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Revision as of 11:31, 24 September 2007
Other openSUSE version |
Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Initial system setup and considerations
- 3 Configure openSUSE 10.3
- 3.1 Add the required software repositories
- 3.2 Install the required packages
- 3.3 Adding a mythtv user
- 3.4 Synchronize your system clock (NTP)
- 3.5 Audio setup
- 3.6 Remote Control (LIRC)
- 3.7 Integrated LCD or VFD panel (LCDProc)
- 3.8 Analogue Video capture card (IVTV)
- 3.9 Digital Video capture card (TV-in)
- 3.10 Connect your system to a TV
- 3.11 Wireless Keyboard
- 3.12 Network Interfaces
- 4 Configure mythTV server components (mythbackend)
- 5 Use and configure mythTV clients (frontends)
- 5.1 Watch and record TV (mythfrontend)
- 5.2 Schedule a recording remotely over the internet (mythweb)
- 5.3 View your photos (mythGallery)
- 5.4 Enjoy your videos (mythVideo)
- 5.5 Listen to your music (mythMusic)
- 5.6 Burning CDs/DVDs (mythArchive)
- 5.7 Browse the web (mythBrowser)
- 5.8 Stay up to date with the latest news and weather information (mythNews/mythWeather)
- 5.9 Take it with you (mythArchive, ipodexport)
- 5.10 Watch and listen in other places in your house
- 5.11 Play games (mythGame)
- 6 Tips and Tricks
- 7 User Experiences
Introduction
SUSE Linux, one of the oldest Linux distributions, was originally developed by a German company. SuSE is an acronym in the German language for “Software und System-Entwicklung” which translates as software and system development.
The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. With the launch of the openSUSE project, openSUSE is now developed in an open model—public development builds, releases, and sources will be posted frequently and users will have access to the Bugzilla database for defect reporting.
For rich, reliable and secure home computing like mythTV, there's no better choice than openSUSE 10.3. It features an easy-to-install Linux operating system that includes most of the required mythTV components standard in the box. While the official mythTV documentation attempts to be as distribution-agnostic as possible, this document is geared specifically toward building a mythTV system on the openSUSE 10.3 Linux distribution.
openSUSE 10.3, in combination with the PackMan (thanks Herbert Graeber for building the rpm's) repository, provides you with an easy installation and all the latest packages of the mythTV rpms, ivtv, lirc, xmltv, php, mysql, mplayer, xine and many more that are necessary for a fully functional mythTV box.
While mythTV can take quite some time to install, the result will be a fast box that can do nearly anything to entertain. Furthermore, the system is incredibly reliable, and if you leave it on, you can expect runtimes that last for years with little to no maintenance to be done (aside from updates if desired). We've also experienced that the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) for mythTV is enormous. As soon as you start playing with it, you need a second box because it becomes the most mission critical system in your house. I hope this document will help you in your quest for your ultimate mythbox. Remember this: "MythTV can be a time machine; hours can disappear for no reason at all."
- Hardware considerations
Installing mythTV all starts with good hardware. The first requirement is a machine capable of running openSUSE x86 or x86-64 and that can be connected to the Internet. You will also need a decent audio card and a video card, a hard drive with as much storage space as you desire, as well as a TV tuner capable of performing hardware-level video encoding. Many people run mythTV without any problems on older hardware; however, if you are planning on doing anything with high definition video or complex transcoding jobs, you will need to have sufficient memory and processing power. Check this wiki and the mailinglist before you purchase any new hardware.
You might also find it useful to look at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ if you build a machine for your living room, in order to get advice on low power-consumption, low noise setups.
Initial system setup and considerations
Todo: Update with specs. and version numbers when released. You can also look at the 10.2 page for inspiration.
- ABOUT openSUSE 10.3
Here are some of the highlights of openSUSE 10.3 in relation to mythTV:
- Improved boot time
- New one click install for third party add-on packages like LCDProc
- Linux kernel 2.6.22.5
- ivtv and ivtv_firmware 0.10.3
- lirc 8.2.8
- mysql 5.0.45
The openSUSE community creates, edits, and refines comprehensive documentation in the form of a wiki.
A lot of articles, howtos and guides are available, including:
the Support Database (SDB): solutions to problems with openSUSE, as well as more detailed explanations of certain topics
the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL): compatibility of various hardware and full systems with openSUSE
Novell also provides official documentation for the openSUSE distribution.
