Blake's MythTV Box

Watch your time

2009-04-01T23:11:00.004-04:00

My MythBox seems to have lost some time - it's been missing the first 30 seconds or so of every recording. Sure enough, the system clock was off. At some point, somehow, my time server updates stopped working. I'm not sure what I did to knock it out of whack, and don't care to sink too much time into this right now, but here's what I did to get it back in order.

Check your date with the "date" command.

root@mythtv:/root# date
Wed Apr 1 23:12:09 EDT 2009

Verify that date against time.gov.

If it seems off, you can sync up with a time server manually with the 'rdate' command:
root@mythtv:/root# rdate -s nist.expertsmi.com

That's just one of the time servers I found - I don't remember where. After that, do another check and you should see your time sync up with time.gov, and your recordings will start on time. When I get around to looking into what happened with my time server synchronization, I'll write a follow-up post.

Fixed: Missing 80 Seconds From the Beginning of Recordings

2008-04-08T22:44:00.005-04:00

For over a month now, some of my recordings have been missing 80-90 seconds toward the beginning. I would notice this mainly while watching "The Daily Show", but never with "The Colbert Report." The monologue would start, and then the video would skip, and I'd hear the audience laughing, not knowing what I'd missed.

I could just write what the problem was, but I think it's useful to see how to go about solving these type of problems in Linux... Of course, that's once you get over the temporary state of depression that usually follows a Linux system problem.

Where was I.... Oh, so I checked the log files, and found occasional entries like this:

----------------------------------------------------
Apr 8 15:55:09 mythbox kernel: [316852.916516] ivtv0: All encoder MPEG stream buffers are full. Dropping data.
Apr 8 15:55:09 mythbox kernel: [316852.916523] ivtv0: Cause: the application is not reading fast enough.
A
----------------------------------------------------

So there's the culprit. Now what? I should mention at this point that myth writes all of its data to a networked Linux file server, mounted by NFS. So, something's going on where myth tries to write to my file server, and the file server, for whatever reason, isn't grabbing the data fast enough, and Myth gives up, dropping it. After 80-90 seconds, it's able to resume writing.

I recalled that I had recently done an "apt-get dist-upgrade", which had upgraded the kernel, as well as just about everything else in the machine. Problems after such an upgrade usually lead to a particularly depressing state of... er, depression. And any error in your log files that contains "ivtv" (or any other driver)... just makes it worse.

Since this was happening at the beginning of "The Daily Show", but not "The Colbert Show," I figured that maybe the NFS server was in some sort of state where it needed to be woken up, and that once it was recording, it was able to successfully record the rest of that show and the next one as well. Basically, I didn't want to deal with this, so I ignored it for now.

After a month of this, I still wasn't ready to fix the problem -- it was time for a hack. I changed the recording schedule for "The Daily Show" to start 5 minutes early, so I wouldn't miss anything when it decided to drop 80-90 seconds of video.

The first time I watched my new recording, I was really upset to see that the video still cut out at the same spot! But... This was a clue! It's not the case that the file server was asleep at the wheel - there's something going on at the top of the hour! This also explains why "The Colbert Report" was never affected - that starts up at half past the hour.

So I started looking through /etc/crontab, but didn't see anything that runs on an hourly schedule on my file server. I then looked through my Webmin screens. Webmin seems to have its own task scheduling system -- I could be wrong, but didn't see anything in the crontabs that point to it. I found that I had an hourly task to backup my databases.

It's entirely possible that this backup could be CPU-intensive enough to tie up the server long enough for my MythTV box to have nowhere to drop the data. So I tested this by running the backup command from the console with the "time" command.

----------------------------------------------------
time /etc/webmin/mysql/backup.pl --all
----------------------------------------------------

'time' is an awesome command. It just runs whatever is after it, keeping track of how long it takes to complete. This took.... 80 seconds.

Problem solved.

Backing up the database hourly is unnecessary anyway - I only archive that backup once a day, so the other 23 are just overwritten and forgotten. That must have been an accident.

So, I changed this to once-daily, at 3AM, and the problem went away.

It's hard for non-Linux users to understand how rewarding it is. Sure, these problems happen, and if you give up, it's hard to deal with. But, if you hang in there, it becomes a high tech riddle. Solving something like this makes the whole experience worthwhile.

Using 'screen'

2008-02-24T15:06:00.002-05:00

I wrote a simple script to start a 'screen' session on my mythtv box when the mythtv user logs in, at ~/bin/start_screen.sh

--------------------
#!/bin/bash

screen -d -m
--------------------

This starts a detatched screen session. I can now ssh into the mythtv box, connect to that screen, and execute commands in the context of the logged-in mythtv user. Before I had setup irexec to run in its own start-up script, I used to launch it from this screen session. And now that I've been using synergy, there's even less of a reason to keep this screen session around. I'll still keep it going, just in case :)

This page is what got me started with screen.

Synergy: My New Best Friend

2008-02-24T13:49:00.003-05:00

I wish I had heard about Synergy sooner. This app is so cool. If you have a laptop, and run MythTV, you'll wish you've been using it all along as well.

From Synergy's site:
---------------
Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).
---------------

I use Synergy to let me control my mythbox from my laptop. This is not the same as VNC. I don't see the mythtv desktop from my laptop. I'm still using my TV as a monitor, but using my laptop mouse and keyboard to control it. It's very handy for watching web videos on my tv through mythtv, or just to interface with myth a little faster than with my remote control. My mythtv box doesn't have a keyboard plugged into it anymore.

I have my system setup so that my laptop is the synergy server. The server is the machine that has the keyboard and mouse that you want to share. I created a simple script on my mythtv box that starts the synergy client when the mythtv user first logs in (through the session start-up scripts configuration) at ~/bin/synergy_client:

---------------
#!/bin/bash
synergyc --name mythtv [laptop ip address]
---------------

When I want to control my myth box with my laptop keyboard and mouse, i start up the synergy server on my laptop with a simple script named ~/bin/synergy_server:

---------------
#!/bin/bash
killall synergys
sleep 1
synergys --config /etc/synergy.config --name laptop
---------------

If both the server and client are running, I just move my mouse to the right edge of my laptop's screen, and it's now on the mythtv box. Any keyboard activity is sent to mythtv. The clipboard is shared between the two machines. If I want to confine myself to the current box I'm in, I just turn on Scroll Lock. This will prevent the mouse from moving outside the current context.

For reference, here's my laptop's synergy config file:

section: screens
laptop:
mythtv:
end

section: aliases
laptop:
[laptop's ip address goes here]
mythtv:
[mythtv's ip address goes here]
end

section: links
laptop:
right = mythtv
mythtv:
left = laptop
end

section: options
screenSaverSync = false
end

Starting 'irexec' on reboot

2008-02-24T13:43:00.002-05:00

Every time I reboot my MythTV frontend/backend box, I'm annoyed that I have to sit in front of my tv with the keyboard to open up an xterm window and run 'irexec' so that the "wife button" works to stop/start MythTV Frontend when it's misbehaving.

I tried setting 'irexec' as a start script in Gnome, but that never worked. I found the answer to be embarrassingly simple... Wrap the command in your own bash script, then set that script as a startup script.

So in /home/mythtv/bin/start_irexec.sh :
#######

#!/bin/bash
irexec

#######

That's it! I set that command as a startup command in Gnome, and now I can unplug the keyboard, and reboot anytime I need.

~/.lircrc Updates - ISO DVD Menu Navigation

2007-07-31T00:21:00.000-04:00

Another fix that I should have done a year ago... I updated my ~/.lircrc to let me use my remote control for dvd menu navigation. Before, I would pull out my keyboard to start up a dvd. Here's a list of all the codes. To find out what the buttons are called on your remote, run irw and start hitting buttons, reading the input.

