What are /r/mythtv's favorite Products & Services?

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Notice to Schedules Direct users As many of you will be aware, Schedules Direct are making some changes to their data feed. This is nothing to be alarmed about, as long as you update to the latest release of MythTV (0.27.4) everything will continue to work as it always has. There have been many scare stories and false reports in the last few weeks and we want you to know that all that is changing is the address of the server from which MythTV retrieves the guide data. This change has already been made and many people are already using the new address.

Unfortunately it seems this change was mixed with news of an entirely new JSON feed from Schedules Direct. This feed brings some minor improvements to the Schedules Direct service, but MythTV has decided not to use it at this time. An unofficial MythTV grabber was released by Schedules Direct for this new feed without consultation with the MythTV team. Please do not use this grabber!. It inserts data directly into the MythTV database, bypassing MythTV's ability to sanity check, correct and act upon information at a single point of insertion. We will be unable to assist users who run this grabber if they encounter bugs or broken features as a result.

So let me repeat, if you upgrade to MythTV 0.27.4 you will continue to use Schedules Direct with no further action required on your behalf. Do not use any of the other unofficial solutions such as the 'JSON' grabber from Schedules Direct.

mythtv will probably be able to do all the recording. the streaming, maybe not. Mythtv isn't really set up for remote (outside the network) access, and HDTV recordings have fairly high bitrates. Even though all houses may have fast internet, international relays may slow things down.

What might be a solution is to record using mythtv but stream using Plex. there is an unofficial, beta, "Mythtv channel" for plex that can read the metadata for mythtv recordings. Plex will transcode/compress the video so that they stream a lot more reliably. And plex is designed for streaming outside the network and is a little more secure. Plex will also stream to phones & tablets, video game consoles, rokus, etc.

But for answers from the Mythtv "experts" you may want to post this on their listserv: https://www.mythtv.org/support

The mpg extension was wrong because they're transport streams. TS is the correct extension. A long-standing issue finally fixed in .28.

It is in the changelog: (https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Release_Notes_-_0.28)

> Use correct mimetypes and extensions for MPEG2 PS/TS (could affect scripts/tools that expect filenames ending in .mpg) [7bf6bb1]

Very easy, Storage Groups are your friend.

Just create a LiveTV storage group and configure a path on your SSD.

> LiveTV (Storage Group): When you watch Live TV with MythTV it automatically creates a recording that is used for pausing, rewinding, etc. while watching Live TV. > > Use this storage group if you want live TV stored in a separate file system. Note that if you make a recording via the record button while watching live TV it may also end up here.

It is essentially IPTV. The M3U file is just a way to define the URL for a channel. Did you see this wiki page? https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/SAT2IP_players_as_capture_cards

Looks like it should work...

I am running Ubuntu Gnome 16.04. I updated my system the other day and at boot the connection to my HDHomerun from MythTV backed would fail, I found that on boot I would get this message:

Feb 10 16:39:39 photon mythbackend: mythbackend[2196]: E CoreContext recorders/hdhrstreamhandler.cpp:339 (Connect) HDHRSH(1045A053-0): Unable to connect to device Feb 10 16:39:39 photon mythbackend: mythbackend[2196]: E CoreContext dtvmultiplex.cpp:379 (ParseTuningParams) DTVMux: ParseTuningParams -- Unknown tuner type = 0xffffffff80000000 Feb 10 16:39:39 photon mythbackend: mythbackend[2196]: E CoreContext recorders/dtvchannel.cpp:299 (SetChannelByString) DTVChan[5](1045A053-0): SetChannelByString(13_1): Failed to initialize multiplex options Feb 10 16:39:39 photon mythbackend: mythbackend[2196]: E CoreContext recorders/hdhrstreamhandler.cpp:382 (TunerGet) HDHRSH(1045A053-0): Get request failed#012#011#011#011eno: Resource temporarily unavailable (11)

I found that simply restarting MythTV backend would resolve the issue. It seems like it was starting too fast for some reason. I set out to delay it's start and I edited the file:

/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mythtv-backend.service

I added the following line:

ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 30

Here is my whole file:

[Unit] Description=MythTV Backend Documentation=https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythbackend After=mysql.service network.target

[Service] User=mythtv EnvironmentFile=-/etc/mythtv/additional.args ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 30 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mythbackend --quiet --syslog local7 $ADDITIONAL_ARGS StartLimitBurst=10 StartLimitInterval=10m Restart=on-failure RestartSec=1

[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

I never had to mess with any network settings to get my Ceton tuner networking to work with the 14.04 Ubuntu. It self configured itself on ctn0 with a 192.168.200.2 ip. Myth recognized it right away and it has been great ever since... until I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04. But that is a different story.

