Difference between revisions of "User Manual:Utilities and Setup"

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(Divided up into subchapters.)
 
(Divided up into subchapters.)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{Navigate|User Manual:Detailed configuration Backend|User Manual:Index|User Manual:Daily Use}}
 
{{Navigate|User Manual:Detailed configuration Backend|User Manual:Index|User Manual:Daily Use}}
 +
 +
==Music Tools==
 +
 +
==Video Manager==
 +
 +
==Setup==
 +
 +
===General===
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====Database Configuration 1/2====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Database Configuration 1/2''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Hostname
 +
| align="center" |127.0.0.1
 +
|The hostname or IP address of the machine hosting the database. This information is required
 +
|If you are running a single combined backend and frontend, then leave this at its default value of 127.0.0.1. This is often referred to as the local loopback IP address. If you have multiple frontends connecting to this backend then you will need to set this address to the same address as the its real IP address eg 192.168.2.11 as it appears on your network. If you have a DNS Server running on your network you can just put the hostname eg "MythBackend". Your DNS Server will translate this to its real IP address.
 +
|-
 +
|Database
 +
| align="center" |mythconverg
 +
|The name of the database. This information is required
 +
|This is the name of the database the MythTV backend uses to store information.  Normally you should not need to change this. However, you may choose to have different databases for different reasons, for example, a test database so you can check out configurations, and then put this back to mythconverg later, or a different database depending on user, so each user can have their own look and feel.
 +
|-
 +
|User
 +
| align="center" |mythtv
 +
|The user name to use while connecting to the database. This information is required
 +
|You should not have to change this from its default.
 +
|-
 +
|Password
 +
| align="center" |mythtv
 +
|The password to use while connecting to the database. This information is required
 +
|Change this to suit your system
 +
|-
 +
|Database type
 +
| align="center" |MySql
 +
|The database implementation used for your server
 +
|MySql is an Opensource database used by MythTV to hold all of its internal information.
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
 +
====Database Configuration 2/2====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Database Configuration 2/2''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Custom Identifier for Frontend Preference
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|If this frontend's hostname changes often, check this box and provide a network-unique name to identify it. If unchecked, the frontend machine's local hostname will be used to save preferences in the database.
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|-
 +
|Use Wake-on-LAN to Wake Database
 +
| align="center"|Unchecked
 +
|If checked, the frontend will use Wake-On-LAN parameters to reconnect to the database server (Mythbackend)
 +
|Wake-On-LAN is an ACPI option that allows your machine to powerup based on activity on the network. You need to makes sure that your machine supports ACPI correctly for this to work. You can use this remotely activate your machine for instance when you are at work.
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
 +
====Audio====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Audio''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Audio output device
 +
| align="center" |/dev/dsp
 +
|Blank
 +
|This is the sound card that you want to use.
 +
To specify an <b>ALSA</b> device, use the format <tt>ALSA:<i>device</i></tt> (where <tt><i>device</i></tt> is a valid ALSA device such as spdif; iec958; default; hw::0,0; plughw:0,0; etc.).  For example, <tt>ALSA:spdif</tt>.
 +
<br>You can find out which ALSA devices you have available, with the command
 +
::<code>aplay -l</code>
 +
|-
 +
|Enable AC3 to SPDIF passthrough
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|Enable sending AC3 audio directly to your sound card's SPDIF output. on sources which contain AC3 soundtracks (usually digital tv). Requires that the sudio output device be set to something suitable
 +
|AC3 is Dolby Digital surround([[wikipedia:AC3]]). You will need to connect your Myth box to your surround receiver via a Optical or coaxial connector. Raw AC3 Stream is passed through to your receiver which will decode the surround. This is the preferred method for best audio quality, and also takes the audio processing load from your machine.
 +
 +
For more information on setting up digital audio, see the [[Configuring Digital Sound]] page.
 +
|-
 +
|Agressive soundcard buffering
 +
| align="center" |Off
 +
|If enabled, MythTV will pretend to have a smaller sound card buffer than is really present.  This may speed up seeking, but can also cause playback problems.
 +
|Where users have reported Audio stutter problems, enabling this setting seems to help.
 +
|-
 +
|Use Internal Volume Controls
 +
| align="center" |On
 +