Here's my new ~/.lircrc:

# ~/.mythtv/lircrc
#
# MythTV native LIRC config file for
# the grey Hauppauge remote
#
# By Jarod Wilson, 2003/12/21
# Amalgamated from Jeff Campbell's,
# .lircrc, the mythtv.org docs, and
# a few touches of my own. :)
#
# and of my own! (Blake)
#

# Channel Up
begin
prog = mythtv
button = CH+
repeat = 3
config = Up
end

# Channel Down
begin
prog = mythtv
button = CH-
repeat = 3
config = Down
end

# OK/Select
begin
prog = mythtv
button = OK
config = Space
end

# Play
begin
prog = mythtv
button = PLAY
config = Return
end

# Stop
begin
prog = mythtv
button = STOP
config = Esc
end

# Escape/Exit/Back
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BACK/EXIT
config = Esc
end

## Power Off/Exit
#begin
#prog = mythtv
#button = OFF
#config = Esc
#end

# Power Button
begin
prog = irexec
button = Power
repeat = 4
config = /usr/local/bin/mythpowerbutton.sh
end

# Red means stop! - not no more, now it means bring up HUE/COLOR settings
begin
prog = mythtv
button = RED
config = F
end

# Pause
begin
prog = mythtv
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = P
end

# Mute
begin
prog = mythtv
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = |
end

# Fast forward (30 sec default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = Left
end

# Rewind (10 sec default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = Right
end

# Skip forward (10 min default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = PgDown
end

# Skip backward (10 min default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = PgUp
end

# Record
begin
prog = mythtv
button = RECORD
repeat = 3
config = R
end

# Delete
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BLANK
repeat = 3
config = D
end

# OSD browse
begin
prog = mythtv
button = GREEN
repeat = 3
config = O
end

# Display EPG while in live TV,
# View selected show while in EPG
begin
prog = mythtv
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = M
end

# Scroll up
begin
prog = mythtv
button = VOL+
repeat = 3
config = Right
end

# Scroll down
begin
prog = mythtv
button = VOL-
repeat = 3
config = Left
end

# Bring up OSD info
begin
prog = mythtv
button = GO
repeat = 3
config = I
end

# Change display aspect ratio
begin
prog = mythtv
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = W
end

# Seek to previous commercial cut point
begin
prog = mythtv
button = YELLOW
repeat = 3
config = Q
end

# Seek to next commercial cut point
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BLUE
repeat = 3
config = Z
end

# Numbers 0-9

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 0
repeat = 3
config = 0
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 1
repeat = 3
config = 1
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 2
repeat = 3
config = 2
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 3
repeat = 3
config = 3
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 4
repeat = 3
config = 4
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 5
repeat = 3
config = 5
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 6
repeat = 3
config = 6
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 7
repeat = 3
config = 7
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 8
repeat = 3
config = 8
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 9
repeat = 3
config = 9
end

### MPlayer lirc setup

# Show OSD
begin
prog = mplayer
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = osd
end

# Pause playback
begin
prog = mplayer
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = pause
end

# Skip ahead a minute if playing
# If paused, resume playing
begin
prog = mplayer
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = seek +1
end

# Stop playback and exit
begin
prog = mplayer
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = quit
end

# Mute
begin
prog = mplayer
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = mute
end

# Seek back 10 seconds
begin
prog = mplayer
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = seek -10
end

# Seek forward 30 seconds
begin
prog = mplayer
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = seek +30
end

# Quit
begin
prog = mplayer
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = quit
end

# Seek forward 10 minutes
begin
prog = mplayer
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = seek +600
end

# Seek backward 10 minutes
begin
prog = mplayer
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = seek -600
end

# Toggle full-screen
begin
prog = mplayer
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = vo_fullscreen
end

### Xine lirc setup

begin
prog = xine
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = Play
end

begin
prog = xine
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = Stop
end

begin
prog = xine
button = OFF
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

begin
prog = xine
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = Pause
end

begin
prog = xine
button = CH+
repeat = 3
config = EventUp
end

begin
prog = xine
button = CH-
repeat = 3
config = EventDown
end

begin
prog = xine
button = VOL-
repeat = 3
config = EventLeft
end

begin
prog = xine
button = VOL+
repeat = 3
config = EventRight
end

begin
prog = xine
button = OK
repeat = 3
config = EventSelect
end

begin
prog = xine
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = Menu
end

begin
prog = xine
button = FFW
repeat = 3
#config = SpeedFaster
config = SeekRelative+60
end

begin
prog = xine
button = REW
repeat = 3
#config = SpeedSlower
config = SeekRelative-60
end

begin
prog = xine
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = Volume+
end

begin
prog = xine
button = BLANK
repeat = 3
config = Volume-
end

begin
prog = xine
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = Mute
end

begin
prog = xine
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = RootMenu
end

begin
prog = xine
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = EventNext
end

begin
prog = xine
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = EventPrior
end

begin
prog = xine
button = GO
repeat = 3
config = OSDStreamInfos
end

begin
prog = xine
button = RED
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

begin
prog = xine
button = RED
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

### VLC config

# Show OSD
#begin
#prog = vlc
#button = MENU
#repeat = 3
#config = osd
#end

# Pause playback
begin
prog = vlc
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = key-play-pause
end

# Play
begin
prog = vlc
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = key-play
end

# Stop playback and exit
begin
prog = vlc
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = key-quit
end

# Volume Down
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol-
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-down
end

# Volume Up
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol+
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-up
end

# Faster
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch+
repeat = 3
config = key-faster
end

# Slower
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch-
repeat = 3
config = key-slower
end

# Mute
begin
prog = vlc
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-mute
end

# Seek back 10 seconds
begin
prog = vlc
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-10sec
end

# Seek forward 10 seconds
begin
prog = vlc
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+10sec
end

# Quit
begin
prog = vlc
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = key-quit
end

# Seek forward 1 minute
begin
prog = vlc
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+1min
end

# Seek backward 1 minute
begin
prog = vlc
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-1min
end

# Seek forward 5 minutes
begin
prog = vlc
button = Blue
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+5min
end

# Seek backward 5 minutes
begin
prog = vlc
button = Yellow
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-5min
end

# Toggle full-screen
begin
prog = vlc
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = key-fullscreen
end

# Position - shows where you are in the video
begin
prog = vlc
button = Go
repeat = 3
config = key-position
end

# Subtitles
begin
prog = vlc
button = Blank
repeat = 3
config = key-subtitle-track
end

# Snapshots
begin
prog = vlc
button = Record
repeat = 3
config = key-snapshot
end

# Audio Sync'ing
# Audio Delay UP
begin
prog = vlc
button = Green
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-up
end

# Audio Delay DOWN
begin
prog = vlc
button = Red
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-down
end

# Navigation Menu Up
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch+
repeat = 3
config = key-nav-up
end

# Navigation Menu Down
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch-
repeat = 3
config = key-nav-down
end

# Navigation Menu Right
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol+
repeat = 3
config = key-nav-right
end

# Navigation Menu Left
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol-
repeat = 3
config = key-nav-left
end

# Navigation Select
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ok
repeat = 3
config = key-nav-activate
end

vlcrc Updates - Fixed Volume

2007-07-31T00:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know why this took me so long, but I finally spent two minutes to look through ~/.vlc/vlcrc to set the volume to 100%. Up until now, I've had to keep setting the volume for every video.

All it took was setting the volume setting:

# Audio output volume (integer)
volume=1000

Highlights of my new VLC setup

2006-10-03T19:58:00.000-04:00

My previous post was kinda long, so I wanted to make a quick post about the new features that my new VLC setup affords me...

