Re: [mythtv-users] Mysql complains at me

[Gavin Haslett]

Nicely put, Michael. I guess that was really my point... I'd forgotten about 
that little snippet from Isaac. As another poster pointed out, it's by 
developers and for developers. It may never be perfect for someone else... but 
it's as close to perfect for me as I've gotten so far. Besides, can't complain 
about the price ;)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael T. Dean 
Sent: Thu 1/26/2006 5:28 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Mysql complains at me



    On 01/26/2006 03:43 PM, Gavin Haslett wrote:
> Understand that Myth is NOT an attempt to get Linux into everyone's 
living rooms... at least I don't see it that way.
http://mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInfo

I got tired of the rather low quality cable box that AT&T Broadband
provides with their digital cable service. It's slow to change channels,
ridden with ads, and the program guide is a joke. So, I figured it'd be
fun to try and build a replacement. Yes, I could have just bought a
TiVo, but I wanted to have more than just a PVR -- I want a webbrowser
built in, a mail client, maybe some games. Basically, I want the
mythical convergence box that's been talked about for a few years now.
-- Isaac Richards

So, it seems to me that the purpose of MythTV is to build Isaac a good
PVR.  Granted, there are a lot more people than Isaac who are getting a
good PVR out of the deal, but...  (And, I have no problems helping Isaac
get a good PVR--considering he's willing to let me have one, too.  OK,
really the biggest problem I have with helping is making time to work on
it, what with all the TV I have to watch, now.  ;)

Mike
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Re: [mythtv-users] returning PVR-500

[Gavin Haslett]

For reference, once you get your device back you might actually want to boot up 
once in Windows to test. Hauppauge is friendly to deal with, but they don't 
directly support Linux. As such, if there's a problem you can say you 
"installed the software that came with it and it didn't work". I have a Windows 
partition on my Mythbox (less than a gig) with the basics needed for a system 
in case I need to troubleshoot a potential hardware problem, knowing I would 
have to resort to Windows if they asked me if I'd used their software. 
 
So far I've used it once... when I first got my PVR-250 to test that it worked. 
Not even 100% sure it boots after so much time ;)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Richard Bronosky 
Sent: Thu 1/26/2006 4:46 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] returning PVR-500


Yes, I just contacted Hauppauge for an RMA.  Great company.  Easy to 
deal with.

I always assume that when there's a problem, it's my fault.  I've been 
developing for a while and learned to quit blame shifting long ago.  Oh, and 
I've been married for 4 years, so I've learned everything is definitely my 
fault.

I just wanted to be certain that I hadn't made a software goof.  It's 
too easy to say "this thing was broken when I bought it" at the first sign of 
trouble.



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Re: [mythtv-users] Mysql complains at me

[Gavin Haslett]

I tend to agree with your sentiments... to a point. However, I'd be dishonest 
if I didn't tell you that I'm not 100% convinced that MythTV will every be "the 
solution" for the average Joe-and-Jane-Home-User.
 
Why? Well, the SQL backend stuff is a worry. However, MySQL doesn't always 
"lose it" when suffering a hard reboot. A lot of it has to do with your 
hardware.
 
The other thing is that it *is* Linux-based. I have yet to see a device based 
upon Linux which doesn't require some sort of "power user intervention" on 
occasion. I even played recently with the Nokia 770 and found that it's as 
close to a consumer level device as I think Linux will get any time soon... but 
still if you want to get the best out of it then you're going to have to "hack 
it" eventually.
 
Truly, the only way that Myth is going to function "out of the box" for the 
average joe-and-jane-user is to use its own database solution that's primed to 
the job. All of this should sit on top of a truly embedded RTOS kernel. 
Remember, the Linux kernel is still a retrofitted high school project despite 
its high visibility and profile. I'm not saying it's not ready to be used by a 
number of people (5 out of 7 home machines I have run Linux, and I installed it 
on my router) but the simple fact is that it's not designed for the average 
joe. 
 
Similarly, I don't think we'll see a Windows MediaCenter PC that's truly 
"home-ready" any time soon. The simple fact is that multi-purpose operating 
systems and their associated software are not designed for the embedded 
single-use device market. What happens when an MCE PC craps out? Well, you need 
some modicum of ability to fix that, too. Last time I hard-booted an MCE, it 
ran CHKDSK, rebooted again, then required the manual cleanup of some temporary 
files before it would play live TV again (though recordings worked great).
 
Understand that Myth is NOT an attempt to get Linux into everyone's living 
rooms... at least I don't see it that way. Myth, MCE and their ilk appeal to a 
certain subset of society that tends to be slightly technical (Myth moreso than 
MCE), which is why I think that businesses that keep cropping up thinking a 
pre-built MythBox is going to make them rich are somewhat misguided. Nice 
concept, but we're no closer to that objective today than we were when Isaac 
started all this.
 
Sorry about the rant here, it's just that I have felt this way for a long time. 
Although my MythTV box has a great WAF from my SO, I have no doubt that in the 
event that I were to be somehow taken "out of the picture", the Myth box would 
run for a few more weeks, maybe months... then it would break... then she'd buy 
a Tivo. She's just not technical, and doesn't care much to learn much about the 
guts of my Mythbox. That's a simple fact of life... if I weren't here then 
she'd either do without or buy a Tivo.
 
Now Tivo... there's something that's close to the ideal. Sure, it uses a Linux 
kernel (or at least early versions did... haven't kept up with development 
there in a while)... but there's a HUGE amount of custom code in there designed 
specifically to keep the device in the living room. Simplification... and the 
support of a company (now several) which will answer a phone call. Myth strives 
a *lot* higher than Tivo... reaching to exceed even MCE's capabilities... but 
in doing so adds complexity and puts that day of "Myth in every living room" 
that much further away. Of course, that may not be an attainable goal at all 
(see my earlier remarks)
 
Little OT... but it had to be said :)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ryan Rawson 
Sent: Thu 1/26/2006 1:35 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: [mythtv-users] Mysql complains at me



So I had to powercycle the computer that runs mythtv.  Luckly my 
filesystem is journaled (ext3 and xfs) so I didn't have to wait long, 
but wait, surprise for me in my mailbox:

Subject: WARNING: mysqlcheck has found corrupt tables

The debian packaging of mysql runs check tools on system boot.

So apparently my mythtv tables may or may not be corrupt.  The rest 
of the message just indicates that some tables weren't closed 
correctly, and now people are accessing them.

Now I don't really want advice how to fix this, since I don't have 
the time or interest to fix it (and I'm getting rid of cable 
anyways).  But I'd like to say that as a power-user who just wants to 
be an end user, this is a very bad experience.  The one instruction 
for fixing it involves like 10 steps.  I'm not really interested in 
this, I'm really interested in watching my TV, not databases.

My engineering hat comes on, and says - this is intolerable.  Mysql 
isn't really helping here, and maybe mythtv sh

Re: [mythtv-users] 0.19 release notes

[Gavin Haslett]

Heh, I for one will be using this, checkbox be damned ;)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kevin Kuphal 
Sent: Wed 1/25/2006 1:11 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] 0.19 release notes



Jesse Guardiani wrote:
> Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>  
>> Jesse Guardiani wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> Great read. Two questions:
>>>
>>> 1.) I've read that the OSD flicker and black and white issues have 
been
>>> fixed. Is that true? If so, might deserve a mention.
>>>  
>>>
>>>  
>> I have a flicker free OSD on XvMC (and color) using the ChromaKey OSD
>> feature but it is not a user-exposed setting as I believe it is still
>> experimental.  See http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/changeset/7569 for 
details
>> on how to enable it in SVN.  I don't know what criteria is needed for
>> this to be considered ready for prime time but certainly it can be 
used
>> and tested by those wishing to try it.
>>  
>>
>
> Hmmm... wonder if that will ship with the release version?
>
>  
The code is in there so it certainly will be available for those that
follow the instructions in 7569.  Whether this will ship with a nifty
check box to enable it is unknown.

Kevin
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Re: [mythtv-users] Questions about Upcoming 0.19

[Gavin Haslett]

Sorry if I worried anyone with my report of disk thrashing under SVN. Please 
don't take my experience as indicative of others experience... as I pointed out 
I was working in a "sandbox" environment on my Myth box, which is a whole 
separate Linux install. My "production" system is FC3, "sandbox" is FC4. Since 
these are different in many ways, it may have been something other than Myth 
that was causing the thrashing. Besides, I spent a lot of time tweaking my live 
box, my sandbox hasn't had nearly as much attention.
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[mythtv-users] Questions about Upcoming 0.19

[Gavin Haslett]

I was reading the change list published for the upcoming 0.19 upgrade and a few 
things occurred to me;
 
1. For the new LiveTV improvements, will it be possible to set the expiration 
of LiveTV recordings to, say, 4 hours? I know expiration is currently done on a 
daily basis, but to be honest I can't think of a single time when I'd want to 
retain a LiveTV recording for mor than 4 hours or so.
 
2. Any thoughts on adding a checkbox to use "classic mode" LiveTV instead of 
the new version? I did a quick test on the SVN version about two weeks ago, and 
found that my disk subsystem was thrashing a lot more frequently than with 
0.18. I presumed this was due to the LiveTV changes that occurred. Of course, 
this might just be my second Linux install on the box :)
 
3. Didn't get a chance to test this... but how well does XvMC work with the OSD 
and deinterlace? I know this is a bad combination in 0.18, but my video looks 
SOOO much better with kernel deint turned on, and it's a lot smoother with 
XvMC, so currently I just live with flickery OSD.
 
Anyway, just brainfarts... it's too early in the AM (and pre-coffee) for any 
truly coherent thought :)
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Re: [mythtv-users] New to mythtv, need help

[Gavin Haslett]

Then please ignore everything I said :)

 

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Re: [mythtv-users] New to mythtv, need help

[Gavin Haslett]

> As I mentioned above, I am connecting my PVR-350 to my TV via an RF
> converter.  I don't think my TV was made in the last 5 years.

OK, what you need is a box to take your output from a sound card and combine it 
with the video into a single composite input.
 
Note that the composite output of most cards is composite video out, not 
complete. I can't speak to the PVR-350, but I suspect the situation is the same 
here. As I recall, there's no output for sound... so yes you will need a sound 
card to output sound as well. Since you're saying you only have a single input 
on your TV, you'll also need an external box to take the composite video (or 
S-Video) and combine it with the line out from the sound card into a single 
input. This is going to result in some loss of quality.
 
Most TV's I've seen in the last 10 years have separate inputs for left/right 
audio and video... but this is in the US so I don't know if this situation's 
different in other parts of the world. 
 
Hope this helps.
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Re: [mythtv-users] Cost of MythTV Machines

[Gavin Haslett]

You know, the true answer to this question really is; how much do you WANT to 
spend?
 
Me, I got by on my original attempt with around $100... that was because I 
happened to have the components sitting around wasting space, so building out a 
PC to host Myth was just a matter of getting the capture card (in my case a 
PVR-250). Many geeks like me probably have a bits box full of parts that they 
could build a machine out of. My initial build was an AMD 800 with 768Mb RAM 
and a 60Gb hard drive. Even the case was an old Gateway Destination (remember 
those?) case that I happened to have picked up a few years back and never 
used... so it matched my stereo components rather nicely. OK, so the 
motherboard's not a perfect fit, but it's good enough (the back panel has no 
aluminum plate).
 
Once I'd built this out and tested it for a while... and once my wife had 
decided she really liked it I began to upgrade. I purchased a new mobo, memory 
and CPU... but ended up not using them because the new mobo fit but I didn't 
have a power supply with the Pentium 4 connector. Bummer... but just a stupid 
oversight on my part. At about the same time I had purchased two 160Gb drives, 
and I installed those in a mirrored set to replace the single 60... much better 
(I filled 60Gb in a disturbingly short amount of time). Since my upgrade budget 
was toast, no new PSU... but the mobo's still in storage for future development.
 
Cost of a total Myth setup will also depend on HOW you plan to set it up. 
Dedicated front and back ends will obviously cost more, but will provide almost 
unlimited expansion potential. Single-box front/backends will be cheaper, but 
you might find yourself hitting the upper limits of operability quickly. You 
pays your money and you takes your choice.
 
Personally, I've found recently that my PIII-700 laptop with 256MB of RAM will 
run a frontend quite happily with no impact on my AMD 800 backend/frontend box. 
I paid less than $250 for this on Ebay about a year ago... and it's nice to sit 
with my wireless card in and seclude myself in a relatively unused corner of 
the house and watch Battlestar Galactica while my kids watch TV in the family 
room.
 
So in summary... what do you feel like spending? What have you got you can use 
to build out a frontend? How motivated are you?

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Tom Hines 
Sent: Mon 1/23/2006 8:02 AM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Cost of MythTV Machines



I assume the systems to which you are referring are HD capable and
"just work".  My motive for building my own box was that I wanted to
tinker with VIA min-itx mobos and it was just time for another DIY
project.  I forget what the price breakdown was, but I'm in it for
over $600 now.

VIA EPIA M1 (provides networking, video out, sound)
Haupauge PVR-250
120 GB Hard Drive
DVD+RW (which I never use)
Cheap noname micro-atx desktop case
Quiet replacement fan for the power supply
Wireless keyboard and mouse
KnoppMyth

I had fun building it, but I'm not sure if I will rebuild when I go
for high def.  I'm not too happy with MythTV and might give Tivo a
try.

Tom
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Re: [mythtv-users] mythfrontend laptop linux distro???

[Gavin Haslett]

To hell with distributions... Download the source and compile it
yourselves!!! Wimps!!! ;) 

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Re: [mythtv-users] Missing .nuv files?

[Gavin Haslett]

Ahem... Not sure if you've tried this but the EASY way to clean up
missing NUV's (IMNSHO) is to go into the video directory, "touch
.nuv"... Then you can go through the GUI and delete... Oh and
tell it to allow re-record :)

Nope... Never done that before... I swear ;) 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Andersen
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 2:46 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Missing .nuv files?

On 1/19/06, Michael Still <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> John Andersen wrote:
>
> > Who knows why it happened.  Could have been anything.
> >
> > But if you are smart enough to figure out how to run SVN then you 
> > are smart enough to learn knoda mysqladmin or any of the other mysql

> > clients (ore even the command line
> > one) and fix it by deletint the entries in recorded programs table.
>
> Sure. I guess I was offering some debugging assistance to remove a bug

> before a release...
>
> Oh, and does removing the row from the recorded programs table allow a

> rerecord later, or is that somewhere else in the schema?

BTFOM...
There are two tables, recordedprogram and recorded that look
suspiciously like what you are after.

--
--JSA-
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Re: [mythtv-users] Looking for good specifications for mythTV

[Gavin Haslett]

The Epia P is a great board for a Myth-like box... my next frontend will 
probably have that (for my bedroom) because a fanless configuration would be 
nice.
 
However, it's not without its flaws. The 600Mhz CPU is barely powerful enough 
to run a frontend and backend together... forget trying to use it to transcode. 
The core is based on the old Cyrix core, so a lot of the math takes a back seat 
to integer performance. Not a big deal with video, but when dealing with 
compression/decompression of MPEG-2 or 4 streams this can start to saturate 
these 600Mhz CPUs pretty quickly. All Pentium-class CPU's are not made equal... 
bear that in mind when shopping for a media-PC.
 
Oh, and on the 600Mhz, if you're running MythMusic then better not try to run 
full-screen visualizations either :)
 
I would also point out that even with the XvMC support for these boards, don't 
try HD content. You need a LOT more muscle than this to pump HD to the screen, 
even the 1Ghz version of the board won't handle it. 
 
Be aware of the specs also; I'm not sure if the Epia P does come in a 1.3Ghz 
form, I think it tops at 1Ghz as I recall. Either way, as pointed out above 
since it's based on the Cyrix core some of the floating point ops are a little 
slower than a similarly clocked Intel or AMD. However, the heat and electricity 
used are a lot nicer in these cores.
 