|MythTV can control the PCM and master mixer volume.  If you prefer to use an external mixer program, then disable this option.
 +
|Lightens the CPU's load when disabled. You may also want to disable this if you are using AC3 output as vol control will now be done by your surround amplifier or reciever
 +
|-
 +
|Select mixer device
 +
| align="center" |/dev/mixer
 +
|Blank
 +
|Your system will have an Mixer device that combines multiple channels of audio input and controls the volumne independantly on each of these. There will also be a master volumne that controls the output off all the inputs at the same time.
 +
|-
 +
|Mixer Controls
 +
| align="center" |PCM
 +
|Changing the volume adjusts the selected mixer.
 +
|Options are: PCM and Master.
 +
|-
 +
|Master mixer volume 0-100 (selects volume level)
 +
| align="center" |70
 +
|Initial volume for the Master Mixer.  This affects all sound created by the soundcard.  Note: Do not set this too low.
 +
|This will control the overall sound level output from your sound card.
 +
|-
 +
|PCM mixer volume 0-100 (selects volume level)
 +
| align="center" |70
 +
|Initial volume for PCM output.  Using the volume keys in MythTV will adjust this parameter.
 +
|The Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) input is where Mythtv will send the audio from your TV Card. This sets the initial volume level for this.
 +
|-
 +
|Independent muting of left and right audio channels
 +
| align="center" |Off
 +
|Enable muting of just the left or right channel.  Useful if your broadcaster puts the original language on one channel, and a dubbed version of the program on the other one.  This modifies the behavior of the Mute key.
 +
|Broadcasters in Europe often will use the left and right channels to send simultaneous language audio on the same transmission. You will often see this on Eurosport for instance, where German and english are sent at the same time. Muting one or the other channel will select the language you want to here.
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
 +
====General (page 4)====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''General (page 4)''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|System Exit Key
 +
| align="center"|ESC (Escape)
 +
|MythTV is designed to run continuously.  If you wish, you may use the ESC key or the ESC key + a modifier to exit MythTV.  Do not choose a key combination that will be intercepted by your window manager.
 +
|Possible values are:
 +
*ESC
 +
*No exit key
 +
*Control-ESC
 +
*Meta-ESC
 +
*Alt-ESC
 +
|-
 +
|Confirm Exit (Checkbox)
 +
| align="center"|On
 +
|When enabled, MythTV will prompt for confirmation when you press the System Exit key.
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|-
 +
|Halt Command
 +
| align="center"|halt
 +
|If you have configured an exit key using the System Shutdown option, you will be given the opportunity to exit MythTV or halt the system completely.  Another possibility for this field is "poweroff".
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|-
 +
|Keypress Command
 +
| align="center"|(none)
 +
|External application or script to run when a keypress is received by LIRC.
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|-
 +
|Use Arrow Key Accelerators
 +
| align="center"|On
 +
|If enabled, Arrow key accelerators will be used, with LEF performing an exit action and RIGHT selecting the current item.
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====General (page 5)====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''General (page 5)''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Require setup PIN
 +
| align="center" |Off
 +
|If set, you will not be able to return to this screen and reset the Setup PIN without first entering the current PIN.
 +
|MythTV setup can be locked so that you dont have tampering fingers change things while you are out. This tells the system that a PIN will be required to access the configuration screen.
 +
|-
 +
|Setup PIN Code
 +
| align="center" |(none)
 +
|This PIN is used to control access to the setup menus.  If you want to use this feature, then setting the value to all numbers will make your life much easier.  Set it blank to disable.
 +
|Tell the system what the security PIN is here. Dont forget to write it down somewhere so you dnt forget. Or backup your database before you set the PIN so you can restore incase you forget.
 +
|-
 +
|Monitor CD/DVD
 +
| align="center" |Off
 +
|This enables support for monitoring your CD/DVD drives for new disks and launching the proper plugin to handle them.
 +
|You can set the system up to auto launch DVD or CD playback on insertion. Many new distros as of 2006 will hav ethis feature.
 +
|-
 +
|Enable X-box Hardware
 +
| align="center" |Disabled
 +
|This enables support for Xbox Specific hardware. Requires a frontend restart for changes to take effect.
 +
|Enabling this option will add another button to the settings menu allowing configuration of your Xbox LED. You will need the Blink program from the xbox-linux project, which is installed as /bin/led on GentooX and /usr/bin/blink on Xebian.  (Type which blink to see if the program is available.) If you do not have blink, you may obtain it from the Xbox-Linux project site at http://xbox-linux.sf.net/.
