[mythtv-users] Struggling with MythArchive

[Alan Chandler]

On 01/01/13 11:26, Alan Chandler wrote:
> Having recorded a couple of programs over christmas that my parents in 
> law would like to watch I have tried to install mytharchive.  But I 
> can't get it to work, and the error message isn't helping.
>
> My setup is ubuntu-server 12.04 with the mythubuntu packages running 
> in that environment.
>
> My normal frontend is debian sid with mythtv-frontend running on my 
> desktop
>
> My initial thought was to install mytharchive and run it from the 
> front end - but despite no particular dependancy problems it soon 
> became apparent that was a no go because it required file access to 
> the backend recordings to work.
>
> So I installed mytharchive on the backend machine, connect into it via 
> ssh -X and attempt to run mythfrontend from this machine.
>
> All works fine until I come to actually encode the video.
>
> Mythburn.log says that an error occurs whilst running mythffmpeg and 
> that I should look in mythburn.log (which of course I am doing).  
> There is no more information about the failure except the command used.
>
> I tried running mythffmpeg manually with the command that fails, and 
> it terminates immediately (silently).  I did try changing from 
> mythffmpeg to ffmpeg and the command seemed to then work (ie it was 
> encoding a video and seemed to be progressing through it).
>
> Also I seem to have to run at root, because if I run as an ordinary 
> user, and despite the /var/lib/mytharchive/temp directory having 777 
> permissions, the code appears to be attempting a chmod when it is not 
> allowed.
>
> So where do I go from here?
>
Is nobody able to help me debug this issue?  I am being banged over the 
head to produce a dvd of a couple of programs I made for my parents in 
law over christmas, and at the moment I can't do it.

My main puzzle is what is mythffmpeg, and why that doesn't do anything, 
when it appears that ffmpeg does.  I was sort of assuming its just a 
wrapper, but perhaps it isn't?

Is there any other way (ie follow some wiki instructions somewhere) to 
manually create a dvd .iso file from the raw .mpg files from the program?

-- 
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk