Please consider that I’m a n00b with no good English.
all ok, but when i try
dvbstream -o -ps 600 601 -qam 16 -cr 3_4 | mplayer –
i’ve got no outut, onli this :
dvbstream v0.6 – (C) Dave Chapman 2001-2004
Released under the GPL.
Latest version available from http://www.linuxstb.org/
dvbstream will stop after -1 seconds (71582788 minutes)
Output to stdout
Streaming 0 streams
MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu13 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ (Family: 15, Model: 67, Stepping: 2)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Can’t open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can’t init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
The tzap command I gave in the example tunes to BBC ONE in the UK and the dvbstream command demultiplexes this signal using parameters specific to that channel. As I’m assuming that you don’t live in the UK then this test is not relevant for you.
As that section is mainly for testing/debugging the tuner card, I’d skip it and continue with the MythTV installation. See how it goes.
First of all, thanks for the great guide. I have used it to set up both my combined frontend/backend box, and an EPIA frontend.
I am still using edgy, and I just upgraded myth. All is fine, apart from I can’t access mythweb any more. I remember having to do a hack to the file permissions, but this hack doesn’t appear in the latest guide. Can you remind me what it was?
Hi
Still using your guide, it’s the best on the net!
How does one apply the xtraview patch as found at http://brej.org/dvb/index.html
With out breaking my newly finished under tv mythbuntu box.
3 turners, 1 nova t 500 and a Kworld
I also really need to understand how to get the 7.1 on board Realtek ALC883 working.
I’m trying to replace a windows DVD system, that has no bother with bouncing the sound around the the room
Thanks. As far as I know, Xtraview was canned almost a year ago, so the patch is useless nowadays. Regarding the ALC883, I don’t have that, so I can’t really help. Sorry.
Not sure about that. Maybe it would work, but I think that the patch is for an old version of MythTV, so wouldn’t guarantee anything. You might be able to find one somewhere, though.
BTW, had you noticed the new MythTV metapackages that come with Gutsy? There’s now separate ones for a master backend and slave backend install (both of which I’ve tried) and a Mythbuntu Control Centre (which I haven’t).
Also, MythTV 0.21 is scheduled for release “before March 2008″, which promises autodiscovery of remote backend/tuners, among other things. Hopefully that will at last mean that I’ll be able to use the tuner in my slave backend…
They’re doing some great work with the MythTV packages. It makes a great change from the bad old days when the Ubuntu packages were a version out-of-date.
The clearest guide I’ve found, and I’m bitterly sorry it took me so long to find it It’d be nice if a link to your site was more visible on the Mythbuntu documentation.
The only problem I’ve run into since coming across your guide is with the remote. I’m sure I must be missing something obvious.
With a clean Mythbuntu installation I set the remote to an Hauppauge Nova-T 500. I found out later that this isn’t the same as my Nova-T.
The direction buttons & OK work, but nothing else.
I followed your guide for setting up my remote and irw returns all the correct values. All the buttons seem to work fine.
However, when I start the frontend the remote doesn’t work at all, and a quick trip to the Mythbuntu Control Centre shows that the remote has been disabled.
Re-enabling a remote (relevent choices seem to be Hauppauge DVB-s card, Hauppauge Nova-T 500 or Hauppauge TV card) in the control centre stops irw from working, but brings back the directional buttons & OK.
Any ideas what I’m missing?
Thanks for the brilliant site, I’ll need to look for better hardware soon and this will be my first stop.
Great guide, particularly the section on Nova-T which was extremely useful. I have a panasonic 32inch LCD TV, when connected via a DVI output I only get 640×480 resolution – what resolution do you have while connected to your panasonic tv? I got much higher resolutions with my previous CRT based panasonic tv – I’m not sure why!
When using the tv-out with your old CRT TV, even though the resolution was set to, say 1024×768, what you were actually seeing would be a PAL representation of that – and I bet it was pretty fuzzy when on the desktop.
LCD TVs tend to have lower native resolutions than monitors, but yours should be higher that 640×480. You may need to find a specific modeline for your TV and put it in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Have a search for your TV to see if you can find one.
Please take in account i am new to linux and mythtv and desperately need assistance.
After installing mythtv on my gusty installation i get to the portion of your guide where i am to run mythtv backend setup. I am then asked to select my language then i am shown the Database Configuration pages 1 and 2. which reads “myth could not connect to the database. please verify your database settings”. I dont get the menus shown in your guide. what am i missing?