 +
 +
Once you have installed blink you will need to set permissions. blink needs write permission to the i2c device to function properly. There are three methods to accomplish this. First, you could run mythfrontend as root, which is the simplest method, but could potentially be a security risk. Next, you may make the blink binary setuid root, which allows non-privileged users to run a program with root capability. This is done by typing the command:
 +
    $ su
 +
    # chmod u+s /path/to/blink
 +
If you select GentooX as the distribution led will be used as the blink binary name, otherwise, blink is used. Colors should be self explanatory. The update interval determines how often the frontend should poll the backend to determine if the status has changed.
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
 +
====Myth Database Logging====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Myth Database Logging''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Log MythTV events to database<br> (checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|If enabled, MythTV modules will send event details to the database , where they can be viewed with MythLog or periodically emailed to the administrator.
 +
 +
|-
 +
|Log Print Threshold
 +
| align="center" |All Messages
 +
|This controls what messages will be printed out as well as being logged to the database.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Automatic Log Cleaning Enabled<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|This enables the periodic cleanup of the events stored in the Myth database (see "Log MythTV events to database").
 +
 +
|-
 +
|Log Cleanup Frequency (days)
 +
| align="center" |14
 +
|The number of days between log cleanup runs.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Number of days to keep acknowledged log entries
 +
| align="center" |14
 +
|The numer of days before a log entry that has been acknowledged will be deleted by the log cleanup process.
 +
 +
|-
 +
|Number of days to keep unacknowledged log entries
 +
| align="center" |30
 +
|The number of days before a log entry that has NOT been acknowldged will be deleted by the log cleanup process.
 +
 +
|-
 +
|Maximimum Number of Entries per Module
 +
| align="center" |100
 +
|If there are more than this number of entries for a module, the oldest log entries will be deleted to reduce the count to this number.  Set to 0 to disable.
 +
|
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====Mythfilldatabase====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Mythfilldatabase''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Automatically run mythfilldatabase<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center"|Checked
 +
|This enables the automatic execution of mythfilldatabase.
 +
|mythfilldatabase will populate the database with channel information after you do your channel scan in mythtv-setup. In the case of EIT based channel information this is not required.
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Path
 +
| align="center"|mythfilldatabase
 +
|Path (including executable) of the mythfilldatabase program.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Arguments
 +
| align="center"|(none)
 +
|Any arguments you want passed to the mythfilldatabase program.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Log Path
 +
| align="center"|(none)
 +
|Path to use for logging output from the mythfilldatabase program.  Leave blank to disable logging.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Run Frequency (days)
 +
| align="center"|1
 +
|The number of days between mythfilldatabase runs.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Execution Start
 +
| align="center"|2
 +
|This setting and the following one define a time period when the mythfilldatabase process is allowed to run.  For example, setting Start to 11 and End to 13 woud mean that the process would only run between 11 Am and 1 PM.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|-
 +
|mythfilldatabase Execution End
 +
| align="center"|5
 +
|This setting and the preceding one define a time period when the mythfilldatabase process is allowed to run.  For example, setting Start to 11 and End to 13 woud mean that the process would only run between 11 Am and 1 PM.
 +
|<i>Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.</i>
 +
|}
 +
 +
===Appearance===
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====Theme====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Theme''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Theme
 +
| align="center" |Blue
 +
|(none)
 +
|You can find more about themes on this page: [http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Themes Category:Themes]
 +
|-
 +
|Qt style
 +
| align="center" |PUT IN THE DEFAULT HERE
 +
|At startup, MythTV will change the QT widget style to this setting.  If "Desktop Style" is selected, MythTV will use the existing desktop setting.
 +
|You can see many of the available styles [http://doc.trolltech.com/4.1/gallery.html here].
 +
|-
 +
|Font size
 +
| align="center" |default
 +
|default: TV, small: monitor, big:
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Use random theme <br>(Checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|Use a random theme each time MythTV is started
