Mythtv – Page 7 – Made by Mikal

Am I really the first?

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 13, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

I find it a little hard to believe I am the first to use an Intel Core 2 Duo for MythTV stuff, but I can't find anyone else reporting this to the MythTV users list... mythtv@mythtv2:~/Desktop/mythtv-0.20$ ./configure *** WARNING *** Your CPU was not detected properly: uname -m: i686 uname -p: unknown model name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm If you are using a recent CVS checkout, please e-mail the above to mythtv-users@mythtv.org With the subject "configure did not detect my cpu"

Updated: linux.conf.au 2007 MythTV tutorial homework

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 10, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

The final version of the MythTV tutorial homework is online. I promise no more changes now (unless they're minor bug fixes), mainly because I get on a plane in 9 hours to come to Australia. Note that the bottom of the homework gives the details for a VMWare image if you're too lazy to do the homework. See y'all at LCA!

Updated: linux.conf.au 2007 MythTV tutorial homework

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 9, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

I spent the afternoon updating the linux.conf.au MythTV tutorial homework. I did all the homework on a VMWare virtual machine, and it took me about four hours to complete, given that compilation was slow for me in the virtual machine, but downloading was fast. Next steps are adding ffmpeg setup to the homework, and putting the finished virtual machine online so that lazy people can just download the crazily large file.

First cut of the tutorial homework is ready

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 7, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

Stewart and I are just now putting the finishing touches on our MythTV tutorial for linux.conf.au. Because it's a tutorial and is therefore meant to be hands one we want people to come along with a machine which is configured so it can take part in a bunch of the demos. To that end we have set homework! Note that it's currently a draft, because I'm pretty sure there will be some stuff in there about ffmpeg, but I wanted to get it out so that people can get an idea of what we want to cover, and get a start on the homework. One other option is for me to make a VMWare image of a machine once all the homework is done available. Would people find that useful? It would be pretty big.

Recovering lost MythTV recordings

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 7, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

I had one of those moments tonight, and accidentally dropped the mythconverg database on my production MythTV instance, not the development one. This made me sad. Luckily I had a backup which was only a week old (although I am now running night backups of that database). Recovery wasn't too bad once I wrote some code. The steps: Restore from backup Don't run mythfilldatabase (it will clear out old guide data, and we need it) Apply my funky patch to myth.rebuilddatabase.pl Run myth.rebuilddatabase.pl Run mythfilldatabase And all is well again. The patch uses the guide data from the database to make an educated guess about the title, subtitle and description of the recordings which are missing from the database. Here's the patch: Index: myth.rebuilddatabase.pl =================================================================== --- myth.rebuilddatabase.pl (revision 11681) +++ myth.rebuilddatabase.pl (working copy) @@ -185,6 +185,7 @@ 'norename'=>\$norename ); +print "db = dbi:mysql:database=$database:host=$dbhost user = $user pass = $pass\n"; my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql:database=$database:host=$dbhost", "$user","$pass") or die "Cannot connect to database ($!)\n"; @@ -314,6 +315,7 @@ # have enough to look for an past recording? if ($ssecond) { + print "Checking for a recording...\n"; $starttime = "$syear$smonth$sday$shour$sminute$ssecond"; my $guess = "select title, subtitle, description from oldrecorded where chanid=(?) and starttime=(?)"; @@…

Importing downloaded videos as recordings into MythTV

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 3, 2007
Post category:Mythtv

I've been playing with downloading videos and treating them as recordings in MythTV because the MythTV player is nicer than Xine, and because it works well as a demo for the linux.conf.au tutorial I am working on at the moment. I wont document it here because it's not quite ready, but it's actually quite easy and works really well. For the impatient, a good starting point is this tip is a good starting point, the additional stuff I had to do was around setting up a channel row in the otherwise empty channel table.

Want HDTV but only for US free to air?

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 30, 2006
Post category:Mythtv

The HDHomeRun seems to be a pretty useful device. There are a bunch of people on the MythTV mailing lists trying these things out at the moment. It's a networked dual tuner HD set top box. Kinda cool. Now, if only someone would come up with a digital cable card which works with MythTV...

Book status

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 25, 2006
Post category:Mythtv

I was thinking about the delivery status of the MythTV book as I was going off to sleep last night, and it occurred to me that the book is pretty much done. It's a good feeling. Stewart needs to finish poking a chapter on cut lists and so forth, with should be minimal effort, then he needs to work on chapters on MythWeb and VoIP (the VoIP one is half done). I need to write an updated introduction (the contents of the book have deviated from plan, although that always happens) as well as a short conclusion chapter, and help Stewart write a chapter about running the latest and greatest version of the code (and how to interact with the development community). Then we're done for the writing. That description can be summarised as "Stewart and I appear to both be about one and a half chapters away from finishing authoring". We of course still need to get through technical review, editorial review, replying to things those reviewers need changed, copy editing, page layout, and standing on one leg. We're getting towards the end of the project though. When I think about it that way, I guess I read the…

A MythTV Jabber bot

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 29, 2006
Post category:Mythtv

While I love my wife and kids to distraction, the distraction bit is real. Then again, I'm sure they have a counter argument that I tend to end up deep in thought, and which point you could probably push me off my chair and I wouldn't notice. Anyway, that's mostly beside the point. What is relevant is for the first time in nearly a year (since 18 November 2005 to be exact, but who is counting?) I'm alone. All alone. So, apart from watching the West Wing (which I haven't seen before, and is fantastic), sleeping in, and going to a party tonight, I am coding. What I'm writing is a follow on from my night hacking the other day, which was getting PyXMPP working with Google Talk. What I want is a bot which will take IM messages, and execute them using the MythTV front end. Oh, and it will display text using the on screen display if you ask nicely. So, does anyone have any thoughts on if that sort of thing is useful to them? I think it sounds useful to me, but perhaps I'm odd. Back to hacking.

Cat, bag, out

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 16, 2006
Post category:Mythtv

So, I guess the cat is out of the bag then... Stewart and I are working on the finishing stages of a book on MythTV. Amazon now has it listed for pre-order. [btags:]