OK, it looks like the mythtv user in MySQL doesn’t have the correct permissions to access the database. A few people have had this problem recently; maybe something is broken in the packages? Anyway, the following instructions should help you out:
Question: Does your Nova-t remote wind the volume up and down without taking your finger off the button?
Mine does not, I have set the repeat in lircrc from 1 to 30 with no change, also it often miss reads the input and skip’s back or forward if you push tje button up or down repeatedly too fast.
I have a working mythtv setup using gutsy and WinTV-NOVA-T model 909. Sometimes I will record a program and when I play it back the picture is broken up. After some experiment I have found that if the aerial is plugged directly into the TV the picture is always good but when plugged into the Nova-t the picture sometimes degrades. An example was on Monday last the kids were watching Star Trek on Virgin 1 and the picture and sound were all disjointed, I moved the aerial to the TV and the picture and sound were Ok. Any ideas.
Sorry for the late reply – been very busy recently…
Anyway, I’ve got my repeat set to set 3 and it works fine. A repeat of 1 would register every event while you have the button pressed down, so it would be too fast. If you set it to 30, it would be way too slow. So, 3 seems to work fine for me. It’s a good setting for up/down in the menus, too.
Hi Garry, great guide, i have a similar install on the original pundit with onboard sis650 and at present a single Nova-T dvb card.
Ive always had a nightmare with the remote of the nova-t, the main part being the interference caused when buttons are pressed whether that be changing channels, pausing TV, pretty much anything. The screen (a 37″ LCDTV) goes blank for a few seconds. Just wondered if you had encountered this or anything similar, thanks
interference is probably not the best choice of word. It occurs even when browsing through the menu in myth, the screen goes blank for a second of two. when you do irw it recognises all the key presses and this doesnt occur in mplayer or xine wether they are run from myth or standalone. Im going to try another tv and also looks at the keymaps in myth to see if there is anything there
I had a further play around using a MCE remote, configured lirc and still the same issue. However, it doesnt affect mplayer or xine. Only when using myth, either navigating through the menu or watching tv. Basically any button causes the creen the either flicker, jump or go blank for a moment or to. The only other thing i can try is another tv, perhaps a crt style and not an lcd
Straight after posting that some googling comes up, it looks like it could be a bug. I have sis card in my pundit so I will look to apply the fix or get new video card. Would have thought it would have been fixed by now
I printed out your guide, but only got as far as the third page. (MythTV Setup) After I run the MythTV Backend Setup, I get a Terminal window full of error messages rush past:
No error type from QSqlError? Strange…
2008-02-06 11:06:17.061 Database not open while trying to load setting: GuiOffsetY
2008-02-06 11:06:17.061 Unable to connect to database!
2008-02-06 11:06:17.062 Driver error was [1/1045]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to connect
Database error was:
Access denied for user ‘mythtv’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)
I then select my language and it tells me ‘Myth could not connect to the database. Please verify your database setting.’
I tried KnoppMyth already, (“20 minute autoconfiguration”, my ass) but never could get the TV guide scripts to work because I bought an analog dual tuner instead of two digital tuners.
I don’t seem to have much luck with this digital home theatre… I’m beset by puzzling error messages at every turn, and feel very frustrated. I was hoping ubuntu’s installation scripts would be a bit more intelligent, but apparently it still takes some heavy lifting to get anything working.
MythTV on Ubuntu usually goes as smoothly as anything. However, I’ve had quite a few people complain about this recently. I’m beginning to suspect that one of the packages is broken somewhere. I’d like to confirm myself, but I’m moving house in a couple of days and don’t have the time to build a test box from scratch!
Anyway, see the following guide. It should help you get your database access sorted out:
I’m pretty sure that I’ve worked out what the problem is that is causing so many people grief – you’ve missed out a step in your instructions! There are *four* dialogues in the ‘installing MythTV’ section – the first one is the root password. Just hit ‘enter’ for it, and that solves the problem.
I think what has been happening is that people have been entering in a password. If you don’t, it works fine. At least, this is what I did that gave me the same error that everybody else is getting.
This fixed my problem after I removed all MythTV and MySQL files installed (including configuration files) and redid it.
I got forced into using the alpha6 release of Hardy because my master backend machine suddenly decided that it wouldn’t run Edgy, Feisty or Gutsy any more – even from LiveCD.
The install of MythTV 0.21 worked fine straight out of the repositories, and Mythbuntu also works well, with it’s own dedicated Control Centre.
Good bits: Slave backend auto discovery works, and there quite a few tweaks and improvements in many other areas.
