MythTV + Netgear MP101

Wouldnt it be neat to play music on a MythTV box without having to turn on the television?

A neat solution is to wire a mythtv box with a Netgear MP101. MP101 is a network MP3 player. This effectively gives the MythTV box with an LCD display for mp3 playing.

Here is a picture of my setup:



Since I have a wireless pcmcia card already attached to the mythtv machine, it was a simple matter of attaching the mp101 to the computer's onboard ethenet.

This also turns the mythtv box into a router/gateway or a "bridge" device for any other network-capable gadgets I may attach later near the TV set (I didnt have ethernet cable to where the tv was, until I actually take the trouble to drill holes in the wall this would serve as a pretty good bridge to my other servers).

So anyway to summarize, for my particular setup here are the components needed

1. mythtv box with a spare network port
2. netgear mp101
3. crossover cable
4. Linux software to serve content from mytthv to the mp101 --- google for "twonkyvision".
5. Linux dhcp server software.

in summary the work involved is:

1. install & configure dhcp server (debian: apt-get install dhcpd)
2. configure twonkyvision media server software to serve content to the new network segment.
3. wire them together with a crossover cable and test

and , optionally:

4. (optional) - configure NAT (ip masquerading) or fix routing so all other devices on the LAN can route to the newly created segment (where the new mythtv/dhcp segment resides).


In my case the network looks like:


internet ------192.168.1.0----mythtv-----192.168.15.0------netgear-mp101

I found the setup to be excellent. I only had to serve the directory where mythtv stores the music files and the LCD nagivation is as what is expected (by folder or by artist). I didnt bother to test "playlist" compatibility though.

thanks for reading this and have a nice day.

jondz