I have just installed MythTV on my Ubuntu desktop machine using the instruction found here. I am really pleased with the result even if I did have to jump through a few hoops to get here.

I first looked a MythTV a while back, when I first got the DVB USB adapter. I had trouble setting it up and was a bit disappointed so I did not bother to use it. Instead I just use Xine to watch live broadcast, and then dvbstream via the ‘at’ command to schedule recordings. It worked, but was not very elegant.

I decided to have a go again after reading the guide mentioned above. The initial set-up probable went OK, but for some reason I could not get the schedule to download the information required. I fiddled about lots and tried alternative methods, only to later discover that I had a network problem, not an issue with MythTV. By this time I had already sent an email to the guy who wrote the guide above.

To avoid untangling the mess I had gotten into, it seemed that it would be easier to remove what was already set-up, and start again. This time the schedule was working in that the data was retrieved from the website, and could be seen in the schedule. However the problem now was that the channels had been duplicated in the schedule. When I selected a channel that had program information, I could not tune in. When I selected the version of the same channel that had no information, it would tune in OK and display the channel on the screen.

From the replies that I received from the author of the guide, it was apparent that the information for the channels is stored in the channel table of the mysql database that is used by MythTV. Well a quick view of that table showed me what was wrong, and a quick bit of SQL editing, and I had the channel table sorted.

Now I have a fully working MythTV setup that I am quite pleased with. The only thing I would like to do now is to set-up the system so that it can be run in a window in the corner of the screen, much like can be done with Xine. My hardware now probably needs some attention as it is not exactly the quietest machine.