Bad bit: The network protocols have changed again, so a version 0.20 frontend or slave backend won’t work with a 0.21 master backend. Ok, I know I should expect this but I was hoping otherwise, as I don’t really want an alpha release on all my PCs!
Thanks for that. I’m way off taking the plunge myself!
I can understand your frustration regarding the frontends not being compatible. You could compile 0.21 from source – easier than it sounds – but I guess it depends how much you use the frontends and whether you can wait until April for Hardy to be released.
I posted that a day too early! Just noticed that an auto-update to Gutsy today, taking the Frontend from 0.20 to 0.21. Not sure if everyone gets this, or only those running a 0.21 backend – but I can’t see how the updater would know that…
The themes on the new frontend appear to be broken, in that in my case it reverts to having only Gannt and Blue available, even with mythtv-themes installed. I ~think~ you now have to enable the other themes in the Mythbuntu Control Centre, but don’t want to test that on this PC, as I don’t want to risk turning it into a “Mythbuntu appliance” (as I accidentally did with my master backend machine!).
I don’t think it can be anything to do with Mythbuntu, as this PC’s not running that. It was a bog-standard 0.20 frontend (and is now a 0.21 frontend with some not-so-nice themes). If I go into Synaptic I see most of the myth components at release 0.21, even though this PC is still running Gutsy.
So it seems that credit is due to the developers in the way that they handled the upgrade – there seems to be a mechanism whereby a frontend “knows” that it’s mismatched with the remote backend and requires the update.
Thanks for the guide it was really helpful. Just to let you know I had the same issue with connecting to the mysql database that everyone had. I did enter a root password and suspect Anthony is right in his post above. I am happy to say that running through the instructions in the troubleshooting link you posted above solved it for me.
Thanks for the confirmation. I know that I really need to add this info to the guide, but I’ve been unable to do so due to problems with my internet connection from home.
Hopefully the RJ45 plug crimping tool I’ve just borrowed should go some way to sorting it out tonight so that I can get on and update the guide!
Here one for you?
I have just built from old parts an Ubuntu server and using LVM packed it full of old hard drives, that will contain ripped dvd’s.
Is it possible to have a link in the videos folder within Mythbuntu to link to this shared folder on my network?
I plan to get about a Tb of films on this server and would like to be able to “stream” them at will. but I don’t want to change the video folders location in mythbuntu’s set up.
Do you want the folder to be accessible by Linux or Windows machines? For Linux, you can share the folder using NFS. For Windows, share it using Samba. I won’t go into the commands as there are there are plenty of tutorials on the subject which will be more comprehensive than I could be here.
I have a 500 GB external USD drive to store my DVD ISOs. This is plugged into my Myth box and shared using NFS. I can watch these on my Ubuntu box upstairs using VLC no problem.
Its shared with samba, as I use windows to rip the dvds. I was hoping to put a link to this folder in the videos folder, so when I go to it with the remote it opens the samba //ubuntu/dvds/ folder for the dvds.
So if could point me in the direction of the tutrial of how to make that link file. that would be great. I’m still trying to get my head around linux. sort of wish that linux was an option when I upgraded from my Dragon 32 all them years ago.
I’m confused now – Are we talking 3 machines here? An Ubuntu machine to store the DVDs, an Ubuntu machine as your MythTV frontend and a Windows machine to rip the DVDs?
Yes I have 4 pc’s on the network, Mythbuntu 710 as frontend and backend , ubuntu server(file server), ubuntu gutsy descktop (that is trying to take over from the windows pc), windows xp ( that I use for work). Plus the xp laptop when it not traveling around in the car, fixing PLC’s for work.
I’m trying to replace a Netgear network hard drive unit that only talks to windows or through windows and is very slow
- share the drive using samba so that Windows can write to it.
- also export it using NFS so that you can mount it on your frontend.
- go into settings on mythfrontend and change the video directory to your mounted directory.
Here’s a few tips on achieving this, assuming that the directory holding your DVDs is /store/dvd on a machine called fred:
On the server (fred), install nfs-kernel-server:
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
…and add something like the following to /etc/exports:
/store/dvd *(ro)
- pick up the changes:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
Check that it’s shared:
showmount –exports
On the client (frontend machine), install nfs-common:
sudo apt-get install nfs-common
…and mount the directory:
sudo mount fred:/store/dvd /mnt/dvd
That was great, I got it working, did not have much with luck with
showmount -exports
returned an error, but the front end can see it anyway.
Now is it possible to have the frontend look at /var/lib/mythtv/videos and in that folder see a folder that takes it off to the shared LVM drive ~/dvd on the server?