New features:

* Screenshots - I can now take screenshots of the video that's playing. In my vlc conf file, I set the snapshot directory to be in my MythImages location, in a VideoCaptures subdirectory. This way I can view them with MythImages. I also have access to that folder through a Samba share, so I can pull them down on my laptop. I mapped the "Record" button to the snapshot command:

# Snapshots
begin
prog = vlc
button = Record
repeat = 3
config = key-snapshot
end

* Audio Syncing - I can now delay/speed up audio at 50ms increments. This is huge, sometimes my video slides out of sync, or the video just plays out of sync. This way, with my remote buttons, I can adjust it at play time with my remote. I mapped the Green and Red buttons to audio syncing:

# Audio Delay UP
begin
prog = vlc
button = Green
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-up
end

# Audio Delay DOWN
begin
prog = vlc
button = Red
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-down
end

* Subtitles - This is pretty huge too... If you ever backup one of your DVDs to your myth box as VTS files, you may want to view subtitles. With my new vlc setup, I can now do this with the "Blank" button:

# Subtitles
begin
prog = vlc
button = Blank
repeat = 3
config = key-subtitle-track
end

* Others - I also mapped keys for volume up/down, and for video speed-up/slow-down. The former is very helpful for quieter videos. In the past, I found myself logging in with my laptop and running alsamixer. This is much easier. For the latter, I haven't found much use, since the audio doesn't play with the speeded-up/slowed-down video.. But hey, I had extra buttons.

I might later on try setting up bookmarks with the number keys, but we'll see. I'm crossing my fingers that there are other commands that aren't listed in the vlc config file, because I'm having way too much fun mapping these to my remote!

Switching from Mplayer to VLC

2006-10-03T19:03:00.000-04:00

In my previous post I mentioned how I wanted to switch from Mplayer for my MythTV video player to VLC so that my Google Video mpeg4 files in my iTunes library would play in MythTV.

1. Change your video player to VLC:
My existing mplayer command, as setup in MythTV's "Utilities/Setup" -> "SetUp" -> "Media Settings" -> "Video Settings" -> "Player Settings" used to be:

mplayer -framedrop -monitoraspect 16:9 -fs -zoom -quiet -vo xv -alang en -ao oss %s

I found a post somewhere that mentioned to use this for vlc:
vlc file://%s vlc:quit

2. Add handling for Mpeg4 files:
After changing your video player to VLC, it's now time to register the file extensions you may see mpeg4's come over as.

In "Utilities/Setup" -> "SetUp" -> "Media Settings" -> "Video Settings" -> "File Types", add the extensions "mp4" and "m4v". Set them up to use the default player.

3. Edit your VLC setup for LIRC and to default to fullscreen
Assuming you're using LIRC for your remote control handling, you'll need to tell VLC to hook into it. Edit your ~/.vlc/vlcrc, finding the "#control=" command. Un-comment it out by removing the "#", and set it to "control=lirc" (without the quotes).

Find the "#fullscreen=" command. Un-comment it out, and set it to "fullscreen=1" (without the quotes)

Save the file and exit.

4. Add your remote control bindings for Hauppauge remote
I'm using the remote control that comes with the Hauppauge 250 and 350. If you're not, then you can use the same setup that I am, but for each command, change the "button" setting with whatever you get while pressing a button when you're running "irw". The "irw" command will spit back the names of the buttons you're pressing - pretty cool little app.

Well, anyway, here's my VLC LIRC config. Each of these commands are listed in the VLC config, so if you want to modify them or add other settings, you should be able to figure out how with this example and your VLC setup file. By the way - I can't tell you how happy I am to now have audio sync'ing buttons on my remote! The few videos that have audio sync'ing problems can be fixed by delaying or advancing the audio track by increments of 50ms!!!

Also, the snapshot button is pretty cool - it lets you take screenshots of the video, which then drop them in ~/.vlc directory, or where ever you set your "snapshot-path=" setting. I've set mine to a directory inside my Myth Photo directory.

One more thing - Please leave a comment if you have further ideas for remote button mapping. These are all I could think of for VLC -- I'd love to find a use for my number buttons.

good luck! YMMV

### VLC config

# Pause playback
begin
prog = vlc
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = key-play-pause
end

# Play
begin
prog = vlc
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = key-play
end

# Stop playback and exit
begin
prog = vlc
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = key-quit
end

# Volume Down
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol-
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-down
end

# Volume Up
begin
prog = vlc
button = Vol+
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-up
end

# Faster
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch+
repeat = 3
config = key-faster
end

# Slower
begin
prog = vlc
button = Ch-
repeat = 3
config = key-slower
end

# Mute
begin
prog = vlc
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = key-vol-mute
end

# Seek back 10 seconds
begin
prog = vlc
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-10sec
end

# Seek forward 10 seconds
begin
prog = vlc
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+10sec
end

# Quit
begin
prog = vlc
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = key-quit
end

# Seek forward 1 minute
begin
prog = vlc
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+1min
end

# Seek backward 1 minute
begin
prog = vlc
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-1min
end

# Seek forward 5 minutes
begin
prog = vlc
button = Blue
repeat = 3
config = key-jump+5min
end

# Seek backward 5 minutes
begin
prog = vlc
button = Yellow
repeat = 3
config = key-jump-5min
end

# Toggle full-screen
begin
prog = vlc
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = key-fullscreen
end

# Position - shows where you are in the video
begin
prog = vlc
button = Go
repeat = 3
config = key-position
end

# Subtitles
begin
prog = vlc
button = Blank
repeat = 3
config = key-subtitle-track
end

# Snapshots
begin
prog = vlc
button = Record
repeat = 3
config = key-snapshot
end

# Audio Sync'ing
# Audio Delay UP
begin
prog = vlc
button = Green
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-up
end

# Audio Delay DOWN
begin
prog = vlc
button = Red
repeat = 3
config = key-audiodelay-down
end

iTunes Video & MythTV

2006-10-03T18:57:00.000-04:00

Google's video site lets you download videos in mpeg4, which is playable on your iPod. I keep my iTunes library on my linux file server, which is the same box that MythTV uses for its storage. So, since the videos I download from Google Video are on the same box that MythTV accesses, of course it was only a matter of time before I got around to setting it up so MythTV had access to these videos through the Video player.

I was hoping all that was necessary to get this working was to create a symbolic link from my iTunes Movie directory to somewhere inside the MythTV video directory. This did make them accessible, but the problem was that my mplayer didn't seem to play these mpeg4 videos. The audio would come across correctly, but I'd get a still image for the video.

I tinkered a little bit and found that although my current mplayer command didn't seem to do the trick, VLC had no problem.

In my next post, I'll explain my VLC setup.

My GeForce FX 5200 Nightmare...

2006-05-25T19:15:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd cut back on fan noise and heat, so I picked up a fanless GeForce FX 5200 video card on Ebay... I tried hooking it up to my HDTV by DVI -> HDMI like my previous setup. Well, I had no success... I thought something was wrong when the BIOS didn't even pick it up for the boot screen. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get any signal on my TV's HDMI input.

From what I read, a lot of others have had this problem.

So, two horrible days later, and I've got my old card back in there. If anyone could recommend a good, cheap, quiet, cool, fanless video card that can handle 1080i over DVI -> HDMI, please let me know!

MythVideo plays ISOs!

2006-01-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

I just noticed something accidentally -- apparently MythVideo can play (at least some) DVD ISO files. So, you can archive your DVDs to your file server, and play them directly with MythVideo without ripping it to mpeg4 or mpeg2.

Good stuff!

Fixing MythVideo's audio/video sync problem

2006-01-31T21:58:00.000-05:00

I've been watching more and more videos through MythVideo these days, and have been frustrated with audio/video lag. I messed around with the settings and finally came up with something that seems to be working very well. Here's my new mplayer command for MythVideo:

mplayer -framedrop -monitoraspect 16:9 -fs -zoom -quiet -vo xv -ao oss %s

Switching to OSS seems to have fixed the problem.