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Menu theme
 +
| align="center" |Default
 +
|(none)
 +
|This gives you two choices on how the menus are laid out in the MythTV user interface.  The content of the two choices is the same, but the terminology (ex. "Optical Disks" vs. "DVD") and organization of the menus is different. 
 +
 +
This document is based on the "Default" setting.
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
 +
====Screen settings====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Screen Settings''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|GUI width(px)
 +
| align="center" |0
 +
|The width of the GUI.  DO not make the GUI wider than your actual screen resolution.  Set to 0 to automatically scale to fullscreen.
 +
|Width in pixels of window that myth uses.
 +
 +
A normal TV (without MythTV) has a 5%-10% overscan.  In other words, 5%-10% of the image is past the visible edges of the screen.  If you adjust your MythTV box's output to overscan your display device, and uncheck "Use GUI size for TV playback" (below), you can use this and the following 3 GUI size and position settings to shrink the GUI so that the GUI is not overscanned (and you can see all of it).
 +
|-
 +
|GUI height
 +
| align="center" |0
 +
|The height of the GUI.  DO not make the GUI taller than your actual screen resolution.  Set to 0 to automatically scale to fullscreen.
 +
|<i>see Gui width(px)</i>
 +
|-
 +
|X offset
 +
| align="center"|0
 +
|The horizontal offset the GUI will be displayed at.  May only work if run in a window.
 +
|<i>see Gui width(px)</i>
 +
|-
 +
|Y offset
 +
| align="center" |0
 +
|The vertical offset the GUI will be displayed at.
 +
||<i>see Gui width(px)</i>
 +
|-
 +
|Use GUI size for TV playback<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Checked
 +
|If enabled, use the above size for TV, otherwise use full screen.
 +
|<i>see Gui width(px)</i>
 +
|-
 +
|Hide Mouse Cursor in Myth<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Checked
 +
|Toggles mouse cursor visibility.  Most of the Myth GUI does not respond to mouse clicks, this is only to avoid "losing" your mouse cursor.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Run the frontend in a window<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Unchecked
 +
|Toggle between windowed an borderless operation.
 +
|
 +
|}
 +
 +
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====Localization====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''Localization''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|Language
 +
| align="center" |English
 +
|Your preferred language.
 +
|Choices are:
 +
*English
 +
*Italiano
 +
*Catala
 +
*Espanol
 +
*Nederlands
 +
*Francais
 +
*Deutsch
 +
*Dansk
 +
*Svenska
 +
*Portugues
 +
*Nihongo
 +
*Slovenski
 +
*Suomi
 +
*Hanzi (Traditional)
 +
|-
 +
|Date format
 +
| align="center" |Sat Jan 31
 +
|Your preferred date format.
 +
|Choices are:
 +
*Sat Jan 31
 +
*Sat January 31
 +
*Jan 31
 +
*01/31
 +
*01.31
 +
*Sat 31 Jan
 +
*31.01.2004
 +
*2004-01-31
 +
|-
 +
|Short Date format
 +
| align="center" |1/31
 +
|Your preferred short date format.
 +
|Choices are:
 +
*1/31
 +
*31/1
 +
*01/31
 +
*31/01
 +
*01.31
 +
*31.1.
 +
*31.01.
 +
*01-31
 +
*Sat 31
 +
*31 Sat
 +
*Sat 1/31
 +
*1/31 Sat
 +
|-
 +
|Time format
 +
| align="center" |6:56 AM
 +
|Your preferred time format.  Choose a format with "AP" in it for an AM/PM display, otherwise your time display will be 24-hour or "military" time.
 +
|Choices are:
 +
*6:56 AM
 +
*6:56 am
 +
*06:56 AM
 +
*06:56 am
 +
*6:56
 +
*06:56
 +
<i>Note: On page description is incorrect, it should read Choose a format with "AM"...</i>
 +
|}
 +
 +
<font color="#FFFFFF">
 +
====QT====
 +
<font color="#000000">
 +
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center"
 +
| colspan="4" align="center" style="background: #efefef;" | <font size="5"> '''QT''' </font>
 +
|-
 +
! |Setting
 +
! |Default Value
 +
! |Settings Page's Description
 +
! |Additional Comments
 +
|-
 +
|"Small" font
 +
| align="center" |12
 +
|Default size is 12.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|"Medium" font
 +
| align="center" |16
 +
|Default size is 16
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|"Big" font
 +
| align="center" |25
 +
|Default size is 25.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Use Transparent Boxes<br>(checkbox)
 +
| align="center" |Checked
 +
|If enabled, the Watch Recording and Delete Recordin screens will use transparency.  Disable if selecting the recordings is slow due to high CPU usage.
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|Popup Background Shading Method
 +
| align="center" |Fill
 +
|"Fill" is the quickest shading method.  <br>"Image" is somewhat slow, but has a higher visual quality. <br> No shading will be the fastest.
 +
|
 +
|}
 +
 +
===LCD device display ===
 +
 +
====Enable LCD device====
 +
{| border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5
 +
|Default Setting
 +
|PUT IN THE DEFAULT HERE
 +
|-
 +
|On Page Description
 +
|Copy the description on the page Here
 +
|-
 +
|Detailed Description and Comments
 +
|This is the meat of the subject
 +
|}