And how do I make the frontend mount the ~/dvd on boot up, I find that it still hangs from time to time.
This is the latest 7.10 64bit release downloaded in March 08, it’s better in that the hanging is far less frequent and the remote repeat works but now the Guide is very very slow??
No its mybuntu that hangs, just freezes normally while watching TV.
I get problems when playing DVD’s if the disc is damaged half way through a film, but so did the old windows system.
The main worry is the guide, it becomes non responsive for a time, then all the key pushes it recived during that time all happen at once, then it becomes non responsive again only maybe 3-4 mins each time. But other times it works fine. I have no idea why yet.
When it hangs, can you switch apps (using alt-tab) or get to the console using ctrl+alt+F1 ?
If not, it may be a graphics driver issue. Make sure you’re using the restricted drivers and also that you don’t have Preference->Visual Effects set to “none”.
Also, search around for issues with your exact graphics card under Myth.
Hardy is out on Thursday. That might be worth a try.
I will try that, there is no keyboard attached, so can I try via VNC? and if say I can get to the console err how do I get back, without rebooting like I just did on this machine,, stop laughing.
I’m using the restricted drivers, Nvidia. I’ve not changed any of the default setting so I guess Visual Effects is at “none”
Yes I will be upgrading to Hardy, and the Mythbuntu version as soon as it’s out of Beta. Maybe that will cure all woo’s
Hi
I’m having a little trouble with scanning the changels,. IThe Mythtv is connect to a sky+ box using the svideo ports. But when I scan in Mythtv I get SE1 -SE41 and not the channelsl listing in the guide. Is there somethings are doing wrong.
I used the guide for 7.10 and things seemed to work pretty well for a separate backend and epia SP8000 front end. Having now tried out 8.04, ( posted here as I cant find a page on your site for 8.04), the backend is fine, but I think the front end is suffering from Xvmc not working for the epia board, despite choosing the appropriate settings making video playback impossible. Googling about it seems I am not alone, but have not been able to find a solution. Have you or anyone else had this problem?
October 30th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Please consider that I’m a n00b with no good English.
all ok, but when i try
dvbstream -o -ps 600 601 -qam 16 -cr 3_4 | mplayer –
i’ve got no outut, onli this :
dvbstream v0.6 – (C) Dave Chapman 2001-2004
Released under the GPL.
Latest version available from http://www.linuxstb.org/
dvbstream will stop after -1 seconds (71582788 minutes)
Output to stdout
Streaming 0 streams
MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu13 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ (Family: 15, Model: 67, Stepping: 2)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Can’t open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can’t init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
Playing -.
Reading from stdin…
Until CTRL+C… can you religh my mind?
October 30th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Hi LoSpo,
The tzap command I gave in the example tunes to BBC ONE in the UK and the dvbstream command demultiplexes this signal using parameters specific to that channel. As I’m assuming that you don’t live in the UK then this test is not relevant for you.
As that section is mainly for testing/debugging the tuner card, I’d skip it and continue with the MythTV installation. See how it goes.
Garry.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Hi.
First of all, thanks for the great guide. I have used it to set up both my combined frontend/backend box, and an EPIA frontend.
I am still using edgy, and I just upgraded myth. All is fine, apart from I can’t access mythweb any more. I remember having to do a hack to the file permissions, but this hack doesn’t appear in the latest guide. Can you remind me what it was?
cheers.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Hi
Your DVB card testing page is on the fritz.
It’s a good site in general. Info for the UK is harder to find.
Don
December 16th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Hi
Still using your guide, it’s the best on the net!
How does one apply the xtraview patch as found at http://brej.org/dvb/index.html
With out breaking my newly finished under tv mythbuntu box.
3 turners, 1 nova t 500 and a Kworld
I also really need to understand how to get the 7.1 on board Realtek ALC883 working.
I’m trying to replace a windows DVD system, that has no bother with bouncing the sound around the the room
December 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hi Alec,
Thanks. As far as I know, Xtraview was canned almost a year ago, so the patch is useless nowadays. Regarding the ALC883, I don’t have that, so I can’t really help. Sorry.
Garry.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Thanks, how about the red hot channel, it was in the clear on my old set up but not now? I know it’s crap, just like to get everything working?
December 16th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Not sure about that. Maybe it would work, but I think that the patch is for an old version of MythTV, so wouldn’t guarantee anything. You might be able to find one somewhere, though.
Garry.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
BTW, had you noticed the new MythTV metapackages that come with Gutsy? There’s now separate ones for a master backend and slave backend install (both of which I’ve tried) and a Mythbuntu Control Centre (which I haven’t).
