MythTV
Ubuntu Karmic – Mac Mini – MythTV
Dec 15th
I gave up on OSX. I could not get the media center working the way I wanted. Plex and XBMC have their bugs, as previously posted, twice, preventing predictable functionality. MythTV for OSX simply is not as refined as its native Linux counterpart. It feels like running Windows applications via wine. I just scrapped OSX for Ubuntu Karmic. Out of the box, off of the cd, things work great. Audio works perfect. What didn’t work? The Mac Mini remote control. I tried for a day to get it to work the hard way. I saw that /dev/usb/hiddev1 was working and displaying data; shown with cat. But lirc would not bind to the device. Ultimately I removed the program, and ran a system update. Problem resolved; clearly a bug report was filed and a resolution provided.
Fanart and coverart work fine. The Linux based fronted is seamless compatible with the Linux based MythTV server. I didn’t even need to input the servers ip information manually. I did have to set the repeat feature, for each key in ~/.lirc/mythtv.
Now all I want is to have MythTV sleep the system and wake the system. I get it to sleep the system by making the halt script sudo pm-suspend. Adjust your /etc/sudoers files to allow passwordless sudo for /usr/sbin/pm-suspend. The halt script is configured in setup-general settings. Waking the computer is another thing that I have yet to get working.
MythTV Mac Mini – Fanart – Coverart
Dec 14th
Ok, I was using OSX on my Mac Mini for a long time. MythTV, compiled for OSX, simply does not work with the fanart and coverart. I recently discovered jamu that installs with .22 on the server; the application conveniently scans your recordings and adds fanart and coverart. It looks great with basically all themes. Coverart will place an official looking cover as if it was an oldschool VHS wrapper, and the fanart will display a fullscreen image behind the description of the recording. Again, it looks great. On OSX it would not display. I actually went through the hassle of Samba mounting /var/lib/mythtv to try and get the fanart and coverart on the Mac Mini, but it still would not display. Currently I installed Ubuntu Karmic.
Fanart and coverart works right out of the box. The server is detected out of the box. Audio works out of the box. I just set the playback drivers to the mac hardware option, and HDTV playback works smoothly. The bottom grey bar is basically gone now, which is an improvement as compared to MythTV for OSX. There is currently only one thing lacking from my system. The nifty Mac Mini remote.
I currently am using one of the convenient iPod touch remotes that does indeed work. But it has no tactile feedback. I like it and will use it but I would like the mac mini remote to work as it did out of the box on OSX. I tried installing Mythbuntu control centre, but no go.
sudo apt-get install mythbuntu-control-centre
It allows you to install lirc graphically. It does setup /etc/lirc/lircd.conf and it does load the macmini IR driver. The driver works, and the /dev/usb/hiddev1 is created as expected, but lirc is non functional out of the box. Using irw I cannot get lirc to respond to button presses. I do cat /dev/usb/hiddev1 and there is output. I can use irrrecord to create a lircd.conf file. It appears to work. I apparent cannot get hardware.conf configured properly. Even with the custom lircd.conf file, irw still does not respond to button presses. Quite a frustrating experience. I don’t know what to do next. Irrecord is creating lircd.conf therefore I can only assume I have some sort of misconfiguration in hardware.conf. I will intestigate further. Everything is simply after irw starts responding; the mythbuntu-control-centre already has .lircrc configured which I can modify to suit the naming schemea I used during the creation of lircd.conf. I’m close but not there yet.
MythTV Frontend – So Many Choices
Dec 12th
What to choose, what to use? I currently use a Mac mini using a Mythfrontend. It works fine, and it accepts inputs from the integrated remote. It does not utilize up to date features of the most recent compilation, but it does indeed work flawlessly with the server; particularly the grey bar, at the bottom of HD frame, is still present. It does not crash, although the themes do have occasional bugs.
I have tried Plex, and XBMC in the past. The versions that I used were relatively functional with the server. There was a problem with particular videos playing, which was somewhat alleviated with transcoding. There have been updates to both pieces of software. Plex, as of 12/12/09 does not work with the MythTV server in Ubuntu 9.10 repositories. The same is for XBMC. Although the Mythbox script for XBMC allows functionality with the networking schema of the version of MythTV trunk used in current Ubuntu repos. The same problem, that I experienced with previous versions of Plex and XBMC, still occurs.
I want it to work. I want Mythbox for XBMC to work. I am currently working on various ways to transcode videos to make them not freeze. Lossless transcoding does not work. Sometimes videos will completely loose audio, and sometimes they will work fine. If I use no transcoding videos will freeze when transitioning from a channel; meaning if the recording starts on channel 725, and changes to 749 it will freeze. This is probably a bug in the frambuffer, which I should and could investigate in the log files.