Revision as of 04:36, 19 February 2006

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Music Tools

Video Manager

Setup

General

Database Configuration 1/2

Database Configuration 1/2
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Hostname 127.0.0.1 The hostname or IP address of the machine hosting the database. This information is required If you are running a single combined backend and frontend, then leave this at its default value of 127.0.0.1. This is often referred to as the local loopback IP address. If you have multiple frontends connecting to this backend then you will need to set this address to the same address as the its real IP address eg 192.168.2.11 as it appears on your network. If you have a DNS Server running on your network you can just put the hostname eg "MythBackend". Your DNS Server will translate this to its real IP address.
Database mythconverg The name of the database. This information is required This is the name of the database the MythTV backend uses to store information. Normally you should not need to change this. However, you may choose to have different databases for different reasons, for example, a test database so you can check out configurations, and then put this back to mythconverg later, or a different database depending on user, so each user can have their own look and feel.
User mythtv The user name to use while connecting to the database. This information is required You should not have to change this from its default.
Password mythtv The password to use while connecting to the database. This information is required Change this to suit your system
Database type MySql The database implementation used for your server MySql is an Opensource database used by MythTV to hold all of its internal information.

Database Configuration 2/2

Database Configuration 2/2
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Custom Identifier for Frontend Preference Unchecked If this frontend's hostname changes often, check this box and provide a network-unique name to identify it. If unchecked, the frontend machine's local hostname will be used to save preferences in the database. This is the meat of the subject
Use Wake-on-LAN to Wake Database Unchecked If checked, the frontend will use Wake-On-LAN parameters to reconnect to the database server (Mythbackend) Wake-On-LAN is an ACPI option that allows your machine to powerup based on activity on the network. You need to makes sure that your machine supports ACPI correctly for this to work. You can use this remotely activate your machine for instance when you are at work.