Partitions and File Systems
openSUSE ships with a number of different file systems, including ReiserFS, Ext2, Ext3 and XFS, from which to choose at installation time. Each file system has its own advantages and disadvantages that can make it more suited to a scenario. Professional high-performance setups may require a different choice of file system than a home user's setup.
Earlier versions of openSUSE used ReiserFS as the default filesystem. From openSUSE 10.3, ext3 is the default file system for Linux.
- RECOMMENDATIONS
Use ext3 as your default file system. Consider using XFS for your video data. XFS is very good at manipulating large files and performs well on high-end hardware
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Configure openSUSE 10.3
Understand your hardware with the following commands:
lspci -v
and lsusb
and hwinfo
Add the required software repositories
Legal restrictions prevent various packages and formats openSUSE users frequently request to be included in openSUSE from being distributed. Please see the openSUSE restricted format page for more information about this subject.
Make sure that the standard openSUSE 10.3 software repositories are configured:
- 10.3 Main Repository (NON-OSS)
- 10.3 Main Repository (OSS)
- 10.3 Update Respository
Packman offers various additional packages for openSUSE. To add this repository, see the openSUSE Community website.
The following command will add the packman repository:
rpm --import http://packman.unixheads.com/suse/10.2/gpg-pubkey-1abd1afb.asc zypper ar http://packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/10.3/ packman
Packman mirrors for openSUSE 10.3 - Australia Belgium Germany Germany Germany Germany Romania USA USA
Install the required packages
The following packages are prerequisites to the mythTV packages. Verify that they are either installed or install them through yast --> Software --> Software Management
The bolded packages are available on the openSUSE 10.3 installation media and can be selected during the OS installation, or can be installed now if your OS is already running. The non-bolded requirements need to be retrieved from another YaST installation source.
alsa, audit-libs, dvb, flac, gcc, ivtv, ivtv-firmware, kernel-source, libao, libdvdread, libid3tag, lirc mjpegtools, mysql, php5, python, xine-ui, xmms, fame, libcdaudio, libfame, lame, MPlayer, phpmyadmin, pvm, transcode, w32codec-all, xmltv, xvid
- MYTHTV PACKAGES
These are the actual mythTV packages that need to be installed.
libmyth, libmyth-devel, mythtv-backend, mythtv-debuginfo, mythtv-frontend, mythtv-setup, mythtv-themes
- MYTHTV PLUG-INS
These are plug-ins that are written for mythTV. You can install any you find of interest. If you are unsure of which you want, you can choose to install them all.
mytharchive, mythbrowser, mythcontrols, mythdvd, mythflix, mythgallery, mythgame, mythmusic, mythnews, mythphone, mythplugins, mythplugins-debuginfo, mythvideo, mythweather, mythweb
Adding a mythtv user
Create a mythtv user that you are gonna use to run the software.
sudo useradd mythtv -G users,video,audio,cdrom sudo passwd mythtv
- AUTOLOGIN FOR THE USER
YaST - user management - expert options - login settings - check autlogin
Synchronize your system clock (NTP)
To get the correct start and stop times for programming, it's very important to setup NTP (Network Time Protocol). NTP is a protocol designed to synchronize the clocks of computers over a network.
1. Enable NTP to get through the firewall.
YaST -> Security and Users -> Firewall -> Allowed Services -> NTP Server -> Add -> Next -> Accept
2. Configure the NTP Client
YaST -> Network Services -> NTP Configuration
3. Ignore the warning when selecting Automatically start, there is no significant delay.
NTP daemon -> During Boot -> Finish
4. Add servers per recommendation at http://www.pool.ntp.org/use.html
- NOTE
The NTP deamon (ntpd) is not started automatically by default after a reboot. As root start 'yast2 runlevel', select ntpd and make sure it's started at boot time.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Audio setup
Most sound cards are automatically recognized by openSUSE and do not need any specific configuration. Most of the time, everything is auto detected during the installation and usually just works.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Remote Control (LIRC)
The configuration of your remote control can be one of the most time consuming aspects of your mythTV setup. The remote controller itself can never be detected by the system so it requires some manual work. If your remote control device is not supported, it's required to learn the system about your device and define it's behaviour.