It is NOT a requirement to make the IP addresses match your environment. Let it configure itself to the 192.168.200 network. If it is having problems with that, then edit your /etc/network/interfaces file to force the ctn0 card to use a 192.168.200.x IP address. Generally if you have only one card it will be 192.168.200.2. Once the ctn0 network adaptor is configured correctly, you should be able to connect to the web interface of the card at 192.168.200.1

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Ceton_InfiniTV_4#Ubuntu

http://www.bsmdevelopment.com/Reference/Sections/InstallNotes-MythTV_section-1.15.html

It all depends on what you are trying to do with MythTV. Have you tried their wiki and forums at https://www.mythtv.org? If you are wanting to record TV, then a TV tuner card or device of some kind is required. Check HDHomeRun and Ceton InfiniTV. I'm using both kinds with my MythTV.

I use an HDHomeRun Extend to record or stream over the air TV from my MythTV server. I have a Ceton InfiniTV 6 with a cable card from my cable provider, WOW, to capture and/or stream up to 6 shows at a time from their cable service. It works pretty good.

Kodi MythTV is just a front end. There is no point IMHO to run Kodi on the same PC as you are running the MythTV backend on. Just use the MythTV Frontend. But if you have another device (Raspberry PI, Android, etc...) that are hooked up to a TV or monitor, those make perfect Kodi front ends for Myth. I have three Minux Android devices that run Kodi as a frontend for MythTV on my TVs around my house. It works pretty great, although now I might just use the Nvidia Shield TV instead.

No problem, I was hoping you would see it as being a guiding hand and not looking for a spoon fed answer. In 2005 when I first starting playing with Myth I quickly learned understanding HOW to troubleshoot the application was key so I try to help others in the same way. Great to hear tanscoding is working!

I haven't transcoded in years since hard drive space is really no longer an issue and I rarely travel with recordings anymore so my answer is based on memory. I think you can configure Myth to transcode and remove commercials so if you copy the video file to something else it will be the edited file.

Check out: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Removing_Commercials

I see some sections that address exactly what you want to do (transcode with a cutlist) by using some command line switches with the transcoding job either manually or automatically. Give it a read and see if it answers your question.

Have you checked the backend log to see what it is reporting when a transcode errors out? I am sure it will have more detail than Mythweb and hopefully point you in the right direction.

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/General_Troubleshooting_Tips#Log_Files

Take a look at /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log

1) Queue a transcode 2) Watch it fail and note the exact time 3) Review the log for that time to see what it is reporting

that has just been my experience, i do not know if anybody else has similar findings; i think with the latest v30 release there is a commit that looks like it might fix the issue (but i have not had a chance to test it, cause i dont want to mess stuff up in the middle of the tv season)

but just for informational purposes, with rpi-update

the last hash to be a 4.9.x kernel is 5c80565c5c0c7f820258c792a98b56f22db2dd03 so running 'sudo rpi-update 5c80565c5c0c7f820258c792a98b56f22db2dd03' will give you the last 4.9.x kernel they made.

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edit: also as a comment (though sounds like you have a remote already planned) if you have a old phone, or tablet laying around (at least with android) there is a program called mythmote which uses your internal network and acts as a remote. it works awesome. i use it all the time.

i would recommend this if you were looking for an internal tuner, i have recommended it before on here and people were happy with it.
the purpose on multiple tuners is more for if you want to record/watch multiple things at the same time. cause otherwise you are stuck with only being able to watch and or record 1 thing (if you have 1 tuner)

Fedora 23 server on a home built PC operating as a combined frontend and backend (intel i3-2120T, 8gb ram, stock intel graphics, ASRock H61) using an HD Home Run to record OTA. The web frontend works well, and I can even now watch TV from my phone using Mythling. Super happy with this release.

You can get it from here: tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite as mentioned in the wiki: Schedules Direct Setup.

That is a pretty ideal setup. I feed an HVR-1600 from my DirecTV box via s-video and use a serial cable to change the channels on the box. I feed the ATSC input of the card with a Coat hanger HD antenna. I keep meaning to look into upgrading my DirecTV box to get a set up similar to yours since my current box does not support HD. Perhaps on the rebuild for the next version...

Its also worth noting that in the latest version there is a link on the setup page saying that AAC is required and to activate Medibuntu.

If you aren't running the latest version you can normally find it on the Mythbuntu Testing PPA: http://www.mythbuntu.org/repos

I only backport versions so far though, so it depends on what version of Mythbuntu/Ubuntu you are running.

schedules direct xmltv setup is not tooo hard: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/XMLTV#Schedules_Direct_Setup

to run something as the mythtv user, do "sudo -u mythtv Command". you use your password, not the mythtv account (which shouldn't even be able to login on its own if configured correctly).

I haven't done it in a while, but this set up worked for me using IPTV.

I am pretty sure you can just add multiple tuners using the same source and you only have to scan for channels one time.

I have never used a SAT>IP so there could be some nuances that I don't know about.

Hi, I'd do a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04 or Xubuntu 20.04 on the backend box, and then use Mythbuntu Control Panel on both boxes to install MythTV. It is possible to do a fresh install and keep the existing recordings.

