On November 4th, BBC One and BBC Two were moved to a new transport on the Winter Hill/Granada transmitter. I retuned my MythTV box, but it did not picked up either channel. After trying out a few things it turns out that I had to tick the “ignore signal timeouts” box and retune the 801833000 transport. Made me realise just how much my household watches BBC 1 and 2!
After weeks of pulling my hair out, I’ve finally sorted my channel scanning problem and got BBC HD! The breakthrough was that it all worked in Windows, which narrowed it down to software on the Linux side. I’d tried scans with 3 different applications, which meant that it was either the firmware or the Linux DVB drivers causing the issue.
Because I’m on Intrepid with a 2.6.27 kernel (it all works on 2.6.28) I’d previously compiled the latest DVB drivers as described here:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-4000#Kernel_.2F_v4l-dvb_driver
So, I went through the process again with the latest snapshot of the v4l-dvb tree and… all transponders scan OK, including transponder 50 which has BBC HD. Phew!
Someone must have broken the v4l-dvb driver at the point I downloaded and compiled it the first time. A lot of effort wasted due to a bit of bad luck 
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted here. I guess that’s what having 2 little children does for you. Even though Hannah is worth it, I’ve unfortunately been neglecting my MythTV guide (better than neglecting my kids!). I also moved house, so now spend 2 hours a day sitting in traffic, but that’s another story.
The point is that I’ve finally brought my Ubuntu MythTV guide up-to-date for Intrepid. The main changes were in the Radio Times XMLTV section. As I now use the EIT, that info had got very out-of-date, but hopefully the scripts should be working again now.
The guide should have some new sections over the next few weeks because I’ve ordered a DVB-S2 FreeSat card. I’m planning on adding a second backend with a big disk to run this card. When I get it all working I’ll be sure to post instructions!
(No, “Gutsy Backports” has nothing to do with what curry I had last night…)
Following on from my last post, if you can’t wait for Hardy to be released, MythTV 0.21 is now available for Ubuntu 7.10 in the Gutsy Backports repository. Just adding the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list and it should be installed automatically as an update:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
Well, MythTV 0.21 is out and has quite a lot of interesting new features. See the release notes for more details.
Of most interest to me are:
If you run Ubuntu, I’d suggest waiting until next month when Hardy is released and doing an upgrade. Hardy comes with 0.21 and I’ve heard that it works fine. When it’s released (probably on April 24th) you’ll get a button in the “update manager” offering the upgrade. Just hit this and it will upgrade every element of your system to the latest version, including MythTV.
It should preserve all your recordings and settings. I’ve had no issues with this in the past, but it might be worth backing up your database first as a precaution:
mysqldump -u root mythconverg -c > mythconverg_020.dmp
I’ve finally got round to updating my MythTV guide:
This is the most major change yet, with a complete new look for the site. I’m going to release site’s graphics as an Ubuntu desktop and usplash theme, so if you like it then watch this space!
As far as the guide goes, it’s had a thorough overhaul to make it more relevant to the new Feisty packages and it now focuses on the EIT TV listings rather than the Internet based XMLTV stuff, mainly because this is so much easier to get working and now has some advantages such as listings for digital radio.
When I first built my MythTV box I bought a cheap “Trust” wireless keyboard and mouse. It served me right for being a cheapskate, but the range was so poor that my wired keyboard could actually reach further. Anyway, the Trust got consigned to the bin and I had to squat in front on the TV every time I needed to type something.
Meanwhile, my mate Paul bought a Logitech S510 wireless keyboard, mouse and remote combo for £60 from PC world. He raved about it, but the price was a bit steep for my liking… Then the other week, Paul made the mistake of telling me that the exact same set was on Scan Today Only for £28! 10 hours later it was in my sweaty palms…
It uses RF rather than IR, giving it a massive range. The remote and keyboard work from about 50 ft away! The mouse is a bit more picky as I guess it has to transmit a lot more information. Still, you can surf from the comfort of your sofa with no problems.
The Linux compatibility is pretty good. Many of the multimedia keys on the keyboard work; they trigger Gnome functions even when in Myth, which is handy. The only problem is the remote. It basically duplicates many of the keyboard’s multimedia keys – most of the ones which don’t work. They don’t even generate an event, so can’t be configured using lirc. I guess they could be made to work by patching the kernel, but to be honest the remote is missing quite a few essential buttons – a central diamond and the keys 4-9 for a start! So, I’m going to stick with my Hauppauge remote control. After all, £28 isn’t bad just for a keyboard and mouse.
It’s pretty ironic that I maintain a guide on how easy it is to get MythTV working on Ubuntu, but when I upgraded my own MythTV box from Dapper to Edgy I completely broke it. I can sum the problems up in just two words: bloody ATI.
It’s a well known fact that ATI cards have flaky Linux support, but my Radeon 9250 has served me pretty well… until now. It turns out that by adding Xorg 7.1 support (required for Edgy) to driver 8.27, ATI broke their VideoOverlay feature. This means that you can only see the top half of the picture, no matter what resolution you use. Without VideoOverlay, the picture suffers from horrible tearing.
Anyway, a bit of googling and I learned that the problem was already fixed in version 8.30 of the driver. Great, I thought, and promptly installed the latest version. To my horror, it turns out that ATI dropped support for my 9250 card in version 8.29!
So, I did what I should have done long ago – sent off for an Nvidia 5200. Thanks to the wonders of http://www.dabs.com/, I had it in my grubby mitts just 10 hours later (standard delivery!). Within 10 minutes of sticking it into my PC, I had a great picture on my TV.
The moral? Linux and ATI – just don’t do it.