[ale] Using MythTV in a networked DVR farm setting

[Mike Harrison]

> 1. How well the program guide and network interface work.  Can teachers 
> easily program a recording from school or home PC via web interface?  Do 

If you punch a hole through the firewall, yep. The interface is VERY easy. 
But you'll want to secure that hole.

> we need a fixed IP address for each DVR, or does MythTV have a single 
> web site you can log into and program your local DVR (like Snapstream, e.g.)

Not done it yet, but theoretically you can have a gang of encoders
all working as a team from one control interface. Looks like it'd take 
some serious geek time to make it work smoothly. 

> 2. If you had a bank of MythTV Linux DVRs in a centralized location, how 

Kinda same part of the above.

> 4. Can you set MythTV to automatically recompress the digital video for 
> streaming at a lower bit rate so older clients can stream it from the 
> LTSP servers?

You can set up all kind of batch processes... 

> Has anyone tried any of this?  Any advice?  Alternative is to put a 
> Linux box in each classroom dedicated to DVR and connected to the 

Advice: Having dealt with teachers and education: let some-one else do it.

That being said, if you are a masochist, and want to play and learn, and 
support your custom one of a kind solution, MythTV is an incredible set of tools.. 
and there are lots of things you can add 
in. But think of it more like an 'Erector Set' than a solution. 
And you'll probably add a few parts from other sets, grind and hammer them
to fit.. etc..   And the PVR-350 Cards rock! - Please use hardware MPEG 
cards.. they work so much better.

Oh.. and check out VLC http://www.videolan.org  - It's streaming server rocks. 
It makes a good tool for streaming video server from live inputs as well 
as files. 

Although I run a KnoppMyth machine at home, I've found it easier to build
custom boxen based on FC4, but I'm a RedHat kinda guy...

Here's a ps from a single CPU machine with 4 PVR350 cards encoding and 
streaming at the same time: Avg System load:  5.26


 2368 ?        Ssl  4370:40 /usr/bin/vlc -d --color 
pvr:/dev/video0:norm=ntsc:size=352x288:frequency=193250:bitrate=3000000:maxbitrate=4000000 
--cr-average
 2393 ?        Ssl  3727:22 /usr/bin/vlc -d --color 
pvr:/dev/video1:norm=ntsc:size=352x288:frequency=199250:bitrate=3000000:maxbitrate=4000000 
--cr-average
 8179 ?        Ssl  2784:58 /usr/bin/vlc -d --color 
pvr:/dev/video2:norm=ntsc:size=352x288:frequency=211250:bitrate=3000000:maxbitrate=4000000 
--cr-average
19088 ?        Ssl  608:33 /usr/bin/vlc -d --color 
pvr:/dev/video3:norm=ntsc:size=352x288:frequency=77250:bitrate=3000000:maxbitrate=4000000 
--cr-averag