Getting MythVideo to use 16:9 aspect ratio

2005-12-08T18:10:00.000-05:00

When I last left off, MythTV was using my 61MD10 61" HDTV in full 1280x720, but MythVideo was stretching my HDTV .avi files too wide and showing black bars on the top and bottom. As it turns out, mplayer isn't able to autodetect the 16:9 aspect ratio.

Thanks to this post, I found that I needed to supply this information in the MythVideo playback settings.

Here's my new mplayer command:

mplayer -monitoraspect 16:9 -fs -zoom -quiet -vo xv -ao esd %s

My 720p xorg.conf

2005-12-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVidia"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 AGP 4x]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "HDTV"
VendorName "InFocus"
ModelName "61MD10"
VertRefresh 30-90
HorizSync 20-150
# No clue if this is a good ModeLine to use
ModeLine "ATSC-720-59.94p" 74.176 1280 1320 1376 1650 720 722 728 750
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "HDTV Screen"
Device "NVidia"
Monitor "HDTV"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x720"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "HDTV Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

MythTV in 720p

2005-12-07T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm setting up my Myth box to use my new Infocus 61" 61MD10 HDTV, and having a much smoother time than I expected. I was going to get a PCHDTV3000 card to record HDTV, but later learned that it can only record over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts, not encrypted HDTV that comes over the cable lines.

Considering that our HDTV formats are still in flux, and might go towards cablecard in the next year, I'm going to just be happy with big, fuzzy regular TV recordings on a big screen. I think I'm okay with that. I decided that if I could get X working in full 720p resolution, that I could at least play HDTV recordings that I happen to find elsewhere.

So, I put in my NVidia video card with DVI output. I have a DVI->HDMI cable which I used to plug my Myth box into the tv. I was very surprised that my original xorg.conf file that the Ubuntu install created worked the first try with the DVI output!

TV playback is working great, but my HDTV playback with mplayer is stretching the videos width-wise, so I gotta look into why that's happening.

In any case, I found some good (?) Modelines here

I'll post my end xorg.conf in the next post.

Annoying myth backend problems

2005-12-01T17:19:00.000-05:00

Occasionally I run into a problem where I can't delete a show, and the frontend hangs because of it. I restart the backend and frontend, then all systems are go. It looks like when the backend gets in this state that no shows are recorded either.

I just looked through the mythbackend logs to look for anything out of the ordinary. I found one line this morning that looked interesting:

/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.1:2005-12-01 02:58:36.786 unknown socket

There's not too much information there, so I looked for that same error across the archived logs, and found a bunch:

/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log:2005-12-01 07:57:30.304 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.1:2005-11-30 07:40:11.621 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.1:2005-12-01 02:58:36.786 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.2:2005-11-29 07:40:24.165 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.2:2005-11-30 02:55:11.343 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.3:2005-11-28 07:38:55.313 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.3:2005-11-29 02:53:19.537 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.4:2005-11-27 07:38:47.522 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.4:2005-11-28 02:49:52.655 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.5:2005-11-26 07:39:36.989 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.5:2005-11-27 02:47:05.457 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.6:2005-11-25 07:39:38.032 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.6:2005-11-26 02:43:37.770 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.7:2005-11-24 07:40:56.346 unknown socket
/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log.7:2005-11-25 02:40:18.666 unknown socket

What's unusual is that these all happen at two times: 2:40am and 7:40pm. I'm not sure these messages have anything to do with this problem, but it's interesting nonetheless. I don't have any crontabs scheduled, but I'm wondering if this is when the backend is looking for new tv listings.

Something to look into..

Has anyone else out there had the delete problem, or any idea what these messages are?

Watching "Dirty Jobs" from my bathroom!

2005-11-29T20:11:00.000-05:00

That's right, I'm so excited about MythTV that I'm blogging from the crapper, and am damn proud of it. Right now, I'm on the toilet, running MythTV frontend on my laptop which is wirelessly connected to my MythTV backend. And yes, the bathroom door is shut :D

I wasn't able to get this working well with my last MythTV setup, so I figured that with 1 hour shows being 1.1GB, that it must have been a network problem. Well, it's working great with my new backend server, so as it turns out, the poor performance must have come from the backend machine itself.

My Hardware:
My last backend box was a 733MHz P3; my new one is a 2.4GHz P4. My laptop frontend is a 1.73GHz Centrino with plenty of power.

My Network:
802.11g WPA. I'm upstairs from my DLink wireless router (I used to use a LinkSys, but found it had awful range) with the door closed.

My Performance:
I'm a code monkey Linux geek, and honestly, I have no idea how I'm getting this kind of performance over a wireless network. This 1-hour-long show I'm watching is takes up more than 1GB of disk space, and I'm able to start watching the video, and jump through it quickly. The menus are a little sluggish, and it takes about 2-3 seconds to start up a recording, but once it starts up, the video is running really well. Even FFWD/RWD is responsive, only giving me about a 1 second lag.

To compare, I tried running a mplayer on this file through a remote X ssh shell. I was able to see about 1 frame a second. Again - it's amazing how great the MythTV frontend/backend connection works.

Conclusion:
I'm super-impressed - it looks like I won't have to run CAT5 cables throughout my house afterall. In fact, it might be a fun project to try to setup diskless computers around the house to network-boot linux and act as MythTV fronends. Of course if I get around to it, I'll post my results!

Way to go, MythTV team -- the client/server architecture holds up across a WPA wireless network!

What to Expect in Future Posts...

2005-11-21T23:19:00.000-05:00

I have so much I need to post here, and wanted to give you a heads up so you know what to expect. I'm planning on posting the following (and then some):

* A description and schematic of the wiring for my setup. It includes 2 TV cards and three TV inputs

* My mplayer setup in MythVideo and how I'm dealing with audio/video sync problems

* Information on how I'm using Samba to dump videos and mp3s from other boxes into MythVideo and MythMusic

* A re-hash of my IRBlaster script that changes the channels on my Comcast Digital TV

* An explanation of my script that generates an iTunes-ready XML RSS Podcast for mp3s I drop in a specific directory -- useful for podcasts you need to manually grab

* The script I modified/wrote that transcodes tv shows to mpeg4 videos that are viewable by my "iPod with Video"

* Photos of my setup, and hopefully a video screenshot of my mythbox in action (if I can figure out how to do that)

* A loving and persuasive write-up about Ubuntu Linux

* The problems that my recent upgrade has overcome from my build a year ago

*** Answers to questions anyone might have for me -- please posts comments and I'll respond as soon as I can. This isn't an easy project, but once completed, you'll feel bad for your friends with Tivos!

Please offer feedback!

2005-11-21T23:17:00.000-05:00

If this site was at all helpful, please let me know by leaving comments or emailing me at: "blake (NO SPACE) caldwell **AT** gmail DOT com"

Please also let me know if anything here was inaccurrate or if you'd like to elaborate on something I skimmed by quickly.

LIRC (Continued some more)

2005-11-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

Create your lircd startup script:

#------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/init.d/lircd
echo "Setting up and starting LIRC"
modprobe lirc_i2c lirc_dev
/usr/local/sbin/lircd --device=/dev/lirc0
#------------------------------------------------------

Then set it to start automatically:
ln -s /etc/init.d/lircd /etc/rc5.d/S99lircd

Now, to test your lirc setup, first start the daemon by running "/etc/init.d/lircd start". Then, test it by running the command "irw". If you get "connection refused" or similar, then nope, this didn't work. If not, try hitting some buttons on the remote. If you see key codes printed out to your console, then you're in business and can stop reading this post.