LIRC is the package that allows you to decode and send infra-red signals of many commonly used remote controls.
openSUSE 10.3 ships with LIRC 0.8.2. To use LIRC, you need a configuration file for your remote control. A list of supported remote control is available on http://lirc.org/remotes/
If you can't find a configuration file for your remote control on the lirc page, it does not mean that your remote control is not supported but there is no configuration file for it yet. You don't have to be a developer to create a configuration file by using irxevent and mode2. More info about these LIRC programs can be found on http://lirc.org/html/programs.html
If you have created a new configuration file for a remote control, please send it to the LIRC team.
- REMOTE CONTROL CONFIGURATION FILES
- /etc/lircd.conf = LIRC remote control configuration file that maps scancodes to logic functions (like value to play, poweroff, pause etc.)
- .lircrc = Application specific mapping of the remote functions (play, poweroff etc) to the app specific functions for mythTV, mplayer and or Xine
- Every application that you want to control with your remote (and has support for remote control) needs it's own .lircrc configuration file.
- The .lircrc maps the keynames defined in lircd.conf (example: poweroff) to an application specific function (example: exit application). Make sure that the key names in .lircrc should correspond with the same button names in lircd.conf.
- APPS AND THEIR .lircrc CONFIGURATION
- mythTV = /home/user/.mythtv/lircrc
- xine = /home/user/.xine/lircrc (TODO: check if this is correct)
- mplayer = /home/user/.mplayer/lircrc (TODO: check if this is correct)
Tip: Instead of creating an individual .lircrc file for each application, you can create one master file and put symbolic links to this in the appropriate places. The command for creating a .lircrc file in your /home/userid/.mythtv directory, symbolically linked to .lircrc in your home directory, follows:
ln -s ~/.mythtv/lircrc ~/.lircrc
- NOTE
The LIRC deamon (lircd) is not started automatically by default after a reboot.
- As root start 'yast2 runlevel', select lircd and make sure it's started at boot time.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- DEVICE SPECIFIC
Integrated LCD or VFD panel (LCDProc)
Mythfrontend (the integrated mythlcdserver) can control a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or a VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) panel through the LCDproc API. LCDproc is a small piece of software that displays real-time system information from your Linux box on a LCD/VFD.
- STEPS
- Install LCDproc and configure your device
- LCDproc is not part of the openSUSE 10.3 distribution, but a rpm is available:
-
- Configure mythfrontend to use the LCD/VCD
- The mythlcdserver is started automatically when configured in mythfrontend.
- You can find the setup options in Utilities/Setup->Setup->Appearance->LCD device display Check the Enable LCD device.
- TROUBLESHOOT/CONFIGURATION TIPS
Here are some tips that can help you find the best information to configure your hardware specific device information.
- Check (and update) the hardware specific section on the mythTV wiki
- The most important files of the LCDproc package
- /usr/sbin/LCDd - executable can be started with option -c /etc/LCDd.conf
- /etc/LCDd.conf - configuration file
Todo: *Do we need to extend this?
- Don't think LCDproc comes with a startup/init script. Please describe howto create a init script from the skeleton for the newbies
- NOTE
- As root start 'yast2 runlevel', select (?LCDd>) and make sure it's started at boot time.}}
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- IMON (Silverstone Technology, Cooler Master, Thermaltake Technology, Zalman Tech, 3R System) mythTV wiki page
Analogue Video capture card (IVTV)
With a minimum of one TV tuner installed, you can watch and record TV by using your mythTV system. If you install a second TV tuner, you can record or watch TV from more than one channel at the same time.
If you have one TV tuner, for example the Hauppauge PVR-150, you can:- Record TV on one channel
- Watch live TV on one channel
- Watch a recorded show while you record another show
If you have two TV tuners, for example the Hauppauge PVR-500, you can:- Record TV on two different channels at the same time
- Watch live TV on one channel while another show that is on a different channel is recorded
- Watch a recorded show while you record two shows at the same time
mythTV supports a myriad of different video capture cards by utilizing the IVTV driver, a kernel driver for Linux and a driver for X11 for hardware based on Conexant's CX23415/CX23416 codec chip. The recommended analogue Standard Definition Cable (SDC) capture cards are the Hauppauge PVR.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
openSUSE 10.3 ships with IVTV version 0.10.3 and ivtv-firmware 0.10.3, everything is auto detected on the x86 and x86-64 bit version of the OS. Please make sure you install the ivtv-firmware from YaST from the NON-OSS openSUSE repository.