We're still in a phase where embedded systems are a huge compromise... but the 
situation's improving dramatically and continues to. Now, if we can only see 
some lower prices on the hardware :)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Chris Weisiger 
Sent: Tue 1/17/2006 10:53 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Looking for good specifications for mythTV



Here is the link

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_sp/index.jsp

Chris Weisiger wrote:

>The thing is with the mini-itx stuff is that I have an old NES and i 
was
>reading about
>building mini-itx systems and thought while im building it...to build 
it
>in a way
>to use it as a pvr system.which i was looking at getting a mini-itx
>board
>that can handle a 1.3 or so processor
>
>This is the motherboard that I was looking into gettingthats if i
>cant locate
>a mini-itx to handle a pentium processor
>
>
>
>Gavin Haslett wrote:
>
> 
>
>>So long as you're not trying any HD content, this is probably good
>>(though that one's obvious given the 350). I run mine on an AMD 800 
with
>>768MB RAM and it runs like a champ. Single PVR-250 and an NVIDIA card
>>running XvMC for playback.
>>
>>-Original Message-
>>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Weisiger
>>Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:02 PM
>>To: Discussion about mythtv
>>Subject: [mythtv-users] Looking for good specifications for mythTV
>>
>>What are some good specs for a mythTV box..I have seen specs for high
>>end machines doing multiple recordingsI am not looking into doing
>>such things...
>>
>>All i am looking for is to record a single channel while watching
>>itand the possibility to pause live tv...
>>just a basic recording box
>>
>>I am looking into buiding a mini-itx box with laptop 
componentsslim
>>line cd/dvd, laptop hard drive, dimm or sodimm memory depending on 
what
>>type of mini-itx motherboard i get or is recommended
>>
>>What is the lowest possible processor speed to accomplish recording 
and
>>pausing live tv
>>
>>i was looking into getting a mini-itx with a 1.3 processor? and a
>>pvr-350 card?
>>
>>i know memory helps the system..so i was planning on maxing out the
>>memory..i found a mini-itx board that can support 2 gig or ram...and 
the
>>hard drive space of course is not an issue for me to deal with...it is
>>basically the processor speed..
>>being this is the first
>>attempt at creating a mythTV box...
>>
>>___
   

Re: [mythtv-users] Looking for good specifications for mythTV

[Gavin Haslett]

So long as you're not trying any HD content, this is probably good
(though that one's obvious given the 350). I run mine on an AMD 800 with
768MB RAM and it runs like a champ. Single PVR-250 and an NVIDIA card
running XvMC for playback. 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Weisiger
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:02 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: [mythtv-users] Looking for good specifications for mythTV

What are some good specs for a mythTV box..I have seen specs for high
end machines doing multiple recordingsI am not looking into doing
such things...

All i am looking for is to record a single channel while watching
itand the possibility to pause live tv...
just a basic recording box

I am looking into buiding a mini-itx box with laptop componentsslim
line cd/dvd, laptop hard drive, dimm or sodimm memory depending on what
type of mini-itx motherboard i get or is recommended

What is the lowest possible processor speed to accomplish recording and
pausing live tv

i was looking into getting a mini-itx with a 1.3 processor? and a
pvr-350 card?

i know memory helps the system..so i was planning on maxing out the
memory..i found a mini-itx board that can support 2 gig or ram...and the
hard drive space of course is not an issue for me to deal with...it is
basically the processor speed.. 
being this is the first
attempt at creating a mythTV box...

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Re: [mythtv-users] Intermittant high disk activity

[Gavin Haslett]

Sorry, typed "ext2" and was thinking "FAT". My goof :)

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael T. Dean 
Sent: Tue 1/17/2006 3:08 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Intermittant high disk activity



    On 01/16/06 19:20, Gavin Haslett wrote:

>Oh, one other possibility would be filesystem in use on the video 
partition. I've found (through trial and error) that XFS is by far the best 
filesystem to use on the video partition for general use. It deletes instantly, 
almost never seems to get fragmented or "busy" and generally is a nice FS to 
use. I tried ReiserFS (kept trying to rewrite journals while I was trying to 
watch TV) and ext3 (fragmented too easily for my tastes)... though I've been 
led to believe from a friend of mine that you can use an ext2 partition for 
buffers so long as you keep 'em below 2Gb.
>
Why below 2GB?

Mike
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Re: [mythtv-users] Intermittant high disk activity

[Gavin Haslett]

I had this problem when my machine was "fresh out of the box" as well. I found 
that setting mythfrontend suid root fixed that. Not perfect from a security 
standpoint, I know... but the box is well defended behind a firewall and its 
own internal firewall.
 
Another possibility is memory. Or possibly something that's running in the 
background.
 
Oh, one other possibility would be filesystem in use on the video partition. 
I've found (through trial and error) that XFS is by far the best filesystem to 
use on the video partition for general use. It deletes instantly, almost never 
seems to get fragmented or "busy" and generally is a nice FS to use. I tried 
ReiserFS (kept trying to rewrite journals while I was trying to watch TV) and 
ext3 (fragmented too easily for my tastes)... though I've been led to believe 
from a friend of mine that you can use an ext2 partition for buffers so long as 
you keep 'em below 2Gb. That apparently works well.
 
As mentioned before, it could also be MySQL... but to be honest I doubt it. 
Normally MySQL is pretty solid and doesn't just randomly do stuff unless you 
tell it. However, I wouldn't rule it out.
 
Gavin
 

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Steve Adeff 
Sent: Mon 1/16/2006 5:24 PM 
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Intermittant high disk activity



On Monday 16 January 2006 16:41, mike choy wrote:
> Hi Team
>
> Having just put my SUSE 10.0 Myth machine into production with 0.18.1
> all seems to be well except that
> every now and then the front end video pauses, and the disk activity
> light goes like crazy, almost as if the machine
> has gone into some sort of paging mode. The duration can vary from a 
few
> seconds to 15/20 seconds.
> If  I exit from watching live tv back to the main menu the disk 
activity
> stops.
>
> Any idea how I can find out whats going on?
>
> Mike C

mysql?

--
Steve
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Re: [mythtv-users] cut commercials only, no transcoding

[Gavin Haslett]

I think the consensus is that there is no consensus :)

It basically comes down to -> Use what works best for you. Take your
pick. Ask 10 different people around here and you'll get 12 different
answers. 
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Re: [mythtv-users] mythfrontend laptop linux distro???

[Gavin Haslett]

I've got two laptops that run Fedora 4 and Knoppix. By far 
the better of the two on the frontend duties is the Knoppix box... but that's a 
more powerful machine.
 
My Fedora laptop is actually only a PIII-class CPU 
(500Mhz), but with a nice trim config (XFCE instead of one of the heavy WM's) 
the performance is more than acceptable. Runs Myth playback pretty well for SD, 
but for HD I wouldn't even attempt it.
 
Depends a lot on what kind of stuff you're going to do with 
it. I use my laptop primarily for "Office-type" applications; Email, Web, word 
processing etc... I only really use Myth on my laptops for editing video 
(creating cutlists, not cutting video).


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick van der 
MiedenSent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:04 PMTo: 
'Discussion about mythtv'Subject: [mythtv-users] mythfrontend laptop 
linux distro???

I need some opinions 
here please.
 
I'd like to install 
a linux distro on my laptop for daily usage and for a mythfrontend. Question is 
what is the best suitable distro for my laptop. I tried suse in the past, but I 
hate all those "missing dependencies" with installing rpms. Gentoo is great (my 
backend is running on it), but the emerging of kde errored after compiling of a 
complete day!!! So not an option for me anymore. Knoppmyth is more for a cd 
frontend and not appropiate for my dual booted laptop I 
think.
 
How's fedora 
nowadays. is it the same story as with the dependencies of 
suse?
 
Some experiences are welcome
 
Regards
 
Rick
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Re: [mythtv-users] Hauppauge PVR Questions

[Gavin Haslett]

I have to say that I use a PVR250 and an nVidia card as well (GeForceMX440). I 
would agree that playing with the interlace settings can get rid of a lot of 
the "fast moving quality" problems. And yes, I do see them occasionally, 
especially if I turn deinterlace off entirely.
 
Generally the problem with fast moving usually ends up with a "tearing" effect, 
or a jerkiness especially in full-screen pans. Using both XvMC and kernel 
deinterlace yields (imnsho) a picture that's almost indistinguishable from my 
satellite box hooked directly to the TV... that is if you can ignore the 
occasional obvious compression artifact (like when the video changes suddenly 
seeing a frame or more of what looks like "low-res" video). My wife and kids 
don't notice it, though... I only notice it because I'm a perfectionist.
 
The only problem with this setup is, of course the flickering OSD. Still, we 
just live with that for now.
 
I have noticed that the video looks a little better in terms of fast movement 
when transcoded to MPEG4... but I don't like the amount of color bleed that 
MPEG4 allows which MPEG2 doesn't. Might be fixed with a few fiddles with the 
transcode settings, but I've not dedicated a whole hell of a lot of time to 
that yet.

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of David Watkins 
Sent: Thu 1/12/2006 3:29 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Hauppauge PVR Questions



> - Out of the box, the picture quality from my PVR-150 system doesn't
> equal broadcast quality (of my SD analog cable system) for "fast 
moving"
> TV, most notably sports.  Emphasis on "out of the box", since I've 
done
> almost nothing to try to improve the quality.

Could this be due to your output method, rather than the capture?
I've noticed it too since I stopped using my PVR350 for output and
started using an nVidia card.  Changing the de-interlace algorithm
improved things to the point where I hardly notice it now, but it's
still there.
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Re: [mythtv-users] question about RAID

[Gavin Haslett]

RAID 0 would be a straight stripe with no data protection. You were
talking about three drives, so in order to use all three you'd be
talking this or a RAID 5 in order to get some modicum of protection.

If you wanted to go RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 then you'd need an even number of
drives, and total capacity would be half the actual aggregate capacity
of all those drives.

Note that in order to create your RAID you're going to have to re-
partition your existing disk... so a backup and restore is inevitable.

I know you said data protection is not an issue... but believe me when I
tell you that it can become an issue rapidly. You can build a
significant collection of recordings on any reasonable size media (I
have mirrored 160Gb drives myself), and there's no recovery if you lose
a single disk. It's not like you can cut the array down to half the
array and still get half your data back... you'll lose it all if one of
the drives in a RAID 0 fails. RAID 5 and RAID 1/0+1 would at least allow
you protection.

>From a sheer cost perspective I'd say RAID 5 is the way to go... but
bear in mind that the processing overhead of RAID 5 plus the data load
of reading and writing data and parity in a RAID 5 will make it slow,
especially since you run significant risk of saturating the PCI bus with
SATA.

My dual 160's work great for me right now, and if I wanted to expand I'd
just add another pair of drives and continue my RAID 0+1 I set up. I
have thought about buying a third and going RAID 5 (would double my
storage). Since I'm running ATA133 instead of SATA (drives were cheaper
at the time) I am not really stressed about saturating the bus... but my
poor old AMD 800 might not be happy with me ;)
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RE: [mythtv-users] Do I really need a mouse on the frontend?

[Gavin Haslett]

I think the true answer is; it depends. In my case, WAF (Wife Approval
Factor) is extremely important. Trying to get my wife to change channels
and operate my Mythbox with a keyboard would be less than optimal. A
remote is designed for a particular job, a keyboard is designed for
another. While the keyboard can do the job of the remote, it's not the
optimal tool for the job.

Just my 2c worth.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cecil Watson
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2005 9:12 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Do I really need a mouse on the frontend?

Larry's Club Cars wrote:
> With a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse in the frontend, do I 
> really need a remote control?
No.
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RE: [mythtv-users] Starting up mythfrontend automatically?

[Gavin Haslett]

Personally I use KDE, since this is the best supported by mythtv, and
one of the most popular desktops out there. I use Gnome on my "work"
machine because I prefer it over KDE. Besides, once it's running the
window manager makes little difference.

As far as how to start up mythfrontend... Go to a terminal window logged
in as the mythtv user. With FVWM you probably need to right or
left-click on the desktop to get a menu of apps. Select the terminal.
Once you do that, edit your ".xsession" file (note the leading period is
important). If you don't have one, create one. Use Pico or VI... My
personal preference is vi. 

Once you're editing it, on the last line in the file (or first if it's a
new file), put in "/usr/bin/mythfrontend" (presuming that's where it's
installed). Then if in vi, press ctrl+c, :, then type "wq!" and hit
enter. Once you're back to the command line, type "chmod +x .xsession"
and hit enter.

Now voila... Log off, log on and you should have mythfrontend auto
launched. 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Piers Kittel
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2005 4:51 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Starting up mythfrontend automatically?

OK that sounds good to me.  But how to do that? :)

Cheers - Piers

joggl wrote:
> i use rungetty in inittab for autologin!
> 
> and i use no windowmanger.
> 
> i start xinit with mythfrontend, fastet way...
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RE: [mythtv-users] OT: NFS - Anyone seen a problem like this

[Gavin Haslett]

Could be due to networking problems in general. Have you checked you port speed 
and duplex settings to ensure they're compatible with your switch/hub? 
Auto/Auto is often a PITA (dependent on hardware), I usually force all my 
equipment to 100/Full... but I also have a good quality switch that defaults to 
100/Full.

Otherwise, you could try to add the options "soft,bg" to the mount point. That 
should background reconnect NFS mounts if they become disconnected. Might help.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael J. Lynch
Sent:   Fri 8/19/2005 7:54 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:[mythtv-users] OT:  NFS - Anyone seen a problem like this
I realize that this question doesn't have much at all to do with
Myth proper, but when it occurs it's always when I'm watching a
recording.

The problem is the playback will freeze.  There is no response
from the keyboard or mouse.  If I switch to a different VT, top
show's a pretty much idle processor.  Since I can't get out of
playback, I kill off mythfrontend, but still no response.  Finally,
I killed off everything on VT7 (X) and I eventually got a login
prompt on it.

Login works but hangs when bringing up network services.  Finally,
I unmount the NFS video share and remount then everything starts
working again.

My set up is backend running FC2 on AMD 3200++.  Frontend running
FC2 on P3 733Mhz.  Both using Myth 0.17.

I don't really think this problem has anything to do with Myth.  I
was wondering if anyone else has ever seen a problem like this with
NFS.  Is there an NFS option I could try that might help.  One
other note, I don't have to do anything to the backend machine to
make playback work again.

Anyway, thanks for any thoughts anyone may have on the subject.


-- 
Michael J. Lynch

What if the hokey pokey IS what it's all about -- author unknown




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RE: [mythtv-users] remove plugins

[Gavin Haslett]

Clean, complete removal does depend on your distribution or setup. On my FC3 
system with APT, all I have to do is "apt-get remove mythweather" and similar 
for any other plugins I don't want (mythphone springs to mind as one I didn't 
want).

With that particular theme I'm not sure, but with the blue theme, in order to 
DISABLE (not remove) the plugins, I had to edit the XML file for the theme... 
can't recall the location right off the top of my head because I'm on a Windows 
box at work right now with no Linux boxes in sight... but ISTR it was pretty 
simple to figure out the section I had to remove. Probably could've just 
commented it out too... but removal worked well for me :)

Gavin



-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Andrej van der Zee
Sent:   Fri 8/12/2005 12:32 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] remove plugins
Yes definitely. This is the error message I get from
my frontend when I push the icon:

Unable to run plugin 'mythweather': not initialized
/usr/local/lib/mythtv/plugins/liblibmythweather.so.so:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or
directory

Greets, Andrej


--- Donavan Stanley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On 8/12/05, Andrej van der Zee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > Yes I tried that before but the theme will keep on
> > displaying the icons. What file do I need  (I am
> using
> > the Minimalist-wide)? 
> 
> Myth should only show menu items for valid plugins. 
> Are you certain
> you deleted the shared libraries?
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RE: [mythtv-users] OT: Comcast Chicago changing channel lineup, SCI-FI moving to digital only

[Gavin Haslett]

Solution as I mentioned earlier is to use a monster backend with
all the PVR cards and boxes attached, then build out mini frontends
to attach to your other TV's. Off two inputs I could realistically
run three TV's or more because chances are only two of them would
be running Live TV. Then you can also share recordings, shared music
files on a single monster server and so on. 