Also, MythTV 0.21 is scheduled for release “before March 2008″, which promises autodiscovery of remote backend/tuners, among other things. Hopefully that will at last mean that I’ll be able to use the tuner in my slave backend…
December 19th, 2007 at 8:55 am
They’re doing some great work with the MythTV packages. It makes a great change from the bad old days when the Ubuntu packages were a version out-of-date.
December 26th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
The clearest guide I’ve found, and I’m bitterly sorry it took me so long to find it
It’d be nice if a link to your site was more visible on the Mythbuntu documentation.
The only problem I’ve run into since coming across your guide is with the remote. I’m sure I must be missing something obvious.
With a clean Mythbuntu installation I set the remote to an Hauppauge Nova-T 500. I found out later that this isn’t the same as my Nova-T.
The direction buttons & OK work, but nothing else.
I followed your guide for setting up my remote and irw returns all the correct values. All the buttons seem to work fine.
However, when I start the frontend the remote doesn’t work at all, and a quick trip to the Mythbuntu Control Centre shows that the remote has been disabled.
Re-enabling a remote (relevent choices seem to be Hauppauge DVB-s card, Hauppauge Nova-T 500 or Hauppauge TV card) in the control centre stops irw from working, but brings back the directional buttons & OK.
Any ideas what I’m missing?
Thanks for the brilliant site, I’ll need to look for better hardware soon and this will be my first stop.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Hi
Great guide, particularly the section on Nova-T which was extremely useful. I have a panasonic 32inch LCD TV, when connected via a DVI output I only get 640×480 resolution – what resolution do you have while connected to your panasonic tv? I got much higher resolutions with my previous CRT based panasonic tv – I’m not sure why!
January 4th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Hi Andy,
Glad you found the guide useful.
When using the tv-out with your old CRT TV, even though the resolution was set to, say 1024×768, what you were actually seeing would be a PAL representation of that – and I bet it was pretty fuzzy when on the desktop.
LCD TVs tend to have lower native resolutions than monitors, but yours should be higher that 640×480. You may need to find a specific modeline for your TV and put it in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Have a search for your TV to see if you can find one.
Garry.
January 5th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Please take in account i am new to linux and mythtv and desperately need assistance.
After installing mythtv on my gusty installation i get to the portion of your guide where i am to run mythtv backend setup. I am then asked to select my language then i am shown the Database Configuration pages 1 and 2. which reads “myth could not connect to the database. please verify your database settings”. I dont get the menus shown in your guide. what am i missing?
Thanks in advance for your time and help
January 6th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hi Chauncey,
Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been away for the weekend…
Not sure what went wrong, but the first thing I’d do would be to see if you can log into the database manually:
Get the MySQL user and password for Myth:
cat /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt
DBHostName=localhost
DBUserName=mythtv
DBName=mythconverg
DBPassword=fgugnbbg
Try to log in:
mysql -u mythtv –password=fgugnbbg
(change the above to use your password obviously)
Garry.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
garry,
great guide!!!!
but … i do have the same problem as chauncey and i could NOT log in to mysql
cat /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt
DBHostName=localhost
DBUserName=mythtv
DBName=mythconverg
DBPassword=VmsHZ27L
mysql -u mythtv -password=VmsHZ27L
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘mythtv’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)
could you help me?
January 10th, 2008 at 8:41 am
There should be 2 minus signs before “password”:
mysql -u mythtv –password=VmsHZ27L
Also, try this command to log directly into the mythconverg database:
mysql -u mythtv –password=VmsHZ27L mythconverg
January 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am
garry, thanks for the quick reply!
unfortunately still no access:
mysql -u mythtv –password=VmsHZ27L
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘mythtv’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)
mysql -u mythtv –password=VmsHZ27L mythconverg
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘mythtv’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)
January 10th, 2008 at 10:18 am
OK, it looks like the mythtv user in MySQL doesn’t have the correct permissions to access the database. A few people have had this problem recently; maybe something is broken in the packages? Anyway, the following instructions should help you out:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/Install/Troubleshooting
January 13th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Hi Gary
Question: Does your Nova-t remote wind the volume up and down without taking your finger off the button?
Mine does not, I have set the repeat in lircrc from 1 to 30 with no change, also it often miss reads the input and skip’s back or forward if you push tje button up or down repeatedly too fast.