- FIRMWARE
IVTV-based cards are hardware encoders, but the firmware does not exist in the card itself. Instead, you must point your hardware to an extracted version of the firmware on disk. One of the benefits of openSUSE is that it has the closed source ivtv-firmware drivers available in the NON-OSS repository. This Firmware is licensed for use only in conjunction with Hauppauge component products. More info about the license can be found in the license agreement included in the package.
Configuration Tips
- Check the IVTV console output with dmesg
dmesg | grep ivtv
and/or
dmesg | more
Your output should look something like this example from the Hauppauge PVR500:
ivtv: ==================== START INIT IVTV ==================== ivtv: version 0.x.x (tagged release) loading ivtv: Linux version: x.x.xx.x-default SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1 ivtv: In case of problems please include the debug info between ivtv: the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines, along with ivtv: any module options, when mailing the ivtv-users mailinglist. ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card (cx23416 based) ivtv0: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (262144 bytes) ivtv0: This is the first unit of a PVR500 tuner 1-0043: chip found @ 0x86 (ivtv i2c driver #0) tuner 1-0060: chip found @ 0xc0 (ivtv i2c driver #0) tuner 1-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #0) cx25840 1-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0) wm8775 1-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0) ivtv0: Encoder revision: 0x02060039 etc..
- The lspci command can give you more information about your card and tuner
lspci | grep -i itv
Your output should look something like this example from the Hauppauge PVR500: 03:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01) 03:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
- Check if the firmware is installed in the correct location
ls /lib/firmware -l
- license-end-user.txt
- license-oemihvisv.txt
- v4l-cx2341x-dec.fw
- v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw
- v4l-cx2341x-init.mpg
- v4l-cx25840.fw
- v4l-pvrusb2-24xxx-01.fw
- v4l-pvrusb2-29xxx-01.fw
- Check what version of ivtv is installed
To check what version is installed, issue the command:
rpm -qa | grep ivtv
Your output should look something like:
ivtv-kmp-default-0.10.3 ivtv-0.10.3
- The IVTV configuration is maintained by YaST and it is not recommended to edit the file directly. To see the configuration of the device
cat /etc/modprobe.d/tv
Your output should look something like this example from the Hauppauge PVR500:
alias char-major-81 videodev options i2c-algo-bit bit_test=1 # YaST configured TV card # Uog3.chCB1CyIbw9:WinTV PVR 150 alias char-major-81-0 ivtv # YaST configured TV card # ZvjX.sZc4ePByvkF:WinTV PVR 150 alias char-major-81-1 ivtv alias char-major-81-2 off alias char-major-81-3 off
- Reload the ivtv module manually
rmmod ivtv modprobe ivtv
- Check if the video devices are available to the system
ls /dev/vi* -l
Your output should look something like this example from the (dual tuner) Hauppauge PVR500:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video -> video0 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 0 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video0 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 1 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video1 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 24 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video24 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 25 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video25 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 32 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video32 crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 33 Dec 29 06:27 /dev/video33
The above is for a PVR-500. Here is what each device corresponds to in this case:
Tuner unit #1: - For your info
/dev/video0 – The encoding capture device (Read-only) /dev/video24 – The raw audio capture device (Read-only) /dev/video32 – The raw video capture device (Read-only) /dev/radio – The radio tuner device /dev/vbi0 – The "vertical blank interval" (Teletext) capture device
Tuner unit #2: - For your info/dev/video1 – The encoding capture device (Read-only) /dev/video25 – The raw audio capture device (Read-only) /dev/video33 – The raw video capture device (Read-only) /dev/vbi1 – The "vertical blank interval" (Teletext) capture device
- Check (and update) the hardware specific section on this page and the dedicated mythTV wiki pages
Hauppauge PVR-150
- Hauppauge PVR-150
place holder
.
Hauppauge PVR-250
- Hauppauge PVR-250
place holder
.
Hauppauge PVR-350
- Hauppauge PVR-350
place holder
.
