MythTV 31 Released With Video Decode Improvements, Finally Supporting Python 3

For those stuck in home isolation amid the coronavirus pandemic, MythTV 31 has been released for any open-source DVR and HTPC needs.

This is the first MythTV open-source DVR update since MythTV 30 at the start of 2019. With MythTV 31 there is a lot of work on the video decode/playback plus a few other items worth noting:

- Numerous changes to video decode and playback handling. OpenGL is now a hard requirement for MythTV 31. There is full GPU-based video acceleration for VA-API, VDPAU, NVIDIA NVDEC, VideoToolBox, Video4Linux2 codecs, MMAL, and MediaCodec. Being dropped, however, is CrystalHD and OpenMAX support. More details on the video handling changes via this Wiki page.

- "Greatly improved" channel scanning.

- Python 3 is now supported by MythTV, which is about time considering how long Python 3 has been out and Python EOL already since the beginning of the year. The Python 2 support is still present but now deprecated and to be removed in a future release.

The MythTV open-source digital video recorder project is turning 18 years old next month. With the era of Internet streaming, however, personal DVR needs are much less than a decade ago.

MythTV 31 is available from MythTV.org.