  Installing and using MythTV
  Robert Kulagowski, mailto:rkulagow@rocketmail.com
  <mailto:rkulagow@rocketmail.com>
  2009-11-18, v0.22.02

  Initially, installation of MythTV seems like a huge task. There are
  lots of dependencies, and various distributions seem to do the same
  thing different ways. This document will attempt to give general
  installation instructions, as well as including distribution-specific
  instructions where necessary.
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents



  1. First things first.
     1.1 What is MythTV?
     1.2 QuickStart
     1.3 Upgrading from previous versions
     1.4 How to obtain this document / PDF versions of this document
     1.5 Books about MythTV
     1.6 Document conventions
     1.7 Mailing lists / getting help
     1.8 IRC
     1.9 Bug database
     1.10 Contributing to this document

  2. Introduction.
  3. Checking prerequisites.
     3.1 Hardware
        3.1.1 CPU Type and Speed
        3.1.2 Software / CPU-based encoding.
        3.1.3 Hardware based encoding.
        3.1.4 Memory
        3.1.5 Hard Disk(s)
        3.1.6 Filesystems
        3.1.7 Video Capture Device
           3.1.7.1 Frame Grabbers.
           3.1.7.2 Hardware MPEG-2 encoders.
           3.1.7.3 DVB capture cards.
           3.1.7.4 HDTV.
           3.1.7.5 Hauppauge HD PVR
        3.1.8 Playback of HDTV using CPU
        3.1.9 Playback of HDTV using VDPAU
           3.1.9.1 Firewire.
           3.1.9.2 DBoxII or other devices running Neutrino
           3.1.9.3 USB Capture Devices.
           3.1.9.4 IP Recorder (RTSP, RTS, UDP)
        3.1.10 Sound card
        3.1.11 Video Display Card
        3.1.12 Cards with TV-out
           3.1.12.1 ATI
           3.1.12.2 NVIDIA
           3.1.12.3 Hauppauge PVR-350
        3.1.13 External Adapters
     3.2 Software
        3.2.1 Pre-compiled packages
           3.2.1.1 Red Hat Linux / Fedora Core / MythDora
           3.2.1.2 Debian
        3.2.2 Manual installation
        3.2.3 Command-line installation
           3.2.3.1 Fedora / Mythdora
           3.2.3.2 Mythbuntu
           3.2.3.3 Debian.

  4. System Configuration Requirements for Compiling MythTV.
     4.1 Software requirements for compiling MythTV
        4.1.1 General requirements
     4.2 Shared-Library requirements for MythTV
        4.2.1 Modifying /etc/ld.so.conf
     4.3 Environment variable requirements for MythTV
        4.3.1 General requirements
           4.3.1.1 QT libraries and binaries

  5. Downloading and compiling.
     5.1 Configuring the Schedules Direct service
     5.2 Manually building MythTV
        5.2.1 Enabling real-time scheduling of the display thread.
           5.2.1.1 rlimits
           5.2.1.2 realtime module
           5.2.1.3 run as root option (not safe)
        5.2.2 Frontend-only configuration

  6. MySQL.
     6.1 Distribution-specific information
        6.1.1 Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core
     6.2 Setting up the initial database
        6.2.1 Mandriva and Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core
        6.2.2 Debian
        6.2.3 Gentoo
        6.2.4 Modifying access to the MySQL database for multiple systems

  7. Configuring Sound.
     7.1 Graphically setting up the mixer
        7.1.1 Mandriva and Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core
           7.1.1.1 Using ALSA.
     7.2 Setting the mixer from the command line

  8. Setting up a remote control.
     8.1 Additional information for lirc

  9. Configuring MythTV.
     9.1 Configuring the Master backend system
        9.1.1 General
        9.1.2 Capture Cards
        9.1.3 Video Sources
        9.1.4 Input Connections
        9.1.5 Channel Editor
        9.1.6 Storage Groups
           9.1.6.1 Introduction.
           9.1.6.2 How to use Storage Groups.
           9.1.6.3 Migrating to Storage Groups.
           9.1.6.4 Advanced: Algorithm used by the Storage Group
     9.2 Post-configuration
     9.3 Configuring a non-master backend
     9.4 Configuring and running mythfilldatabase
        9.4.1 Periodically running mythfilldatabase
     9.5 Grabbing channel icons for Schedules Direct users

  10. Configuring mythfrontend.
     10.1 General
     10.2 Appearance
     10.3 Program Guide
     10.4 Playback
        10.4.1 Video Filters
        10.4.2 Applying filters
        10.4.3 Currently Available Filters
        10.4.4 Usage Considerations
     10.5 Recording

  11. Using MythTV.
     11.1 Keyboard commands
        11.1.1 mythfrontend
        11.1.2 Watching TV or a recording
        11.1.3 Watching TV only
        11.1.4 LiveTV Browse Mode
        11.1.5 Playback Recording Zoom Mode
        11.1.6 If you have two or more tuner cards
        11.1.7 Watching a recording only
        11.1.8 EPG
        11.1.9 Setting Program or Channel Recording Priorities
        11.1.10 Viewing Scheduled Recordings/Resolving Conflicts
        11.1.11 Viewing Search Listings
        11.1.12 Recording Profiles Setup Screen
        11.1.13 Recording Groups
        11.1.14 Watch Recordings Screen
        11.1.15 Remote Controls
     11.2 Using themes with MythTV
     11.3 Adding support for an external tuner
     11.4 Using Shutdown/Wakeup
        11.4.1 A deeper look into the operation
        11.4.2 Setting up the MythTV side of this extension.
           11.4.2.1 Using WOL to wake your Master backend.
           11.4.2.2 Using BIOS wakeup to wake your Master backend.
        11.4.3 Wakeup the MySQL server using WOL
        11.4.4 Tips/Tricks:
     11.5 Controlling the mythfrontend via telnet

  12. Scheduling Recordings.
     12.1 Record Types
     12.2 Scheduling Options
        12.2.1 Priority
        12.2.2 Duplicates
        12.2.3 Conflicts
        12.2.4 Scheduling decisions
        12.2.5 Reschedule Higher Priorities
        12.2.6 Controlling Your Schedule
     12.3 Storage Options
        12.3.1 Recording Profile
        12.3.2 Recording Group
        12.3.4 Playback Group
        12.3.5 Auto-Expire
        12.3.6 Episode Limit
     12.4 Post Recording Processing
        12.4.1 Commercial Flagging
        12.4.2 Transcoding
        12.4.3 User Jobs
     12.5 Advanced Recording Options
        12.5.1 Creating Power Search rules with Custom Record
        12.5.2 Getting Started
        12.5.3 How it Works
        12.5.4 Common Tricks and Tips
        12.5.5 Working with SQL
     12.6 Scheduling with more than one Input
        12.6.1 Mutually Exclusive Inputs
        12.6.2 Stations, Channels and Video Sources
        12.6.3 Order of Inputs
        12.6.4 Matching Callsigns
        12.6.5 Using Priorities to Prefer an Input
        12.6.6 Input Priority
        12.6.7 Channel Priority
        12.6.8 Preferred Input
        12.6.9 HDTV Priority
        12.6.10 Custom Priority

  13. MythPlugins.
  14. MythWeb.
     14.1 Installation and prerequisites
        14.1.1 Mandriva
     14.2 Completing the installation
     14.3 Resetting the key binding table
     14.4 Resetting the theme.

  15. MythGallery.
     15.1 Installation and prerequisites
     15.2 Using MythGallery
     15.3 Importing Pictures

  16. MythGame.
     16.1 Setup Directory Structure
     16.2 Download and Install xmame
     16.3 Download extra files
     16.4 Download and Install MythGame.
     16.5 Setup xmame in MythGame
     16.6 Hints:

  17. MythMusic.
     17.1 Manual installation of prerequisites
     17.2 Mandriva
        17.2.1 Additional options with MythMusic
     17.3 Red Hat Linux 9
     17.4 Compiling MythMusic
     17.5 Configuring MythMusic
     17.6 Using MythMusic
     17.7 Troubleshooting MythMusic
        17.7.1 When I run MythMusic and try and look up a CD, I get an
               error message

  18. MythWeather.
  19. MythVideo.
  20. MythDVD.
     20.1 Manual Compilation of Prerequisites
     20.2 Pre-compiled binaries
     20.3 Running the Myth Transcoding Daemon

  21. MythNews.
  22. Troubleshooting.
     22.1 Compiling
        22.1.1 Compile errors
        22.1.2 make: *** No rule to make target
               /usr/lib/qt3/mkspecs/default/qmake.conf', needed by
               Makefile'. Stop.
        22.1.3 make: *** No rule to make target
               /mkspecs/default/qmake.conf', needed by Makefile'. Stop.
        22.1.4 Internal Segmentation Fault.
     22.2 Debugging
        22.2.1 MythTV segfaults
        22.2.2 MythTV isn't doing anything
        22.2.3 Debugging with GDB
        22.2.4 MythTV is crashing your system
     22.3 Installing
        22.3.1 When trying to run mythtv-setup, you get an error like
               this: "mythtv-setup: error while loading shared
               libraries:"
     22.4 Using
        22.4.1 No programs are displayed in "Watch Recordings"
        22.4.2 MySQL not connecting correctly
        22.4.3 MySQL database is corrupt
        22.4.4 Using a MPEG-2 encoder card and the video appears
               "jittery"
        22.4.5 Using a MPEG-2 encoder card and the video is jumping up
               and down
        22.4.6 Screen goes blank but returns when mouse is moved or
               keyboard is used
     22.5 Miscellaneous
        22.5.1 mythfilldatabase failing
        22.5.2 Frontend appears to be slow at jumping / seeking.
        22.5.3 On-screen Display shows incorrect program length.
        22.5.4 Troubleshooting audio
        22.5.5 Mythbackend reports that your card is not reporting full
               duplex capabilities
        22.5.6 The mythbackend program told me to look at this section
        22.5.7 My remote doesn't work / works sometimes and not others /
               "ghost" keypresses
        22.5.8 Where's "canada-cable"?
        22.5.9 Channels are off by one
        22.5.10 Mythweb is showing a db_open error when I connect to it
        22.5.11 Mouse pointer disappears when placed over the MythTV
                windows
        22.5.12 What does "strange error flushing buffer" mean on
                the console?
        22.5.13 Can't change the channel when watching Live TV.
        22.5.14 Screen goes black when you try to play something
        22.5.15 Computer is loading a media player application when you
                insert a CD or DVD

  23. Miscellaneous.
     23.1 I'd like to watch the files without using MythTV / I'd like to
          convert the files to some other format
        23.1.1 mythtranscode example
     23.2 Using a different window manager
     23.3 What capture resolution should I use? How does video work?
     23.4 MythTV GUI and X Display Sizes
        23.4.1 X Dimensions
        23.4.2 MythTV Dimensions
        23.4.3 Overscan Dimensions
     23.5 Saving or restoring the database
     23.6 Deleting the MySQL database
     23.7 btaudio
     23.8 Removing unwanted channels
     23.9 NFS
     23.10 Automatically starting mythfrontend at system boot time
     23.11 Automatically starting mythbackend at system boot time
        23.11.1 Red Hat And Mandriva
           23.11.1.1 Log files
           23.11.1.2 Mandriva
        23.11.2 Gentoo
     23.12 Advanced Backend Configurations
     23.13 Using the transcoder
        23.13.1 Configuring Recording Profiles to Allow Transcoding
        23.13.2 Configure Transcoding Profiles
        23.13.3 Create/Alter Scheduled Recordings to Enable Transcoding
        23.13.4 Manual Transcoding
     23.14 Changing your hostname
     23.15 Can I run MythTV on my TiVo?
     23.16 Can I run MythTV on my ReplayTV?
     23.17 Can a wireless connection be used between the frontend and the
           backend?
     23.18 How can I burn shows that I have recorded to a DVD?
     23.19 Using the DBoxII within MythTV
     23.20 What do the icons on the Watch Recordings screen mean?
     23.21 What do the letters mean when I change channels?
     23.22 What is the difference between the various Hauppauge PVR
           models?
     23.23 Changing channels on an external Set Top Box
     23.24 Configuring one machine to flag all commercials

  24. Example Configurations.
     24.1 Advanced Partition Formatting
        24.1.1 Ext2
        24.1.2 Ext3
        24.1.3 ReiserFS
        24.1.4 JFS
        24.1.5 XFS
     24.2 Caching support for Schedules Direct


  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  First things first.



         NOTE: Please note that I, Robert Kulagowski, am NOT the
  author/programmer of the MythTV application! I can not give you
  personalized installation support. If you are having issues installing
  MythTV you should examine the archives, or post your question to the
  MythTV-users mailing list. If you send me "Does MythTV work with 'X'"?
  messages - I will simply instruct you to ask your question on the
  mythtv-users mailing list.

  1.1.  What is MythTV?

  MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the
  mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source
  software and operating systems. MythTV is known to work on Linux and
  Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It does not run on Windows.

  MythTV has a number of capabilities. The television portion allows you
  to do the following:

  o  You may pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.

  o  You may install multiple video capture cards to record more than
     one program at a time.

  o  You can have multiple servers (called "backends"), each with
     multiple capture cards in them. All scheduling is performed by the
     Master backend, which arbitrates which recording will be performed
     by each device. All recording requests are managed by the Master
     backend, so you can schedule a recording from any client.

  o  You can have multiple clients (called "frontends" in MythTV
     parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Any
     client can watch any program that was recorded by any of the
     servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view
     the content; a low-powered frontend will not be able to watch HDTV,
     for example. Clients can be diskless and controlled entirely by a
     remote control.

  o  You may use any combination of standard analog capture card,
     MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices. With
     appropriate hardware, MythTV can control set top boxes, often found
     in digital cable and satellite TV systems.

  o  Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from
     schedulesdirect.org, a non-profit organization which has licensed
     data from Tribune Media Services. This service provides almost two
     weeks of scheduling information. Program Guide Data in other
     countries is obtained using XMLTV. MythTV uses this information to
     create a schedule that maximizes the number of programs that can be
     recorded if you don't have enough tuners.

  o  MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client should
     automatically see content from your MythTV system.

     Other modules in MythTV include:

  o  MythArchive, a tool to create DVDs

  o  MythBrowser, a web browser

  o  MythFlix, a Netflix module

  o  MythGallery, a picture-viewing application

  o  MythGame


  o  MythMusic, a music playing / ripping application which supports MP3
     and FLAC

  o  MythNews, a RSS news grabber

  o  MythVideo, DVD ripper and a media-viewer for content not created
     within MythTV

  o  MythWeather

  o  MythWeb, which allows you to control your MythTV system using a web
     browser. With MythWeb, you can schedule and delete recordings,
     change keybindings and more. With proper security, you may even
     schedule a program over the Internet and have it immediately acted
     on by the Master backend.

  1.2.  QuickStart

  Custom mini-distributions are available to make it easier to install
  MythTV. A mini-distribution removes many of the "general purpose"
  workstation / server software packages that may be installed by
  default if you use one of the big-name OS packages.

  See http://mysettopbox.tv <http://mysettopbox.tv> if you'd like to
  install a custom version of Arch Linux optimized for MythTV.

  See http://www.minimyth.org <http://www.minimyth.org> for a small
  MythTV distribution which can be booted over a network.

  See http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ <http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/> for
  instructions tailored to RedHat's Fedora Core distribution.

  See http://www.mythbuntu.org/ <http://www.mythbuntu.org/> for a
  distribution using a customized Ubuntu.

  See http://www.mythdora.com/ <http://www.mythdora.com/> for a
  distribution using a customized Fedora Core.

  There is a MythTV wiki at http://wiki.mythtv.org
  <http://wiki.mythtv.org>.

  1.3.  Upgrading from previous versions

  The upgrade from previous versions should be transparent. Any changes
  to the database structure should be applied automatically.

  It is strongly recommended that you back up your database before
  installing a new version of MythTV.

  See ``Saving or Restoring the database'' for instructions.

  1.4.  How to obtain this document / PDF versions of this document

  This HOWTO document is maintained at the primary MythTV website:
  http://www.mythtv.org <http://www.mythtv.org> by Robert Kulagowski
  <mailto:rkulagow@rocketmail.com>.

  This document is available as a single-page HTML document at
  http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-singlehtml.html
  <http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-singlehtml.html> or as a PDF
  at http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.pdf
  <http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.pdf>.

  This HOWTO is for MythTV v0.22


  Release notes for this version may be found in the MythTV Wiki at
  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Notes_-_0.22
  <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Notes_-_0.22>

  1.5.  Books about MythTV

  If you would like to purchase a book specifically about MythTV:


  o  Hacking MythTV, ISBN 978-0470037874 by Wilson, Tittel, Wright and
     Korelc

  o  Practical MythTV: Building a PVR and Media Center PC, ISBN
     978-1590597798 by Smith and Still

  Note that these books cover earlier versions of MythTV.

  1.6.  Document conventions

  The following conventions are used throughout this document.
  boldface - used for program names.
  typewriter - used for program paths.
  emphasis - Pay attention here.



                           Pay more attention.



                        Ignore at your own peril.



  Feature that has been added to SVN (subversion, a revision control system)
  but is not available in the current release.

  1.7.  Mailing lists / getting help

  It's recommended that you join the user list at
  http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
  <http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users>. The developer
  list is at http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev
  <http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev>. Please keep
  the developer list strictly for development-related issues.

  Searchable archives for the lists are available at
  http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/ <http://www.gossamer-
  threads.com/lists/mythtv/>.

  1.8.  IRC

  There are two IRC channels dedicated to MythTV which can be found on
  irc.freenode.net

  o  mythtv

  o  mythtv-users

  The mythtv channel is where the developers discuss code. It is not a
  user-support channel. Please don't ask non-development related
  questions there.



  Really. Even if there's no one in the mythtv-users IRC group or everyone
  seems to be ignoring you.

  1.9.  Bug database

  If you feel you need to contribute to a bug database, use the MythTV
  bug ticketing system at http://svn.mythtv.org/trac
  <http://svn.mythtv.org/trac>.

  Good entries will contain the following:

  1. Qt version

  2. Linux distribution

  3. gcc version

  4. the last entry in config.log to detail how you compiled

  5. MythTV version numbers (e.g.from mythfrontend --version)

  6. Hardware

  7. How you are able to reproduce the bug

  See the instructions on how to debug in ``Section 22''.

  The bug database is not a chat room, so restrict your entries to what
  is relevant. It's also not a repository of feature requests; a feature
  request without an accompanying patch file to implement that feature
  will be quickly closed. There is a feature wishlist on the wiki at
  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Feature_Wishlist
  <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Feature_Wishlist>. There is no
  guarantee that anything on the wishlist will ever get code written to
  implement it.

  If a developer closes out your bug, it's likely you didn't provide
  enough information. Don't re-open a bug without providing additional
  information.

  1.10.  Contributing to this document

  Contributions to the HOWTO are welcome, especially if you find a
  grammatical or spelling error, or if the wording of something is just
  plain confusing.

  If you'd like to make a new contribution, create a ticket at
  http://svn.mythtv.org/trac <http://svn.mythtv.org/trac> and click "New
  Ticket". The type should be set to "patch" and the owner set to
  "rkulagow" to ensure that I see your contribution.

  Please send it as either SGML or as plain text. NO HTML. The source
  used to create the HOWTO is in SGML / Linuxdoc. Do not be afraid of
  SGML! A quick look at the source of this HOWTO will show that it is
  not difficult, because there aren't that many tags to worry about, so
  at least try to submit as SGML. See the Linuxdoc HOWTO at
  http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html
  <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html> for information
  on the linuxdoc format itself, or look at the mythtv-HOWTO.sgml file
  as an example.

  To create the actual patch, run diff -u origfilename newfile >
  doc.patch and attach your contribution to the trac ticket.

  2.  Introduction.

  This HOWTO document will focus on manually building MythTV in a North
  American environment. If you have installation instructions for a
  different region or Linux distribution, please send them to the author
  so that it can be included in other versions of this document.

  3.  Checking prerequisites.

  You must ensure that any firewalls (either hardware, or a software
  firewall installed by your distribution) will not block access to the
  ports that will be used by the MythTV clients and servers on the
  "inside" LAN.  The ports for MySQL (TCP port 3306) and mythbackend
  (TCP ports 6543 and 6544) must be open. It is strongly recommended
  that you do not expose the MythTV and MySQL ports to the Internet or
  your "Outside" LAN.

  3.1.  Hardware

  Hardware selection is a complex topic, one this HOWTO will only
  discuss briefly and in general terms. The following subsections offer
  some general guidance but stop short of offering specific
  recommendations.

  For a good MythTV experience, you must understand that MythTV
  exercises your hardware more than a typical desktop. Encoder cards
  generate DMA across the PCI bus. The CPU is busy encoding / decoding
  video. Hard drives are constantly reading and writing data. Building a
  MythTV system on older / "spare" hardware may be an exercise in
  frustration and can waste many hours of valuable time.

  If you have specific questions about the suitability of specific
  hardware choices, you can consult the archives of the mythtv-users
  mailing list at http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/
  <http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/> or post a question to
  the list.

  3.1.1.  CPU Type and Speed

  Selection of CPU type and speed is one of the trickiest elements of
  hardware selection, mainly because there are so many tradeoffs which
  can be made. For example, if you have plenty of CPU, you can use
  higher bitrates or capture sizes, etc.

  3.1.2.  Software / CPU-based encoding.

  MythTV has two modes of operation for capturing video. First, it can
  function as a software video encoder, which means that it can use a
  fairly generic "dumb" video capture card to get frames of video,
  encodes them using the CPU on your motherboard and writes them to
  disk. High-end video capture cards and devices like the TiVo and
  ReplayTV have dedicated encoder chips which use specialized hardware
  to convert the video stream to the MPEG-2 format without using the
  motherboard CPU. The main CPU has the responsibility of running the
  Operating System and reading and writing the encoded frames to the
  disk. These tasks have fairly low CPU requirements compared to
  encoding video, which is why a device like a Series 1 TiVo can run
  with only 16MB of RAM and a 54MHz CPU.

  That being said, due to the digital conversion in the United States,
  there are fewer sources of NTSC analog video, and cheap silicon has
  made it easier to include MPEG-2 encoders into hardware capture cards.
  In addition, the sale of "analog-only" cards has been severely
  curtailed in the United States, and one vendor received a fine for
  failing to include notification that their device was analog-only.
  http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-493A1.txt
  <http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-493A1.txt>

  There are many variables that go into the question: "How fast a CPU do
  I need to run MythTV"? Obviously, the faster your CPU, the better your
  experience will be with MythTV. If you are using the software MPEG-4
  encoder and performing the "Watch TV" function, where the CPU is both
  encoding and decoding video simultaneously to allow Pause, Fast
  Forward and Rewind functions for live TV requires more CPU then just
  encoding or decoding. MythTV also supports multiple encoder cards in a
  single PC, thereby increasing the CPU requirements if you plan on
  simultaneously encoding multiple programs. As a general guideline,
  plan on 1GHz per encoder if you are doing software-based encoding,
  less if you are using a hardware-based encoder.

  Here are a few data points:

  o  A PIII/733MHz system can encode one video stream using the MPEG-4
     codec using 480x480 capture resolution. This does not allow for
     live TV watching, but does allow for encoding video and then
     watching it later.

  o  A developer states that his AMD1800+ system can almost encode two
     MPEG-4 video streams and watch one program simultaneously.

  o  A PIII/800MHz system with 512MB RAM can encode one video stream
     using the RTjpeg codec with 480x480 capture resolution and play it
     back simultaneously, thereby allowing live TV watching.

  o  A dual Celeron/450MHz is able to view a 480x480 MPEG-4/3300kbps
     file created on a different system with 30% CPU usage.

  o  A P4 2.4GHz machine can encode two 3300Kbps 480x480 MPEG-4 files
     and simultaneously serve content to a remote frontend.

  3.1.3.  Hardware based encoding.

  The second mode of operation is where MythTV is paired with a
  hardware-based video encoder, in which case MythTV will primarily be
  I/O bound. There are several examples of such devices, like the
  Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150/250/350/500 series, the Hauppauge HD-PVR
  (H.264 High-Def capture using Component inputs), or the Silicon Dust
  HDHomerun. In this mode, because the video encoding is being done by a
  dedicated video processor (the Hauppauge encoders), or the device is
  simply writing the data to disk (the HDHR and other digital devices,
  such as DVB cards) the host CPU requirements are quite low. See the
  ``Video Capture Device'' section for details.

  Primary development in MythTV has transitioned to supporting MPEG-2
  capture devices, H.264 and HDTV, so if given the option, go with the
  hardware encoder or choose a ATSC capture device. Because of the
  transition to digital broadcast in the United States, most television
  stations are now digital-only. There are still analog stations in the
  U.S., but a majority are low-powered. Canada still has analog
  broadcasts.

  Analog encoding or hardware MPEG-2 encoding may still be required if
  you are trying to capture standard definition video sources, such as
  set-top-boxes.

  3.1.4.  Memory

  A MythTV host that is both a backend and a frontend and using software
  encoding with a single capture card should run adequately in 512MB of
  RAM.  Additional RAM above 512MB will not necessarily increase
  performance, but may be useful if you are running multiple encoders.

  3.1.5.  Hard Disk(s)

  Encoded video takes up a lot of hard disk space. The exact amount
  depends on the encoding scheme, the size of the raw images and the
  frames per second, but typical values for MythTV range from 700
  megabytes/hour for MPEG-4, 2 GB/hour for MPEG-2 and RTjpeg and 7
  GB/hour for ATSC HDTV.

  Writing video to disk is sensitive to timing issues; RTjpeg requires
  less CPU with the tradeoff being larger files and needing to write to
  the disk faster. MPEG-4 requires more CPU, but the files are smaller.
  At the default resolution, MPEG-2 creates the largest files of all
  with almost no CPU impact.

  3.1.6.  Filesystems

  MythTV creates large files, many in excess of 4GB. You must use a 64
  or 128 bit filesystem. These will allow you to create large files.
  Filesystems known to have problems with large files are FAT (all
  versions), and ReiserFS (versions 3 and 4).

  Because MythTV creates very large files, a filesystem that does well
  at deleting them is important. Numerous benchmarks show that XFS and
  JFS do very well at this task. You are strongly encouraged to consider
  one of these for your MythTV filesystem. JFS is the absolute best at
  deletion, so you may want to try it if XFS gives you problems. MythTV
  incorporates a "slow delete" feature, which progressively shrinks the
  file rather than attempting to delete it all at once, so if you're
  more comfortable with a filesystem such as ext3 (whose delete
  performance for large files isn't that good) you may use it rather
  than one of the known-good high-performance file systems. There are
  other ramifications to using XFS and JFS - neither offer the
  opportunity to shrink a filesystem; they may only be expanded.



                  NOTE: You must not use ReiserFS v3 for
  your recordings. You will get corrupted recordings if you do.

  Because of the size of the MythTV files, it may be useful to plan for
  future expansion right from the beginning. If your case and power
  supply have the capacity for additional hard drives, read through the
  ``Advanced Partition Formatting'' sections for some pointers.

  3.1.7.  Video Capture Device

  In order to capture video, MythTV will need one or more video capture
  devices with Linux drivers. There are a number of classes of hardware
  available for capturing video.

  3.1.7.1.  Frame Grabbers.

  This class of card is the simplest and is usually the cheapest. There
  is no on-board encoding of the analog video; hardware known as a
  Digital-Analog Converter (DAC) takes the video and presents it to the
  computer in an essentially raw digital form.

  For a list of video capture cards known to work with Linux, please see
  /usr/src/linux/Documentation/video4linux/bttv for a partial listing;
  even if your specific card is not listed, it may be that the vendor is
  actually using a standard reference design and placing their own name
  on it. See the video4linux mailing list
  (https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list
  <https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list>) for
  more information and for specific hardware questions.

  The most common inexpensive cards available use the Bt848, Bt878 or
  CX2388x series of video capture chips; examples are the "Hauppauge
  WinTV Go" card and the "AverTV Desktop PVR" card, both of which use
  the bttv kernel module.


  ______________________________________________________________________
  NOTE: The ATI TV Wonder series and the ATI All-in-Wonder series of cards
  are not the same. The All-in-Wonder cards will not work with MythTV.
  ______________________________________________________________________



        NOTE: The ATI All-in-Wonder cards (which are not the same
  as the ATI TV Wonder, TV Wonder VE or TV Wonder Pro) will not work as
  a MythTV capture device because the GATOS http://gatos.sourceforge.net
  <http://gatos.sourceforge.net> drivers that are available provide only
  a limited subset of the V4L API.  The TV Wonder series of cards are
  supported by the Bt8x8 Video4Linux driver.

  After you have installed a suitable capture device, you can check that
  the kernel sees it with lspci. Look for an entry labeled "Multimedia
  video controller". To get more detailed information about the card,
  use lspci -v or lspci -vv. Ensure that your system is loading the bttv
  modules by typing:


       # lsmod |grep bttv



  You want to see the bttv module listed.

  3.1.7.2.  Hardware MPEG-2 encoders.

  While inexpensive video-capture cards simply capture raw frames,
  leaving encoding to software, some higher-end cards incorporate
  hardware-based encoding. Using either a G200 MJPEG encoder card, or a
  MPEG-2 encoder card supported by the IvyTV project
  http://ivtvdriver.org <http://ivtvdriver.org/> such as the Hauppauge
  PVR-150/250/350/500, Avermedia M179, Hauppauge "Freestyle" or Yuan
  M600 cards will allow you to use dedicated hardware encoders rather
  than your CPU. Using the on-board MPEG-2 encoder greatly reduces the
  CPU requirements for encoding.

  NOTE: Motherboards with the Via chipset are notoriously bad with DMA
  and have caused numerous issues with ivtv, including hard locks. See
  the ivtv website http://ivtvdriver.org <http://ivtvdriver.org> for the
  latest information on what works and what doesn't.

  Here are some data points for encoding:

  o  A Celeron 450 uses 2% CPU for encoding a 480x480 16Mbps MPEG-2
     stream.

  Here are some data points for decoding:


  o  An Athlon 1800XP can decode a 720x480 8Mbps MPEG-2 file using 10%
     CPU

  o  An Athlon 1GHz can decode a 720x480 16Mbps MPEG-2 file using 30-50%
     CPU, can decode a 480x480 16Mbps MPEG-2 using 30% CPU and
     approximately 30% for Live TV at 416x480.

  3.1.7.3.  DVB capture cards.

  DVB is a video standard primarily found in Europe (where it comes in
  DVB-C, DVB-T and DVB-S and -S2 varieties for Cable, Terrestrial and
  Satellite) and is also used as the programming interface for HDTV
  capture cards in Linux. To see if your DVB card is supported, see the
  list of cards in the "Supported Hardware" section of the DVB Wiki at
  http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
  <http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page> for more
  information.

  In the United States, you may use a card such as the TwinHan to obtain
  unencrypted Free-To-Air satellite channels. See
  http://www.lyngsat.com/ <http://www.lyngsat.com/> for the types of
  content which are available.

  3.1.7.4.  HDTV.

  There are a number of HDTV cards with Linux drivers which are known to
  operate in the United States; a complete list of cards with DVB
  drivers can be found at http://www.linuxtv.org/
  <http://www.linuxtv.org/> Some cards support capture of unencrypted
  digital cable TV (utilizing QAM64 or QAM256), others will only work
  with Over The Air signals captured with an antenna (with 8VSB).

  None of the capture devices listed above perform any encoding; they
  merely allow your computer to save a copy of a HDTV stream which has
  already been converted to MPEG-2 at the broadcast facility.

  3.1.7.5.  Hauppauge HD PVR

  Hauppuage makes a device called the HD PVR, which accepts component
  HDTV signals and TOSLINK / SPDIF audio and performs a real-time encode
  into H.264. See http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
  <http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html> for
  additional information.

  3.1.8.  Playback of HDTV using CPU

  To playback HDTV content, plan on a powerful CPU if your video card
  does not provide support for offloading video decode. (See below for a
  description of VDPAU)


  "How powerful?" depends on a number of factors, such as the capture
  resolution, whether the video is progressive or interlaced, and
  whether your display card has hardware-assist support for Linux.

  The Simple Answer: Once you are in the 3.2 Ghz P4-class of CPU you
  should have no issues with viewing HDTV.

  The Complicated Answer:

  For 720p content (1280x720), a 2.4GHz P4 should be sufficient.

  For 1920x1080i->1920x1080p with the better deinterlacing methods done
  in real time a 2.4GHz CPU is taxed, but should work if you use "Bob
  and Weave" deinterlacing, or if you have an NVIDIA card with video
  decode acceleration.

  3.1.9.  Playback of HDTV using VDPAU

  NVIDIA now incorporates MPEG-2 and H.264 decode acceleration in their
  binary driver; this is now officially supported in MythTV 0.22. Use of
  VDPAU offloads the decompression and deinterlacing of video to the
  video GPU rather than the CPU of the frontend, so the CPU requirements
  are drastically lowered. A fanless frontend using an Intel Atom CPU
  running a single-core at 1.6Ghz is sufficient to decode and
  deinterlace MPEG-2 and H.264 if it has VDPAU supported video.

  3.1.9.1.  Firewire.

  You may use the Firewire output of the Motorola DCT6200 or the SA3250.
  If your provider uses 5C encryption on a particular channel, you won't
  be able to get any content. Many users have resorted to using Firewire
  to change channels on their set-top-box and capture the High Def video
  using the Component output fed into a Hauppauge HD PVR.

  3.1.9.2.  DBoxII or other devices running Neutrino

  You may use the Ethernet port of an DBoxII or a similar device to
  capture MPEG-2. Your set top box has to be running the Neutrino GUI.

  3.1.9.3.  USB Capture Devices.

  The Plextor ConvertX PVR devices are supported through Linux drivers
  available from http://go7007.imploder.org/
  <http://go7007.imploder.org/>. MythTV uses the Plextor to capture
  hardware encoded MPEG-4, so the host CPU requirements are low.

  Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 and variants are supported by the Linux
  Kernel as of 2.6.18. Additional information is available at
  http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/ <http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/>).

  3.1.9.4.  IP Recorder (RTSP, RTS, UDP)

  MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 stream recording is supported using the IPTV
  recorder in MythTV. This recorder expects the channels to be supplied
  as a m3u playlist. If your DSL/Fiber provider supplies television
  service, but does not provide a m3u playlist for the channels, you can
  construct one for your own use. You do not need to download it from
  the same server as the streams themselves, and it can also be read
  from a file if this is more convenient.

  NOTE: Some DSL providers only allow you to use one recorder at a time,
  so you may need to limit yourself to one recorder in MythTV and turn
  off any set top box the cable provider sold or rented to you with your
  service. This limitation is independent of the bandwidth you have
  purchased.

  3.1.10.  Sound card

  The system needs a sound card or an on-board equivalent on the
  motherboard to play back and in some cases, to record sound. Any sound
  card that can be operated by the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound
  Architecture) kernel modules will work with MythTV. However, some
  cards and drivers will provide better quality or compatibility than
  others.



         NOTE: Analog video capture cards are the only ones which
  require a sound card for capturing audio. DVB, HDTV, and other
  hardware encoder cards all provide a combined audio / video stream. If
  you're not using a V4L analog device, you may skip this section.

  The usual practice for capturing the audio associated with the video
  is to run a cable from an audio output on the video capture card to
  the Line input on a sound card. However, some video capture cards
  provide on-board audio capabilities that work with the kernel btaudio
  module instead, thereby eliminating the need for a cable. This is
  useful if you will be using multiple capture cards in a single
  chassis, since each capture card will not need its own sound card.
  Note that a separate sound card is still required for playback when
  using btaudio, and that often the audio recorded in this way will be
  mono only. See the ``btaudio'' section for more information.



         NOTE: Plugging a Line-level device into the Mic input is
  not recommended. Line-level devices have higher voltages and can
  damage the sound card. In addition, even if it doesn't break your
  card, you will be getting Mono sound. See the Linux MP3 HOWTO at
  http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/MP3-HOWTO.html
  <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/MP3-HOWTO.html> for additional information.

  3.1.11.  Video Display Card

  MythTV will work with just about any video card. However, it is highly
  recommended that you use a card which supports XVideo (XV) extensions.
  If your card does not support XV, color conversion and scaling will be
  performed by your CPU rather than the video card. This is very CPU and
  memory intensive and will often result in dropped frames and a
  corresponding degradation of quality. Check the X documentation for
  details if you are uncertain about your preferred card. You may also
  run xvinfo; look for your video card to be listed as one of the
  adapters.

  If you want to use MythTV with a standard television, you will need a
  physical connection from your video card to your TV set, which can
  either be a TV-out port on the card itself or an external adapter that
  converts the VGA signal to an appropriate video signal. "Appropriate"
  depends on a number of factors, such as video standard (NTSC vs. PAL),
  the type of input connection (Composite vs. SVideo), etc.

  Note that with some video cards and X drivers, XVideo extensions are
  only supported on the VGA output, and not on the TV output.



  3.1.12.  Cards with TV-out

  This section deals with a number of cards that are known to have TV-
  out ports. The list is unlikely to be complete, so if you know of
  others, please post a message to the mythtv-users mailing list so the
  information can be included in future versions of the HOWTO. The list
  is organized by manufacturer.

  Reports here are based on what users of the cards have posted on the
  mythtv-users mailing list, so if you need configuration details,
  please search the archives at http://www.gossamer-
  threads.com/lists/mythtv/ <http://www.gossamer-
  threads.com/lists/mythtv/> using the card name in your search string.

  3.1.12.1.  ATI

  ATI makes many cards with TV-out capability, but only offers Linux
  drivers for Radeon 8500 and above cards. See the Drivers and Software
  section of http://www.ati.com <http://www.ati.com/> for the driver and
  additional information.

  The enhanced ati.2 X driver created by the GATOS
  http://gatos.sourceforge.net <http://gatos.sourceforge.net> project
  offers some support for TV-out on other ATI cards, but only in its
  "experimental" version, available through CVS. There have been reports
  from people who say they have made this driver work with one or
  another ATI card.  For example, Bruce Markey  <mailto:bjm@lvcm.com>
  writes (on the mythtv-users mailing list): "I got this to work. You
  can quote me on that.  I've used TV-out on several models of ATI cards
  both All-In-Wonder and regular cards with TV-out." See the
  "Adventurous Setup" section of
  http://gatos.sourceforge.net/watching_tv.php
  <http://gatos.sourceforge.net/watching_tv.php> for details. Also see
  http://www.retinalburn.net/linux/tvout.html
  <http://www.retinalburn.net/linux/tvout.html> for more information.

  3.1.12.2.  NVIDIA

  Some NVIDIA cards with TV-out can be run using the standard nv driver
  in X, combined with the userspace application nvtv to control the TV-
  out port. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/nv-tv-out/
  <http://sourceforge.net/projects/nv-tv-out/> for details. Recent
  versions of the NVIDIA driver have better support for overscan and
  other features useful with TV-Out, so the nvtv application may not be
  required.

  Some NVIDIA cards can be run with a proprietary NVIDIA X driver made
  available by NVIDIA. See http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
  <http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html> for more information.