Okay, you're still having problems? Assuminig you have more than one Hauppauge TV card in your box, try this for your /etc/init.d/lircd and repeat the above paragraph

#------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/init.d/lircd
echo "Setting up and starting LIRC"
modprobe lirc_i2c lirc_dev
/usr/local/sbin/lircd --device=/dev/lirc1
#------------------------------------------------------

Set your MySQL Password for mythconverg database

2005-11-21T23:07:00.000-05:00

I believe mythbackend will create the mythconverg database and mythtv user, but I'm not sure the password it'll create for that user. Come up with a password, change it (I like to use webmin to do simple database stuff -- if you do too, remember to install it using Synaptic), then save the password in your /usr/share/mythtv/mysql.txt file so mythbackend knows what to use for the password:

#-------------------------------------------
# /usr/share/mythtv/mysql.txt
DBHostName=localhost
DBUserName=mythtv
DBName=mythconverg
DBPassword=mythtvpassword

Start MythTV-Frontend on login

2005-11-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

You'll have to set mythfrontend to start automatically when you login as user mythtv, you'll need to add it to your startup session. I did it graphically, but I think you can do it by editing /home/mythtv/.gnome2/session-manual:

#--------------------------------------------------
# /home/mythtv/.gnome2/session-manual

[Default]
num_clients=1
0,RestartStyleHint=3
0,Priority=50
0,RestartCommand=mythfrontend
0,Program=mythfrontend

Set user mythtv to automatically log on after boot

2005-11-21T22:58:00.000-05:00

You'll probably want to avoid the annoying login step every time you reboot your mythbox, so edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf to do so. Look for your Automatic Login section, and make sure it looks like this:

[daemon]
# Automatic login, if true the first local screen
# will automatically logged
# in as user as set with AutomaticLogin key.
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=mythtv

LIRC (Continued)

2005-11-21T22:56:00.000-05:00

Here's my lirc config file for the user mythtv, located in /home/mythtv/.lircrc

#------------------------------------------------------
# ~/.mythtv/lircrc
#
# MythTV native LIRC config file for
# the grey Hauppauge remote
#
# By Jarod Wilson, 2003/12/21
# Amalgamated from Jeff Campbell's,
# .lircrc, the mythtv.org docs, and
# a few touches of my own. :)
#

# Channel Up
begin
prog = mythtv
button = CH+
repeat = 3
config = Up
end

# Channel Down
begin
prog = mythtv
button = CH-
repeat = 3
config = Down
end

# OK/Select
begin
prog = mythtv
button = OK
config = Space
end

# Play
begin
prog = mythtv
button = PLAY
config = Return
end

# Stop
begin
prog = mythtv
button = STOP
config = Esc
end

# Escape/Exit/Back
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BACK/EXIT
config = Esc
end

# Power Off/Exit
begin
prog = mythtv
button = OFF
config = Esc
end

# Red means stop!
begin
prog = mythtv
button = RED
config = Esc
end

# Pause
begin
prog = mythtv
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = P
end

# Mute
begin
prog = mythtv
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = F9
end

# Fast forward (30 sec default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = Left
end

# Rewind (10 sec default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = Right
end

# Skip forward (10 min default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = PgDown
end

# Skip backward (10 min default)
begin
prog = mythtv
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = PgUp
end

# Record
begin
prog = mythtv
button = RECORD
repeat = 3
config = R
end

# Delete
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BLANK
repeat = 3
config = D
end

# OSD browse
begin
prog = mythtv
button = GREEN
repeat = 3
config = O
end

# Display EPG while in live TV,
# View selected show while in EPG
begin
prog = mythtv
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = M
end

# Scroll up
begin
prog = mythtv
button = VOL+
repeat = 3
config = Right
end

# Scroll down
begin
prog = mythtv
button = VOL-
repeat = 3
config = Left
end

# Bring up OSD info
begin
prog = mythtv
button = GO
repeat = 3
config = I
end

# Change display aspect ratio
begin
prog = mythtv
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = W
end

# Seek to previous commercial cut point
begin
prog = mythtv
button = YELLOW
repeat = 3
config = Q
end

# Seek to next commercial cut point
begin
prog = mythtv
button = BLUE
repeat = 3
config = Z
end

# Numbers 0-9

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 0
repeat = 3
config = 0
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 1
repeat = 3
config = 1
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 2
repeat = 3
config = 2
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 3
repeat = 3
config = 3
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 4
repeat = 3
config = 4
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 5
repeat = 3
config = 5
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 6
repeat = 3
config = 6
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 7
repeat = 3
config = 7
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 8
repeat = 3
config = 8
end

begin
prog = mythtv
button = 9
repeat = 3
config = 9
end

### MPlayer lirc setup

# Show OSD
begin
prog = mplayer
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = osd
end

# Pause playback
begin
prog = mplayer
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = pause
end

# Skip ahead a minute if playing
# If paused, resume playing
begin
prog = mplayer
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = seek +1
end

# Stop playback and exit
begin
prog = mplayer
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = quit
end

# Mute
begin
prog = mplayer
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = mute
end

# Seek back 10 seconds
begin
prog = mplayer
button = Rewind
repeat = 3
config = seek -10
end

# Seek forward 30 seconds
begin
prog = mplayer
button = Forward
repeat = 3
config = seek +30
end

# Quit
begin
prog = mplayer
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = quit
end

# Seek forward 10 minutes
begin
prog = mplayer
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = seek +600
end

# Seek backward 10 minutes
begin
prog = mplayer
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = seek -600
end

# Toggle full-screen
begin
prog = mplayer
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = vo_fullscreen
end

### Xine lirc setup

begin
prog = xine
button = PLAY
repeat = 3
config = Play
end

begin
prog = xine
button = STOP
repeat = 3
config = Stop
end

begin
prog = xine
button = OFF
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

begin
prog = xine
button = PAUSE
repeat = 3
config = Pause
end

begin
prog = xine
button = CH+
repeat = 3
config = EventUp
end

begin
prog = xine
button = CH-
repeat = 3
config = EventDown
end

begin
prog = xine
button = VOL-
repeat = 3
config = EventLeft
end

begin
prog = xine
button = VOL+
repeat = 3
config = EventRight
end

begin
prog = xine
button = OK
repeat = 3
config = EventSelect
end

begin
prog = xine
button = BACK/EXIT
repeat = 3
config = Menu
end

begin
prog = xine
button = FFW
repeat = 3
#config = SpeedFaster
config = SeekRelative+60
end

begin
prog = xine
button = REW
repeat = 3
#config = SpeedSlower
config = SeekRelative-60
end

begin
prog = xine
button = FULL
repeat = 3
config = Volume+
end

begin
prog = xine
button = BLANK
repeat = 3
config = Volume-
end

begin
prog = xine
button = MUTE
repeat = 3
config = Mute
end

begin
prog = xine
button = MENU
repeat = 3
config = RootMenu
end

begin
prog = xine
button = SKIP
repeat = 3
config = EventNext
end

begin
prog = xine
button = REPLAY
repeat = 3
config = EventPrior
end

begin
prog = xine
button = GO
repeat = 3
config = OSDStreamInfos
end

begin
prog = xine
button = RED
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

begin
prog = xine
button = RED
repeat = 3
config = Quit
end

Setting up Lircd remote control for your Hauppauge 350's TV Remote

2005-11-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

Get the latest stable version of LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) here. At the time of this writing, it is 0.7.2. Do the usual to install it: "./configure; make; make install"

Here's my /etc/lircd.conf:

#----------------------------------------------------------
#/etc/lircd.conf

#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.5.5pre8 on Sun Apr 18 11:43:45 1999
#
# contributed by Jens Leuschner
#
# brand: Hauppauge
# model:
# supported devices: WinTV primo; WinTV pci; WinTV radio
#
# This config file will work with both homebrew receivers and
# original Hauppauge TV cards !!!
#

begin remote

name Hauppauge
bits 13
flags SHIFT_ENC
eps 30
aeps 100

one 950 830
zero 950 830
plead 960
gap 89584
repeat_bit 2

begin codes
TV 0x000000000000100F
RADIO 0x000000000000100C
FULL_SCREEN 0x000000000000102E
CH+ 0x0000000000001020
CH- 0x0000000000001021
VOL- 0x0000000000001011
VOL+ 0x0000000000001010
MUTE 0x000000000000100D
SOURCE 0x0000000000001022
1 0x0000000000001001
2 0x0000000000001002
3 0x0000000000001003
4 0x0000000000001004
5 0x0000000000001005
6 0x0000000000001006
7 0x0000000000001007
8 0x0000000000001008
9 0x0000000000001009
0 0x0000000000001000
RESERVED 0x000000000000101E
MINIMIZE 0x0000000000001026
end codes

end remote

#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.6.6(animax) on Tue Apr 15 19:50:27 2003
#
# contributed by
#
# brand: Hauppauge
# model no. of remote control:
# devices being controlled by this remote: PVR 2/350
#

begin remote

name hauppauge_pvr
bits 13
flags RC5|CONST_LENGTH
eps 30
aeps 100

one 969 811
zero 969 811
plead 1097
gap 114605
toggle_bit 2

begin codes
Power 0x00000000000017FD
Go 0x00000000000017FB
1 0x00000000000017C1
2 0x00000000000017C2
3 0x00000000000017C3
4 0x00000000000017C4
5 0x00000000000017C5
6 0x00000000000017C6
7 0x00000000000017C7
8 0x00000000000017C8
9 0x00000000000017C9
Back/Exit 0x00000000000017DF
0 0x00000000000017C0
Menu 0x00000000000017CD
Red 0x00000000000017CB
Green 0x00000000000017EE
Yellow 0x00000000000017F8
Blue 0x00000000000017E9
Ch+ 0x00000000000017E0
Ch- 0x00000000000017E1
Vol- 0x00000000000017D1
Vol+ 0x00000000000017D0
Ok 0x00000000000017E5
Mute 0x00000000000017CF
Blank 0x00000000000017CC
Full 0x00000000000017FC
Rewind 0x00000000000017F2
Play 0x00000000000017F5
Forward 0x00000000000017F4
Record 0x00000000000017F7
Stop 0x00000000000017F6
Pause 0x00000000000017F0
Replay 0x00000000000017E4
Skip 0x00000000000017DE
end codes

end remote

#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.7.0(any) on Sun Nov 28 20:25:09 2004
#
# contributed by
#
# brand: Hauppauge 350
# Created: G.J. Werler (The Netherlands)
# Project: Mythtv Fedora Pundit-R www.mythtvportal.com
# Date: 2004/11/28
# model no. of remote control: Hauppauge A415-HPG
# devices being controlled by this remote: PVR-350
#

begin remote

name Hauppauge_350
bits 13
flags RC5|CONST_LENGTH
eps 30
aeps 100

one 969 811
zero 969 811
plead 1097
gap 114605
toggle_bit 2

begin codes
Go 0x00000000000017BB
Power 0x00000000000017BD
TV 0x000000000000179C
Videos 0x0000000000001798
Music 0x0000000000001799
Pictures 0x000000000000179A
Guide 0x000000000000179B
Radio 0x000000000000178C
Up 0x0000000000001794
Left 0x0000000000001796
Right 0x0000000000001797
Down 0x0000000000001795
OK 0x00000000000017A5
Back/Exit 0x000000000000179F
Menu/i 0x000000000000178D
Vol+ 0x0000000000001790
Vol- 0x0000000000001791
Prev.Ch 0x0000000000001792
Mute 0x000000000000178F
Ch+ 0x00000000000017A0
Ch- 0x00000000000017A1
Record 0x00000000000017B7
Stop 0x00000000000017B6
Rewind 0x00000000000017B2
Play 0x00000000000017B5
Forward 0x00000000000017B4
Replay/SkipBackward 0x00000000000017A4
Pause 0x00000000000017B0
SkipForward 0x000000000000179E
1 0x0000000000001781
2 0x0000000000001782
3 0x0000000000001783
4 0x0000000000001784
5 0x0000000000001785
6 0x0000000000001786
7 0x0000000000001787
8 0x0000000000001788
9 0x0000000000001789
Asterix 0x000000000000178A
0 0x0000000000001780
# 0x000000000000178E
Red 0x000000000000178B
Green 0x00000000000017AE
Yellow 0x00000000000017B8
Blue 0x00000000000017A9
end codes

end remote

#----------------------------------------------------------

Using your Hauppauge 350 TV OUT in X Windows

2005-11-21T22:12:00.000-05:00

After you're all done installing IVTV and you've rebooted, it's time to setup your X server to use your Hauppauge 350 card's TV out as your video card. To do this, you first need to find out which PCI bus the card is on. Do this by running the command: "lspci -v" from the command prompt (xterm). Scroll up through the output with SHIFT-PGUP until you see a section like this:

0000:02:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hauppauge computer works Inc. WinTV PVR-350
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 21
Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

This shows me that the PCI card is at address "0000:02:01.0". As far as X Windows is concerned, we're going to call this "PCI:02:01". Below is the contents of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Notice in the "Device" section the line:

BusID "PCI:02:01"

You'll need to format your 350's bus id in this line according to the results you got earlier by the "lspci -v" command.

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

# Your keyboard
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

# Your mouse
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

# Your TV
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Sony TV"
HorizSync 30-50
VertRefresh 60

Mode "720x480"
DotClock 34.564
HTimings 720 752 840 928
VTimings 480 484 488 504
Flags "-HSync" "-VSync"
EndMode
EndSection

# Your Hauppauge 350 TV Card
Section "Device"
Identifier "ivtv"
Driver "ivtvdev"
Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
# Make sure to fill in your PCI bus id for the Hauppauge 350 here
BusID "PCI:02:01"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen TV ivtv"
Device "ivtv"
Monitor "Sony TV"
DefaultDepth 24
DefaultFbBpp 32

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
FbBpp 32
Modes "720x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Screen TV ivtv"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
#-----------------------------------------------------------

Installing the IVTV driver for the Hauppauge 250 and 350

2005-11-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

First, go get the latest IVTV driver. At the time of this writing, it is 0.4.0 - get it here. My last MythTV install used version 0.2.0, which may have been the cause of a lot of my problems -- so make sure you're using the current stable version that's available.

Thanks to Rachel's Knowledge Base Blog for the great advice on how to compile and install IVTV. Make sure to read the "Gotcha" at the bottom.

The one change I made was, I have the following in my /etc/modutils/ivtv file:

#-----------------------------------------------------
# /etc/modutils/ivtv

alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
alias char-major-61 lirc_i2c
options ivtv ivtv-debug=0 mpg_buffers=90
options saa7127 enable_output=1 output_select=0 options tuner type=2
options msp3400 once=1 simple=1 debug=0
add below ivtv msp3400 saa7115 tuner saa7127
add above ivtv lirc_dev lirc_i2c ivtv-fb

#-----------------------------------------------------

Installing MythTV 0.18.1

2005-11-21T21:34:00.000-05:00

Fortunately, I could install MythTV by using Synaptic, the graphical apt-get installer in Ubuntu. Installing MythTV installs all the prerequisites, such as MySQL, and a bunch of other goodies.

I'm writing this blog from memory -- I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things I had to install - you'll figure it out :)

Ubuntu Linux 5.1 "Breezy Badger"

2005-11-21T21:29:00.000-05:00

I replaced my 733MHz CPU with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 chip, and decided to get away from Fedora Core 3 and use Ubuntu 5.1 "Breezy Badger", which has been really good to me on my laptop.

