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# 8.6 MythTV

MythTV is an open source PVR software project.

It is well-known in the Linux® world as a complex application with many dependencies, and therefore difficult to install. The FreeBSD ports system simplifies much of the process, but some components must be set up manually. This section is intended to help and guide in setting up MythTV.

## 8.6.1 Hardware

MythTV is designed to utilise V4L to access video input devices such as encoders and tuners. At this time, MythTV works best with USB DVB-S/C/T cards supported by `multimedia/webcamd` because webcamd provides a V4L userland application. Any DVB card supported by webcamd should work with MythTV, but a list of known working cards can be found here. There are also drivers available for Hauppauge cards in the following packages: `multimedia/pvr250` and `multimedia/pvrxxx`, but they provide a non-standard driver interface that does not work with versions of MythTV greater than 0.23.

HTPC contains a list of all available DVB drivers.

## 8.6.2 Dependencies

Being flexible and modular, MythTV allows the user to have the frontend and backend on different machines.

For the frontend, `multimedia/mythtv-frontend` is required, as well as an X server, which can be found in `x11/xorg`. Ideally, the frontend computer also has a video card that supports XvMC and, optionally, a LIRC-compatible remote.

For the backend, `multimedia/mythtv` is required, as well as a MySQL™ database, and optionally a tuner and storage for recordings. The MySQL package should be automatically installed as a dependency when installing `multimedia/mythtv`.

## 8.6.3 Setting up MythTV

To install MythTV, use the following steps. First, install MythTV from the FreeBSD Ports collection:

    # cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv
    # make install

Set up the MythTV database:

    # mysql -uroot -p < /usr/local/share/mythtv/database/mc.sql

Configure the backend:

    # mythtv-setup

Start the backend:

    # echo 'mythbackend_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf
    # service mythbackend start

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