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythbuntu_Control_Panel

OK, you have a few misconceptions so lets clear those up first. This does basically look like an HDHR prime so it can only tune digital cable with a cable card installed or clearQAM. It is very unlikely you have any clearQAM (unecrypted) channels on Spectrum so you will need a cablecard from spectrum to use this device, or any tuner with your digital cable. Also, with mythtv you will only be able to record channels marked as copy-freely and not being familiar with Spectrum this maybe be none, a subset or all of your channels you pay for.

EIT listings are only broadcast over the air so since the HDHR prime has no ATSC tuner you can not record OTA and you can't get EIT listings data, you would need a different tuner for that.

With a cable card installed you DO NOT want to do a channel scan! All the channels are virtual and mapped through the cable card itself. For information on how to configure a cable card tuner there is an article on the mythtv wiki here: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Silicondust_HDHomeRun_Prime Some of the info on the wiki may be out of date but it looks to be a good start.

Hope that helps! I'll be monitoring this thread if you need more assistance!

What I was thinking. Sounds like a driver problem. Install the proprietary drivers and see if that helps. See this too: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93828

Turn on debug logs, https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Logging, and try running the backend from the command line to see what it's doing when it freezes.

Are you running any other services on that machine?

Short answer is yes.

In practice Mythtv can pass along any video file to ffmpeg to be transcoded and the replace the original with the new file. You'll have to adopt someone else's command/script and possibly edit it to fit your needs.

Once it's set up, you can select the recording and choose your transcoding.

ffmpeg is what handbrake uses behind the scenes to do it's transcoding.

Mythtv transcoding wiki

Thanks dalittle. I'm using an unmodified zap2xml.pl from here(http://zap2xml.awardspace.info/) but I don't think that's really where I should be filtering the stuff.

The entire code for Mythconvert script is at the bottom of the page here(https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythconvert) It's really long, so I didn't want to post the full text here.

I think the final line is probably the best spot to clean up the naming issue. > #This line is simply to start the main function, passing title and subtitle as arguments > main "$title" "$subtitle"

or I guess even here? > ################################################### > # > # Script internal variables - do not edit > # > ################################################### > id="$1" > preset='(--preset=".*")' > inputFile="$2/$3" > outputFile="" > title="$4" > subtitle="$5"

I think I just want to remove the characters. I need to do something with $4 or $5, I'm just not sure what :P

I love MythTV! I'm still on version .27 due to my older hardware. Tried Sage years ago, but didn't really like it. Never tried Windows Media Center though. I'm using a 10 year old NvidiaION box as my MythTV backend and as a file server for my movie/tv collection. It sits quietly in my office recording shows using an HDHomerun Dual Tuner. I also have an older Hauppauge HVR-1600 that rarely gets used, unless both of the HDHomerun tuners are busy. I often schedule shows using MythWeb, as well as various management tasks. In the den, my main frontend is a Zotac Mini-PC with an NvidiaION2 cpu. It currently runs Kodi 17.6, with the MythTV PVR Client Add-On. I get guide data from Schedules Direct. Lately though, I've encountered a problem where the guide data fails to update for some unknown reason. I still have to find time to troubleshoot that issue. In the bedroom, I have a Raspberry Pi 2 running Kodi. I usually don't use this box to access MythTV, just the file server. Using Kodi as a frontend is so much easier and more available for a variety of devices (but you just can't edit commercial cut lists with it. Bummer!) I can use Kodi on my laptop, tablets, phone, etc. If you have a Playstation 4 or Sony Bluray player, you can watch recordings or LiveTV using upnp. As a remote, I use this: https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-Backlit-Raspberry/dp/B07LGH8ZL7 (super easy to use. No need to configure lircd) I also have a Harmony 650, that I use to control all of my media devices in the den. Overall, MythTV has served me very well for 10 years!

I said "ZBox" without realizing that they had many different varieties. I was referring to the PC Stick chassis like the Zotac ZBox PI221. I have been looking for a replacement MythFrontend box and will probably go for one of these.

just for in case anybody end up looking at this, i went with this It actually work really well, however you do need a 4.9+ kernel to use it.

I've been using one of these for a few years now: http://ark.intel.com/products/53427/Intel-Core-i3-2120T-Processor-3M-Cache-2_60-GHz ... the CPU is 35W TDP and I am usually at <5% load. I haven't measured the whole system but my UPS right now reports that it's only at 7% load while also powering some other small things like my router, so you could estimate the HTPC power from there.

Becareful. I ordered http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N198UG thinking the same thing and ran into many many problems. The wireless was awful, but the CPU was too slow to play an HD video and run a usb wireless card. The ethernet has (had maybe?) buggy drivers in 2.6 kernel so that was it's headache.

That being said, I'd give it another shot if the price is right. These small form factor boxes are too appealing not to try.

> the CPU was too slow to play an HD video

That's why you use VDPAU. The ION can handle HD video no problem. I use a AT5IONT-I and play back HD video on it, both recordings and Bluray, over HDMI at 1080p no problem. The CPU usage never goes over 10%. Admittedly mine is an ION2, but ION can handle it fine too with fewer passes on the deinterlacer.