I currently deleted my entire video library. I have turned off losless transcoding and an effort to avoid loosing audio. I have also forced transcoding to occur before commercial flagging. Transcoding after commercial flagging results in a strange phenomena; the flag points are attached at particular times and since the commercials are cut by transcoding the flags become located at incorrect and entirely unnecessary positions. I hope that not using loslesss transcoding will allow videos to not freeze and retain audio.
Overall MythTV’s commercial flagging is not foolproof. Even with strict detection checked flagging is still iffy at best. I look forward to future revisions.
There is another option. I can connect a 25ft DVI cable, from my computer, to my TV. This will allow a Linux Mythfrontend to display perfectly. It will have all the up-do-date features of MythTV. The only thing is the remote. I can purchase a IR receiver, but LIRC is limited as compared to the functionality of the Mac mini remote. I really like how the remote works on Plex and XBMC, which is half the reason I want to use those apps in particular. LIRC is much more dry cut, with a button doing something in particular, throughout the program; I’m not quite sure how to get LIRC to do different functions on different MythTV menus.
I can also use XBMC on Linux, but I’m pretty sure I will encounter the same problems stated above; therefore switching from OSX to Linux to still use XBMC is a moot point. Using the 25ft DVI cable, and a Mythfrontend I can use an internet remote control. They are various internet based remotes for the iPod touch; particularly Mymote.
Your Server – The Boot Process
Dec 9th
You want to isolate all your server features into background process. You don’t want any server features to be dependent on graphical or client side applications. I previously had my mail server dependent on the client side filtering capabilities of Thunderbird. This was a no no because it required me to maintain a desktop session. This was not optimal because during the day the desktop session was swapped to the hard drive and this caused substantial system lag when coming back to use the desktop. Now with VBoxTool, the web server is automatically booted with the host system, and all functions on the server are consolidated to background processes; there is no more dependency on client side filtering. The MythTV server also boots with the host, and the first screen the host encounters is the GDM login. Now the system is secure. Passwords are required to enter the system as a user.
Plex and XBMC for OSX – Lack of Support for MythTV Servers
Oct 18th
Plex and XBMC for OSX do not work in two particular situations. One with MythTV .21 when a recording is in the process of changing channels video will completely lock. If you attempt to escape out you will be able to get back to the previous screen, but if you attempt to press any other button, including pause or fast forward/rewind the app with freeze entirely. This is extremely frustrating, and can be alleviate with transcoding the video. The problem with transcoding is that sometimes the audio of the video file is completely dropped for some reason or another. The extremely appealing graphical user interface of Plex and XBMC make is frustrating that it is not completely compatible with MythTV as a server. Also Plex has no support for commercial skip features heavily integrated in MythTV. Such a shame. XBMC says it supports this feature to some degree, but I have not tried the app much because it requires the videos to be transcoded to avoid the above problem, and I did not like that because some of the videos lost audio entirely. Plex and XBMC for OSX do not work with MythTV .22. Also the mythbox script for XBMC OSX does not work with the most recent version of MythTV .22. It works with a slightly older version, but not with the trunk that ships with Ubuntu Karmic. Because of this Karmic can not be used to host a MythTV server for Plex or XBMC. You must use a Trunk version of MythTV frontend. This is not that bad and is livable. I currently use a Trunk build of MythTV frontend on my Mac mini. I dont have to worry about the problems with videos freezing, and it handles all commercial skip applications appropriately. The only thing is the mac mini remote does not handle volume controls. I found this frustrating at first, but then I got used to using the TV remote to also control the audio receiver connected to the mac mini. This comes in handy because I can turn off my TV and control the volume also from one remote, and control the frontend with the mac mini remote. In either cause I would not have TV power control with the mac mini remote, therefore the TV’s remote is a necessity so I might as well control the volume with it.
XBMC/Plex Crash Using MythTV
Sep 23rd
For the most part MythTV is nicely integrated into XBMC and Plex. You can view all recordings and pull up live tv. There is only one bug. When you do a recorind with your MythTV backend, and the beginning of the video starts on one channel, and changes during the recoding to another channel a hard freeze occurs. Albeit it may be my recoding method, which is firewire, but I cannot verifiy this for sure. I have a MythTV frontend also on the Mac Mini im using as a frontend, and during the same situation it does not crash. The problem is after getting a taste of XBMC and Plex as a frontend I cannot see myself going back to a MythTV frontend. I am going to delete the few recordings that are causing me problems, and try and re-record. Maybe its just a random bug, and not necessarily the recorded transition between channels. Maybe its some sort of flag that MythTV puts on the video file, but not likely. In either case XBMC and Plex for Macs are the way to go for a frontend, especially for MythTV 