Hauppauge PVR-500
- Hauppauge PVR-500
On the moosy flickr page you find some screenshots of mythtv-setup for a pvr500.
. .
Digital Video capture card (TV-in)
..
Configuration Tips
- TROUBLESHOOT/CONFIGURATION TIPS
Todo: generic tips for DVB users. What needs tobe checked when working with DVB, where are files stored. See the analogue section for inspiration
1.) Check (and update) the hardware specific section on the mythTV wiki
Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T500 PCI
- WinTV_Nova-T_500_PCI
place holder
.
Connect your system to a TV
You can use several different types of connections to connect your mythTV frontend PC to a TV. The S-Video cable works well with most standard TVs. The picture below explains the different types of connections that can be used to connect yout TV.
The type of output your PC's video card can do, and the type of inputs your TV can handle are primarily what dictates what you should use to connect them. From highest- to lowest-quality, the order of consideration is: HDMI, DVI (both of which are digital), VGA, Component, S-Video and finally Composite (all of the rest are analog).
.
.
ATI/AMD
Todo: Describe howto use the ATI repository to install the fglrx driver - wait for opensuse.org and the new driver
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
NVIDIA
Todo: Describe howto use the NVIDIA repository to install the driver - wait for opensuse.org and the new driver
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Hauppauge PVR-350
- Hauppauge PVR-350
place holder
Wireless Keyboard
Once your Myth box has been setup you wont need to use your keyboard that much. Many users will often just SSH into their machine or use a remote desktop such as VNC to get access. Of course its also nice to have a keyboard directly connected, in which case a wireless keyboard is preferred. Have a look at the section on Wireless Keyboards to see which ones work.
.Network Interfaces
The main reason you will connect your mythTV box to the internet is because MythTV gets its program guide data over the Internet. If you don't happen to have ethernet cables around your house, you could use wireless (WiFi).
To configure your network wired or wireless card in YaST, select Network Devices>Network Card. After starting the module, YaST displays a general network configuration dialog. Choose whether to use YaST or NetworkManager to manage all your network devices. If you want to configure your network in the traditional way with the YaST, check Traditional Method with ifup and click Next. To use NetworkManager, check User Controlled with NetworkManager and click Next.
ndiswrapper 1.47
madwifi 0.9.3.99
iwlwifi 0.1.9x - Intel Wireless Link WiFi drivers
- Madwifi
- TIPS FOR INSTALLATION
The chipset is what determines which driver you need, not the manufacturer of the card. Here are a number of ways to find out. All the commands should be run as root.
Try this.
hwinfo --wlan
Otherwise use this command if you have a pcmcia card or an onboard card:
lspci
Or this if you have a usb card:
lsusb
This won't output very detailed information, but it'll give you a unique hardware ID, for example 046d:c01b. Search for it with Google or another internet search engine to find out which chipset is on the device.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Configure mythTV server components (mythbackend)
The server components within mythTV are referred to as the mythbackend.
Because the configuration of the mythTV application itself is not openSUSE specific, you find mainly links to the information.
http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInstall mythtv.org Documentation
Start required services
Make sure all required system services are running on startup: As root start 'yast2 runlevel' and enabel the following services and click OK after popup dialog
- ntp
- mysql
Notice there is a mythbackend option, would suggest that you do not enable "mythbackend" just yet, until you have tried running in a terminal window as below. If all steps below work then enable this to run.
Tip: On openSUSE, you can manually add things to
/etc/init.d/boot.local
, that should happen directly after bootingCreate the database (mysql)
mythTV uses MySQL to store store it's settings, listings, recording schedules, and other information. So we have to make sure openSUSE starts MySQL when it boots, and we have to initialize the database with some basic information that mythTV can work with. The database is probably the most important component of mythTV because without it, absolutely none of mythTV can function.
openSUSE 10.3 ships with mysql 5.0.45 (A True Multiuser, Multithreaded SQL Database Server)
- TROUBLESHOOT/CONFIGURATION TIPS
1.) The MySQL deamon (mysql) is not started automatically by default after a reboot. As root start 'yast2 runlevel', select mysql and make sure it's started at boot time.
2.) Create the database If the database is not started, start mysql (as root) by typing
/etc/init.d/mysql start
Watch for errors. Set up a root password by typing
mysqladmin -u root password <yourpasswordhere>
Once MySQL is setup, install the mythTV Database. This is done by running:
mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/doc/packages/mythtv-doc/database/mc.sql
(and key-in the previously entered password) You should see no output - this is a good thing!
