[mythtv-users] MythTV and Hauppage HVR-950Q

[Ronald Frazier]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 3:45 PM, James Cobban <webmaster at jamescobban.net> wrote:
> As I scan the forums and mailing lists I see thousands of people
> with support issues with this product.

Was that mean to suggest it's a terrible "product" which works for
nobody? Because that's how it came off to me, and if that's the case,
it's probably not the best way to start out your (as far as I can
tell) first post on this forum.


> When I try to configure the HVR-950Q I am not given the option of scanning
> for channels.  I have tried setting after setting, and that option is NEVER
> enabled.

I'm not familiar with the HVR-950Q specifically, but the scan button's
enabled/disable state has nothing to do with any of the settings. It
is dependent upon what type of recorder it is (HDHomerun, IPTV, Demo
Recorder, etc). The scanning option is only available for certain
recorder types (it should usually be available for the ones that
actually need to scan). So my first inclination is to think you might
have picked the wrong recorder type (but again, I'm not familiar with
the HVR-950Q so I'm just guessing).


> I HATE MythTVs proprietary user interface with its refusal to cooperate with
> the window manager or respond to any standard commands.  MythTV just grabs
> the whole screen and then demands some secret incantation to release it.

I think the default key to exit is usually either Escape or
Ctrl-Escape, but I don't remember for sure and I've changed the
settings for myself. For me, you can Alt-tab to other applications
just fine. But I can't provide a lot of insight into the rest of this,
since I just use it as a dedicated myth system, and use a lightweight
window manager (fluxbox) with nothing else running.

> After 5 minutes of trying to find a key sequence that would shut the
> front-end down I finally gave up and pressed the power button!  I pressed
> ESC several times until a dialog popped up with a choice of No to continue
> or Yes to shut down, but I could not find any keystroke that would act on
> the Yes.  Is it too much to ask that the dialog TELL the user what
> keystrokes to use for a particular function?

When you hit the right shortcut (whatever it is by default) to bring
up the exit box, it has (on my system) a number of options, including
exit, reboot, and shutdown. In the setup menu, under the General
settings (I think) there is an option where you can change both the
key shortcut for the exit box, as well as choose which options appear
in that menu.

Shutdown and reboot (if they appear there) will initiate the defined
shutdown command (as configured in setup), but the user running the
frontend does need to have the proper permissions to do so. If you've
got myth running with a non-root user (as would be recommended) then
you'll likely have to configure your system to make sure myth has the
right permissions to execute those commands.



> Similarly I find it frustrating trying to maneuver through the various panes
> of the backend setup using only keystrokes that I have to guess at because
> NONE of the panels explain what keystrokes to use for what purpose.

That seems odd, since in my experience there's not much you need to
know in terms of secret keys for the backend. Tab and the arrow keys
can be used for navigation, and enter and space work for activating
controls. That's all standard GUI key shortcuts for any app on any OS.
About the only hidden key I can think of offhand is D for delete,
which is useful in some of the screens. But that seemed (to me) like a
fairly intuitive shortcut to just guess at.


-- 
Ron Frazier