I want to use the MythTV as a headless box, if you don’t count the TV. The best way to do that is using a remote client like VNC. For the Mac, Chicken of the VNC works great. It gives you a remote GUI so it is like having the MythTV box right on my iBook.

It took a little bit to get things set-up and working.

First, read this. It goes through the basics of getting VNC up and going on the MythTV side.

I had some problems with how MythTV displayed in Chicken of the VNC. I found a happy solution in the following xstartup file: xstartup.

Don’t forget to open up the correct ports on your router.

A great thing you can do us run a MythTV frontend client on your Mac. Grab it here: Mac MythTV. You have to set it up like on the MythTV box, but it works the same. Well, kinda. I can watch Live and Recorded programs, but watching videos doesn’t work. It does, but you have to compile the plug-in and I don’t have the tools installed.

When you configure the Mac frontend options, give it a unique name in the Set-Up so it will keep the unique preferences.