By default, the database is named mythconverg and contains a set of tables that interact with one-another.
Tip: make the database multi user, so you can access it from more than 1 machine:
mysql -u root -p mythconverg
You will then be connected directly to the database. Enter the following commands at the mysql> prompt.
mysql> grant all on mythconverg.* to mythtv@"%" identified by "mythtv"; mysql> flush privileges; mysql> quit;
MythTV backend setup application (mythtv-setup)
.
- NOTE
As root start 'yast2 runlevel', select mythbackend and make sure it's started at boot time.
Add TV listings to your system (XMLTV)
The most difficult part of installing/configuring MythTV is getting the data, name and frequency of all the channels in the database. Since there must be more MythTV users in your area, chances are that someone already did this. So check the country specific information and with some luck you can import a setup file to your database.
The program guide in mythTV is a listing of TV shows that you receive over the network.
XMLTV is a set of utilities to transfer and store EPG (Electronic Program Guide) in a XML format.
It's good to understand the following components before you begin:
- XMLTV Grabber = country specific module to grab EPG (Electronic Program Guide) info from a source and translates it to XML format.
- XMLTV ID = Value that exists in the XMLTV data and in the Channel table. It's the link/mapping to get the information on the correct channel.
- CHANNELS = Your TV channels, with their channel number and frequencies as defined in mythtv-setup
- CHANNEL_ICONS = Bitmaps that are displayed by mythfrontend as a graphical representation of the channel. (example: CNN logo)
- mythfilldatabase = An mythTV application that uses the XMLTV grabber that you defined in mythtv-setup and stores the information in the MySQL database.
The most essential data in your database is the channel mapping: The mythconverg_channel table in the database links/maps the following information channel number frequency name of the channel XMLTV number Without this information the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) can not work.
The first thing you should do to get listings into the database is to set up your channels. In mythtv-setup, after you have set up your card, you can configure a video source based on your geographic location. The video source config page has a field for "grabber"; select your country there and mythTV will be ready to run a program called "mythfilldatabase" that will use XMLTV and tv_grab_XX, where XX is your country specific method.Country specific information Netherlands, North America, UK, more
Tip: For some countries, providers, areas there are channel.sql files available that hold all channels and frequencies for your area and that can be imported directly into the mySQL database. See the XMLTV page for more details about your country specific information.
Different countries and providers have different ways of configuring XMLTV.
to see specifics for your country about XMLTV and the EPG:
- TROUBLESHOOT/CONFIGURATION TIPS
Todo: generic tips (not country specific) about home/.xmltv and home/.mythtv, the mythfilldatabase process etc,
TV Channels and XMLTV ID
add some links to the important sections on this wiki
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Shutdown and wakeup the machine
Most mythTV systems do not need to run 24 by 7. To reduce heat, noise and power consumption there are several ways to shut your machine down when it's not doing anything.
Your options:
- Manual shutdown and start your machine
- AC time switch and a script
A simple AC power switch, that you can purchase for a few euros can do magic. Configure a cronjob that shutdown your machine at midnight and set the a AC power switch to start the machine the next day.
- Wake on LAN
Most machines with a build-in Network Interface Card (NIC) can wake up and startup by a simple IP package. Wake on LAN is controlled by another machine in your network that determines when your machines should startup.
- Wake by BIOS
More or less any modern machine should have a function for time-controlled booting in the bios. The problem is how to change the wakeup time for time-controlled power up your mythTV box. There are two ways to this on Linux.
Warning: Beginning with kernel 2.6.22 /proc/acpi/alarm has been removed and replaced with /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm. This needs tobe tested with 10.3, think you also need todo a modprobe rtc-core to get this working. If you got this working, please describe your steps.
a.) NVRAM - direct poking in the BIOS memory and not recommended
b.) ACPI - a much better and standard way to switch on a computer a a preset time. Your BIOS and motherboard need good support in the kernel.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Enable web based database administration (phpMyAdmin)
phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web.