I already run three frontends with one backend and *ONE* PVR and
associated box. I can do this because generally one is used for
viewing recordings and/or videos... and when it's used for Live
TV it's only because my wife and I have already gone to bed and
feel like chilling in front of Live TV. Typically we don't watch
Live TV any more though... we've become so used to not having to
worry about commercials that we just avoid them where possible
now. Only the kids watch Live TV any more, and that's kids programs
that we don't record; our stuff is typically recorded during late
night re-runs (most networks do that these days) and we never
actually watch them "Live". Hell, last night we went to bed early
and watched last week's Battlestar Galactica upstairs because we
hadn't had the time to watch it yet. Having kids and a busy social
life does that to you... we rarely watch TV any more "live".


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Brian J. Murrell
Sent:   Tue 8/9/2005 2:14 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] OT: Comcast Chicago changing channel 
lineup,SCI-FI moving to digital only
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 14:56 -0400, Jim Reith wrote:
> 
> Not really an investment in cable boxes as the cable company probably
> provides at least one with your digital subscription

And what of the additional ones I need for the PVR recording cards (1
each) and the other TVs in the house?  They don't come anywhere near as
free.  And what do I do with them when I want to change providers?
Yeah, I could sell them, not nearly at the same price I paid for them,
if at all.

b.




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RE: [mythtv-users] OT: Comcast Chicago changing channel lineup, SCI-FI moving to digital only

[Gavin Haslett]

> So the S-Video input on the PVR line of cards allows the card to select
> the channel on digital cable?  Or do you mean that would be used from
> the digital cable box and then an IR blaster has to be used to change
> the channels on the cable box?

S-Video will just take the input from a box... there's no documented standard 
for digital boxes so that card manufacturers can create digital-capable cards. 
They want to lock you into those boxes for control purposes.

IR Blaster... serial's cleaner and more efficient (if you have the ports and 
capability!)

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RE: [mythtv-users] OT: Comcast Chicago changing channellineup, SCI-FI moving to digital only

[Gavin Haslett]

I will say that using external boxes ain't so bad, particularly if you plan 
ahead enough with your installation to put a meaty backend in the basement for 
example. I plan to do this with "Version 2" of my Myth setup with both DirecTV 
boxes and a good backend with lots of drives in the basement (directly below my 
entertainment center), then just drill a hole in the floor for an Ethernet 
cable and hook to the switch I already have screwed to the back of 
aforementioned entertainment center.

While I really disagree with the fact that the cable/satellite companies are 
forcing these boxes on you, there are easy enough ways to work around it. As 
for IR Blasters, nah... serial connection's the way to go and well supported in 
Myth. IR Blasters are usually more trouble than they're worth.

This is one problem with this country today; nobody seems to have the balls (or 
money) to really take a stand against the rampant corporatism that threatens to 
destroy this country. I'm British, living in the US because of the perceived 
freedoms I saw half a world away 10 years ago. I find it telling when both my 
wife and I have discussed recently the possibility of moving back to Britain in 
order to get some of the freedoms back we've given up in the last few years. 
Don't get me wrong; I love this country... I just don't love what Corporations 
are doing to it.

Sorry... OT rant...


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jim Reith
Sent:   Tue 8/9/2005 1:28 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] OT: Comcast Chicago changing channellineup, 
SCI-FI moving to digital only
At 02:15 PM 8/9/2005, you wrote:
>On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 13:51 -0400, Scot L. Harris wrote:
> >
> > Still have that channel here.
>
>Wow.  Cableco lied to me.  Imagine my surprise.

Still available in new England as well


> > Currently I have the cable going direct to the PVR-350 and PVR-250.
>
>Yup.
>
> > I
> > assumed this was the basic analog service.
>
>Analog service anyway.  Not sure about the adjectives.
>
> > If/when they go full digital
> > which cards can be used?
>
>None.  Welcome to America.

Not true. Both cards will work using their S-Video inputs


> > Or do we have to play games with IR blasters
> > to switch channels on the cable box?
>
>Yup.

yeah


> > Would not be good having to have a
> > separate cable box for each encoder.
>
>Yup.  Sounds like the cableco has a cash crop side business in selling
>marked up cable boxes huh?  And since every cableco is using some
>different technology, it's not like 20 years ago when you needed a
>"standard" cable box just to get more channels and we just had to wait
>for TVs to have the cable box integrated into it.  How many TV
>manufacturers do you think are going to put 17 different digital tuners
>in their TVs.

Charter is nice enough to provide additional digital boxes for a buck a
month rental after you buy the initial service so it's not a big deal other
than needing two IRBlasters


>It's not like standards don't exist though.  DVB for one.  American
>cablecos just want to lock you into their service by making you have to
>"throw away" a large investment in hardware to change providers.
>Apparently Europeans didn't stand for that and now they have DVB (for
>satellite at least anyway) and can buy their tuners anywhere they want
>(and with one standard, TV makers will have one thing they can integrate
>into the TV).
>
>b.
>
>
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RE: [mythtv-users] burn-in. Should I be worried? - Dev Idea?

[Gavin Haslett]

Pausing live TV isn't an issue anyways, is it? I was under the impression that 
the pausing would only continue until the ring-buffer looped... therefore at 
PVR-250 rates of about 1.2Gb per hour, over a 3Gb ring buffer I couldn't pause 
it more than about 2.5 hours... not enough time to burn a TV.
 
Oh, and in answer to your questions directly, I really don't like (2). I leave 
my Mythbox on TV overnight as I often start transcode schedules before I go to 
bed... this frees up my CPU cycles for transcoding and commflagging. I also 
tend to run mkmovie or nuvexport jobs for the same reason at night. Jumping to 
live TV would just eat up CPU cycles for no benefit.
 
Of course, I'm running a relatively slow Mythbox... YMMV.

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Andrew Palm 
Sent: Mon 8/8/2005 5:04 PM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] burn-in. Should I be worried? - Dev Idea?



Hi Guys,

Maybe the dev people can steal an idea from TiVo land... which are

1. If the tivo is paused for x amount of time it blanks the screen.
2. If left in a menu for x amount of time it returns to livetv.
3. for MythMusic and other static stuff, maybe have it so either the
visualization goes full screen after x amount of time or the screen
blanks after x amount of time.

Screen burning is a issue on all types of monitors, regardless of age.
Yes that includes LCD, plasma and the good old CRT. I have LCD's at work
  on KVM's that have been left on 'nt4' login screen, which is burnt in.
I have read the LCD will loose its burn in, but to do this is need equal
time off for time on! (and turning it off for 12 months anit a option)

Andrew




mail2 wrote:
> Hello Jesse
> Press "5" (or "6")  in mythmusic will black the screen.
> Pascal.
> - Original Message - From: "Jesse Guardiani" <[EMAIL 
PROTECTED]>
> To: "Discussion about mythtv" 
> Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 8:27 PM
> Subject: [mythtv-users] burn-in. Should I be worried?
>
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a "normal" NTSC TV. Medium quality and nothing fancy.
>> Should I be worried about burn-in?
>>
>> Particularly, mythmusic scares me, as only the small visualization
>> window is actively updated, and I don't want to run the vis.
>> full screen as it burns too much CPU.
>>
>> Pausing LiveTV concerns me too, and any of the MythTV menus
>> scare me, as they're completely static. :)
>>
>> I started reading a MythTV screensaver thread that I found
>> via google, but I got frustrated after about 10 iterations of
>> people arguing for or against a screensaver without any
>> clear resolution.
>>
>> So I guess the second part of this question is: Was there a
>> resolution? Is a screensaver widely accepted as a good thing,
>> or not? Is there any work being done to that end?
>>
>> But ultimately, should I be careful (and tell my wife to be
>> careful) to avoid burn-in on this TV?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> --
>> Jesse Guardiani
>> Programmer/Sys Admin
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
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RE: [mythtv-users] databse issues

[Gavin Haslett]

Could be your user permissions to the database... you may not have enough 
permissions to perform the upgrade. Try running the upgrade script as root.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Reza Naima
Sent:   Mon 8/8/2005 1:37 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:[mythtv-users] databse issues

ok, this auto-db-update thing is driving me nuts.  every time i quit and
restart mythtv, it wants to upgade the db.  i have to go in manually,
and update the database to reflect the version change, then mythbackend
starts.  but when mythbackend quites, and i try to restart it, it
thinks it's the old version again.  anyone know why?

thnx

2005-08-07 23:33:31.567 Upgrading to schema version 1077
2005-08-07 23:33:31.595 New DB connection, total: 3
2005-08-07 23:33:31.623 Upgrading to schema version 1078
2005-08-07 23:33:31.637 Upgrading to schema version 1079
2005-08-07 23:33:31.650 DB Error (Performing database upgrade):
Query was: ALTER TABLE capturecard ADD COLUMN dvb_hw_decoder INT DEFAULT
'0';
Error was: Driver error was [2/1060]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Duplicate column name 'dvb_hw_decoder'

new version: 1079
2005-08-07 23:33:31.651 Database Schema upgrade FAILED, unlocking.
2005-08-07 23:33:31.651 Couldn't upgrade database to new schema




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RE: [mythtv-users] DirectTV external tuner help

[Gavin Haslett]

Be aware also that unless you request it from DirecTV, your serial port may not 
even be enabled. I had to specify to them that I was planning to use a Tivo and 
they enabled it for me over the phone.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of David George
Sent:   Tue 8/2/2005 6:10 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] DirectTV external tuner help
Alex Van Deusen wrote:

>I have a Sony Bat55 directv box. It is connected via a serial cable to
>my mythbackend. The ports are enabled in bios.
>
>I downloaded the script from tarek "sony.pl". Then put it into
>/usr/local/sony.pl. In mythtv-setup I set the command to reference
>that location.
>
>I tried to to have myth record and change channels but it did not work. 
>  
>
What does did not work mean?  Did you get an error?  What happens when 
you try the script from the command line.  Does the serial port in the 
script match the one you have the receiver connected to?  By default the 
script uses /dev/ttyS0.

>I then logged in as root su, when I did setserial dev/ttyS0 it gave me
>correct information and listed irq4, dev/ttyS1 is irq3
>
>It seems like it is a problem with the user not having access, but I
>dont know how to troubleshoot.
>  
>
Probably not, as you set the devices to 777.  There are so many other 
things it could be like: cable is wired wrong, script is not the right 
one for that receiver, is the script set to the same device you have the 
directv receiver plugged into.  BTW, on some (most?) Linux distros the 
dev entries are created dynamically and the permissions may be reset 
after a reboot.  So don't reboot (this isn't Winblows after all).

>One note I am sharing IRQ's, I have 5 capture cards in the box, and
>scsi, agp, etc..
>  
>
In this case shouldn't be a problem.

I have a different receiver (RCA DRD-435) and use a different script 
(rca_control.pl), but this link may help you:  
http://mythhd.info/directv.html

-- 
David

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RE: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...

[Gavin Haslett]

So that if your battery goes dead, the machine can shut itself down
cleanly... Thus protecting your data :) 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phill Edwards
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 9:20 PM
To: John Clabaugh; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...

> The software that you want to google for is "apcupsd".  It's better 
> than the official APC software in my opinion.

I obviously know nothing about UPS's, so my question is why is software
required at all? I thought how a UPS worked was that it monitored the
power supply itself and if it detected a drop it would kick in power
from its batteries, and that this would all be semaless to the PC that
was plugged into it. The PC would never know there'd been a power cut
unless the UPS batteries ran out. So why does the PC need any software?

Regards,
Phill
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[mythtv-users] Mkmovie / Transcode Problems?

[Gavin Haslett]

Hmm, I'm testing with mkmovie to try to get some recordings as AVI's (I want to 
take them on my laptop for a trip I'll be taking soon overseas). Anyway, I 
tried one recording and after about 3 hours it errored out. Wondering if it 
might be the recording (and not wanting to wait 3 hours to troubleshoot) I 
snagged 11 seconds of caputure from the TV today and started running some test. 
Same results. OK, the output I get from the mkmovie is as follows;

Pos:  11.9s361f (100%)  21fps Trem:   0min   2mb  A-V:0.024 [1373:384]
Flushing video frames

Writing AVI index...
Fixing AVI header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp 
header.

Video stream: 1373.165 kbit/s  (171645 bps)  size: 2050355 bytes  11.945 secs  
361 frames

Audio stream:  384.000 kbit/s  (48000 bps)  size: 541152 bytes  11.274 secs
transcode v1.0.0 (C) 2001-2003 Thomas Oestreich, 2003-2004 T. Bitterberg
libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.8 for DVD access
libdvdread: Can't open file VIDEO_TS.IFO.
[transcode] (probe) suggested AV correction -D 0 (0 ms) | AV 0 ms | 0 ms
[transcode] auto-probing source /video/videos/The_Phantom.avi.tmp (ok)
[transcode] V: import format| unknown RIFF data, AVI (V=divx|A=(null))
[transcode] V: pass-through | yes
[transcode] V: import frame | 720x480  1.50:1 
[transcode] V: bits/pixel   | 0.174
[transcode] V: decoding fps,frc | 29.970,4
[transcode] A: import format| 0x50MPEG layer-2 [48000,16,2]  384 kbps
[transcode] A: export format| 0x55MPEG layer-3 [48000,16,2]  128 kbps
[transcode] V: encoding fps,frc | 29.970,4
[transcode] A: bytes per frame  | 6408 (6406.40)
[transcode] A: adjustment   | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[transcode] V: IA32/AMD64 accel | sse3 (sse3 3dnowext 3dnow mmxext mmx asm C)
tc_memcpy: using mmx for memcpy
[transcode] V: video buffer | 50 @ 720x480
[import_divx.so] v0.2.9 (2003-07-30) (video) DivX;-)/XviD/OpenDivX/DivX 
4.xx/5.xx
Audio format not supported by import module
[transcode] failed to init import modules
[transcode] critical: plug-in initialization failed
transcode failed at /usr/bin/mkmovie line 1100.


Any thoughts? I'm pulling my hair out here trying to fathom this one. These 
recordings are made with a PVR-250 if this helps/hinders :)
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RE: [mythtv-users] Unable to set ALSA parameters

[Gavin Haslett]

Don't know if this helps, but ALSA seems to have some difficulty with certain 
hardware versions. I don't know the pattern.

Anyway, I have two computers at home with Soundblaster Live cards (one is two 
years old, the other less than 6 months). Anyway, they both have FC3 installed 
and they both behave completely differently. The new one works exactly 
perfectly well, everything as expected. The older one I've found that the mixer 
controls seem to be mapped completely incorrectly. In order to control master 
volume, I have to use the Surround Mix slider (master volume slider does 
nothing). I've done this from a command prompt and the exact thing seems to 
happen.

This is weird, but not insurmountable. I've also noticed that "alsactl store" 
sometimes doesn't store the current configuration properly.

ALSA is a good piece of software... but I consider OSS to be more "ready for 
prime-time" as far as user experience. Average joe user would've reinstalled 
Windows by now...


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Sage
Sent:   Tue 7/26/2005 9:32 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] Unable to set ALSA parameters
Thanks, David.  I do appreciate the effort.

