MyKnoppMyth

Making Xine the Default Video/DVD Player

2005-06-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

Xine supports DVD menus, MPlayer doesn't, so it makes sense to use Xine as the default player for Dvd's. I also use it as the default player for videos, because I do. unfortunately there is a bug asociated with using xine as your player - after watching a video you will find that menu buttons do not get focus and you cant interact with MythTV popup windows. The fix is to prefix the xine launch command with xterm -e

DVD Launch Command (all on one line)
xterm -e xine -pfhq --auto-scan dvd --no-splash --post tvtime:method=Greedy2Frame,enable=1

Video Launch Command
xterm -e xine -pfhq --no-splash %s

Installing MPlayer Essentials

2005-06-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

Xine was throwing up errors trying to play Quicktime files. Basically, a number of unsupported codec error messages were being displayed, then the movie would play without sound. I followed the suggestion to install the MPlayer essentials pack (which also includes files for WMV9) and this fixed the problem.

these are the steps I used:

# cd /tmp
# wget http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-20050412.tar.bz2
# tar -xvjf essential-20050412.tar.bz2
# cd essential-20050412
# cp * /usr/lib/win32

Fix for Browse Mode Problem

2005-06-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

This is a workaround for the Browse Mode bug that stopped me from browsing through the program informations before selecting a channel to view whilst watching live TV. Unchecking the check box does not seem to update the settings table, so I manually updated it and now browse mode is enabled by default.

the menu item can be found here:
Utilities/Setup - Setup - TV Settings - General - 1st screen

executing the following in mythconverg fixed the problem
update settings set data='1' where value='PersistentBrowseMode'

Installing MythStream

2005-06-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

I installed MythStream according to the KnoppMythWiki, but found that the menu items did not appear after reboot. Following this post I moved the following files and can now see the menu items...

# mv /usr/local/share/mythtv/mythstream /usr/share/mythtv/mythstream
# cp /usr/local/lib/mythtv/plugins/libmythstream.so /usr/lib/mythtv/plugins/libmythstream.so
# cp /usr/local/share/mythtv/themes/default/stream-ui.xml
/usr/share/mythtv/themes/default/stream-ui.xml
# cp /usr/local/share/mythtv/streamconfigmenu.xml cp
/usr/share/mythtv/streamconfigmenu.xml

Setting the Time

2005-06-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

The time was set incorrectly on the system so I reset both the system time and hardware clock. from a command prompt:

set the date and time to 06/06 11:24am
date 06061124

set the hardware clock to the system time
hwclock --systohc

Finished Installing R5A16 (Almost)

2005-06-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

I had a crash over the weekend after running an apt-get update. The system started doing some odd things then wouldn't display the main menu or knoppmyth desktop on reboot. This was as good excuse as any to re-install the system with the latest version. I have listed some of the steps i took, as well as problems and solutions below, in case anyone finds this useful. I have noticed a couple of problems with this install since I got it working that I havent been able to resolve - firstly the time stretch feature is not adjusting the pitch, making it unusable, and secondly the "change channels immediately without select" option in Utilities/Setup - Setup - TV Settings - General is ignored. I prefer to press the select button to change the channel, and this now does not work.

NOTES:
======
Installed from CD - this left the system bootable into the MythTV menu on a PC monitor. Follow the install guide here for more info.

FIX FOR AUSTRALIAN TV-LISTINGS
===============================
After initial configuration mythfilldatabase appears to run successfully, however when you go into the program schedule you don't see any programs at all. The database is probably OK if you used the default grabber that came knoppmyth, it appears that the process doesn't set the channel numbers and frequency ids when it runs. Go back into mythtv-setup and go into the channels area - set these values manually then restart mythfrontend and the program information should now be available.

CONFIGURE IR REMOTE SUPPORT
==============================
From a command line:

>> /etc/init.d/lirc start && update-rc.d lirc defaults

CONFIGURE DVD PLAYBACK
=========================
Unencrypted DVD's should play back OK - to add support for playing encrypted DVD's execute the following from a command line

>> cd /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples
>> sh install-css.sh

INSTALL NVIDA DRIVERS
======================
Only needed if you're using an NVIDIA graphics card.

>> cd /usr/local/bin
>> sh install-nvidia-7174-debian.sh

GET TV OUT WORKING FROM THE PVR-350
=======================================
Followed then instructions here (summarised below)

The X windows FB device driver no longer appears to work, so you'll need the pvr350 ivtv device driver.

> su
# cd /tmp
# wget http://membres.lycos.fr/badzzzz/ivtvdev_drv.o.gz
# gunzip ivtvdev_drv.o.gz
# install -c -m 0444 ivtvdev_drv.o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ivtvdev_drv.o

CONFIGURE SAMBA
=================
Allow access to the machine from a windows network

>> su
>> update-rc.d samba defaults

CONFIGURE MYTHWEB PASSWORD
===============================
Do this if you want to force users to enter a password so they can view MythWeb. These instructions were found here on the knoppmyth wiki.

>> nano /etc/apache/httpd.conf

While in nano, press control-w to bring up its search feature. Then search for . Cursor down a few lines until you see the line AllowOverride None. Then add the following lines underneath it:

# Force a password
AuthType Basic
AuthName "BasicAuth"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache/basicauth
Require valid-user

>> htpasswd -c /etc/apache/basicauth mythtv
>> New Password *******
>> Re-type new password ******

OPEN UP MYSQL
===============
Only do this if you want to be able to access the database from another machine. Comment out the line skip-networking in /etc/mysql/my.cnf then run the following from a command line, replacing 192.168.0.% with the correct IP range for your network the restart MySql

$ mysql -u root mythconverg
mysql> grant all on mythconverg.* to mythtv@"192.168.0.%" identified by "mythtv";
mysql> flush privileges;

ADD REQUIRED ENTRIES TO MODULES
==================================
The following 2 lines need to be added to /etc/modules

lirc_i2c
ivtv_fb

ADD SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS MEDIA 9 FILES
=======================================
I use xine as my video player, and found it could not play back WMV9 files. It would throw up an error message when I attempted to play the file.

the command I specified in video setup for xine is:
xine -pfhq %s

to get WMV9 files to play do the following
>> mkdir /usr/lib/win32
add the file wmvdmod.dll from a windows box that can play wmv9 files to this directory.

SETUP THE CORRECT SCREEN SIZE
===============================
The screen size was too big in my initial install, so I just modified the settings table incrementally untill it looked ok. I did this from another PC then after each update just restarted gdm over ssh which made this process fairly easy.

Scripts for updating settings table
update settings set data='53' where value = 'GuiOffsetX'
update settings set data='21' where value = 'GuiOffsetY'
update settings set data='647' where value = 'GuiWidth'
update settings set data='537' where value = 'GuiHeight'

To restart gdm - from a console
/etc/init.d/gdm restart

USEFULL LINKS
==============
These are some Urls that I used when RTFM'ing

Knoppmyth Install Instructions
Setting up LIRC
Setting up the PVR-350 Thread on knoppmyth forums
Setting up Xine to play DVD's
IVTV PAL TV-Out Guide
NVIDIA Config - General information
Securing MythWeb