- Verify that all required packages are installed
Required packages:
yast2-http-server, apache2, apache2-mod-php5, phpmyadmin
You can quickly check if the package is already installed with the following command
rpm -qa | grep phpmyadmin
- Activate the Rewrite Server Module for the Apache HTTP server
The Rewrite Server Module provides a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. By default it's turned off and you need to turn it on. Start YaST and goto the HTTP server menu (commandline: yast2 http-server) follow the menu's by next,next,next,next and click the HTTP Server Expert Configuration, here you see a tab with 'Server Modules' The Rewrite module is disabled by default - Enable this option
phpMyAdmin is installed in
/srv/www/htdocs/phpMyAdmin
- Configure phpMyAdmin's authentication mechanism
cd /srv/www/htdocs/phpMyAdmin cp config.sample.inc.php config.inc.php pico config.inc.php
look for
/* Authentication type */ $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
Change
cookie
tohtml
Now you can start phpMyAdmin from your browser and login with your user username and password:
http://ipaddress/phpMyAdmin/
Todo: We need to say anything about security and howto make this secure when using it outside the firewall, please add
.Enable web based client (apache, mythweb)
Make sure the following packages are installed
yast2-http-server, apache2, apache2-mod-php5
You can quickly check if the package is already installed with the following command
rpm -qa | grep apache
- Activate the required server module for the Apache HTTP server
The Rewrite Server Module provides a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. By default it's turned off and you need to turn it on. The Environment Servre Module modifies the environment passed to CGI scripts and SSI pages
Start YaST and goto the HTTP server menu (commandline: yast2 http-server) follow the menu's by next,next,next,next and click the HTTP Server Expert Configuration, here you see a tab with 'Server Modules'
The Rewrite module is disabled by default - Enable this option
The Env module is disabled by default - Enable this option
- Securing mythweb
If you plan to open your mythweb to the internet, you should seriously consider securing it. That and more information can be found here. Follow the section specifically for openSUSE here
Tip: You can access your MythWeb remotely if you know your IP address. However, if you are a DHCP client, your IP will probably change. To resolve the issue of having an IP address that is constantly changing, you can sign up for an account with a dynamic DNS site (such as http://www.yi.org) and create a unique unchanging hostname that can be forwarded to your IP address - even if it changes.
Use and configure mythTV clients (frontends)
Watch and record TV (mythfrontend)
Don't think you need a manual for this
.Schedule a recording remotely over the internet (mythweb)
- Configuration
Please see enable web based client in this article
- Using
.......
.View your photos (mythGallery)
MythTV allows you to view all your photos as well as short movies from your digital camera. Myth Gallery will show your photos as they are organised in your file system. Myth will generate thumbnails of both folders as well as individual photos. Many new digital cameras can now take high quality movies typically in MPEG-4 format as well as photos. Mythgallery can show these as well, provided that you have the video player setting set up to play that media type.
- Configure mythgallery
Configuration is done from the MythFrontend in the setup menu.
- Download pictures from your digital camera
When import is pressed in the menu, files can be automatically be copied from your camera to the mythTV filesystem. This works if your camera is automounted as a filesystem. Camera's that are not accessible as a filesystem can use the gphoto2 utility to get the pictures of the camera.
Sample script used for a Canon IXUS Camera:
# The name of the new directory, eg 2005-09-15.11:30 dir=`date +'%F.%R'` # Make the new directory in my picture directory mkdir /data/pictures/$dir # Go into the new directory cd /data/pictures/$dir # Copy pictures from the camera to the current directory gphoto2 -P cd .. # Remove empty directories rmdir 200* # Remove the pictures from the camera # gphoto2 -D -R
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
.
Enjoy your videos (mythVideo)
- Organize and play stored video content other than TV recordings. This can include ripped DVD's and downloaded video clips
- Watch your movies with integrated IMdB information and ranking
- Integrate with your digital video camera
MythVideo allows for cataloging and playback of a variety of video file formats. It can perform automatic meta data look ups on IMDB as well as retrieve poster artwork.MythDVD - ripping DVDs
- TROUBLESHOOT/CONFIGURATION TIPS
Players - MythTV has a build in player that can do most of the work. You can also use Mplayer, Xine or any other media player.