Audio

Audio
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Audio output device /dev/dsp Blank This is the sound card that you want to use.

To specify an ALSA device, use the format ALSA:device (where device is a valid ALSA device such as spdif; iec958; default; hw::0,0; plughw:0,0; etc.). For example, ALSA:spdif.
You can find out which ALSA devices you have available, with the command

aplay -l
Enable AC3 to SPDIF passthrough Unchecked Enable sending AC3 audio directly to your sound card's SPDIF output. on sources which contain AC3 soundtracks (usually digital tv). Requires that the sudio output device be set to something suitable AC3 is Dolby Digital surround(wikipedia:AC3). You will need to connect your Myth box to your surround receiver via a Optical or coaxial connector. Raw AC3 Stream is passed through to your receiver which will decode the surround. This is the preferred method for best audio quality, and also takes the audio processing load from your machine.

For more information on setting up digital audio, see the Configuring Digital Sound page.

Agressive soundcard buffering Off If enabled, MythTV will pretend to have a smaller sound card buffer than is really present. This may speed up seeking, but can also cause playback problems. Where users have reported Audio stutter problems, enabling this setting seems to help.
Use Internal Volume Controls On MythTV can control the PCM and master mixer volume. If you prefer to use an external mixer program, then disable this option. Lightens the CPU's load when disabled. You may also want to disable this if you are using AC3 output as vol control will now be done by your surround amplifier or reciever
Select mixer device /dev/mixer Blank Your system will have an Mixer device that combines multiple channels of audio input and controls the volumne independantly on each of these. There will also be a master volumne that controls the output off all the inputs at the same time.
Mixer Controls PCM Changing the volume adjusts the selected mixer. Options are: PCM and Master.
Master mixer volume 0-100 (selects volume level) 70 Initial volume for the Master Mixer. This affects all sound created by the soundcard. Note: Do not set this too low. This will control the overall sound level output from your sound card.
PCM mixer volume 0-100 (selects volume level) 70 Initial volume for PCM output. Using the volume keys in MythTV will adjust this parameter. The Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) input is where Mythtv will send the audio from your TV Card. This sets the initial volume level for this.
Independent muting of left and right audio channels Off Enable muting of just the left or right channel. Useful if your broadcaster puts the original language on one channel, and a dubbed version of the program on the other one. This modifies the behavior of the Mute key. Broadcasters in Europe often will use the left and right channels to send simultaneous language audio on the same transmission. You will often see this on Eurosport for instance, where German and english are sent at the same time. Muting one or the other channel will select the language you want to here.

General (page 4)

General (page 4)
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
System Exit Key ESC (Escape) MythTV is designed to run continuously. If you wish, you may use the ESC key or the ESC key + a modifier to exit MythTV. Do not choose a key combination that will be intercepted by your window manager. Possible values are:
  • ESC
  • No exit key
  • Control-ESC
  • Meta-ESC
  • Alt-ESC
Confirm Exit (Checkbox) On When enabled, MythTV will prompt for confirmation when you press the System Exit key. This is the meat of the subject
Halt Command halt If you have configured an exit key using the System Shutdown option, you will be given the opportunity to exit MythTV or halt the system completely. Another possibility for this field is "poweroff". This is the meat of the subject
Keypress Command (none) External application or script to run when a keypress is received by LIRC. This is the meat of the subject
Use Arrow Key Accelerators On If enabled, Arrow key accelerators will be used, with LEF performing an exit action and RIGHT selecting the current item. This is the meat of the subject

General (page 5)

