MythTV Frontend

A brought a PC home from work a few months ago that I planned on using as a MythTV frontend. I tried installing Mythbuntu on it because I wanted to see how different it was from MythDora but Mythbuntu didn’t seem to like the onboard video nor the add-in card I had. I loaded MythDora onto the hard drive successfully. After I built the MythTV backend, I had thought about building a frontend to go with it. When I got the PC from work, I anticipated turning it into a frontend that could be connected to the main TV in the house. After I was forced to reinstall MythTV onto a new hard drive in the backend, I started looking into getting the frontend up and running. I finally got the frontend to see the database on the backend. After playing around with the hostname settings, I am now able to get the video to stream over the network so I can watch recordings and live TV.
I also just found an app that’ll allow me to use my eMac as a MythTV frontend.

Eventually, I would like to replace this frontend with an HTPC that becomes part of my home entertainment center and maybe build a few others for other rooms in the house. I’d also like to increase the storage on the backend to a couple of terabytes so that I can store all my TV recordings, music, and photos, along with ripping my entire DVD collection so I can watch any movie from anywhere in the house.

 

MythTV Server – Take Two

The hard drive inside my MythTV server crashed on Thanksgiving morning. The database that stored all the information about everything I’ve recorded was lost so I had to purchase a new hard drive and format the 500GB hard drive I’m using and start from scratch. I plan on figuring out a way to automatically have the MythTV box backup the database, compress it, and email it to my GMail account so I have a copy of it.

 

My MythTV Server

I finally worked out all the bugs on the MythTV server I made from my old PC. I had trouble getting the remote to work so I went out and bought another Hauppauge PVR-150 card to get the IR blaster and remote control. I had to reinstall MythDora for the remotes to work but now I have the ability to record 2 shows at once.

 

New PC & MythTV

I’ve finally finished my new computer to replace my 5 year old tower. The new PC has a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2GB RAM, and 2 300GB hard drives mirrored in a RAID-1 configuration so if one of them fails, I’ll still have all my data. The box it’s replacing has a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1GB RAM, and 1 160GB hard drive. Now that I’m sure I have everything from the old PC copied over to the new PC and backed up to my external hard drive, I’ve formatted the hard drive in the old PC and installed MythDora. MythDora is a Fedora Core and MythTV “All-In-One” CD/DVD. It will allow me to do all the stuff you can do with a TiVO for free.

 

2007 WSOPC

No, it’s not the World Series of Poker. It’s the 2007 World Series of Pop Culture. In case you never saw last year’s inaugural World Series of Pop Culture, here’s some info about it:

VH1 and Entertainment Weekly are putting the country’s pop culture savvy to the test in The 2007 World Series of Pop Culture, presented by Alltel Wireless. NY1′s Pat Kiernan is back to host the ultimate pop culture tournament where teams fight to prove they know the most about all things music, television and film. And in the end, the champions will take home a whopping $250,000 provided by Alltel Wireless!

Thousands auditioned all across the country, but only 16 of the very best teams of three players were chosen to compete. Fourteen teams were chosen in five regional competitions–in Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, Orlando and New York. The 15th team was cast online, where budding contestants qualified by taking VH1′s very own “Pop Culture IQ Test.” And rounding out the tournament grid, last year’s champs, El Chupacabra from Atlanta, return to defend their title.

The 16 teams face off in New York City, where two teams go head to head in each match, each vying to move on to the next round of competition. Here’s how the game is played: Once the first category is revealed, the two teams have 30 seconds to deliberate before sending a teammate to the microphone to play for that entire category. The chosen players each get one question per round, and each category contains three rounds of questions of increasing difficulty. If a player can’t provide the right answer, his or her opponent gets the opportunity to steal.

At the end of each category, the player who gets the fewest questions correct is eliminated from the game. In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker question determines who remains in the competition and who gets knocked out. The first team to beat its opponents in three categories, eliminating all three of their players, wins and moves on to the next round.

On hand to interview the winners–and losers–are memorable competitors from last year’s inaugural tournament, the women of Cheetara. Amber Tillett, Erin Davidson and Katherine Gotsick made it to the quarterfinals last year, and draw upon their experiences as they speak to players immediately following their games.

Finally, in this winner-take-all tournament, one team will be crowned the champions of The 2007 World Series of Pop Culture, and will take home $250,000 in cash, provided by Alltel Wireless.

It starts tonight on VH1 at 9PM.

 

Reality TV Running Out Of Has-Been Celebrities

It seems like lately reality TV is running out of has-been celebrities. VH1 has ‘Scott Baio Is 45…and Single‘. A & E has ‘The Two Coreys‘ with Haim and Feldman. If you count the celebrities that have been on ‘Celebrity Fit Club’, ‘Surreal Life’, and ‘Dice Undisputed’, there aren’t too many washed-up has-been celebrities left for reality TV.

 

Some Things I’d Like To See NHRA Do For The Fans

I’m a big fan of NHRA PowerADE Drag Racing but there are a few improvements I’d like to see done for the fans. They are, in no particular order:
1) Broadcast qualifying at the same time every race weekend. Qualifying now is shown anywhere between 5pm and 1am. If they broadcast qualifying at, or at least close to, the same time each race weekend, I’m sure there would be more viewers.
2) Broadcast eliminations at the same time every race weekend. This is a similar problem to the qualifying but the latest they broadcast the eliminations at is 10pm.
3) Broadcast qualifying and/or eliminations LIVE. They tried this a few years ago on Pay-Per-View and gave up after just one year. A better way to do it is to offer a discount for NHRA members and maybe offer a “Season Pass” like they have for football/baseball/hockey.
4) Broadcast qualifying and/or eliminations over satellite radio, preferably XM, but ONLY if the sound quality is a lot better than the audiocast NHRA members can listen to from NHRA.com.
5) Broadcast all sportsman categories, not just Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. Even if they only broadcast the final rounds of all the sportsman categories, it would be an improvement over only showing the alcohol classes.
6) Pick one non-alcohol final that was interesting/exciting and show it before the professional classes final rounds. Some fans who only see the races on TV and never go to a national event may not know there are other classes other than Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Bike, Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. It really doesn’t even have to be a final round. Any round of eliminations would do. The idea is to show fans who don’t know, that there are more categories than what’s being broadcast on TV now.

Most of these suggestions have been made by other people on other sites, including ClassRacer.com. I figure the more it gets said, the more NHRA might actually listen.

 

DirecTV BTTF Commercial

They been showing the DirecTV Back To The Future commercial a lot lately on TV and there’s just one thing wrong with it (other than there wasn’t any DirecTV or HDTV in 1985). The cut on Doc’s forehead is on the wrong side. In the commercial, it’s above his left eye (right side of the screen). In the movies, it’s above his right eye (left side of the screen). Considering they used clips directly from the first movie, you’d think someone at DirecTV would’ve noticed that.

 

Sopranos on A&E

I watched the Sopranos on A&E last night and I was very surprised at how well they edited it. They had to pixelate some stuff but I was really impressed that they had the real actors’ voices dub over the curse words, even though they did allow shit and bullshit to be said.

 

Pinks All Out

I was watching Pinks last night and saw a commercial for a new Pinks show called Pinks All Out. Instead of racing for pink slips, the racers race for $10,000 cash. There won’t be any sandbagging allowed. It’s going to be a heads-up, run-what-you-brung racing. I don’t know if it’s just a special show they’re doing or if it’s going to be a new series.