I don't think it's a permissions problem.  I've set up a mythtv user 
specifically for the purpose of running myth, and that user is in both 
the audio and video groups.  I've run aplay as that user with the 
following command:

aplay -D default 

...and it works fine.  I will also note that if I uninstall ALSA and use 
the OSS drivers, and use /dev/dsp as my audio output device, then audio 
playback works great.  I would love to use OSS and scrap ALSA entirely, 
but I'm also using Xine to play DVDs and it doesn't sync audio correctly 
with OSS, so it needs ALSA.

Thanks again for trying, David.  Anyone else have any suggestions?



David Watkins wrote:
> On 26/07/05, Sage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
>>I have tried that as well, and I'm still having the same problem.
>>Any other suggestions?
> 
> 
> Not really - I had a fair amount of trouble with ALSA, but once I got
> aplay working then mythtv was a breeze, apart from a bit of
> unscientific fiddling with the mixer to work out which sliders to
> enable.
> 
> If I was in your situation I'd be looking at permissions on the
> devices (are you runing aplay as the same user as mythfrontend?), but
> I'd only be guessing.
> 
> Maybe someone else can help you..
> 
> Good Luck
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>On Jul 26, 2005, at 2:43 AM, David Watkins wrote:
>>
>>
In MythTV, I have the following settings configured in Utilities/
Setup -> Setup -> General:

Audio output device: ALSA:default
Mixer Device: /dev/mixer
Mixer Controls: Master


>>>
>>>I think your mixer Device should be set to: default
> 
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Re: [mythtv-users] hdparm was: MythShyte

[Gavin Haslett]

Bear in mind that I also tried "-X34" as I found online, and
occasionally it made my drives inaccessible. Hence why I "dry ran" with
my drives before I made them "production". That might be a failing of
the Via chipset on my board, but I don't know for sure. Your mileage may
vary :)

On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 14:02 -0500, gLaNDix (Jesse Kaufman) wrote:
> Gavin Haslett wrote:
> > hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 /dev/hdb
> 
> also, look into the -X argument ... that way, you can tell your machine 
> to use UDMA5 instead of, say, UDMA2, to increase performance ... google 
> for hdparm ... there is TONS of information on it online
> 
> -g-
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RE: [mythtv-users] hdparm was: MythShyte

[Gavin Haslett]

hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 /dev/hdb
 
This was what I found worked best for me. I set this on all three of my drives 
during boot in a startup script called "mythhw". 
 
What I looked for was maximum throughput and lowest latency. Basically, I went 
through the MAN pages for hdparm and tried each setting in turn on a drive 
other than my OS drive (one of the two mirror set that have my video, recording 
and SQL databases). Once I did that I ran 
 
hdparm -t /dev/hdb
hdparm -T /dev/hdb
 
I re-ran these two commands and kept comparing results until I either got no 
more improvement or started ot make it worse. Then I just rolled back settings 
until I identified the minimum parameters I needed to get optimum performance.
 
Sure, I locked my machine hard a couple of times... but it was worth it to get 
the max performance out of my drives.
 
Once I had this done, I mirrored the two drives and ran the same tests on 
/dev/md0 and /dev/md1.
 
I then tried the same settings with the OS drive to find out if it made a 
difference... it did... and added that to the mythhw script.
 
Hope this helps!

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Marius Schrecker 
Sent: Wed 7/20/2005 2:41 AM 
To: Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: [mythtv-users] hdparm was: MythShyte



Gavin Haslet wrote:
...
>I had problems with stutt
>ring occasionally until I got
down-and-dirty with hdparm to fix some of the HD problems. Now I have a
bootup script that runs the hdparm parameters that I found worked best
with video

Hi,
Just wondering which paramaters worked for you and what to look for when
optimizing for video.

Cheers

Marius
Registered Linux user



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Re: [mythtv-users] MythShyte: One unhappy customer

[Gavin Haslett]

For the record, I just want to add that I've been using a less-capable
system than your 1Ghz machine for some time. I have an Athlon 800 with
768MB of RAM (though I ran 256MB for a while). To be honest I didn't see
any problems with my setup except for some random failures of
Mythbackend (that were fixed with 0.18.1).

Now, note that I'm using hardware encoding with a PVR-250 rather than
relying on a bt-type chip. I originally had a bt878 card but decided
before I even installed MythTV that if I was going to do this I was
going to do it right. Besides, my wife and kids have to use the thing!

Anyway... you might find that just switching to a better capture card
like a PVR-250 or its ilk might work well. Now, I realize you might not
be willing to part with a little cash for the card but believe me if you
want to make this work then it's worth it. Also, make sure you do some
hard-drive tuning to get the max performance out of the hard drives
you're using... I had problems with stuttering occasionally until I got
down-and-dirty with hdparm to fix some of the HD problems. Now I have a
bootup script that runs the hdparm parameters that I found worked best
with video.

I also found good-quality hard drives with a nice 8Mb buffer helped no
end :)

Hope this helps!

Gavin


On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 06:11 +0930, antec wrote:
> thanks, John also had this to point out. I can now understand why the system 
> paused and the overheads involved.
> 
> thanks.
> 

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Re: [mythtv-users] Switching to mythtv

[Gavin Haslett]

On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 09:46 +1200, Pshem Kowalczyk wrote:
> On 19/07/05, Greg Estabrooks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > 2. mythVideo - I'm trying to play a file from a remote windows share
> > > using the standard mplayer command, unfortunately there are spaces in
> > > the file name and mplayer tries to play every single part of the name
> > > as a file and obviously it fails. I tried to add "" around the %s but
> > > it didn't help. Mplayer works without any problems from command line.
> > 
> >  I just tried this from mythvideo and it works for me (latest source as
> > of an hour ago). I copied a video and renamed it to "Word1 Word2 Word3.avi"
> > and it played without a problem. I don't have awindows share on my network
> > to try with at the moment.
> > 
> 
> So I must be doing something wrong, because when I start mythfrontend
> from an xterminal I can see it trying to open every single part of the
> path as a file. I'll try to play more with that when I get back home.

Try typing the filename as follows;

Word1\ Word2\ Word3.avi

Note the "\ " which denotes a space in Linux lingo...

Also note you should be able to use Auto-Complete... type the first few
letters of the word, then hit  and it should attempt to complete
the word.

Let me know how this works for you :)

Gavin

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RE: [mythtv-users] Connecting to DirecTV Reciever

[Gavin Haslett]

Let me just add that this works GREAT. It's precisely how I've got my box 
hooked up and it works like a champ.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Phil Bridges
Sent:   Fri 7/15/2005 5:55 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] Connecting to DirecTV Reciever
On 7/15/05, Eric Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I ordered DirectTV because I heard you could connect to it via serial to
> change channels instead of using an IR blaster.  When I got my reciever
> though it has a odd looking phone jack that says "Low speed data".  It
> looks taller then the standard phone jack, so I'm assuming that it is
> for a COM type interface.  Any ideas how I connect my MythTV box to
> this?  I haven't found a guide that talks about this part of the setup,
> soon as MythTV is up and running the guides end.
> 
> 

Google is your friend: http://www.dtvcontrol.com/index.aspx?content=cable
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RE: [mythtv-users] Newbie questions

[Gavin Haslett]

I'm not really that familiar with CentOS, but it's Linux. You can still pretty 
much follow Jared's guide and obviously adapt where necessary. Should not be a 
problem so long as you have a reasonable working knowledge of Linux (sounds 
like you do). If CentOS is RPM or APT based, you should be good to go.

1) There IS a mythfrontend for Windows, but trust me it's more trouble than 
it's worth... at least in the incarnation that I played with. I put it on my 
dual PIII-933 and as well as being a bear to set up in the first place, it 
became very unreliable and didn't really play back recordings very well (or 
reliably). I gave up and installed Fedora on said machine and ran a real myth 
front end on it when I want it. Haven't looked back (but XP is still on the box 
if I feel the need to play a game)

2) No. Only backends need cards... frontends use the cards in the backends.

3) Although the bandwidth of 802.11g is sufficient for SDTV (don't try HDTV... 
it won't be pretty), the problem with all wireless is reliability, 
interference, recovery and above all latency. Latency is naturally higher on 
wireless LANs than on wired. Video is quite sensitive to lags and quirks in the 
signal. Interference can make this worse, and recovery time when interfered 
with can make the difference between it working and not. Depending on 
environmental factors, your mileage may vary. In my experience, having a 2.4Ghz 
cordless phone can cause all kinds of fun in the house with 802.11...

Having said that about wireless, give it a shot. I've run my setup off a 
10Mbit/s Ethernet switch when my main switch fried (since replaced) and it 
worked admirably for feeding data across the wire at a relatively low speed. 
However, latency was excellent and I didn't have any problems with 
environmental interference.




-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Benjamin J. Weiss
Sent:   Wed 7/6/2005 4:06 PM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Cc: 
Subject:[mythtv-users] Newbie questions
All,

I've been trying to read everything, but I'm trying to get this set up 
before I leave for a couple of weeks of military duty and I'm running 
out of time.  Please be patient with these questions if I haven't found 
the answers where I should have.

Background:  I've got an AMD Athlon 2100+ XP box, and I've put in an 
Hauppauge PVR-350.  I don't have it configured yet, as I'm planning on 
upgrading the OS from CentOS-3 to CentOS-4 (I'm working on that part 
now).  I want this box to be in our family room, to act as our DVD 
player / music center / PVR, basically as a back-end and front-end.

 I also have a P4 3.0GHz machine running Windows 2000 (yeah, I know, but 
it's easier to run games that way than to run an emulator) and it has an 
MSI NX6600GT video card.  I'd like this box to be a front-end.  Due to 
physical constraints, this box will have to be connected to the home 
network via wireless.

1) Is there a windows front-end for myth-tv?

2) Would it benefit me to put another Hauppauge card in the Windows 
front-end?  If so, which one?

3) What kind of bandwidth should I expect to need if I want to play a 
recorded show on the windows front-end?  Will an 802.11g 54Meg 
connection handle the load easily, or should I look at a more expensive 
Pre-N router / card combo?

My plan is to (hopefully) have the box converted to CentOS-4 sometime in 
the next week, then (again, hopefully) install mythtv using a repo 
(atrpms?), and get it working in the next three weeks before I leave.

Thanks,

Ben
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Re: [mythtv-users] Differences between PVR-150 & PVR-250

[Gavin Haslett]

On Mon, 2005-07-04 at 16:22 +0100, John Harvey wrote:
> Xv support is available for the 350 as well now so all
> of this works for the 350 in pretty much the same way.
> Its very new but it's working for most people ok.
> 
> John

 Yes, I should have clarified my answer. I took it from the
wording of the question that it was about whether AVI/DVD and so forth
playback would be accelerated by the 350... as far as I know this is not
the case. However, unaccelerated XV playback I was pretty sure worked
fine :)

Gavin

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Re: [mythtv-users] Nvidia quarks, please explain.

[Gavin Haslett]

On Sun, 2005-07-03 at 22:36 -0600, Chad wrote:
> So, I am wondering what these quarks are, and if they are fixed in
> certain releases of nvidia drivers, and most importantly, does XvMC
> really take that much load off the processor?

Personally, I think it's a lot of version control, hardware specific
quirks and just too many things to consider to really get a hard answer.

I have two frontends at home, one is dedicated and the other is not.
I've had inconsistent results with XvMC on the non-dedicated frontend to
the point that I've stopped using it. It would even lock the machine
hard (they both have identical video cards FYI, both Fedora Core 3 and
both updated synchronously to the latest files every week). The only
difference between these boxes is hardware. Now, since live TV playback
still doesn't chow down much more than 25-30% CPU on my 933, I just
dropped XvMC and it's been nice and stable.

My dedicated box OTOH has been running XvMC flawlessly. Generic
motherboard and an AMD 800 CPU. My frontend *peaks* at about 14% CPU
utilization on a normal basis with the latest RPM's of Myth 0.18. It
works damned well, despite the flickering OSD which is only a minor nit-
pick.

Baically, I think that the XvMC is hit and miss only because of
hardware, I think generally it works pretty well but some combinations
of hardware and software just don't seem to cut it. I don't know the
reasons why.

Gavin

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Re: [mythtv-users] Differences between PVR-150 & PVR-250

[Gavin Haslett]

On Mon, 2005-07-04 at 12:00 +0800, Ow Mun Heng wrote:
> So, based on this input. I guess 250 would be the way to go since TVout
> doesn't work for the PVR and it can't play avi/dvd etc (yet)

AFAIK at the moment you'd be correct. I don't doubt that sooner or later
there'll be some kind of hack for the 350 to do AVI/DVD output, but
right now you're correct. Recorded material only.

> I tot DVD/AVI playback isn't supported for any of the PVR cards?

Most of the PVR cards are record only, so I presume you're referring to
the 350. See above answer.

> GeForceMX4 440 and Above right? Cool.. I already have a GeForce MX 4 440
> at home.

Yep, they work like a champ. And you can use XvMC to get most of the
advantage of the 350 (hardware assisted playback), but also extend that
out to AVI and DVD playback (requires changing the playback command
line). 


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Re: [mythtv-users] Re: Jerky Video after transcode MPEG2->MPEG4

[Gavin Haslett]

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 11:06 +1000, Mike Harris wrote:
> I recently upgraded to Myth 0.18. After doing so, transcoding video from 
> MPEG2 -> MPEG4 results in jerky video - it looks as though some frames 
> are being dropped.

You know, I notice this a little bit, too. I suspect in part it's due to
using XvMC. It will do motion compensation on MPEG2 but not MPEG4. I
feel that my slower processor (800Mhz AMD) may also contribute to this
problem. If I disable XvMC I notice a little bit of jerkiness and jitter
that seems to be consistent with the results I get from an MPEG4 stream.

All I do for now is just record MPEG2 at 2200 bps and don't re-encode. I
find the video quality to be comparable (I barely notice the difference
on my SD television or on my good-quality monitor in my study) and it
doesn't heat up my living room re-encoding the video any more.

Also, I have noticed that the same recordings seem to play with no
jerkiness at all on my study computer (dual 933 Intel), either MPEG4 or
MPEG2. I use the same video card in my study computer, and I'm running
it as a frontend only speaking to the backend across 100Mb/s LAN. Other
than the resolution and processor, the configurations are comparable.

YMMV.
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Re: [mythtv-users] Direct TV implementation?

[Gavin Haslett]

On Fri, 2005-06-24 at 14:17 -0400, David Morris wrote:
> DirecTivo works so well that I don't use Myth's TV functionality at all 
> -- the Myth box is strictly a video/DVD/audio convergence appliance for 
> me, which it does very well.  Our DirectTivo's  (I have two, and am 
> looking at maybe 2 more to replace my other two DTV receivers) handles 
> all the timeshifting and scheduled recordings on our house, because 
> frankly Tivo is hard to beat for what it does.

This really comes down to a personal feeling. I have a DirecTivo as
well, series 1. I must admit that I agree, it worked damned well, but to
me the Myth box made more sense. There was more I wanted to do with my
entertainment center (including a very nice audio setup) than just watch
TV, so the convergence made sense. Add to that the fact that I wanted to
reduce the number of remotes in my setup rather than increase and the
Myth box made a lot more sense. As it was before, my DirecTivo had
problems with volume control, so I used three remotes; one for the
receiver, one for the DirecTivo and one for the TV (for picture
adjustment that my DTivo didn't like doing either). As it is I now have
one remote that does everything... well except turning the TV on and
off, but I can always hit the button when I walk past the TV.

It comes down to what you NEED out of these kind of systems. Sure,
DirecTivo did the job perfectly adequately, but adequate wasn't enough
for my tastes. My DirecTivo is now gathering dust in my basement.
Considered putting it in my master bedroom, but decided I'd probably
rather install a frontend up there. Cat 5 is cheap (and I have a 1000
foot spool here with 600 feet left!)
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Re: [mythtv-users] Direct TV implementation?