1.) MPlayer and subtitle fontsIf MPlayer does not display subtitles (srt files) or the font is to small. MPlayer can search in 2 directories for it's fonts for subtitles:
download the recommended subtitle fonts from
Prerendered fonts: http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/fonts/font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2 Additional fonts: http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/fonts/
There are 4 different size in the tar file. Select your preferred font size and save the files in: ~/.player/.font
2.) XINE and remote controlIf your remote control does not work with XINE, check if remote controlled is enabled in the package.
ldd /usr/bin/xine|grep lirc
Solution: compile XINE from source with support for remote control
.Listen to your music (mythMusic)
See the mythtv.org Documentation about MythMusic and MythMusic
.Burning CDs/DVDs (mythArchive)
Burn your recordings or other files to CD or DVD.
Make sure your user is member of the cdrom group
Browse the web (mythBrowser)
Stay up to date with the latest news and weather information (mythNews/mythWeather)
Take it with you (mythArchive, ipodexport)
Transfer media to your portable players
- Watch it on your remote laptop (Mytharchive)
.
Watch and listen in other places in your house
Not only TV, but full access to all media from a second or third device in your house:
- a second linux based frontend
.Play games (mythGame)
.Tips and Tricks
General troubleshooting
To display all output information:
mythfrontend -v all
- LOG FILES
A good first step when things aren't working right is to take a look at the log files. There are several that may help, depending on what problem you're having. Some logs can be displayed from the frontend, for others you'll need to either ssh into your box or open a terminal and cat the log so you can see it.
cat /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log cat /var/log/syslog cat /var/log/mysqld/mysqld.log
Update your system
Be careful with YaST system updates and remember: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" and "hours can disappear for no reason at all.". When you upgrade to a new kernel all components that are compiled (installed) manually can break and need to be re-compiled with the new kernel version.
.
Database maintenance
Todo: backup, restore, fix, phpmyadmin. See this Opensuse_10.3#Enable_web_based_database_administration_.28phpmyadmin.29
- Backup the mythTV database
- Only backup the channels and frequencies
mysqldump --skip-opt --where "freqid is not null" -u mythtv -p mythconverg channel > mydump.sql
- Complete backup of the database
$mysqldump -u mythtv -p mythtv mythconverg -c > mythtv_backup.sql
- Restore the mythTV database
assuming that you've dropped the database
$ mysql -u root mysql>create database mythconverg; mysql>exit $ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg < mythtv_backup.sql
.- Fix the mythTV database
In the mythtv-contrib directory there is a Perl script to run MYSQL utilities Repair and Optimize on each table in your MythTV database. It is recomended to run it daily from a cron job.
First make sure it is executable:
chmod 755 /usr/share/doc/packages/mythtv-doc/contrib/optimize_mythdb.pl
Execute:
/usr/share/doc/packages/mythtv-doc/contrib/optimize_mythdb.pl
run with your daily cron jobs
Performance tips
Here are some tips to increase the speed of your machine:
- FREE UP MEMORY
1.) Don't load KDE or GNOME or other windows manager on your frontend, use mythfrontend At login, select session and select mythTV as your shell (session manager). gnome or kde is not started, this will save memory
The display manager can be set with the GUI at login or change it manually in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager
DISPLAYMANAGER_AUTOLOGIN = "mythtv"
2.) disable services that you don't use
- DISK RELATED
1.) Use the correct file system
Add IMDB ratings to the Electronic Program Guide
Create rules that automatically record for you
Sample scripts and script tips
- Contributed scripts
mythTV comes with a set of user contributed scripts. They are located in the
/usr/share/doc/packages/mythtv-doc/contrib
directory.
Tip: The mythrename script renames your recodings and gives them more logical names. It also can create links (with a logical name) to the recordings.
I use this to create links to the mythVideo folder so I get all imdb info. and a movie cover. All movies that I record are saved in the 'Movies' recording group (create this group in mythfrontend)
./mythrename.pl --link /data/temp --format %U-%T %- %Y-%m-%d, %g-%i %A %- %S mv /data/temp/Movie* /data/movies
When the recordings are deleted, the links are not deleted. The following command removes the broken links
find /data/movies -type l
- Sample mysql query
List all recordings from a terminal. (assuming username=mythtv, password=mythtv)
mysql -umythtv -pmythtv mythconverg -e 'SELECT title, basename, starttime, commflagged FROM `recorded` ';
User Experiences
Moosy Started this page in aug 2007 working with Beta 2.