Any idear’s
Alec
January 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi Alec,
I only ever use the volume on my TV remote, so I can’t say off the top of my head. I’ll give it a try tonight.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I have a working mythtv setup using gutsy and WinTV-NOVA-T model 909. Sometimes I will record a program and when I play it back the picture is broken up. After some experiment I have found that if the aerial is plugged directly into the TV the picture is always good but when plugged into the Nova-t the picture sometimes degrades. An example was on Monday last the kids were watching Star Trek on Virgin 1 and the picture and sound were all disjointed, I moved the aerial to the TV and the picture and sound were Ok. Any ideas.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Hi Peter,
Hmmm… sorry, I find the opposite is true – my Nova-T is less susceptible to interference than the tuner in my TV!
Anyway, it looks like a signal strength problem. You can confirm this by pressing F7 whilst watching a channel to see the signal status.
Maybe a powered signal booster would help (I use one to split my signal between my TV and my first Nova-T card).
The quality of your aerial cable can also affect the signal quite significantly.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Hi Alec,
Sorry for the late reply – been very busy recently…
Anyway, I’ve got my repeat set to set 3 and it works fine. A repeat of 1 would register every event while you have the button pressed down, so it would be too fast. If you set it to 30, it would be way too slow. So, 3 seems to work fine for me. It’s a good setting for up/down in the menus, too.
Garry.
January 20th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Hi Garry, great guide, i have a similar install on the original pundit with onboard sis650 and at present a single Nova-T dvb card.
Ive always had a nightmare with the remote of the nova-t, the main part being the interference caused when buttons are pressed whether that be changing channels, pausing TV, pretty much anything. The screen (a 37″ LCDTV) goes blank for a few seconds. Just wondered if you had encountered this or anything similar, thanks
January 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hi Craig,
This is the first I’ve heard of interference when using the remote control… Unfortunately I don’t know what to suggest!
Does the problem affect Xine/mplayer etc or just Myth? Have you tried running irw and then pressing the buttons? Do you still get the problem?
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
interference is probably not the best choice of word. It occurs even when browsing through the menu in myth, the screen goes blank for a second of two. when you do irw it recognises all the key presses and this doesnt occur in mplayer or xine wether they are run from myth or standalone. Im going to try another tv and also looks at the keymaps in myth to see if there is anything there
February 1st, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hi Garry
I had a further play around using a MCE remote, configured lirc and still the same issue. However, it doesnt affect mplayer or xine. Only when using myth, either navigating through the menu or watching tv. Basically any button causes the creen the either flicker, jump or go blank for a moment or to. The only other thing i can try is another tv, perhaps a crt style and not an lcd
February 1st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Straight after posting that some googling comes up, it looks like it could be a bug. I have sis card in my pundit so I will look to apply the fix or get new video card. Would have thought it would have been fixed by now
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/77222
February 1st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Hi Craig,
Thank for posting that, hopefully it should help other users of the good old Pundit.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:37 am
I printed out your guide, but only got as far as the third page. (MythTV Setup) After I run the MythTV Backend Setup, I get a Terminal window full of error messages rush past:
No error type from QSqlError? Strange…
2008-02-06 11:06:17.061 Database not open while trying to load setting: GuiOffsetY
2008-02-06 11:06:17.061 Unable to connect to database!
2008-02-06 11:06:17.062 Driver error was [1/1045]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to connect
Database error was:
Access denied for user ‘mythtv’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)
I then select my language and it tells me ‘Myth could not connect to the database. Please verify your database setting.’
I tried KnoppMyth already, (“20 minute autoconfiguration”, my ass) but never could get the TV guide scripts to work because I bought an analog dual tuner instead of two digital tuners.
I don’t seem to have much luck with this digital home theatre… I’m beset by puzzling error messages at every turn, and feel very frustrated. I was hoping ubuntu’s installation scripts would be a bit more intelligent, but apparently it still takes some heavy lifting to get anything working.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Hi Marco,
I’m sorry that you’ve had so much trouble.
MythTV on Ubuntu usually goes as smoothly as anything. However, I’ve had quite a few people complain about this recently. I’m beginning to suspect that one of the packages is broken somewhere. I’d like to confirm myself, but I’m moving house in a couple of days and don’t have the time to build a test box from scratch!
Anyway, see the following guide. It should help you get your database access sorted out:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/Install/Troubleshooting
February 7th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hi Garry,
I’m pretty sure that I’ve worked out what the problem is that is causing so many people grief – you’ve missed out a step in your instructions! There are *four* dialogues in the ‘installing MythTV’ section – the first one is the root password. Just hit ‘enter’ for it, and that solves the problem.
