MythNews
Really Simple Syndicate (RSS) newsfeeds can be accessed through the MythNews module. MythNews categorizes RSS newsfeed sources in a top-level menu in a left-hand listbox that is easily navigated by keyboard or remote. Each top-level category has a sub-level of topic headings in a right-hand listbox displaying the latest headlines for a given news source. A pop-up menu (new in version 0.20) enables quick edits, additions, and deletion of news sites or update frequency directly within the main user interface instead of hand-editing the XML document these entries are contained within.
MythPhone
Each MythTV frontend device can be uniquely configured and registered to receive Internet-based phone and video conference calls using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Registration may use the FreeWorldDialup service, so that calls placed through a normal household phone route directly through MythPhone. Web-cam capturing is possible, but optional, for supported makes and models. The one thing all MythTV frontend units configured to use MythPhone share in common is a directory database that identifies all active MythPhone endpoints (so that they may call one another).
MythVideo
MythVideo catalogs video information on various formats for quick browsing and playback. Three separate views are provided for browsing the on-disk repository of video metadata: browse mode displays a single video screen at a time; tree mode mirrors a presentation format similar to the Watch Recordings screen; and gallery closely mirrors the MythGallery format.
Detailed information on each selection can be obtain through a search through the online Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) at imdb.com where MythVideo will also acquire poster art for selected titles (where applicable). Playback is provided through Xine, mplayer or even MythTV's internal playback engine. Xine is a free multimedia player that recognizes CD, DVD and VCD disc formats and decodes AVI, MOV, WMV and MP3 audio formats. It also has codecs to support mpeg audio layers 1-3, AAC (used in MPEG layer 4), AC3 / Dolby Digital, Vorbis, FLAC and others. Mplayer supports some of these and many others such as Qt / MOV formats, NuppelVideo, and streaming protocols like HTTP/FTP, RTP/RTSP and a few others.
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Ed Tittel is a long-time IT writer, researcher and consultant, and occasional contributor to Tom’s Hardware. A Windows Insider MVP since 2018, he likes to cover OS-related driver, troubleshooting, and security topics.