Freevo is a GPLopen source application for Linux and BSD designed to run a homemade personal video recorder. MythTV is a similar open source program also for Linux. The GNU logo For other uses of GPL, see GPL (disambiguation). ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Tux, a penguin, is the official Linux mascot. ... BSD redirects here; for other uses see BSD (disambiguation). ... The personal video recorder (PVR), also called digital video recorder (DVR) or digital personal video recorder, is a consumer electronics device that records television shows to a hard disk in digital format. ... MythTV is a GPL open source application for Linux designed to allow any computer (that meets the specified minimum requirements) to function as a personal video recorder. ...
Freevo is like a window manager -- an interface controlled by a remote control or the keyboard -- that provides access to various media.
Freevo uses MEncoder for recording TV, and it can use TV guides in XML format, which can be downloaded off the Net using XMLTV or similar programs.
Freevo does not require an X server and can also run on a frame-buffer device -- with video cards from vendors such as Matrox -- so getting the geometry right is essential.
Freevo is mostly written in the Python programming language, which is very well suited for high-level control applications like Freevo.
Like Freevo, MythTV will also require a few libraries and applications, as well as XMLTV to download TV listing and LIRC will be necessary to use our remote to control with the Linux PVR once it is set up.