Make sure to create the user with the login "mythtv" -- this is the user that MythTV expects will be there, so this will save you some time in the next few steps.

As soon as I installed the base system, I replaced /etc/apt/sources.list with the following contents, so that I could install apps from outside the distribution

#----------------------------------------------------------------
#/etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy main restricted

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security universe

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy multiverse
#----------------------------------------------------------------

New posts coming soon!

2005-11-21T12:54:00.000-05:00

I recently rebuilt my MythTV box, swapping out my 733MHz cpu with a 2.4GHz, upgrading MythTV 0.17 to 0.18.1, ivtv from 0.2.0 to 0.4.0, and the distribution from FC3 to Ubuntu 5.1 -- and, OMG it's 10 times better... Even my wife says so!

I'll update this site soon to reflect my new adventure and the great rewards I've earned through the efforts.

Getting rid of stubborn 0.00GB files

2005-03-07T18:09:00.000-05:00

Your MythBox hasn't ever crashed? Liar.

I've had to hard-reboot a few times now. If there was a show being taped, a lot of the time I'll end up with a zero-byte file that Myth won't let me delete. Well, here's how to get rid of them, without having to dig through the 42,521 mysql tables...

1. Watch the mythbackend log to find out the file that Myth is having problems by running the following command in a terminal window:

tail -f -n 0 /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log

(keep this terminal window open)

2. Try deleting the file that MythTV tells you is 0.00GB, through MythTV. If you're having the same problem I've had, nothing happens, the file's still there. But, you should have some new output on the terminal window we opened in step #1. Something like this:

2005-03-07 18:14:31.312 ERROR when trying to delete file: /var/storage/recordings/1020_20050220100200_20050220102200.nuv. File doesn't exist. Database metadata will not be removed.

Ah hah! it's that pesky 1020_20050220100200_20050220102200.nuv file!

3. Create an empty place-holder for this file, using a new terminal window:

touch /var/storage/recordings/1020_20050220100200_20050220102200.nuv

4. Tell MythTV to delete the file again. This time it should work, and it'll disappear from your Recorded Programs list.

Enjoy, and happy cleaning!

- Blake

Adding Menu Commands

2005-01-18T23:45:00.000-05:00

But I don't know C++!
No problem... MythTV's menus aren't created in code - they're built from XML documents, and if you're familiar with XML, then you can edit your menus, create new ones, etc. I'll briefly discuss how I was able to 'hack' my menus to add a couple commands that I needed. This isn't textbook, it's just the way I've found to do this through looking through some of the code, and tinkering. Cause, isn't that what this project is all about?

How Do Menus Work?
If you'd like to check out the menu-building XML documents, browse through /usr/share/mythtv/*.xml. Start with mainmenu.xml, and branch out from there. Here's a snippet from mainmenu.xml:

----------------* snippet

<button>
<type>MENU_MEDIA_LIBRARY</type>
<text>Media Library</text>
<action>MENU library.xml</action>
</button>

----------------* /snippet

This example is pretty straight forward. Each button/menu item gets a "button" entry.

Menu Themes
Inside, you'll need to include the "type" of button - in this case, it's "MENU_MEDIA_LIBRARY." This is used to determine how to render the page - what image to use and where to put it. In this case, if you look in /usr/share/mythtv/themes, you'll see how each theme implements this button type. For example, in the "blue" theme, in /usr/share/mythtv/themes/blue/theme.xml, this button type is described as:

----------------* snippet

<buttondef name="MENU_MEDIA_LIBRARY">
<image>cd.png</image>
<offset>15,10</offset>
</buttondef>

----------------* /snippet

In that directory you'll find cd.png. I haven't spent any time with the themes, so this is as far as I'll go into themes.

Menu Entry Text
The "text" element describes the text to display on the page. I've found that there is a maxium number of characters you can use, but haven't checked what that number is. You'll notice that the menu supports different languages. I haven't bothered with translations.

Menu Actions
And last and most important, you'll notice the "action" element. This tells MythTV what to do when you select this menu entry. I've found the following to be valid:
* Menu Command
- usage: MENU [some menu xml file]
- purpose: To tell redirect MythTV to another menu. This is useful for subdividing your actions into different, specific pages.
- example (omit the quotes): "MENU library.xml"

* Plugin Command
- usage: PLUGIN [plugin name]
- purpose: I haven't used this yet, but it apparently launches a MythTV plugin
- example (omit the quotes): "PLUGIN mythgame"

* Built-In Actions:
- usage: [SOME ACTION NAME]
- purpose: to launch an action built into MythTV
- example (omit the quotes): "TV_WATCH_RECORDING"

* Execute a Command:
- usage: EXEC [some command path]
- purpose: to launch an external command
- example (omit the quotes): "EXEC /usr/local/bin/mythtv_rip_cd"

I've only really worked with the "EXEC" action. For example, I'm finding it useful to write Perl scripts to handle stuff in the background that normally occupies MythTV's display, such as ripping/encoding CDs to mp3/ogg. I wrote a simple Perl script that rips & encodes a CD off in another process, letting me continue to use MythTV while the CD is being worked on. As I find the time, I'll write several more of these commands, and eventually post them all here on the blog to share.

Menu Dependencies
There's one more element inside a "button" group - "depends." I haven't looked into this, but it seems that this refers to a module. I would imagine if the specified MythTV module isn't loaded, the menu item will not appear, but I'm not yet sure.

Customizing Your Menus
I need to hand it to the MythTV crew - the menuing system seems to have been done really well. I'm impressed that the menus are rendered from XML rather than compiled (you'd be surprised how often that's the case), and this next bit of information impresses me even further... Each user can keep their own copy of the menu XML files.

Rather than edit the files in /usr/share/mythtv/, you can (and I would strongly encourage you to) copy the XML documents that you want to edit into your MythTV user's "~/.mythtv/" directory. If MythTV finds an XML file here, it uses it rather than the ones found in /usr/share/mythtv/.

So, for a little fun, try editing one of the menus:

1. Copy the mainmenu.xml file from /usr/share/mythtv/mainmenu.xml to ~mythuser/.mythtv/
(assumes that "mythuser" is your MythTV user)
2. Edit ~mythuser/.mythtv/mainmenu.xml
3. Replace "Watch TV" with "MythTV Rocks!"
4. Restart MythTV and get a chuckle...
5. When you're all done, remove the overriding XML file to go back to the normal menus

Conclusion
Kudos to the MythTV developers, they've done a great job with the menus! They've given us a way to really make this system our own. It's easy to add and remove commands and menus - we can add anything we need without any worry of screwing up the system, thanks to the home directory menu overriding. Spend a little time playing with this, and you'll think of all sorts of interesting ways to use it. When you do, please let me know what you've come up with!

Dual Input Hauppauge 250 PVR Card for Recording Digital & Analog Cable

2005-01-12T01:12:00.000-05:00

Recording Digital Cable
I've been using the coaxial cable inputs at Tuner0 on both my Hauppauge 250 and my Hauppauge 350 thus far, but wanted to be able to record my digital cable as well. There's two problems to overcome for this task: getting the audio & video from my digital cable into MythTV, and changing the channel on my Motorola Digital Cable box. I'll start with the latter problem.

Changing the Channel on My Motorola Digital Cable Box
I bought myself a MyBlaster Serial IR Blaster from My.Tv store for $40 (plus tax & shipping). It's a pretty cool little box that I have sitting next to my MythTV box. It plugs into the computer's serial port, and faces the back wall of my family room.

I decided to go with this device rather than a simple short-range IR blaster that I could tape in front of the cable box because this one has a long range and I'd like to be able to control more than just the cable box. The signals are bouncing off of my back wall and back at the entertainment center without any problems.