General (page 5)
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Require setup PIN Off If set, you will not be able to return to this screen and reset the Setup PIN without first entering the current PIN. MythTV setup can be locked so that you dont have tampering fingers change things while you are out. This tells the system that a PIN will be required to access the configuration screen.
Setup PIN Code (none) This PIN is used to control access to the setup menus. If you want to use this feature, then setting the value to all numbers will make your life much easier. Set it blank to disable. Tell the system what the security PIN is here. Dont forget to write it down somewhere so you dnt forget. Or backup your database before you set the PIN so you can restore incase you forget.
Monitor CD/DVD Off This enables support for monitoring your CD/DVD drives for new disks and launching the proper plugin to handle them. You can set the system up to auto launch DVD or CD playback on insertion. Many new distros as of 2006 will hav ethis feature.
Enable X-box Hardware Disabled This enables support for Xbox Specific hardware. Requires a frontend restart for changes to take effect. Enabling this option will add another button to the settings menu allowing configuration of your Xbox LED. You will need the Blink program from the xbox-linux project, which is installed as /bin/led on GentooX and /usr/bin/blink on Xebian. (Type which blink to see if the program is available.) If you do not have blink, you may obtain it from the Xbox-Linux project site at http://xbox-linux.sf.net/.

Once you have installed blink you will need to set permissions. blink needs write permission to the i2c device to function properly. There are three methods to accomplish this. First, you could run mythfrontend as root, which is the simplest method, but could potentially be a security risk. Next, you may make the blink binary setuid root, which allows non-privileged users to run a program with root capability. This is done by typing the command:

   $ su
   # chmod u+s /path/to/blink

If you select GentooX as the distribution led will be used as the blink binary name, otherwise, blink is used. Colors should be self explanatory. The update interval determines how often the frontend should poll the backend to determine if the status has changed.

Myth Database Logging

Myth Database Logging
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Log MythTV events to database
(checkbox)
Unchecked If enabled, MythTV modules will send event details to the database , where they can be viewed with MythLog or periodically emailed to the administrator.
Log Print Threshold All Messages This controls what messages will be printed out as well as being logged to the database.
Automatic Log Cleaning Enabled
(checkbox)
Unchecked This enables the periodic cleanup of the events stored in the Myth database (see "Log MythTV events to database").
Log Cleanup Frequency (days) 14 The number of days between log cleanup runs.
Number of days to keep acknowledged log entries 14 The numer of days before a log entry that has been acknowledged will be deleted by the log cleanup process.
Number of days to keep unacknowledged log entries 30 The number of days before a log entry that has NOT been acknowldged will be deleted by the log cleanup process.
Maximimum Number of Entries per Module 100 If there are more than this number of entries for a module, the oldest log entries will be deleted to reduce the count to this number. Set to 0 to disable.

Mythfilldatabase

Mythfilldatabase
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Automatically run mythfilldatabase
(checkbox)
Checked This enables the automatic execution of mythfilldatabase. mythfilldatabase will populate the database with channel information after you do your channel scan in mythtv-setup. In the case of EIT based channel information this is not required.
mythfilldatabase Path mythfilldatabase Path (including executable) of the mythfilldatabase program. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.
mythfilldatabase Arguments (none) Any arguments you want passed to the mythfilldatabase program. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.
mythfilldatabase Log Path (none) Path to use for logging output from the mythfilldatabase program. Leave blank to disable logging. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.
mythfilldatabase Run Frequency (days) 1 The number of days between mythfilldatabase runs. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.
mythfilldatabase Execution Start 2 This setting and the following one define a time period when the mythfilldatabase process is allowed to run. For example, setting Start to 11 and End to 13 woud mean that the process would only run between 11 Am and 1 PM. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.
mythfilldatabase Execution End 5 This setting and the preceding one define a time period when the mythfilldatabase process is allowed to run. For example, setting Start to 11 and End to 13 woud mean that the process would only run between 11 Am and 1 PM. Only visible if "Automatically run mythfilldatabase" is checked.