[Gavin Haslett]

On Fri, 2005-06-24 at 00:46 -0400, Jim Trudell wrote:
> Thanks for that link.  It seems theres no magic, its the exact way i thought
> it would be, in which case, i'm going to have to move on to another
> solution.  I'd like to be able to record and watch or do PIP with this
> solution and for that, i'd need dual boxes and a bunch of workarounds.
> Thanks again

No workarounds required, but yes you will need multiple tuner boxes.
This is required no matter how you implement, unless you get a box
specifically from DirecTV that's designed for PIP. Even then you can't
integrate that with MythTV and use Myth's PIP.

I've got a DirecTV setup that I pretty much use the way you want to use
it. I have a backend with 2 tuner cards (PVR250's) and two external
DirecTV boxes connected to the two serial interfaces on my machine. Myth
then controls these boxes through serial connections therefore changing
channels without all that mucking about with LIRC. My backend is
currently the same box as my frontend, but that may change in the future
(planning to move my backend and DTV boxes into the basement). 

I can do two recordings at once, watch and record or do PIP and I have
no problems whatsoever. I can also attach MythTV as a frontend from my
main PC in my study (which I'm writing this email on) and happily watch
live TV, recordings or videos and not affect my kids watching their
cartoons downstairs. Now, if I try to do an apt-get dist-upgrade on the
main backend that might be a different story 

Basically, I think Myth works better than any other solutions out there,
with some caveats. Note that if you get a box from DirecTV that supports
PIP and so forth (I think some of the series 2 DirecTivo do that), it's
actually two tuners in the box with two cables coming off your satellite
dish. Not a pretty setup, and certainly no worse than what I've got.
Once I get all the cables run to the basement I'll have a REALLY clean
entertainment center with just the hard-drive-less frontend in it.

Gavin

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RE: [mythtv-users] Housekeeping thread? Curiosity is getting the best

[Gavin Haslett]

You know, that wasn't very nice, Chris :) Remember this is the mythtv-users 
list, not developers. Not everyone can read the source code you know, these are 
users!
 
Basically, in layman's terms the housekeeping thread takes care of stuff like 
expiring out old and unneeded database entries, old log entries expired out... 
generally housekeeping tasks on the database.

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Chris Pinkham 
Sent: Fri 6/17/2005 10:49 PM 
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Housekeeping thread? Curiosity is getting 
the best


 

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RE: [mythtv-users] Considering MythTV, curious about relativeWAF.

[Gavin Haslett]

On Mon, 2005-06-13 at 15:14 -0400, PAUL WILLIAMSON wrote:
> If the backend happens to crash, do your frontends 
> automatically reconnect?  Whenever my backend crashes, 
> I need to tell my frontends to reconnect.

Well, my frontends don't... they error once (I hit Watch TV and they
complain about it), then I hit the button again and all is fine again. A
minor inconvenience.

I might modify my script to REXEC a remote restart command to my
frontends (remote and local) to restart them too...
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RE: [mythtv-users] Considering MythTV, curious about relative WAF.

[Gavin Haslett]

>Overall my wife is marginally happy. She is terrified to touch it
>because it crashes every time, well almost every time. So for me it is
>going to take time to get her more confident using it. Again, I must
>be the only dumbass on the list.

Nah, I'm a dumbass too... just an inventive one :)
 
FYI, my script is as follows;
 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] bin]# vi checkbackend.sh
PROG=mythbackend
STATUS=`ps -e |grep $PROG |grep -v grep | wc -l | awk '{print $1}'`
if [ $STATUS -eq 0 ]
then
( /sbin/service $PROG start )
`date >> /var/log/mythtv/restartlog.log`
fi
exit 0
 
It's in /usr/local/bin and is scheduled in CRON to run every minute. Nice and 
simple.
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RE: [mythtv-users] Considering MythTV, curious about relative WAF.

[Gavin Haslett]

On 6/9/05, David Asher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Our household is currently all DirecTivos (2 series 1, 1 HDTivo).
>
> My wife LOVES her/our tivos.  (As do I)
>
> Unfortunately, DirecTV ticked me off recently with the NFL Sunday Ticket
> pricing, and I've always loved the convergence possiblities (realities?)
> of MythTV, so I'm thinking of using it as an opportunity to bring in MythTV.
>
> Once MythTV is working, is it as stable as the tivos?  Is it as
> trustworthy as the tivos?  I haven't had a chance to play with it yet,
> is it as easy to use as the tivos?  I know it can do things that the
> tivos can't, but I'm not sure my wife will be interested in those things.
>
> Anyone with experience using both directivos and MythTV please chime
> in.  I really,really,REALLY don't want to lose the WAF of the Tivos.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David.

You know, I think a lot of the reliability of MythTV comes from the components 
you use, how good you are at integrating them and so forth. I have a box I 
built from older but good quality components, and my reliability is excellent. 
About the only time it actually breaks is when I fiddle with it and break it!
 
There are a few annoyances; I still have random failures of the mythbackend 
service for no obvious reason... but I implemented a little script that checks 
if mythbackend is running once a minute and restarts it if not. Usually a minor 
inconvenience since it only fails every few days if at all.
 
I have a Series I DirecTivo as well... the Tivo is probably a little more 
"reliable" since it's truly dedicated hardware designed for a specific purpose. 
No matter how good the Myth software, it's still a general-purpose PC being 
used for one specific purpose and therefore not as "efficient" as the 
DirecTivo. However, the fact that said DTV now sits in my study disconnected 
and unused tells you how much I prefer Myth. Besides, the flexibility of the 
MythTV box is significantly better. The ability to get weather in realtime, 
read news, browse my sizeable MP3 and Picture collection on my TV and all with 
a single IR remote that closely resembles the one from the Tivo is incredible. 
Add the expandability (I recently traded out my single 60Gb drive for a pair of 
160Gb in a mirror for my recordings in about an hour and a half) and I think 
Myth makes a better solution.
 
Of course, YMMV... but my experience has been extremely positive to the point 
that my family and myself don't really even think about the fact that the Myth 
box is a "hobbyist" project.
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RE: [mythtv-users] Reinstalling MythTV

[Gavin Haslett]

If you REALLY want to clean up serious cruft, you should do what I plan to do 
this weekend, which is to NUVEXPORT all your recordings out to NUV and SQL 
files, trash the database and merge everything back in. Sounds like a lot of 
work, and it is... but I've been looking at my database and filesystem lately 
and they don't match. I have more NUV files than I have recordings, so 
apparently I've got orphaned files out there. I also appear to have a couple of 
orphaned database entries that show up in NUVEXPORT selector, but have no 
associated files. I need to clean this up so I'm going to go the 
export/trash/import route.

Only problem with this is it does mean that I'll have to re-create all my 
settings again... but that's not a huge problem for me as I have a mostly 
default setup.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of James Alexander
Sent:   Tue 6/7/2005 8:34 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] Reinstalling MythTV
Yes, I've done this before. I just did a complete backup of the mysql
database, then restored it once the OS had finished installing,
everything worked as you explained it.

Here is a link with the relevant commands (if you need them):
http://www.rlrouse.com/backup-restore-mysql.html

On 6/7/05, Piers Kittel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> As I've accumulated a lot of cruft on my MythTV install, and a couple
> things that needs changing, so I want to do a major clean up and the
> best way I can see to do this is to reformat the /boot and / partitions,
> reinstall Linux and set up MythTV again.  But I don't want to lose
> MythTV access to the recorded videos I have on /video - I assume if I
> make a backup of the database, wipe and reinstall, and restore the
> database, I assume I still will be able to access the videos?
> 
> Thanks very much for your help in advance!
> 
> Cheers - Piers
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RE: [mythtv-users] XVMC and PVR-250 recordings

[Gavin Haslett]

I know this doesn't help much, but I can speak that in a purely 32-bit 
environment (32-bit CPU as well), the XvMC works like a champ 100% of the time. 
This says to me there's possibly something in the register or memory handling 
of the 64-bit CPU's that works a little differently whether you're running a 
64-bit or 32-bit kernel. 

Has this setup been tried by anyone with a pure 64-bit environment, with Myth 
built from source? I wonder if that would work better?

Could it maybe be an Nvidia issue with their XvMC drivers in 64-bit?


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael Haan
Sent:   Wed 6/1/2005 9:49 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] XVMC and PVR-250 recordings
On 5/30/05, John Goerzen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have an nVidia Geforce 6800, drivers 7174, kernel 2.6.12-rc4-mm2,
> and XFree86 4.3.0 on a Debian sid machine with MythTV 0.18.1.  My
> backend is on a separate machine also running 0.18.1.  The frontend is
> an Athlon64 machine with 1GB RAM and runs at 1600x1200, 24bpp.
> 
> The backend has two cards: a PVR-250 and a pcHDTV 3000.
> 
> The frontend is set to use XVMC for playback because it can't keep up
> with HDTV streams otherwise.  The frontend plays back HDTV content
> just fine.
> 
> However, I have been having trouble playing back content recorded on
> the PVR-250.  On the console for mythfrontend, I see:
> 
> Unable to create XvMC Context return status:11 BadAlloc
> 
> Is there any way I can fix this, or disable XvMC for streams it
> doesn't work with?
> 
> Thanks,
> -- John
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 

I have a *very* similar setup and *very* similar issues.  I test this
from time to time to see if it will work (xvmc) by turning it on, and
then going to watch live tv.  Unfortunately, that fires up the pvr 350
and I don't get a chance to switch to the 3000.  I would love to fix
this as my machine can handle hd about 75% of the time, which just
enough to be very annoying.
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RE: [mythtv-users] Network speed.

[Gavin Haslett]

In my experience with networks (long experience, I'm an old man ),
there's no such thing as too much bandwidth. Were that my choice right
now I'd spend a few extra bucks and go gig... But make sure the network
cards in your machines are capable too. You won't gain anything by using
a gig switch with 100Mb NICs. 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Bongiovi
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 6:51 AM
To: Mark Knecht; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Network speed.

All -

I have another, related, network question. I am planning to have 3 myth
boxes - one with a backend recording HDTV and a frontend hooked to a
computer monitor, a second with a backend recording SD and a front end
hooked to an HDTV, and a third with no backend, but hosting the video
files for mythvideo. It also has an HDTV frontend. So, worst case
network load seems to be two mythboxes pulling HDTV from the 3rd while
the 3rd is pulling a video from one of the others. Will a 100Mb network
do the job? Or, should I spend a few extra $$$ and get a 1000Mg network?

Thanks,
Rob
--- Mark Knecht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 5/29/05, Mathew Mrosko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > On Sunday 29 May 2005 09:06 pm, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi,
> > >I just bought a cheap Netgear 5 port 100Mb
> switch for <$20 @ Frys.
> > > Why bother with the old stuff? You don't need a
> 24-port switch for 3-4
> > > frontends. You need the little guy I bought.
> > 
> > A) Because I already have it, why buy new, and
> just throw yet another thing
> > that could be useful away?  I'm no "tree-hugger"
> but I hate to throw
> > something away that will just take up more space
> in a land-fill somewhere,
> > especially when it could be useful still.
> > 
> > B) Because already having it is still cheaper than
> <$20 @ Frys.
> > 
> > C) Because it takes me over 1 1/2 hours to get to
> the neartest Frys.
> > 
> > :)
> > 
> > (Sorry, I didn't mean to be a dick, the whole
> reason I posted to the mailing
> > list wasn't to get "hey, just buy something new"
> messages...  I could have
> > easily done that, I was just wondering if it would
> work with something I
> > already have.)
> > 
> > -Mat
> 
> OK, I wasn't taking your response as 'being a dick'.
> The online places
> have a boat-load of these things for <$25, and probably under $20  if 
> you look around. They are more reliable and cost less over time.
> 
> I've worked around networking hardware for a long time. In all 
> likelyhood, in my experience, it will work but not work very well. It 
> has enough bandwidth on paper but depending on the specific switch you

> may find that it really doesn't do 10Mb/S on each port.  It certainly 
> won't cost you much to find out. Try it. Nothing's lost, except time, 
> and probably $1/month in electricty. (Should you find yourself 
> slipping slightly closer to that tree...) ;-)
> 
> Sorry for not giving you this sort of answer to start. I wasn't being 
> smart. I value my time pretty highly.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
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> 

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RE: Re[2]: [mythtv-users] Unable to load Nvidia Kernal Module - Geforce 4MX - issues upgrading video cards

[Gavin Haslett]

Next thing to check would be that you're ACTUALLY running the kernel
version that you're installing the module for. Check your
/boot/grub/menu.lst and ensure you've booted the right kernel. Also run
dmesg and check to make sure that you're running the kernel you think
you are. You can install the module for any kernel you have installed,
but if you're running a different kernel version then you're not going
to be able to load it.

Gavin
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Jones
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 6:49 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re[2]: [mythtv-users] Unable to load Nvidia Kernal Module -
Geforce 4MX - issues upgrading video cards

Sunday, May 29, 2005, 11:11:39 AM, you wrote:

MTD> Mike Jones wrote:

>>Sunday, May 29, 2005, 12:44:39 AM, MTD wrote:
>>
>>MTD> modprobe nvidia
>>MTD> startx
>>
>>/sbin/modprobe nvidia
>>
>>FATAL: Module nvidia not found.
>>  
>>
MTD> Oh.  That means that you are lacking the nvidia kernel module 
MTD> interface for your kernel.  Try re-installing the nvidia drivers 
MTD> and keep a log in case it doesn't help.  The install log could be 
MTD> helpful in determining the problem.

Been there, done that, several times.  Did it again today, still no joy.
Rebooted, copied the xorg.conf.nvidia over the xorg.conf and still got
the same old same old msg. Time to do a complete reinstall, oh well.
Thanks for the tips.

Now my remote doesn't work, sigh.

Follows is the text from the install attempt #7.
-
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  nvidia-graphics7174-kmdl-2.6.10-1.770_14.rhfc3.atsmp
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 removed and 177 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/1289kB of archives.
After unpacking 4383kB of additional disk space will be used.
Committing changes...
Preparing...###
[100%]
   1:nvidia-graphics7174-kmd###
[100%] Done.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] /]# apt-get install nvidia-graphics7174 Reading Package
Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following NEW
packages will be installed:
  nvidia-graphics7174
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 removed and 177 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/1127kB of archives.
After unpacking 2885kB of additional disk space will be used.
Committing changes...
Preparing...###
[100%]
   1:nvidia-graphics7174###
[100%]
Done.

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 Mikemailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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RE: [mythtv-users] Unable to load Nvidia Kernal Module - Geforce 4 MX- issues upgrading video cards

[Gavin Haslett]

If you're using RPM's using APT (a possibility), then the nvidia kernel
module is actually a separate RPM called nvidia-kmdl... Use apt-shell
and do an ls nvidia* and you'll see it. Install that as well and you
should be in business.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Jones
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 11:11 AM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Unable to load Nvidia Kernal Module -
Geforce 4 MX- issues upgrading video cards

Sunday, May 29, 2005, 12:44:39 AM, you wrote:

MTD> modprobe nvidia
MTD> startx

/sbin/modprobe nvidia

FATAL: Module nvidia not found.

Still no joy in mudville.

I'll review the leads given by the README.txt file you pointed out.

Thanks again, and have a great weekend.

--
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 Mikemailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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RE: [mythtv-users] Newbie questions...

[Gavin Haslett]

As I recall, most of the DMA issues with VIA chipsets were with older
mobo/CPU conversations. I don't know if more recent chipsets suffer from
that, but I would doubt it. It's not a huge problem as Linux tends to
just work around it.

I was part of the conversation you were referring to, my system's an OLD
Athlon 800 which I'll be upgrading to a Celeron 1.8 (400FSB) this
weekend. My problems LOOK for all the world like a DMA bug, and the
whole MythTV box seems awfully slow compared to my similarly spec'ed
PIII-933 (running FC3 also), so I'm hoping I can at least eliminate that
possibility as well as getting a much more powerful frontend/backend
combo.

