Freevo
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[edit] About
Freevo is a PVR program that you can use to record TV shows, watch DVDs, and listen to music. It is similar to MythTV but not as complex. It is very flexible because it relies on existing external programs to do various tasks. This guide assumes you want to setup Freevo to run on X (X11) not DirectFB or SDL or the hardware framebuffer.
Freevo also uses MEncoder (media-video/mplayer) for its backend to record and watch media.
[edit] Documentation
Freevo maintains its own Wiki which covers everything you need to do to setup a Freevo system.
[edit] Dedicated gentoo freevo box
Although I've tried to be quite verbose, this mini guide assumes you have a resonable basic knowledge of linux. If you've managed to install gentoo you should be alright!
I run freevo on an old Pentium III 600Mhz with 128MB ram, it runs almost perfectly, so if you're thinking about setting up, try and get hold of something around 800Mhz or better. Of course, it's all relative, the more power you can muster, the better. If you're thinking about doing realtime divx encoding, think in Ghz. Basically, I didn't want to spend any money and it was still well worth it.
Watching a standard divx file is almost perfect on my 600Mhz box, although lots of action on the screen sometimes causes slight 'jumping'...I'm not too sure if this is just the lame old hard disk though!
Freevo makes an excellent choice as a PVR/media centre. First, you'll want to get your box set up nicely by following the Gentoo handbook. You'll want to make sure your installation includes xorg, although you won't need any advanced window managers like gnome or kde.
Although freevo can work with either mplayer or xine for its playback backend, I'd recommend mplayer. It's all down to personal choice really. I feel mplayer is very tweakable and well suited to the job. This guide will assume you're using mplayer as your video backend.
[edit] Emerge
Before doing anything, let's make sure portage is up to date:
emerge --sync
Next, get mplayer. mplayer is quite a complex beast and can take quite a while to compile on an older machine. Probably about an hour or so at 600Mhz. It's important you make sure you have the right use flags:
emerge -pv mplayer
Edit your /etc/make.conf and update your USE flags if needed. Then emerge it:
emerge mplayer
Before we get too involved in anything, it's worth making sure mplayer works properly and can play your music and video files. If you're setting your freevo box up remotely (via ssh or whatever), you'll need to tell mplayer what display to use:
DISPLAY=:0 mplayer /home/you/somefile.avi
Be sure to have media-libs/svgalib installed with the current kernel running:
file /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/svgalib_helper.ko
if not reinstall its:
emerge -av media-libs/svgalib
and do:
modprobe svgalib_helper
When you have it working, you'll want to move on to setting up freevo:
emerge -pv freevo
Have a look through the use flags carefuly.
[ebuild N ] media-tv/freevo-1.5.2 +X +dvd +encode +lirc -matrox +nl
If you're happy with the suggested use flags:
emerge freevo
[edit] Configuration Files
Next, edit your config files
/etc/conf.d/freevo
vi /etc/conf.d/freevo
freevo="yes" webserver="yes" # optional recordserver="yes" #optional
/etc/freevo/freevo.conf
vi /etc/freevo/freevo.conf * Refer to the Freevo Wiki
/etc/freevo/local_conf.py
vi /etc/freevo/local_conf.py * Refer to the Freevo Wiki
[edit] Start at Boot
Next, make freevo start on boot:
rc-update add freevo default
After 1.7.2:
(from the ebuild)
* The way of starting Freevo for freevo-only-systems has changed * and does not require Freevo to run as root anymore. * Please use freevoboot, a wrapper to be run as a user. * Configuration is still in /etc/conf.d/freevo * and you can always start freevo directly. * If you're using a Freevo-only system with X, you'll need * to setup the autologin (as user) and choose freevo as * default session. If you need to run recordserver/webserver * at boot, please use /etc/conf.d/freevo * Should you decide to personalize your freevo.desktop * session, keep the definition for '/usr/bin/freevoboot starx'
[edit] Tweaking performance
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