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ythWeb is a web-based interface to MythTV. It lets you (among other things) schedule recordings, check upcoming recordings, view program listings, check backend status, and change some configuration parameters. It’s commonly used to manipulate the recording schedule from computers not running aMythTV frontend, including over the Internet when away from home; though, if you have a single-frontend system, it can be helpful for setting up recordings while you’re watching a program.

his chapter discusses two aspects of DVDs and MythTV. First off, we’ll look at how to play and import DVDs with MythTV, and then we’ll look at how you can create your own DVDs of things you have recorded with MythTV. (sometimes referred to as ) is the process of taking the data on a DVD and putting it on the machine’s hard disk, so that you don’t have to have the DVD in the drive to play it. This can be particularly convenient for DVDs that you like watching a lot, or that are slightly damaged. You can also optionally transcode these ripped files to a format that will take up less space on the disk.

espite the large list of MythTV features discussed already in this book, we want to talk about two more. Those features are on-screen display, which gives you the ability to display arbitrary text on the screen of your MythTV frontends during video playback, and Network Control, which lets you control a frontend over the network. Unfortunately, the on-screen display doesn’t work if the MythTV machine is displaying a menu or playing a video or DVD (unless you use the internal player). However, it is still a useful feature.

ythPhone is the MythTV plug-in that lets you make phone calls over the Internet with MythTV. It also supports making video calls with an attached webcam. It talks the standard SIP protocol, so calling other SIP clients or devices over the Internet won’t cost you a cent. Also, many companies offer accounts on their systems that let you call regular phone lines (usually at amuch lower rate than big telecommunications companies). You can also run the free and open source Asterisk (http://www.asterisk.org) to have your own telephone exchange at home. (In addition, you can buy cards to plug into a computer running Asterisk into which you can plug regular phones or phone lines.)

his chapter focuses on something a little different from the others in this book. It’s not specifically about getting a piece of functionality working in MythTV, although we will discuss how to get the latest version of the code from source control and run that. It’s more about how to become an active member of the MythTV community, either as a developer or as a supporter of the community.