Appearance

Theme

Theme
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Theme Blue (none) You can find more about themes on this page: Category:Themes
Qt style PUT IN THE DEFAULT HERE At startup, MythTV will change the QT widget style to this setting. If "Desktop Style" is selected, MythTV will use the existing desktop setting. You can see many of the available styles here.
Font size default default: TV, small: monitor, big:
Use random theme
(Checkbox)
Unchecked Use a random theme each time MythTV is started
Menu theme Default (none) This gives you two choices on how the menus are laid out in the MythTV user interface. The content of the two choices is the same, but the terminology (ex. "Optical Disks" vs. "DVD") and organization of the menus is different.

This document is based on the "Default" setting.

Screen settings

Screen Settings
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
GUI width(px) 0 The width of the GUI. DO not make the GUI wider than your actual screen resolution. Set to 0 to automatically scale to fullscreen. Width in pixels of window that myth uses.

A normal TV (without MythTV) has a 5%-10% overscan. In other words, 5%-10% of the image is past the visible edges of the screen. If you adjust your MythTV box's output to overscan your display device, and uncheck "Use GUI size for TV playback" (below), you can use this and the following 3 GUI size and position settings to shrink the GUI so that the GUI is not overscanned (and you can see all of it).

GUI height 0 The height of the GUI. DO not make the GUI taller than your actual screen resolution. Set to 0 to automatically scale to fullscreen. see Gui width(px)
X offset 0 The horizontal offset the GUI will be displayed at. May only work if run in a window. see Gui width(px)
Y offset 0 The vertical offset the GUI will be displayed at. see Gui width(px)
Use GUI size for TV playback
(checkbox)
Checked If enabled, use the above size for TV, otherwise use full screen. see Gui width(px)
Hide Mouse Cursor in Myth
(checkbox)
Checked Toggles mouse cursor visibility. Most of the Myth GUI does not respond to mouse clicks, this is only to avoid "losing" your mouse cursor.
Run the frontend in a window
(checkbox)
Unchecked Toggle between windowed an borderless operation.


Localization

Localization
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
Language English Your preferred language. Choices are:
  • English
  • Italiano
  • Catala
  • Espanol
  • Nederlands
  • Francais
  • Deutsch
  • Dansk
  • Svenska
  • Portugues
  • Nihongo
  • Slovenski
  • Suomi
  • Hanzi (Traditional)
Date format Sat Jan 31 Your preferred date format. Choices are:
  • Sat Jan 31
  • Sat January 31
  • Jan 31
  • 01/31
  • 01.31
  • Sat 31 Jan
  • 31.01.2004
  • 2004-01-31
Short Date format 1/31 Your preferred short date format. Choices are:
  • 1/31
  • 31/1
  • 01/31
  • 31/01
  • 01.31
  • 31.1.
  • 31.01.
  • 01-31
  • Sat 31
  • 31 Sat
  • Sat 1/31
  • 1/31 Sat
Time format 6:56 AM Your preferred time format. Choose a format with "AP" in it for an AM/PM display, otherwise your time display will be 24-hour or "military" time. Choices are:
  • 6:56 AM
  • 6:56 am
  • 06:56 AM
  • 06:56 am
  • 6:56
  • 06:56

Note: On page description is incorrect, it should read Choose a format with "AM"...

QT

QT
Setting Default Value Settings Page's Description Additional Comments
"Small" font 12 Default size is 12.
"Medium" font 16 Default size is 16
"Big" font 25 Default size is 25.
Use Transparent Boxes
(checkbox)
Checked If enabled, the Watch Recording and Delete Recordin screens will use transparency. Disable if selecting the recordings is slow due to high CPU usage.
Popup Background Shading Method Fill "Fill" is the quickest shading method.
"Image" is somewhat slow, but has a higher visual quality.
No shading will be the fastest.

LCD device display

Enable LCD device

Default Setting PUT IN THE DEFAULT HERE
On Page Description Copy the description on the page Here
Detailed Description and Comments This is the meat of the subject