firewire
MythTV Syncing – Raw1394 or New FW0/1
Sep 15th
When syncing up MythTV via firewire for the first time everything should go smoothly. You should get a channel lock on the initial start channel. Channel changing on the Scientific Atlantic 4250HD works fine and does not require any modification of the default MythTV install. Now depending on your service provider a variety of channels will have 5c encryption. I do receive a lot of premium channels that do not have encryption, but there are some premium channels that I simply cannot watch. I try and avoid tuning these channels because they result in a zero byte firewire stream which causes MythTV to loose sync with the cable box. This is extremely annoying because I then have to manually force restart the cable box, as well as remount of the firewire port in /dev and/or reboot entirely. MythTV does not support gracefully a zero byte firewire stream probably because it is not a widely used method of tv capture. It is the easiest means of capturing HD tv from a cable box, with the only other option being the Happaug HD PVR. I hope in future releases of MythTV zero byte firewire streams are dealt with more gracefully!!
Ubuntu Hard Lock – Not What I Though
Jul 29th
(update 45 min after posting) Just fired up MythTV with firewire and experienced a hard lock. Clearly the removal of the IDE cable as stated below did not resolve the issue. Ok, for the longest, about 2 months, I had system instability. I was getting a hard lock at completely random times that happened after I started tinkering with MythTV and firewire recording. I though that it was the ATI binary drivers at one point. I then bought an NVIDIA card. I though it was the NVIDIA binary drivers at one point. I then though it was the raw1394 library and module. I compiled and installed version 1.2, upgrade to the Karmic 2.0, but still a random hard lock. I then removed the firewire plug from my system thinking it would resolve my hard lock once and for all. I though it did for two days and it clearly increased system stability, but the hard lock persisted. Sometimes I would receive a hard lock with not response or events by the system. Sometimes it would be flashing caps lock on the keyboard. Sometimes it would be a fully lit HD led. Then I decided to disconnect every component in the box and reorganize. I observed the IDE cable was faulty with a wicked crinkle, and a randomly exposed wire. Holy moly check your cables. It will avoid potential stroke or cerebral embolism not to get too graphic about it. The only connection I can see between MythTV firewire capture, and the faulty hard drive cable would be IRQ handling. Maybe the HD’s were on the same interrupt as the firewire or something, and the HD’s couldn’t handle the interrupt resolution. I don’t know and I will never because that IDE cable has been burned, shredded, and defecated upon. I think I resolved my issue and cause of the hard lock, I will know conclusively in a couple of days. One observation already is that my VirtualBox machine connects to the bridge right away whereas before it would take two or three boots. I’m not quite sure what the connection is there, but that was bugging me for a while also. Since I don’t have an extra ide laying around I decided to remove the HD’s from the system. Although I am sacrificing two 160 GIG hd’s, nowadays HD’s are 1.5 terabytes for the same price that I bought the 160 gig ide HD’s. And they will be sata so I can throw then in some convenient, motherboard driven, raid configuration, or something.
Tweaking Ubuntu – MythTV HDTV Recording
Jul 8th
MythTV records HD tv from cable boxes via firewire. I have the Explorer 4250HD from Scientific Atlantic. The service is provided by Optimum, which is subsequently a service of Cablevision. I have connected a firewire cable from the output port on the cable box to the 1394 input port on my motherboard. With Ubuntu 1394 drivers are automatically installed, and MythTV is in the default Ubuntu repositories. To install MythTV use: sudo apt-get install mythtv This will completely install MythTV in working order. I like a theme called Me-Po. You can download it here: http://home.comcast.net/~zdzisekg/download.html Unzip the folder and copy it to: /usr/share/mythtv/themes Select it in the appearance settings menu. Select it in the OSD settings menu as well, which is located in the playback menu. Now open the MythTV backend.
MythTV backend settings menu
I am recording right now so I don’t want to kill the backend to get screenshots. Simply add the input device as your firewire. It should be P2P. Set for the 4250HD Scientific Atlantic select the 4200HD and the speed to 400. You will neeeeeeeed a schedules direct account!. Grab one for 20$ a year. There is no reason not to have it. Go through the rest of the menus, and where it asks you for your schedules direct username and password pop it in. Update your lineup, then associated your input device (firewire) with the schedules direct listings source. Grab listings to set the start channel. Then your gonna want a second hard drive for your HD recordings being that they are over 10 gigs a pop for a good one. Pirates of the Caribbean at Worlds End was like 12 Gigs. You configure where to save your recording in the directories menu. Obviously you will have to connect your HD, format it and mount it. Use gparted for this, nice and easy: sudo apt-get install gparted Mount the drive somewhere in /media. Once done press escape to exit the backend config. You be prompted to update your listings using mythfilldatabase. Ohh, and to launch MythTV automatically on boot create a script. Create a new empty file, call it myth.sh. Put in it: #!/bin/bash mythfrontend Then add it to the startup applications.
Startup configurations menu
Mark the applications as executable. Add another startup script, after installing wmctrl: sudo apt-get install wmctrl In the script have: wmctrl -r "mythfrontend.real" -e 0,1921,0,1920,1080 -r is the window name. -e says where to put the window. In compiz there are viewport rather than workspaces. If you have a 1920×1080 desktop, with two viewports, then the second viewport starts at 1921. The code above will place MythTV on the second viewport autoamtically. Add the script to the startup applications list. Heres another post covering the same material. I don’t know what else to say here, but feel welcome to post questions in the comments and I’ll help the best I can.
MythTV HDTV Firewire from Scientific Atlantic 4250HD Box
Jun 15th
The MythTV package in the default Ubuntu repositories, as of Jaunty, works with built in firewire support. Just connect a firewire cable from the cable box, to your computers firewire (1394) port and configure the backend accordingly. When selecting the device configure it to 400 as the speed and select the 4250hdc model. You do not need an external channel change script as built in channel changing is supported. At first I configured my PVR150 with an external channel change script to control the ir blaster. After spending days upon days figuring out how to get it working just right, I notice the firewire support of MythTV changed the channels just fine. What an experience the PVR150 is; it does indeed work. All aspects of the PVR150 work fine, except the quality stinks compared to HDTV via firewire.