Freevo is an open source multimedia platform written in Python, which allows you to easily turn your Linux based PC into a jukebox, VCR, PVR and HTPC. This latest release includes lots of new features including a web interface for remote administration, PS3 support under Yellow Dog Linux, an RSS server for fetching podcasts, an encoding server and lots more.
Setup of Freevo was straight forward enough once the required modules were installed. The only problem I ran across was the need to install Kaa from SVN. To install Kaa, simply check out the latest revision and install the kaa.base and kaa.metadata packages as so:
svn co svn://svn.freevo.org/kaa/trunk kaa cd kaa/base sudo python setup.py install ... cd ../metadata sudo python setup.py install ...
Configuration of Freevo can be a bit of a pain as you have to edit the configuration by hand but it’s all clearly documented. You can also head over to the Freevo Help website if you do have any issues. Once everything is setup, Freevo is simple to use. From the main menu, you can select to watch tv, watch a movie, listen to music, look at pictures, view the weather or read some RSS headlines.
From the TV menu you can view the TV guide, watch recorded shows, view your scheduled recordings and favorites and setup Freevo to record manually. The TV guide uses XMLTV to grab listings for your local area. From within the TV guide you can view the details for each program and choose to schedule it for recording, search for other times the program is on and add it as a favorite. You can of course just go ahead and watch tv!
The movie menu allows you to watch pre-recorded TV programs or video’s already on your computer. Video playback is through either Mplayer or Xine. You can also setup Freevo to play movies directly off the internet similar to web radio. From the options menu, you can also choose to burn the video to CD or DVD using the new ‘cd_burn’ plugin, search the IMDB for information on the video, or trans-code the video to another format.
From the music menu you can listen to your music stored on your PC, play podcasts downloaded using the new RSS Server included with Freevo or listen to some web radio. To setup the RSS server you have to configure your rss.feeds file with the podcasts you wish to download. You can find more information on the configuration here. You can also choose to burn your music to CD or DVD from the options menu, again using the new ‘cd_burn’ plugin.
The pictures menu, surprise surprise, allows you to view your photos on your PC. You can view each item individually, create a slide show and again using the new ‘cd_burn’ plugin, backup your photos to CD or DVD. The images are resized automaticlyto fit the screen which is useful when viewing larger pictures on your TV.
The weather menu again is very self explanatory, you can view weather reports for one or more locations. You simply need to enter your US Zip code or location code (Dublin, Ireland is IEXX0014) from weather.com. You can view current conditions, a daily forecast, a 4 day forecast and a satellite or radar image.
The headlines menu allows you to view RSS feeds from with Freevo. This is very useful for keeping up with the latest news on your HTPC or PVR. You simply add the feed address to your local_conf.py and away you go. The formatting isn’t the best but it’s still perfectly readable.
All in all, Freevo makes for an excellent base for a Linux based HTPC. There are lots more features than the ones I’ve gone through here including the ability to control Freevo from a Bluetooth enabled phone and there are tons of plugins and skins available to extend the functionality and look of Freevo.