Technologically there's very little difference between the 150 and 250
that hasn't already been mentioned here. However, as you're a newbie I'd
say go with the 250 as it's by far the most common and well supported
card. I use it myself with an NVIDIA video card, so I can use the 250
for encoding, the NV with XvMC for hardware decode of the MPEG2 streams
and still come in around 25-30% CPU utilization even on this older
hardware. I'll be interested to see what I can do with the Celeron.
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Bargabus
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:03 PM
To: MagicITX; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Newbie questions...


> 1. I've not had trouble with the VIA DMA problem.  I seem to recall 
> some talk that it could be an FC3 on VIA problem.  Maybe I shouldn't 
> say that since I can't recall specifics of the conversation.  YMMV


FC3 as in Fedora?  I'm a debian guy, I assume then that would be fine.


> 2. You don't need a 350 on the backend.  The decoding capability is a 
> frontend thing.


I kind of thought that but wanted to check.  What then is the difference
between the 150 and 250?  I went to their web page and it wasn't very
clear.


Thank you for your input!

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RE: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

[Gavin Haslett]

 Hmm... Was this compiled from source or a binary package?

If the former, try recompiling. If the latter, try reinstalling. Sounds
like SOMETHING is corrupted.

Are you seeing anything pointing to possible memory problems in
/var/log/messages? Could actually be bad memory in your box that's
throwing you for a loop. Final possibility; the video card is going bad.

It sounds like we're getting into the realms of a possible hardware
problem here.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mario Limonciello
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 6:06 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

Gavin,

Unfortunately looks like this was just a temporary fix.  I came home
from work to find that I'm getting BadAlloc errors once again.  Hmmm
what to think now...

On 5/23/05, Mario Limonciello <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > If you're using a BTTV based card, then I'm afraid I won't be much 
> > more help as I'm not familiar with it. Isn't the default in Myth to 
> > use RTJpeg with dumb capture cards??
> 
> lol, the laughs you give me by reading your response, "dumb capture
cards".
> 
> I'm using a hauggpauge card right now, but in the process of adding a 
> firewire input into my setup.  Several different stations are doing 
> different formats for the digital cable out here, and I can handle 
> 720p without xvmc, but 1080i just dogs its way through without it.
> 
> Few more days and I'll have this all up and running - i'm psyched now.
>
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RE: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

[Gavin Haslett]

I'm sincerely glad that worked. As I said I got somewhat flaky response
out of Xvmc until I enabled this option... Ever since then it's been
stable as a rock.

Another thing to make sure of is that your capture card (I'm presuming
you're using a Hauppauge or similar) is producing an actual valid Mpeg2
stream. If it's using RTJpeg/Mpeg4 then the Xvmc won't do the hardware
decode, it'll decode in software.

If you're using a BTTV based card, then I'm afraid I won't be much more
help as I'm not familiar with it. Isn't the default in Myth to use
RTJpeg with dumb capture cards?? 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mario Limonciello
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 10:02 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

Gavin Haslett wrote:

>I had the exact same problem with my setup running a Geforce MX440
card.
>I added the following to my "Device" section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf;
>
>Option   "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
>
>Double check you're using accelerated nvidia drivers, and make sure 
>your xmvclibs are up to date. Works like a champ for me, though a 
>little flaky on my motherboard due to what I suspect are DMA problems 
>(will report back on that after an upcoming mobo upgrade)
>
>Hope this helps! 
>
>  
>
I just actually realized I missed over this post.  I enabled this option
and restarted X, and to my surprise it worked again.  I'll see over the
next few days if the color OSD decides to make another cameo...

There are still issues that it gives me for X errors however, and i'm
not sure what those are caused by.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ $ mythfrontend
2005-05-23 10:58:44.367 New DB connection, total: 1 Total desktop
width=1280, height=1024, numscreens=1
2005-05-23 10:58:44.406 Using screen 0, 1280x1024 at 0,0
2005-05-23 10:58:44.410 mythfrontend version: 0.18.20050504-1
www.mythtv.org
2005-05-23 10:58:44.410 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
2005-05-23 10:58:44.742 Switching to square mode (Iulius)
mythtv: could not open config file /home/supermario/.mythtv/lircrc
mythtv: No such file or directory
Failed to read lirc config /home/supermario/.mythtv/lircrc for mythtv
2005-05-23 10:58:45.699 Joystick disabled.
2005-05-23 10:58:45.758 Registering Internal as a media playback plugin.
2005-05-23 10:58:46.931 All Programs
2005-05-23 10:58:47.329 Connecting to backend server: 192.168.10.6:6543
(try 1 of 5)
2005-05-23 10:58:47.336 Using protocol version 16
2005-05-23 10:58:48.986 New DB connection, total: 2
2005-05-23 10:58:49.131 Disable DPMS
2005-05-23 10:58:49.434 Opening audio device 'default'.
X Error: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) 8
  Major opcode:  141
  Minor opcode:  14
  Resource id:  0x1d8
2005-05-23 10:58:49.535 Couldn't get the color key color, and we need
it.
You likely won't get any video.
2005-05-23 10:58:49.922 Changing from None to WatchingPreRecorded
2005-05-23 10:58:49.923 Realtime priority would require SUID as root.
XvMC: picture structure FRAME
2005-05-23 10:58:50.094 Video timing method: SGI OpenGL
2005-05-23 10:58:56.885 Changing from WatchingPreRecorded to None
2005-05-23 10:58:56.902 Changing from None to None
2005-05-23 10:58:57.000 Enable DPMS



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RE: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

[Gavin Haslett]

Yeah, what he said :)

Also, unless you turn it off by including;

Option "NoLogo" "true"

Then you'll get a big NVIDIA splash screen when you start X. If you
haven't specified this and aren't getting the splash screen then you're
not using the accelerated driver.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Dombrosky
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 7:32 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

> Pardon me for (maybe) asking the obvious, but how do I know if I'm 
> using accelerated nvidia drivers? I'm using 7174. Also, how do I check

> the xvmc libraries are up to date...?
> 

Make sure the driver line reads "nvidia" and not "nv" in your xf86config
or xorg.conf file.  Also make sure you compiled myth after you installed
the drivers.  That way it will use the correct libraries
(7174 as opposed to 7167 or 6629).

Tom
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RE: [mythtv-users] How to start X correctly for MythTV

[Gavin Haslett]

Probably a keyboard focus issue. My suggestion is to go ahead and run
twm, it uses almost no ram and very little CPU while running and manages
your mouse focus.

Myself I run kde, but with "mouse-over focus", meaning that whatever's
in front gets absolute keyboard focus, works like a champ for me. The
"click-to-focus" gave me sporadic problems like this.

Gavin
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Karsten Jeppesen
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 12:51 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: [mythtv-users] How to start X correctly for MythTV

This was initially a question of why I couldn't get keys to work with
mplayer (the dvd player used inMythTV).

I have installed MythTV using a minimal install of FC3 (choose 
custom->minimal when installing) because I want the leanest possible
solution.
I have MythTV working otherwise which means that I have set up the
/etc/X11/xorg.conf correctly (or so I believe).
I am not using twm (the X-window manager) because MythTV is the only
application using the screen.
But
When I choose "Play DVD" the DVD starts playing - good - but the
keyboard is not recognized by the mplayer. I first thought that was an
error in mplayer, but a nice guy on this list made me aware of that it
might be a focus problem.

At the moment I have a very simple start-up sequence. I just start X,
then mythbackend and finally mythfrontend. Works fine.
If I start twm, then twm will make mplayer launch a new window to be
positioned. Then it will fail, so obviously I am missing something.

What are the options here? Can it work without twm? I guess so, but what
say you ???

Karsten

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RE: [mythtv-users] mythfrontend problems

[Gavin Haslett]

Sounds to me like a sort of database corruption. Hopefully you don't
have any recordings in there that you want to keep, try this (as root)

Mysql -u root mysql
Mysql> drop database mythconverg;
Mysql> quit

After that, re-run the script to recreate the database and try a
mythtv-setup again. If you like, you can try to do a mysqldump before
you kill the database to backup the data;

Mysqldump -u root mythconverg > mythdump.sql

Then you do the stuff above to trash the database. You can then use the
mythdump.sql to put the data back, but chances are if the db is
corrupted then it's probably only going to copy over the corruption
again. 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Karsten Jeppesen
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 1:24 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] mythfrontend problems

 From what you write I can't see if mythbackend is running, but you can
not run mythtv-setup while the backend is running.

Karsten

Egeekial wrote:

> I just realized that I can't use mythv-setup anymore, either. When I 
> launch it, it asks if I want to keep my card settings and whatnot and 
> then it just sits there and the keyboard won't respond. Also, the 
> background has changed from blue to gray. This all has something to do

> with mythfilldatabase, because I could run mythtv-setup before I did 
> that.
>
> Egeekial wrote:
>
>> When I run mythfrontend -l, this is all I get:
>>
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:46.122 New DB connection, total: 1 Total desktop 
>> width=640, height=480, numscreens=1
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:46.364 Using screen 0, 640x480 at 0,0
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:46.432 mythfrontend version: 0.18.1.20050510-1 
>> www.mythtv.org
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:46.433 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:47.931 Switching to square mode (G.A.N.T.)
>> mythtv: could not connect to socket
>> mythtv: No such file or directory
>> lirc_init failed for mythtv, see preceding messages
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:50.276 Joystick disabled.
>> 2005-05-22 02:11:50.985 Registering Internal as a media playback
plugin.
>>
>> Sasha Z wrote:
>>
>>> What's the log say?
>>>
>>> Try sending the errors to a file, so when you reset your machine you

>>> still have something to look at.
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>>>
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RE: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working

[Gavin Haslett]

I had the exact same problem with my setup running a Geforce MX440 card.
I added the following to my "Device" section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf;

Option   "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"

Double check you're using accelerated nvidia drivers, and make sure your
xmvclibs are up to date. Works like a champ for me, though a little
flaky on my motherboard due to what I suspect are DMA problems (will
report back on that after an upcoming mobo upgrade)

Hope this helps! 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mario Limonciello
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 7:51 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: [mythtv-users] XvMC output not working


I have yet to get xvmc to work, but really need to since my machine is
getting taxed on 1080i HD playback that has to be downscaled to
1280x1024 (thats as high as my LCD goes).


[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ $ export | grep DISPLAY && mythfrontend -v
playback
declare -x DISPLAY=":0.0"
2005-05-21 08:42:30.707 New DB connection, total: 1 
Total desktop width=1280, height=1024, numscreens=1
2005-05-21 08:42:30.714 Using screen 0, 1280x1024 at 0,0
2005-05-21 08:42:30.718 mythfrontend version: 0.18.20050504-1
www.mythtv.org  
2005-05-21 08:42:30.718 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
playback
2005-05-21 08:42:30.825 max_width: 1280 max_height: 1024
2005-05-21 08:42:30.876 Switching to square mode (Iulius)
mythtv: could not open config file /home/supermario/.mythtv/lircrc 
mythtv: No such file or directory
Failed to read lirc config /home/supermario/.mythtv/lircrc for mythtv
2005-05-21 08:42:31.780 Joystick disabled.
2005-05-21 08:42:31.808 Registering Internal as a media playback plugin.

Unable to initialize plugin 'mythdvd'.
Unable to initialize plugin 'mythvideo'.
Unable to initialize plugin 'mythweather'.
2005-05-21 08:42:33.326 All Programs
2005-05-21 08:42:33.647 Connecting to backend server: 192.168.10.6:6543
(try 1 of 5)
2005-05-21 08:42:33.655 Using protocol version 16
2005-05-21 08:42:34.374 New DB connection, total: 2
2005-05-21 08:42:34.407 AVFD: Opening Stream #0: codec id 2 
2005-05-21 08:42:34.408 XvMC version: 1.0
2005-05-21 08:42:34.408 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 720, h 480, chroma 1,
vld 0, idct 1, mpeg2, sub-width 0, sub-height 0, disp, p<= 177, 1770
<=p, port, surfNum)
2005-05-21 08:42:34.408 Trying XvMC port 177
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 @ j=1 Looking for flag[s]: XvInputMask
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 Adaptor: 0 has flag[s]: XvInputMask XvImageMask 
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 720, h 480, chroma 1,
vld 0, idct 1, mpeg2, sub-width 0, sub-height 0, disp, p<= 177, 1770
<=p, port, surfNum)
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 Trying XvMC port 177
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0
2005-05-21 08:42:34.409 XvMC surface found with IDCT support on port 177
2005-05-21 08:42:34.414 Unable to create XvMC Context, status(11):
BadAlloc
2005-05-21 08:42:34.414 Could not open XvMC port...

You may wish to verify that your DISPLAY
environment variable does not use an external
network connection.


Every time I try XvMC, these are the exact same things that happen.  I'm
currently on the latest drivers available on the ~amd64 tree on gentoo,
which happen to be 7174.  I am also on xorg 6.8.2-r1.  I have read a
little bit about needing an /etc/X11/XvMConfig file or so, but no such
file exists (at least on my system).  Also, opengl does work fine for
this card as an opengl sync for myth or for video games.

My Related hardware:
Athlon64 3200+
Asus 68V SE Deluxe
Pny Nvidia 6600GT
Gentoo Linux 2005.0 ~amd64

I do run myth cvs usually, but I have tried 18.1 as well.

This problem isn't myth related because I can reproduce similar problems
with mplayer when trying xvmc.

What could I do to fix it? 

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RE: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend

[Gavin Haslett]

I already ran with -v all. I got nothing, the mythbackend process just 
apparently stopped for no reason. No errors or anything, just log entries 
showing the last task it completed (it completed recording then died without 
scheduling the commflag job), then another entry showing that my script had 
forced a restart.

I might try the gdb thing as well if I get a chance this weekend. It seems to 
be a tough problem to recreate on-demand though so it might take a little 
screwing around to do it. Personally I'm leaning toward a possible hardware 
issue as it seems feasible. I certainly vaguely remember reading about DMA bugs 
on VIA chipsets before, and since that's exactly what I'm running and have been 
encountering what I can only describe as "strange behaviour" when dealing with 
DMA I'm starting to suspect that's the problem.

Yesterday I ordered up a new motherboard running a Celeron 1.8 and a half gig 
of RAM... should be here sometime next week and I can do a motherboardectomy :)


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Lucas Meijer
Sent:   Wed 5/18/2005 6:05 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: 
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend
Have any of the people who are having this problem tried running 
mythbackend in gdb, or running mythbackend with -v all option?

I'm very interesting in your results. If I run mythbackend in gdb, at 
the moment of the crash it says "Cannot find handle 12345: invalid 
thread handle". the -v all debug output shows that the crash is right 
after the scheduler finishes. adding more debugging statements to the 
code shows that it is the fork() call in channelbase.cpp that seems to 
trigger the crash..   a debugmessage before that shows up, a 
debugmessage after that does not show up.

If you have this problem, could you please try running with -v all and 
in mythbackend and post to this list what happens?

