be useful. There's also the first stable release of Mythbuntu due, which should make installing an Ubuntu-based MythTV system even simpler - and some of MythBuntu's changes will also be available in regular Ubuntu 7.10, such as the new "mythbuntu-control-centre" package to help administer your system.
Finally, what about MythTV? The 0.20 versions of Myth are quite elderly now, so what kind of features are coming in the future? 0.21 should include exciting features such as:
- Automatic backend/frontend discovery (no network or password fiddling required)
- YouTube-style Flash streaming of your recordings from MythWeb
- Record multiple channels with only 1 tuner card when using digital TV (where desired channels share a multiplex or transport, e.g. ITV-2, Channel 4 and More4 all at once)
- Multi-core playback of HD content, e.g. BBC HD
- OpenGL accelerated video rendering
Upgrading between Ubuntu releases is as simple as can be, and is started with a single click once the new version is released (there'll be an extra button in the system update window, which will bring you up to the latest version) - and if everything works now, you can look forward to a system which will keep up with changes and improvements with almost no work required.
Above all, be sure to explore the system as a whole, and try new things. A home-made PC should be fun as well as functional - after all, it's a hobby. The real sign of approval comes when you hear shouts of anguish from the spouse, when your latest series of fiddles breaks recording their daytime TV talk shows - once you come to rely on your Ubuntu & MythTV media server, you'll wonder how you did without it!
