Guide: MythTV 32, Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD, and Pop!_OS 22.04

11/28/2022, 5:24:25 PM

As a cord cutter, I am an advocate of taking advantage of local broadcast signals in my area.

Not sure what kind of channels you'll get? Head on over here and find out

The following is a rough guide as to how to install MythTV on a machine running Pop!_OS 22.04.

Format the machine to Pop!_OS 22.02

Follow the guide here to set up a Live USB, and install Pop!_OS onto the device you'd like to set up (hereinafter referred to as media PC).

*N.B. There are two components to MythTV, the backend, and the frontend. We'll be keeping things simple and installing both the backend and frontend on the same machine.

Set fractional scaling to 150%

N.B. It seems MythTV doesn't quite work well with fractional scaling at this time

Update the system and install MythTV and the database

sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt install mythtv mariadb-server

When installing, the system will automatically ask you if you want to allow remote connections. You can opt to enable this if you think you may be setting up additional frontends (e.g. different machines connecting to the media pc). Otherwise, you can leave it disabled.

Secure MariaDB

sudo su # Log into the root user (this is necessary)
mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, do not enable unix socket authentication. MythTV needs to log in via username/password (as would additional frontends, if set up).

Reboot

☝️

(Optional) Test the tuner card

sudo apt install vlc

Then,

Open VLC
File > Open Capture Device
Set the capture mode to "TV - Digital"
Delivery system "ATSC" (could be different depending on your local broadcast format)
Transponder/multiplex frequency (the exact frequency would change depending on local broadcast stations. For example, here 183028 MHz will get me CFTO-DT)

If the tuner card opens the stream and you see a broadcase, great!

If you don't, then you have to do something to fix the tuner card. Maybe check the Hauppauge website. The rest is an exercise left to the reader.

Run MythTV setup

During install, MythTV should've automatically set up a mysql user and database for you. Unfortunately, the password differs from the defaults. Check the file /etc/mythtv/config.xml for the database password, and either change the password for the mythtv user in MariaDB, or change the password MythTV tries to use (by editing that file).

Add the tuners, video sources, and scan for channels
Set "PulseAudio" as the default sound device

(Optional) Install XMLTV for the guide

TBD — configure via video sources menu option

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