[mythtv-users] fc4.ppc, Mac Mini and MythTV

[Matt Hannan]

Brian Edmonds wrote:
> Umm, no.  I've had mythTV running just fine on my Debian Mini since I
> bought it, what, last summer?  Works pretty much fine with 0.18.1.  I
> tried mythMusic, and thought it unfortunately totally missed the point
> of the myth.  So far as I could see, it could only encode and play
> music from the single machine, while mythTV encodes and plays anywhere
> on your local net.  I want something that does that for music too, and
> haven't bothered with it since.
>
> WRT to the static problem mentioned, I've got two comments.  First on
> the volume, the Mini's soundcard doesn't have a mixer, so there is no
> software volume control, hence it's all at one level.  Second, I had
> the same problem, and I suspect it's an endian issue somewhere in the
> MP3 encoder myth uses, as I have the same problem when I try to encode
> the audio from my ConvertX to MP3.  I've had to capture raw PCM this
> whole time, since that's the only audio I've been able to get working.
>
> Note that it's not MP3 in general, as I can play my mp3 files just
> fine with mpg123 on the Mini, and I've also encoded some with lame,
> and they were fine.
>
> There is one other problem with 0.18.1 on the Mini (and probably PPC
> Linux in general) that I worked around, and that's with the thumbnail
> previews.  When they're on the backend crashes almost every time the
> frontend requests one.  I turned off preview requests in my frontends,
> and it's been rock stable since.  I've got hundreds of hours of
> recording on it.
>
> As for why use a Mini?  It's because it's quiet, low power, looks
> good, has all the ports I need, and is pretty cheap too.  I just
> upgraded the RAM from 256MB to 1GB last weekend, and now it can even
> run the backend, the frontend, and a regular login session with other
> pigs like firefox without bogging down like a dog into swap.
>
> Brian.
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>   
WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN?!?!?! Champion! Do you have someplace online where 
Ican read how you did this? A blog or random notes or anything?
What version of Deb are you using? I did see that a lot of folks are 
using, basically, the OS X version of the frontend on Deb, but not 
MythMusic because of either compile or skreetch issues.

You can configure your frontend to look at a backend share for your music.
I think this is what you meant by "it could only encode and play music 
from the single machine," right? Similarly, you can configure it to 
encode the on the same share (but that may not be the wisest of moves 
depending on your LAN).

I screwed around with all the different settings in Myth in relation to 
sound (which was not too many!), but I could not get anything but static 
instead of music in MythMusic. And, like you said, I was able to play 
MP3 files just fine in XMMS, so it HAS to be a Myth related issue.

Thank you for this post! And please, which version of Deb are you 
running? Do you think I could pull it off in Ubuntu?

Matt