  NOTE: It's strongly recommended that you use the proprietary NVIDIA
  drivers; they have excellent support for XvMC and ship with a good
  configuration utility. XvMC provides MPEG-2 hardware acceleration,
  which is important if you want to display HDTV. VDPAU is another new
  feature and it provides an API for offloading MPEG-2 and H.264 to the
  GPU.

  3.1.12.3.  Hauppauge PVR-350

  As of MythTV 0.22, the TV-out and MPEG-2 decoder functions of the
  PVR-350 are no longer supported. This functionality is currently
  unmaintained, and will be removed in MythTV 0.23.



  3.1.13.  External Adapters

  External adapters convert standard VGA output to a form suitable for
  display on a television. The output format varies by region, since
  different countries have different TV standards. People on the mythtv-
  users list have mentioned these adapters:


  o  AITech Web Cable Plus, powered by external transformer or takes
     power from PS/2 keyboard connector, support resolutions up to
     1024x768, outputs composite and SVideo, provides position
     adjustment.

  o  Averkey lite, powered by a USB port, has Composite, SVideo, YPbPr
     outputs; pan, brightness, overscan/underscan controls; supports up
     to 1024x768 outputs; and supports PAL and NTSC.

  o  ADS TV Elite XGA

  o  AverKey iMicro (comments are generally favorable)

  o  AITech Web Cable (comments are generally unfavorable, different
     than the "Plus" version above)

  o  TVIEW Gold (mentioned once, favorably)

  3.2.  Software

  There are a few ways of installing programs on Linux systems; you can
  either use a pre-compiled package, or install from a tarball after
  satisfying any prerequisites.



      NOTE: you must have the MySQL database software installed on a
  system to store the master database. This does not necessarily mean
  that MySQL must run on one of the MythTV boxes. The minimum MySQL
  version is 5.0.15.

  3.2.1.  Pre-compiled packages

  A number of people have created pre-compiled packages for MythTV that
  may make your installation easier.



          BIG FAT WARNING: This HOWTO assumes that you have not
  installed MythTV from a package. All example command lines and file
  locations are based on the MythTV tarball defaults. Some packagers
  have modified the filenames, binaries and file locations to match what
  is commonly found in that distribution. Any issues with MythTV
  installed via a pre-compiled package MUST be raised with the packager.

  If you use any of the pre-compiled packages you may not need to
  perform any additional configuration steps in this HOWTO. The next
  logical step is ``configuring MySQL'', which you may or may not have
  to perform. See your package documentation.



  3.2.1.1.  Red Hat Linux / Fedora Core / MythDora

  The definitive documentation on installing MythTV on Red Hat Linux /
  Fedora Core can be found in Jarod Wilson's (mailto:jcw@wilsonet.com
  <mailto:jcw@wilsonet.com>) HOWTO at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
  <http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/> Just like 3rd-party packages, any 3rd-
  party documentation problems should be brought up with the 3rd-parties
  (maintainer, lists, bugzillas etc.).

  3.2.1.2.  Debian

  Debian packages for MythTV and most of its add-on modules are
  maintained by Christian Marillat mailto:marillat@free.fr
  <mailto:marillat@free.fr> and are available at http://www.debian-
  multimedia.org/ <http://www.debian-multimedia.org/>.  Installation
  instructions can be found on those pages as well. All of the
  prerequisites for MythTV are available as Debian packages, most of
  them from the official Debian archive.

  After adding the appropriate commands to your /etc/apt/sources.list
  file you can run apt-get update and then execute apt-get build-dep
  mythtv which should install all the pre-requisites required to compile
  MythTV.

  3.2.2.  Manual installation

  You may use the graphical tools that come with your distribution, or
  you can use command-line utilities. Either system will get the job
  done, and it all depends on your comfort level with Linux.

  In order to compile MythTV, we need to make sure that the software it
  needs is installed. This list includes mysql, gcc, freetype2-devel,
  xorg-xserver-devel, qt-devel and lame. If you're going to use a remote
  control with MythTV, you're going to need the cdialog package in order
  to compile lircd if your distribution doesn't have a pre-packaged
  lirc. If you are using XMLTV as a grabber, you will need perl.


  ______________________________________________________________________
  NOTE: Qt v4.4 or higher is required.

  NOTE: If you are going to be using packages to install various
  components, you should be aware that not all packages include the necessary
  headers for compiling. If you're having trouble compiling, ensure
  that you've installed the -devel version of a prerequisite.
  ______________________________________________________________________



  3.2.3.  Command-line installation

  This section details the various methods for installing prerequisites
  from the command line.

  3.2.3.1.  Fedora / Mythdora

  Assuming that you've configured ATrpms, you can execute:


       # yum-builddep mythtv



  Alternatively, you may use the build script located in packaging/rpm,
  or install the "requires" found in the mythtv.spec file located in the
  same directory.

  3.2.3.2.  Mythbuntu

  You can run


       $ sudo apt-get build-dep mythtv



  3.2.3.3.  Debian.

  Build-dependencies for MythTV can be satisfied by adding the following
  to your /etc/apt/sources.list


       # Christian Marillat's packages (mplayer, lame)
       deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid main
       deb-src http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid main



  and executing:


       # apt-get build-dep mythtv
       # apt-get source mythtv --compile



  4.  System Configuration Requirements for Compiling MythTV.

  Before you compile MythTV from the current source tarball or from
  subversion, you may need to modify your system configuration in a few
  ways.

  In general, if you install MythTV from pre-packaged binaries for your
  Linux distribution/version, you don't need to be too concerned about
  the issues in this section of the HOWTO - the install script for the
  packages should take care of them. However, this section is still
  recommended reading which may help if the packager skipped a step in
  their packaging.

  4.1.  Software requirements for compiling MythTV

  4.1.1.  General requirements

  MythTV is written in C++ and requires a fairly complete, but standard,
  compilation environment, including a recent g++ compiler, make, and
  appropriate header files for shared libraries. Any standard Linux
  distribution should be able to install a suitable compilation
  environment from its packaging system. Section 3.2 of this HOWTO
  provides some details of how to install the required environment for
  many distributions.

  Subsequent sections of this chapter address the few oddities that you
  may have to adjust by hand before you compile MythTV.

  The reference compilation system for MythTV is Ubuntu.