I think what has been happening is that people have been entering in a password. If you don’t, it works fine. At least, this is what I did that gave me the same error that everybody else is getting.
This fixed my problem after I removed all MythTV and MySQL files installed (including configuration files) and redid it.
Cheers,
Anthony.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Hi Anthony,
What you say makes a lot of sense. I’ll amend the guide to try to make it clearer.
Garry.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Just a quick advance report on Hardy:
I got forced into using the alpha6 release of Hardy because my master backend machine suddenly decided that it wouldn’t run Edgy, Feisty or Gutsy any more – even from LiveCD.
The install of MythTV 0.21 worked fine straight out of the repositories, and Mythbuntu also works well, with it’s own dedicated Control Centre.
Good bits: Slave backend auto discovery works, and there quite a few tweaks and improvements in many other areas.
Bad bit: The network protocols have changed again, so a version 0.20 frontend or slave backend won’t work with a 0.21 master backend. Ok, I know I should expect this but I was hoping otherwise, as I don’t really want an alpha release on all my PCs!
March 12th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hi Martin,
Thanks for that. I’m way off taking the plunge myself!
I can understand your frustration regarding the frontends not being compatible. You could compile 0.21 from source – easier than it sounds – but I guess it depends how much you use the frontends and whether you can wait until April for Hardy to be released.
Garry.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I posted that a day too early! Just noticed that an auto-update to Gutsy today, taking the Frontend from 0.20 to 0.21. Not sure if everyone gets this, or only those running a 0.21 backend – but I can’t see how the updater would know that…
The themes on the new frontend appear to be broken, in that in my case it reverts to having only Gannt and Blue available, even with mythtv-themes installed. I ~think~ you now have to enable the other themes in the Mythbuntu Control Centre, but don’t want to test that on this PC, as I don’t want to risk turning it into a “Mythbuntu appliance” (as I accidentally did with my master backend machine!).
March 12th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Hi Martin,
Strange, I can only see 0.20.2 in my repos, so I’m not sure where it’s getting the new version from. Maybe it’s a Mythbuntu thing?
March 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hi Garry,
I don’t think it can be anything to do with Mythbuntu, as this PC’s not running that. It was a bog-standard 0.20 frontend (and is now a 0.21 frontend with some not-so-nice themes). If I go into Synaptic I see most of the myth components at release 0.21, even though this PC is still running Gutsy.
So it seems that credit is due to the developers in the way that they handled the upgrade – there seems to be a mechanism whereby a frontend “knows” that it’s mismatched with the remote backend and requires the update.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hi Gary,
Thanks for the guide it was really helpful. Just to let you know I had the same issue with connecting to the mysql database that everyone had. I did enter a root password and suspect Anthony is right in his post above. I am happy to say that running through the instructions in the troubleshooting link you posted above solved it for me.
Thanks again for all your work
Brian M
March 19th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the confirmation. I know that I really need to add this info to the guide, but I’ve been unable to do so due to problems with my internet connection from home.
Hopefully the RJ45 plug crimping tool I’ve just borrowed should go some way to sorting it out tonight so that I can get on and update the guide!
Cheers,
Garry.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Hi Gary
Here one for you?
I have just built from old parts an Ubuntu server and using LVM packed it full of old hard drives, that will contain ripped dvd’s.
Is it possible to have a link in the videos folder within Mythbuntu to link to this shared folder on my network?
I plan to get about a Tb of films on this server and would like to be able to “stream” them at will. but I don’t want to change the video folders location in mythbuntu’s set up.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hi Alec,
Do you want the folder to be accessible by Linux or Windows machines? For Linux, you can share the folder using NFS. For Windows, share it using Samba. I won’t go into the commands as there are there are plenty of tutorials on the subject which will be more comprehensive than I could be here.
I have a 500 GB external USD drive to store my DVD ISOs. This is plugged into my Myth box and shared using NFS. I can watch these on my Ubuntu box upstairs using VLC no problem.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
Hi Gary
Its shared with samba, as I use windows to rip the dvds. I was hoping to put a link to this folder in the videos folder, so when I go to it with the remote it opens the samba //ubuntu/dvds/ folder for the dvds.
So if could point me in the direction of the tutrial of how to make that link file. that would be great. I’m still trying to get my head around linux. sort of wish that linux was an option when I upgraded from my Dragon 32 all them years ago.
Thanks
April 21st, 2008 at 10:39 am
Hi Alec,
I’m confused now – Are we talking 3 machines here? An Ubuntu machine to store the DVDs, an Ubuntu machine as your MythTV frontend and a Windows machine to rip the DVDs?