Thanks, Lucas

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RE: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend

[Gavin Haslett]

Hmm... that's a good thought. Funnily enough... I'm running a Via chipset with 
an AMD CPU. Problem is, finding a cheap board that'll take my existing AMD 800 
CPU. I'd switch to something faster, but I'm deathly afraid of heat... there's 
not much airflow in my cabinet and currently I think I'm running right "on the 
edge" as far as that's concerned.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ryan Pisani
Sent:   Wed 5/18/2005 9:21 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Cc: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject:Re: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend
Just out of curiosity -- what kind of chipset do you have on your
motherboard?  I had a hell of time keeping mythbackend running when I had
a via board running Fedora. I actually wrote a perl script to monitor my
backend ever 10 seconds and start it up when it hung or died. Turned out a
new board (non-via) was all I needed to fix the issue. Apparently a DMA
compatibility was to blame with some Via chipsets.

regards,
Ryan



> I know, these always seem to be a problem. My problem seems to be that
> anytime a job is run that requires write access to the database
> (specifically when scheduling shows or when deleting a previous recording)
> quite often the mythbackend will simply up and die. I've checked the logs
> and nothing seems amiss... since I use binary packages is there a way I
> can up the verbosity of these logs to see if anything weird is going on?
>
> Another time the backend dies is if I've been using Mythweb, that seems to
> cause more crashes than it's sometimes worth (though I do prefer using
> Mythweb to locate shows that I want to record).
>
> One other I've noticed is that occasionally the backend will also die upon
> completing a recording. Now, since I've tuned my recording settings
> recently I no longer transcode, I leave my recordings as mpeg2, so
> obviously the problem is occurring right at the moment that it should be
> starting to commercial flag those shows (I run automatically in my
> recordings). It's very inconsistent though, and in the logs I never see
> the commflag starting at all, just showing the Mythbackend restarting (I
> have a job that checks every minute if the process is running and restarts
> it if not). Of course, this means that I have to manually schedule the
> commflag job, but once I do that it works fine. I'd say the commflag works
> fine about 85% of the time, just sometimes it completely fails. Note that
> stuff recorded from commercial-free channels never seems to cause a
> mythbackend crash, so I think I'm pretty safe saying it's the
> commflagging.
>
> Currently I'd say I lose backend about twice per day on average at the
> moment. Version 0.18.0 (not had time to do 0.18.1, but doesn't seem like
> it fixes any backend or commflag bugs).
>
> Any thoughts?
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RE: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend

[Gavin Haslett]

Nothin' there I'm afraid. This is all I got from the backend;

2005-05-17 18:41:36.022 ClearListMaps...
2005-05-17 18:41:36.078 Sort by time...
2005-05-17 18:41:36.134 PruneRedundants...
--- print list start ---
Title - SubtitleChan ChID Day Start  End   S C I  T
N Pri
2005-05-17 18:41:36.190 Host mythtv.alopex.nodecaf.net updating endtime
to 20050517184100
The Simpsons  30 1030  17 18:37-19:00  1 1 1  S
S   0
2005-05-17 18:41:36.305 Host mythtv.alopex.nodecaf.net renaming
/video/recordings/1030_20050517183700_2005051719.nuv to
/video/recordings/1030_20050517183700_20050517184100.nuv
Futurama - "Love's Labour Lost in S  296 1296  18 01:00-01:30  1 1 1  T
1   0
2005-05-17 18:41:36.448 1   1
MythBusters - "Breaking Glass"   278 1278  18 23:00-00:00  1 1 1  W
1   0
Futurama - "Fear of a Bot Planet"296 1296  19 01:00-01:30  1 1 1  T
1   0
McLeod's Daughters - "The Bridle Wa  260 1260  20 14:00-15:00  1 0 0  F
R   0
Keeping Up Appearances - "How to Go  264 1264  20 14:20-15:00  1 1 1  W
1   0
McLeod's Daughters - "To Have and t  260 1260  21 21:00-22:00  1 1 1  F
1   0
McLeod's Daughters - "To Have and t  260 1260  22 00:30-01:30  1 1 1  O
1   0
2005-05-17 18:41:37.014 50  BACKEND_MESSAGE[]:[]DONE_RECORDING 1
248[]...
Futurama - "My Three Suns"   296 1296  22 01:00-01:30  1 0 0  O
X   0
2005-05-17 18:42:01.665 New DB connection, total: 1
Starting up as the master server.
 
Note that I was deliberately recording a show (The Simpsons), stopped
the recording and was using Mythweb. Nothing odd in the logs, no
errors... Just this. Note that it got as far as "Done recording" then
died almost immediately. The restart was forced by my job that runs
every minute.

Not sure about the binary packages... It did the same thing (though
slightly more frequently) with 0.17 as well.

Thoughts anyone? It still looks like a database problem to me, the
failing seems to happen when the database is being utilized a lot (and
watching "top" I saw usage of memory of the mysqld process spike a
little higher than usual right before the crash). Could this be a mysql
bug we're fighting? Version perhaps?

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Risto Treksler
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 3:04 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Dying Backend

> since I use binary packages is there a way I can up the verbosity of 
> these logs to see if anything weird is going on?

you can edit /etc/init.d/mythbackend
go to the "start)" section
find the line that calls mythbackend
add " -v all "

or just run mythbackend manually in a shell

log in remotely or switch to a virtual terminal locally with
 (you can go back with  usually)

comment out the cron job for now
this way, if the backend dies, you can switch to that vt to see tha last
log messages printed

just type
"mythbackend -v all"

or loop it with
"while : ; do mythbackend -v all ; sleep 5 ; done"

> Another time the backend dies is if I've been using Mythweb, that 
> seems to cause more crashes than it's sometimes worth (though I do 
> prefer using Mythweb to locate shows that I want to record).

does mythweb make the backend die for you only on the recorded_programs
screen or on other screens as well?

> Currently I'd say I lose backend about twice per day on average at the

> moment. Version 0.18.0 (not had time to do 0.18.1, but doesn't seem 
> like it fixes any backend or commflag bugs).

try current cvs with debugging turned on and send a backtrace to the
mythtv-dev list

every now and then this seems to be happen to someone, but since none of
the devs can seem to reproduce it, it's hard to fix.

best to follow these instructions
http://mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-21.html#ss21.2

who knows, the crashes could be caused by your binary packages
themselves so, does it still happen with CVS with debugging turned on?

also,
look up the "ulimit" command
you can set it so that core files are written to disk when a program
crashes "ulimit -c unlimited"

that way you can run "mythbackend -v all" and do a "gdb mythbackend
core"
or similar when it dies to make a backtrace even though you weren't
using gdb to run mythbackend


--
Risto Treksler
Elkhorn Lodge
Banff, Alberta, Canada
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RE: [mythtv-users] Re: Dying Backend

[Gavin Haslett]

I say that it's during database writing because if I'm just READING the 
database it almost never seems to die. Basically I see it when scheduling 
recordings (mythweb most common, but on occasion through Mythfrontend), 
deleting recordings (removed record from the database, again most often in 
Mythweb but still happens in MFD), after running mythfilldatabase (often dies a 
minute or so after MFD runs), and when recording finishes and commflag is about 
to start. I should clarify that last one; I run that AFTER recording, not 
during recording as I'm unsure how happy my AMD 800 would be with that.

I have noticed that if I just WATCH recordings (a task that doesn't write to 
the database at all) then it doesn't crash... but what would be the point of 
that?

I think part of the backend problems might be database-related. I've had 
occasional problems with MySQL with my own developed applications where it 
doesn't seem to commit the writes back to the database files correctly, or 
takes a lot longer than I expect for it to write. It doesn't seem consistent... 
I just trap for the error and verify writes now. Sure it slows my code, but it 
prevents my code from segfaulting after a failed write.


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Larry Taub
Sent:   Tue 5/17/2005 11:24 AM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Cc: 
Subject:[mythtv-users] Re: Dying Backend
I am right there with you Gavin. I have been experiencing the same problems 
as you report. I had not noticed the correlation with the database writing 
but I hadn't looked for it either. I have noticed many crashes directly 
relating to scheduling recordings in Mythweb. Also, I recorded about 10 
hours worth of tv yesterday and it worked fine then all of a sudden, it 
crashed on an evening recording. When I woke up this morning, I saw that it 
recorded two late night shows fine and was still running but then it crashed 
on a morning show today. I took the opportunity to upgrade to .18.1 and have 
restarted it. When looking at the logs, nothing seems amiss even when I 
turned up the logging verbosity to all. It just shows that recording is 
starting and then the log ends. I tried turning off the commercial flagging 
while it records and it still crashed. To give another data point, I am 
running off the atrpms install of mythtv. 

Larry

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[mythtv-users] Dying Backend

[Gavin Haslett]

I know, these always seem to be a problem. My problem seems to be that anytime 
a job is run that requires write access to the database (specifically when 
scheduling shows or when deleting a previous recording) quite often the 
mythbackend will simply up and die. I've checked the logs and nothing seems 
amiss... since I use binary packages is there a way I can up the verbosity of 
these logs to see if anything weird is going on?
 
Another time the backend dies is if I've been using Mythweb, that seems to 
cause more crashes than it's sometimes worth (though I do prefer using Mythweb 
to locate shows that I want to record). 
 
One other I've noticed is that occasionally the backend will also die upon 
completing a recording. Now, since I've tuned my recording settings recently I 
no longer transcode, I leave my recordings as mpeg2, so obviously the problem 
is occurring right at the moment that it should be starting to commercial flag 
those shows (I run automatically in my recordings). It's very inconsistent 
though, and in the logs I never see the commflag starting at all, just showing 
the Mythbackend restarting (I have a job that checks every minute if the 
process is running and restarts it if not). Of course, this means that I have 
to manually schedule the commflag job, but once I do that it works fine. I'd 
say the commflag works fine about 85% of the time, just sometimes it completely 
fails. Note that stuff recorded from commercial-free channels never seems to 
cause a mythbackend crash, so I think I'm pretty safe saying it's the 
commflagging.
 
Currently I'd say I lose backend about twice per day on average at the moment. 
Version 0.18.0 (not had time to do 0.18.1, but doesn't seem like it fixes any 
backend or commflag bugs).
 
Any thoughts?
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RE: [mythtv-users] Problems with upgrading FC1 --> FC3, need help manually restoring Myth to a differentversion (.16 --> .18)

[Gavin Haslett]

Well, first of all I'd check into putting APT onto your machine. That
should deal with a lot of the dependency issues... However, the catch
with this is that you won't necessarily be able to install .16 this way.

Why install .16? Well, since you had a .16 system I'd recommend putting
.16 on your FC3 box and restoring your existing database. Once you've
got it all running, you can then use APT-GET to install .18 and all its
dependencies (an in-place upgrade).

The best way to deal with dependency problems is use google to find the
packages that are dependent and install them using RPM. 

Now, if you have a way to get back to where you were, I'd upgrade before
I backed up the database.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad Kerr
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 2:55 PM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject: [mythtv-users] Problems with upgrading FC1 --> FC3,need help
manually restoring Myth to a differentversion (.16 --> .18)

I am having many issues upgrading from FC1 to FC3 and thought it might
be best to just do a fresh install.  I am currently (use to be) running
MythTv .16 on FC1 and have a backup of the database, configuration, and
video files.

Current State of Machine:
I have gotten the system upgraded to FC3 using the discs and finally got
X to display.  Now there are many dependency problems in loading
kickstart.  My next thought was to just get Myth upgraded so the
database would be .18 compliant and then do a fresh install of FC3.  I
just don't have enough linux experience to work through the dependency
issues with either of these approaches.

If I do a fresh install of FC3 and Myth (.18), is there a way to restore
my .16 database?  Or do you have a better suggestion on how to get me to
FC3/.18?

Thank you for your help in advance.

-Brad
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[mythtv-users] MythTV and EM8300

[Gavin Haslett]

Anyone any 
experience and pointers with using an EM8300 card (Sigma Hollywood Plus decoder) 
with MythTV. Seems to me this might be a good match for my decoding 
requirements. So far the modules load, the firmware uploads and I get a blank 
screen on the S-Video connection to my TV. Any ideas? I seem to get output on 
the VGA connection, but despite telling MythTV to use Hardware Accelerate out, 
it seems to ignore it completely and does plain old software out. There seems to 
be nothing being fired out from mythfrontend either (I log all the output just 
in case)
 
Any 
ideas?
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RE: [mythtv-users] MythWeb without MythBackend

[Gavin Haslett]

Funnily enough, since I wrote the original message I did pretty much
that! Now, because I didn't have mythbackend and was installing from
RPMs I had to do "--nodeps" on my RPM to get it on there, but it seems
to work like a champ. Now all I've got to do is go in and fiddle with
Apache security... :)

Thanks! 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin Kuphal
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 9:47 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] MythWeb without MythBackend

Gavin Haslett wrote:

>Not sure if this has been addressed before, I can't find a reference. 
>Is there a way I can split off my MythWeb from my backend server and 
>put it on a different server?
>
>Basically my problem is thus; I have a web server already on my home 
>network... A perfectly serviceable Linux box that serves web pages on 
>the Internet and Intranet. It already does a good chunk of PHP 
>processing, so I'm not worried about the load on that. Every time I try

>to use Mythweb and someone is watching live TV, it pauses... Sometimes 
>several times in a row and can get really annoying. Watching top I saw 
>that the problem is the PHP processing of HTTPD... I tried renicing 
>HTTPD and it helped, but didn't eliminate the problem.
>
>The SQL server on the backend isn't a problem; I've got it tuned to 
>chow down more RAM than it actually needs (got 768M in the box... More 
>than enough), so the SQL queries are pretty fast. It's really just the 
>PHP rendering that's giving me grief.
>
>So, can I install Mythweb on my other box (Mandrake 10 if that helps) 
>and have that take over the PHP processing load without having to 
>install a slave backend on it? I'd really rather not install a slave 
>backend if I don't have to.
>
>Thoughts?
>  
>
Certainly, just install it on the other server and edit the conf.php in
your config subfolder to point to the DB server.  I believe MythWeb gets
the information about the backend IP, etc. from the DB directly.

Kevin
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[mythtv-users] MythWeb without MythBackend

[Gavin Haslett]

Not sure if this has been addressed before, I can't find a reference. Is
there a way I can split off my MythWeb from my backend server and put it
on a different server? 

Basically my problem is thus; I have a web server already on my home
network... A perfectly serviceable Linux box that serves web pages on
the Internet and Intranet. It already does a good chunk of PHP
processing, so I'm not worried about the load on that. Every time I try
to use Mythweb and someone is watching live TV, it pauses... Sometimes
several times in a row and can get really annoying. Watching top I saw
that the problem is the PHP processing of HTTPD... I tried renicing
HTTPD and it helped, but didn't eliminate the problem.

The SQL server on the backend isn't a problem; I've got it tuned to chow
down more RAM than it actually needs (got 768M in the box... More than
enough), so the SQL queries are pretty fast. It's really just the PHP
rendering that's giving me grief.

So, can I install Mythweb on my other box (Mandrake 10 if that helps)
and have that take over the PHP processing load without having to
install a slave backend on it? I'd really rather not install a slave
backend if I don't have to.

Thoughts?

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[mythtv-users] OT: What's up with ATRPMS?

[Gavin Haslett]

Interesting... trying to do an upgrade of some stuff for Myth (ivtv kernel 
modules and related stuff for the 2.6.11 kernel), and it looks like I'm getting 
"Access Denied" to a bunch of stuff... mostly the modules I need!
 
I know this isn't specifically related to this list, but I wanted to see if 
anyone else has been having problems. I was hoping to upgrade my kernel for 
some extra device support, so this has put a slight crimp on my plans for my 
Mythbox this weekend.
 
Anyone any ideas?
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RE: [mythtv-users] PVR Hardware

[Gavin Haslett]

Maybe I'm sort of missing the point here, but why so stressed about the delay 
from live TV? Honestly, my wife and kids use my Myth box and the only time they 
even notice the delay (that they've mentioned) is when changing channels. This 
causes a 3 second delay or thereabouts while live TV is cached before the 
channel "changes". Of course, I know the channel has already changed... but 
that's a detail you live with on any PVR, be it Myth, TIVO or any of the 
"pretenders to the throne". My wife and kids seem quite happy to deal with the 
slight delay for the sake of pausing and rewinding live TV.
 
My setup is a satellite box attached to my Mythbox through an S-Video 
connection for video input to a PVR-250 card. Channel changing is done through 
a serial cable to the back of the satellite box. I use the guide built into 
Myth now instead of the one on the satellite box... in fact everything's done 
through Myth now so I find the delay is such a non-issue.
 
Catpure Cards: BTTV *might* result in slightly less delay on live TV if you 
recode Myth to override the 3 second built-in delay. May or may not be worth it 
as in the event your machine gets pegged on the CPU or you have a glitch on 
your disk subsystem, you're more likely to get a glitch in your TV viewing. Not 
perfect. Also, BTTV just sends raw frames down the PCI bus... which dependent 
upon other cards in your system may actually saturate the PCI bus during high 
traffic loads. The advantage of capture cards like the Hauppauge is that they 
send only MPEG2 data (pre-compressed) down the PCI bus, therefore saving data 
bandwidth. My first ever Myth-type box used a BTTV card... it sucked because 
(as I later ascertained) I had a badly behaved bus-mastering gigabit Ethernet 
NIC in another slot that was causing latency to other cards on the bus. Now I 
use a PVR-250 and have been very happy with the results. I do have some 
apparent traffic problems, but I attribute them more to my disk subsystem which 
is rather slow than I do the card. 3 BTTV cards on the same bus might be a 
problem... I'd get onto doing some mathematics on raw frame speeds down the PCI 
bus.
 
Basically, as far as the frontend, you can get your technical requirements 
(fanless, quiet, flash hard disk), but not for less than $200! Even fanless and 
quiet with a hard drive is going to cost you more than that realistically. Be 
realistic about your requirements. Myself, my frontend is also my backend... 
but when I get around to doing a dedicated frontend I'm going to spend a few 
more bucks and get quality and quiet hardware.
 
Hmm... for a frontend you perhaps might want to consider a modified XBox 
(chintzy solution IMO), or a fanless machine using PXE boot to your backend. 
Works great, but boy, if you lose your network connection...
 

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of James Rose 
Sent: Thu 5/5/2005 3:35 PM 
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org 
Cc: 
Subject: [mythtv-users] PVR Hardware



This may have been answered many times already, but searching the lists
(and google) didn't seem to help too much.

I'm wanting to build a distributed myth setup (ie one mythbackend and 
two
mythfrontends), and I'm wondering:

1) What is the best recording card to use?  I've got lots of experience
with Hauppauge PVR-350s (I built a 4 channel recorder..w/o myth), but I
find the delay completely unacceptable for live tv.  I haven't played 
with
IVTV since version 1.9, so maybe this is fixed (seems to be a hardware
issue though).  Acceptable delay to me is <1 second.  I'm willing to 
trade
quality for speed here since I'm recording analog cable to begin with.  
My
only other requirement is that it does hardware recording, since this 
box
is also my web/mail server (machine is a 2.8GHZ AMD with 1GB RAM, and
400GB IDE with RAID6/LVM on Debian Sarge). In addition, I plan on 
having 3
recording cards in the box.  Are the BTTV devices in general faster than
IVTV?  Can all this even be accomplished at this point in time?

2) What's the best compromise for mythfronend systems.  I've read a lot 
of
mixed reviews on using xboxes/ps2s.  I'm wanting something really cheap
(around $200/box), and extremely quiet.  I'd like fanless, and may skip
the hard drive and go with flash memory.

MTIA,

James

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RE: [mythtv-users] network drive for music

[Gavin Haslett]

The only times you'll hit a problem with this sort of setup are (a) times of 
heavy network and/or CPU utilization and (b) if your file server goes down!
 
The reason for (a) is that SMB is actually a very "heavy" protocol; that is it 
has a lot of stuff that gets wired across the network with the actual data. 
It's stuff that's required for Windows networking (broadcast information, host 
information and so forth) but if your network's slow or you have a lot of hosts 
using it then you might have a problem.
 
(b) Caused me some grief when I first set up my Mythbox. I set up fileshares on 
my Windows fileserver for my MP3 collection and at first it worked OK (though 
to be honest cataloguing the MP3's was sort of painful). I ran with this on 
0.17 and it worked great until my fileserver went down. My Mythbox didn't 
completely freeze, but the mythfrontend died. SSHing from another machine I 
found mythfrontend eating all my CPU cycles so I killed it (had to -9 the 
bugger). Even once my fileserver was back though, the share wouldn't remount, 
had to bounce my mythbox.
 
My solution? UNIX Services for Windows... which I already had installed. It was 
free anyway. Well, I set up my MP3's as an NFS share instead, and put an entry 
in my /etc/fstab to mount it (soft) on boot. Since I was also upgrading to 0.18 
and didn't have any significant recordings I trashed the database and allowed 
it a clean rebuild. Well, it all came up and running the catalog of MP3's was 
at least twice as fast if not better. And when I lost my fileserver again (I 
really need to replace the battery in that UPS ) my mythmusic just 
stopped playing. I could return back up to the main menu with no problems... 
SSHing in from the backend showed some errors in /var/log/messages about the 
share vanishing. When the server came back online, voila. The share remounted, 
and Myth just kept chugging along.
 
I'm a firm believer in using UNIX protocols on a UNIX-like operating system 
wherever possible. They tend to be better supported and standards based. Plus I 
found the Windows Services for UNIX were excellent.
 
Just my 2c... hope it helps.

-Original Message- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Dean Collins 
Sent: Thu 5/5/2005 11:59 AM 
To: Geoff Scott; Discussion about mythtv 
Cc: 
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] network drive for music



Thanks geoff, I got tied up last night so never implemented it but
thanks for letting me know this is the right idea.

Cheers,
Dean


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:mythtv-users-
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Geoff Scott
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:56 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] network drive for music
>
> On 5/4/05, Dean Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Thanks for that, this is the page I found, looks plausible with a
> > cursory look - will reply to the list later if I get it to work (/
or
> > need more help).
> >
> >
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesystems/Mounting_smbfs_Shares_Permanent
> > ly.html
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Dean
> >
>
> I actually am doing this with my music, pictures, and video.  I mount
> the M$ shares (winvideo, winpictures, and winmusic) at boot with
> commands in rc.local through Samba, as was suggested earlier in this
> thread.  They get mounted to directories in /mnt.  I then can symlink
> to them.  I symlink mainly for videos, because when I rip a DVD, it
> goes into the directory on the MythBox I specified for videos (/rip).
> At least in prior versions of MythTV, you could not define mulitple
> locations for videos, so I just put a symlink in my movie directory
> (/rip) to the proper /mnt samba share... and I got everything in on
> the MythVideo menu.
>
> I could also bind mount (mount -o bind ) the M$ share into the
> proper directory, but I'm lazy the way I have it set up now works fine
> for me.
>
> Works great.
>
> gs
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RE: [mythtv-users] Transcoding and other questions

[Gavin Haslett]

OK... To answer;

(1) That depends on how much hard drive space you want to utilize. I
don't keep much for long, but I transcode because I just have a 60Gb
hard drive for video (still playing with this stuff, will probably
upgrade myself soon). At MPEG4, 2200bps, 44Khz sound I get just under a
gig per hour. That's 50% savings or better over the stuff straight from
my PVR250. Hell no it doesn't take that long... I have an Athlon 800
that transcodes 1 hour program in about 2-3 hours MAX. Depends how much
you have queued though. If you go back to the menu during the night then
that frees up some more cycles for transcoding. That helps (though
frontend only bites about 25-30% CPU during live TV).

(2) Commercial flagging is separate from transcoding. It runs as another
job after the recording's complete before transcoding runs. So long as
you turn it on to be automatic, it's automatic. Yes, I do this today.

(3) XvMC is hardware decoding on the video card. You don't need it as
you have a PVR-350 and can use the direct hardware decoding. I've played
with XvMC on my box, but my results have been less than perfectly
pleasing... So for now I software decode. Figure I save only about
10-15% CPU cycles by using XvMC anyway on my 800Mhz CPU.

(4) I've had no problems with the guide myself, if I hit OK on the
current channel then it pauses for a second then continues (it does the
channel change regardless). I would like to see it intelligently decide
that since it's already on the channel it doesn't need to do that... But
that's a minor issue. I don't use the internal tuner though, I've got
DirecTV so I use an external box controlled through the ttyS0
connection, YMMV. I've got no experience with the internal tuner.

Hope this helps! Oh, and all this is from another recent noob to MythTV.
Sure it has a few warts, but really they're not much more than pimples.
I consider this product to be as mature in many respects as Windows MCE
(and I've used that too).

Gavin


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Henley
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 10:09 AM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject: [mythtv-users] Transcoding and other questions

I've read all the Docs, FAQs, and mail lists I can find.  Due, I
suspect, to MythTV's "in development" status, the issues and topics
discussed seem to be mostly bugs and work-arounds.  My questions are
more "general" and "use" oriented.

My MythTV box has a Hauppauge 350 PVR for capture, etc. and a Matrox 400
video card (which is NOT used for TVout).

I will be using MythTV mostly as a "super VCR;" ie., it'll be used to
time shift.  It's very unlikely I'll save any programs for more than a
week or so.

(1)  Should I be using transcoding?  If so, what will be the savings
from the approximate 2 Gig / per hour I get now?  Are there any
advantages other than reduced file size?  Does it really take about ten
hours to transcode a one hour TV show (my MythTV box has a 2.26 GHz
Pentium)?

(2)  How can I have the commercials flagged and removed automatically? 
Can this be done without the full transcoding process?  I want to select
programs from the Program Guide, then go back later to find them
recorded and the commercials gone.  Is this possible?

(3)  What is XvMC MPEG Decoding?  Do I need it?  It appears as a Matrox
user, not NVidia, that I don't need it.  But I'm not sure.

(4)  How can I go directly to the Program Guide (the time vs program
matrix) without going thru the menu which includes Program Guide, Enable
Browse Mode, Previous Channel, .?  If I change channels on it, ie.,
move to a different show and press OK, it goes to that show.  If I
decide to stay where I was and press OK  while on the currently playing
program, it goes to black.  I can only make it work by pressing esc a
couple of times.  How can I make this work better?

Thanks for any and all answers!

Joe Henley




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RE: Small quiet HDTV frontend (was Re: [mythtv-users]kernel 2.6.12support)

[Gavin Haslett]

Anyone any idea how well the C3 does with MythTV load? I might be
interested in this, but my previous experiences with the Cyrix
processors on which the C3 was based haven't exactly been stellar. The
board sounds pretty good as a dev platform for this sort of stuff, but
any significant load is going to kill it.

Maybe this with a PVR-350 using accelerated out might be viable? 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin Fowlks
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 6:16 PM
To: Byron Poland; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: Small quiet HDTV frontend (was Re: [mythtv-users]kernel
2.6.12support)

Byron Poland wrote:

>On 4/27/05, MagicITX <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 4/27/05, David George <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 4/27/2005 12:54 PM, Devan Lippman wrote:
>>>
>>>  
>>>
I wonder if we got a group buy going on this board how much we could

bring the price down... has BWI mentioned this to you at all David?




>>>Yes, I had already talked to them and I can get quantity pricing.  I 
>>>don't have the numbers handy right now, but it was 5% to 10% off 
>>>based on the number of boards ordered at once.
>>>
>>>--
>>>David
>>>
>>>HDTV frontend I'm working on (pictures, mythmon source)
>>>  http://mythhd.info
>>>
>>>___
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>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>Please let me know when you plan to place an order.  I'll get some
too.
>>
>>--
>>Tim
>>www.magicitx.com
>>
>>
>
>
>I would be interested as well.
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>
>  
>
I have thesse boards for sell for for $265.00
http://core.resonanceone.com/

- Kevin


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[mythtv-users] Noob Solves Own Problems... Film at 11.

[Gavin Haslett]

Well, I didn't get any response from the list unfortunately, but I
figured I'd report that I have apparently had success fixing the random
loss of mythbackend that I reported a couple of days ago. Don't know if
it was a corrupted installation, or something in MythTV 0.17 but I
upgraded it to 0.18 and all was fine. Oh, I did lose my OSD for a bit
before I realized that I had it set to the Titvillus-OSD theme that
isn't in the RPM's I apt-got :)

Now, I can't say for definite this was ALL the problem, I do have to say
that on the same day I did the upgrade to 0.18 I also upgraded the RAM
to 768M from 256 that I had before, but not sure that should've made a
difference.

I do have one other problem though; I can't for the life of me get XvMC
to work efficiently. When I enable it, it looks damned good... But then
every few seconds the feed hiccups and continues... Repeat as necessary.
I realize that my machine is slow (Athlon 800) compared to many, but
it's fast enough to play live TV well enough (not HD), so XvMC should be
a non-issue... But I WOULD like to have more cycles to devote to
transcoding IYSWIM :)

Well, any thoughts on this would be welcome... But let me just say that
I'm WELL impressed with the product to-date.

Gavin

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RE: [mythtv-users] Transcoding Questions - MPEG4 and Thumbnails

[Gavin Haslett]

Make sure that your transcoding settings are set to encode to a
different format/bitrate after the fact. I have my transcoding set to
recompress to MPEG4, 2200 and 48Khz sound (I'm an audio geek)... Figure
I'm at about 700Mb for 30 minutes right now after recoding. 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jason McLeod
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 11:16 AM
To: Mark Knecht; Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Transcoding Questions - MPEG4 and Thumbnails


> How are you transcoding your files?
>

During playback, after doing the editing, I've set the transcode flag.
Then it makes it into the job queue, and the sections I've edited are
removed, but it doesn't seem to get encoded to the new format.

-Jason

Blog: http://jason.sdf1.net
GPG Fingerprint:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - A6CC 40B4 99A4 1C08 55A7  BCFC ECDF ED68 115E 5993




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[mythtv-users] Impressive, but some minor issues

[Gavin Haslett]

Greetings,
 
I've recently bit the bullet and built myself a rather nice little MythBox. Not 
much in terms of hardware; Athlon 800 I had lying around, 60Gb hard drive 
dedicated to video etc. etc. I know, not very impressive, but so far I've been 
impressed with the results.
 
I do have a couple of minor issues though, and I need to see if anyone else is 
having these problems;
 
1) Apparently at random, mythbackend seems to stop. There's nothing unusual in 
the logs... it just appears that I turn on my TV to find mythfrontend 
complaining about the lack of a backend, and I have to go in and restart 
mythbackend. 
 
Since this machine is intended for my wife to use as well as me, this obviously 
isn't always an option (I'm a UNIX, Windows and Novell guy... she has trouble 
with Windows XP at times) and I don't feel like VPN'ing in from work every time 
she complains that it died, I created a little script that checks every minute 
if the backend is running and "kicks it back in" if it's not. Not perfect and a 
little annoying. There doesn't appear to be anything unusual in the logs, the 
only entry I see is when the script kicks the mythbackend on again, other than 
that nothing. Any ideas on this one?
 
2) This morning I attempted to record Quantum Leap. Yeah, I'm an old-school 
geek. Now, so far recording's been doing great, but this morning the show 
recorded OK, but I saw no jobs for commercial flagging or transcoding, and a 
show that was transcoding last night apparently was still in a "stopping" state 
(there are two more jobs in the queue that are still unprocessed, but Quantum 
Leap wasn't in the list). Anyway, lacking anything else to do I rebooted the 
entire system... figured it would save time. When it came back up, no QL. It 
was completely missing from the Recordings list, and from the Previously 
Recorded list. When I checked the HD, the .nuv file was there, but apparently 
an entry never got made to SQL. Any thoughts on that one?
 
Since I'm really only in a testing mode right now, I'm not that worried about 
the loss of one episode of Quantum Leap... I was just playing with the box and 
not worried about it, but I don't want this happening again if possible.
 
FYI, I don't see anything in the logs to suggest that mythbackend crashed last 
night, though it does look like the mythtranscode process may have hung and 
screwed something up.
 
Oh, and after the reboot, the transcoding of that show that was "stopping" 
apparently started again. We'll see when I get home tonight what the logs look 
like.
 
Any suggestions for a MythTV noob?
 
Gavin
 
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