I downloaded the user-contributed script for the MyBlaster, written by William Munson -- thanks William - excellent script. I made some small mods to it for my purposes -- I think the only changes I made were timing and device settings. The script one of several commands as the first parameter. For example, to turn on the device, use:

/usr/local/bin/IRBlaster_DigitalCable.pl power

or, to change the channel to channel 33:

/usr/local/bin/IRBlaster_DigitalCable.pl 33

So, I had to start by figuring out what my MyBlaster device code was, so I could enter that in William's script. I did some digging around, and found that this box wasn't actually made by Motorola, but by GE (as far as I can remember). The MyBlaster code for my cable box is "0276".

The script works great! I'm able to change channels on my cable box using MythTV without any problems. I'm very happy with my $40 purchase.

The Hauppauge 250's Inputs
This card has three video inputs it may choose from:
   * Tuner0 (coaxial cable)
   * Composite4 (A/V cables)
   * SVideo# (I haven't used this)

Tuner0 on the 250 has been working great to bring in the analog coaxial cable into the MythTV box, but I needed a way to bring the Digital Cable into the MythTV box. My digital cable box has two outputs: one for coaxial cable, and one for composite A/V cables. I did some rewiring so that the coax goes into the TV, and the composite A/V cables go into the Hauppauge 250's composite input. From trial and error, I found that this input is Composite4 (not Composite0, which would seem to make sense).

DataDirect for Digital Cable
Now that I have this new Video Source with several new channels, I have to tell MythTV what those channels are. To do so, I logged back into my DataDirect account, and added the new channel list. I had to unselect the channels I didn't purchase, including the HDTV channels and other premium channels. No reason to let MythTV think it can record a movie, only to tape 2 hours of "Premium Service Channel" error message.

Putting It All Together
I ran mythtvsetup to enter my new DataDirect channel list and map it to my Hauppauge 250. First, I entered the channel list in the "Video Sources" section. I named this new section "DataDirect Digital Cable" (the other was named "DataDirect"). Then, I mapped this new channel list to Composite4 on /dev/video1 (the Hauppauge 250 is my second card. If you only have one card, then you'll map to /dev/video0. If you have two cards, you'll have to figure out if it's /dev/video0 or /dev/video1 -- I think the standard is that /dev/video0 is the card closer to the AGP slot on your board. Here's also where you need to tell MythTV how to change channels using the IRBlaster script. I entered:

/usr/local/bin/IRBlaster_DigitalCable.pl

Since you can't splice digital cable like you can with analog, I'd like the Hauppauge 250 to use the coaxial analog cable whenever it can, and only hit the digital cable when absolutely necessary, so I can still use my digital cable box when it's taping something on network tv. There are two options for this:
* when setting up the DataDirect channel list, only select the channels that aren't on analog tv
* give the analog tv Data Source a higher priority than the digital cable source

I'm too lazy to unselect 78 checkboxes, so I chose the latter solution. If a recording is scheduled on ABC, MythTV will use the coaxial cable input. The preferences will probably also push off digital cable recordings if they're going to repeat on analog cable -- it's a great feature.

I then ran mythfilldatabase to go out and populate the database with the new channels and their line-ups. Last, but not least... I restarted mythbackend. If you don't do that, then the change-channel script won't be called. I'm not sure you'd even have access to the new channels if you didn't restart mythbackend.

Conclusions
Productive night... worth the extra work. I'm sure being able to tape all of my premium movie channels won't help my storage situation though...

** I'll include my IRBlaster_DigitalCable.pl script soon.

Quiet Case & Overheating

2005-01-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

Initial Setup
I'll spare the details of my initial setup -- I followed Jarod's amazing HOWTO (thanks Jarod). I'm running Fedora Core 3, with the Linux 2.6.9-1.681_FC3 kernel grabbed from ATRPMS using apt-get.

Antec's Piano Black Quiet Media Case
I decided to get a new case that's not a tower, and looks a little better on top of my entertainment center. Noise is a big factor too - I wanted the box to be very quiet, so I settled on Antec's Piano Black Quiet Media Case. The 380W power supply is absolutely silent. It's even got a washable filter in front of the air intake to keep it clean -- NICE. And, there's two low-voltage power cables inside to power the quiet fans.

The only noise coming from the case was from the 4 hard drives and the processor fan. It was amazingly quiet -- until I started having overheating problems. I decided to give the outtake fan on the right of the box full voltage to bring some of the hot air out, because the processor was getting up over 60 degrees Celcius, and the hard drives could cook a slab of ground beef. I wasn't happy about this, but it was necessary. The box is still pretty quiet.

I bought rounded IDE cables to further help the air flow, since the cables were right in front of the outtake fan.

Hauppauge 350 Card Overheating
Since I've been up and running, I've had two full lockups -- the whole system froze. It's been years since Linux has completely frozen up for me -- it looks like an overheat of the Hauppauge 350 card. The heatsink on the Hauppauge 350 would get extremely hot, almost burning my hand. It's no surprise, I'm using the card for the TV Out for both the mpeg2 TV recordings and for X as my primary graphics card.

So, to bring more air across the heatsink on the 350 I dropped a big fan in the box, blowing air across the PCI cards at low voltage to keep it quiet. So far, so good, but we'll see over the next week if this helps.

Building the ReiserFS LVM at /var/storage

2005-01-09T21:19:00.000-05:00

450GB ReiserFS LVM
When you configure MythTV, you select your folder for storing recordings. That's great if you have one monster hard drive -- or, if you use LVM. In my case, I have both :)

Basically LVM lets you put several drives together, making it look like one drive. You can add new drives to the volume, and even (carefully) remove them. I'd recommend backing up anything you have that you need before trying this. I screwed up and ended up losing some digital camera photos. Since then I was able to rebuild most of the lost data, and retrieve partial images (they're each missing about 1/4 of the image). But, in any case -- backup, backup, backup... then experiment.

I used the LVM HOWTO to setup my drive array. I chose ReiserFS because I read it's much better than ext3, and that there are really good tools for managing ReiserFS drives (which I found out when trying to rebuild lost data). I meant to use ReiserFS version 4, but I think I got 3 -- it's whatever ATRPMS gave me.

My current volume contains three 160GB Western Digital 7200 hard drives which I got at Best Buy each for $30 after the insane rebates on Black Friday. I named the volume VGForMythTVStorage, and mounted it at /var/storage.

So far, it's working great - and, if 200 hours of recording time aren't enough, then I could always add another. Hopefully I'd come to my senses by then, and start cleaning off the old episodes of Three Stooges.

Just getting started..

2004-12-23T13:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm starting this blog about a week after I started working on my MythTV box, so time to play catch-up.

At this point, here's my hardware (I'll update this with my exact specs eventually):

# CPU: 733MHz PIII (old hardware I had laying around)

# RAM: 512MB (old hardware I had laying around)

# Hard Drives:
* 6GB Western Digital for Fedora Core 3, formatted as ext3
* 2 x 120GB Western Digital drives for storage, formatted as ext3, but plan to
- currently formatted as 2 ext3 drives, at /mnt/mythtv1 & /mnt/mythtv
- I have another 120GB WD drive that i'm going to add on with an IDE card. I'll then RAID-0 the three of them together to act as one drive with fast read/write, and no redundancy (not concerned with losing my tv recordings in the event of hard drive failure)

# Network: 10/100 PCI NIC (laying around from years ago)

# Video Capture/Output cards:
* Hauppauge 250 MPEG2 Encoder ($120)
* Hauppauge 350 MPEG2 Encoder / MPEG2 Decoder with MPEG2 outputs to TV ($175)

# Video Card:
* Matrox Mystique (old card I had laying around)

# Sound Card: Creative SB Live! (had this laying around from a couple years ago)

... More to come ...