April 21st, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hi Gary
Yes I have 4 pc’s on the network, Mythbuntu 710 as frontend and backend , ubuntu server(file server), ubuntu gutsy descktop (that is trying to take over from the windows pc), windows xp ( that I use for work). Plus the xp laptop when it not traveling around in the car, fixing PLC’s for work.
I’m trying to replace a Netgear network hard drive unit that only talks to windows or through windows and is very slow
April 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am
OK, so…
- share the drive using samba so that Windows can write to it.
- also export it using NFS so that you can mount it on your frontend.
- go into settings on mythfrontend and change the video directory to your mounted directory.
Here’s a few tips on achieving this, assuming that the directory holding your DVDs is /store/dvd on a machine called fred:
On the server (fred), install nfs-kernel-server:
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
…and add something like the following to /etc/exports:
/store/dvd *(ro)
- pick up the changes:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
Check that it’s shared:
showmount –exports
On the client (frontend machine), install nfs-common:
sudo apt-get install nfs-common
…and mount the directory:
sudo mount fred:/store/dvd /mnt/dvd
Garry.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Thanks Gary.
That was great, I got it working, did not have much with luck with
showmount -exports
returned an error, but the front end can see it anyway.
Now is it possible to have the frontend look at /var/lib/mythtv/videos and in that folder see a folder that takes it off to the shared LVM drive ~/dvd on the server?
And how do I make the frontend mount the ~/dvd on boot up, I find that it still hangs from time to time.
This is the latest 7.10 64bit release downloaded in March 08, it’s better in that the hanging is far less frequent and the remote repeat works but now the Guide is very very slow??
Thanks for all your help
Alec
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Hi,
If you try adding a symbolic link from the videos directory to your mounted dir:
cd /var/lib/mythtv/videos
sudo ln -s ~/dvd
It *should* work. Give it a try.
You can add the NFS mount command to your /etc/fstab to get it to mount on bootup. Googling for “fstab NFS” should give you the commands.
What’s hanging? Are you still talking about NFS?
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Hi
No its mybuntu that hangs, just freezes normally while watching TV.
I get problems when playing DVD’s if the disc is damaged half way through a film, but so did the old windows system.
The main worry is the guide, it becomes non responsive for a time, then all the key pushes it recived during that time all happen at once, then it becomes non responsive again only maybe 3-4 mins each time. But other times it works fine. I have no idea why yet.
Thanks I’m off to try the symbolic link now
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
When it hangs, can you switch apps (using alt-tab) or get to the console using ctrl+alt+F1 ?
If not, it may be a graphics driver issue. Make sure you’re using the restricted drivers and also that you don’t have Preference->Visual Effects set to “none”.
Also, search around for issues with your exact graphics card under Myth.
Hardy is out on Thursday. That might be worth a try.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I will try that, there is no keyboard attached, so can I try via VNC? and if say I can get to the console err how do I get back, without rebooting like I just did on this machine,, stop laughing.
I’m using the restricted drivers, Nvidia. I’ve not changed any of the default setting so I guess Visual Effects is at “none”
Yes I will be upgrading to Hardy, and the Mythbuntu version as soon as it’s out of Beta. Maybe that will cure all woo’s
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The link worked perfect!
Thanks again
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
To get back from the console it’s ctrl+alt+F7. (sometimes it’s F8 or F9).
Maybe it’s worth connecting a keyboard for debugging purposes… I’m not sure that VNC would work.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Cheers, I will let you know
May 17th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Hi
I’m having a little trouble with scanning the changels,. IThe Mythtv is connect to a sky+ box using the svideo ports. But when I scan in Mythtv I get SE1 -SE41 and not the channelsl listing in the guide. Is there somethings are doing wrong.
HELP!
May 18th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Hi John,
Sorry, I’ve only got Freeview and am unfamiliar with satellite channel scanning.
Garry.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Hi Garry,
I used the guide for 7.10 and things seemed to work pretty well for a separate backend and epia SP8000 front end. Having now tried out 8.04, ( posted here as I cant find a page on your site for 8.04), the backend is fine, but I think the front end is suffering from Xvmc not working for the epia board, despite choosing the appropriate settings making video playback impossible. Googling about it seems I am not alone, but have not been able to find a solution. Have you or anyone else had this problem?
Cheers,
May 30th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Hi Pat,
Sorry, I don’t use my Epia machine as a frontend anymore, so XVmc is not a problem for me.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
What is this??
Keith
http://www.HDPl.us