  4.2.  Shared-Library requirements for MythTV

  4.2.1.  Modifying /etc/ld.so.conf

  The runtime manager for shared libraries, /lib/ld.so, gets information
  about the locations and contents of shared libraries from
  /etc/ld.so.cache, a file created by ldconfig from information in
  /etc/ld.so.conf. Because MythTV installs shared libraries in
  /usr/local/lib, that directory needs to be added to the list of
  directories for ld.so to search when doing runtime linking of
  programs, if it is not already there. You do this, as root, by editing
  /etc/ld.so.conf, then running ldconfig.  There are many ways to do
  this; to determine the way that your distribution is configured, type:



       $ cat /etc/ld.so.conf
       include /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*.conf
       $



  If you see that your .conf file consists of just the "include" line,
  then execute the following as root:



       $ sudo bash
       # echo /usr/local/lib >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/mythtv.conf
       # /sbin/ldconfig
       # exit
       $



  If your .conf file has many individual entries in it, then type:



       $ sudo bash
       # echo /usr/local/lib >> /etc/ld.so.conf
       # /sbin/ldconfig
       # exit
       $



  4.3.  Environment variable requirements for MythTV

  4.3.1.  General requirements

  4.3.1.1.  QT libraries and binaries

  The compiler needs to be able to locate QT binaries and libraries in
  order to compile MythTV. QTDIR needs to be set and the directory
  holding the QT binaries needs to be added to your PATH. Your
  distribution may already be making these changes as a part of the
  installation of the software prerequisites detailed earlier.

  One way to do this is as follows:

  Open a shell and execute the following:

  $ echo $PATH
  /usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/qt4/bin:/home/mythtv/bin:
  $ echo $QTDIR
  /usr/lib/qt4
  $ which qmake
  /usr/bin/qmake



  If you don't see values like those above, do not proceed past this
  step until you have resolved this error. You may need to manually
  specify the QTDIR and PATH at the shell prompt before compiling.

  Also, check that there has been a link created in /usr/lib/qt4/mkspecs
  called default. If not, you'll get errors during the compile. See the
  Troubleshooting Section for more information.

  5.  Downloading and compiling.

  Get MythTV from the http://www.mythtv.org <http://www.mythtv.org> web
  site. There are two installation methods you may choose from. The
  first is to download the latest release in tarball format and compile,
  but this is really only valid if you're reading this HOWTO on the very
  first day that a new release has been made, because the tarball is a
  static file and won't include any fixes for issues discovered after
  the tarball was created.

  The recommended solution is to download the source using subversion to
  ensure that you've got the latest fixes.

  When using subversion, there are some other choices that need to be
  made:

  o  Do you want to run the stable release of MythTV? If yes, download
     from the "release-0-22-fixes" branch.

  o  Do you want to run the absolute latest developer code? If yes, you
     must join the http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-
     commits/ <http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-commits/>
     and http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev/
     <http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev/> mailing lists
     to keep up to date with the current status of the code. Code
     obtained from subversion has no guarantees regarding stability,
     etc. The latest code will be in "trunk".

  If you are in North America you will use the Schedules Direct grabber
  which is built-in to MythTV. You do not need to install XMLTV (so you
  may skip XMLTV-related instructions), but you need wget version 1.9.1
  or higher.

  Get XMLTV from http://xmltv.sourceforge.net
  <http://xmltv.sourceforge.net>. Download the latest version (0.5.51).

  5.1.  Configuring the Schedules Direct service

  Schedules Direct is a non-profit organization which has licensed
  Television program data from Tribune Media Services and makes it
  available to users of Freeware and Open Source applications.

  If you wish to use Schedules Direct, you'll need to establish a user
  account. Go to http://www.schedulesdirect.org
  <http://www.schedulesdirect.org> and click on the "Membership" link.

  Once you've read and agreed to the Subscriber Agreement, Terms of Use
  and Privacy Policy proceed to the lineup choices and configure your
  account for your particular location and the channels that you have.
  This configuration will be imported into MythTV when you first run the
  mythtv-setup program.

  5.2.  Manually building MythTV

  If you are going to use subversion, execute the following instructions
  to obtain the latest trunk version of MythTV.

  To use the release version, you can execute the following. You are
  strongly encouraged to use the release version.



       $ svn co http://svn.mythtv.org/svn/branches/release-0-22-fixes/ mythtv-0.22
       $ cd mythtv-0.22



  To download trunk:



       $ svn co http://svn.mythtv.org/svn/trunk/ mythtv-trunk
       $ cd mythtv-trunk



  NOTE: Using a svn version of the code allows you to stay up-to-date
  with changes. So, if there's an update to the 0.22 release and you
  originally obtained it using svn, you could enter the mythtv-0.22
  directory and type "svn up", which will update your copy with the
  fixed version from the website. You would then recompile and install
  the updated 0.22 code.

  If you are using the tarball, then unpack it:


       $ tar -xjf mythtv-0.22.tar.bz2
       $ cd mythtv-0.22
       $ ./configure



  If you wish to change options, run ./configure --help to see what is
  available and to override any automatically detected options.  See the
  config.log file after running configure to see previous runs.

  To compile:


       $ make -j 2



  The MythTV compile can take advantage of multiple CPUs, SMP and
  Hyperthreading. If you want to build MythTV on a multi-CPU machine (or
  with distcc), specify "-j numjobs", where "numjobs" is greater than 2.
  In the above example, we had two concurrent jobs executing, which is
  recommended for a single CPU system. Do not set the number of jobs too
  high, or your compile will actually take longer to complete than it
  would if you did a "normal" build.
  Once the compile is done, switch to superuser:


       $ sudo bash
       # make install
       # exit



     NOTE: subsequent configuration steps assume that you are within
  the MythTV directory that you cd'd to above.

  5.2.1.  Enabling real-time scheduling of the display thread.

  MythTV supports real-time scheduling of the video output thread. There
  are three ways to go about enabling this: You can use rlimits, you can
  use the realtime security module, or on older systems you can SUID the
  executable. Enabling real-time scheduling is optional, but can make
  the video display smoother, especially if you are decoding HDTV.

  5.2.1.1.  rlimits

  The rlimits method is the preferred method and is included in Linux
  2.6.12 and above and requires PAM version 0.79 or above. Assuming
  anyone running mythfrontend is in the audio group and rlimits are
  supported, all you need to do is place this in your
  /etc/security/limits.conf



       *               -       rtprio     0
       *               -       nice       0
       @audio          -       rtprio     50
       @audio          -       nice       0



  5.2.1.2.  realtime module

  The second option is to use the Linux realtime kernel module.  This
  will be phased out over time, but is currently supported by many
  distributions that do not yet support rlimits. If you are not using
  the distribution kernel you must configure your kernel with:


       Security options : [*] Enable different security models
       Security options : [M] Default Linux Capabilties



  You may also need to install the realtime module, using your distribu-
  tion's realtime package. Assuming the users who will be running myth-
  frontend will be in the audio group you can get the GUID of a named
  group like so:


       $ grep audio /etc/group

  If the number printed out from the grep was 18, you can now load this
  module as root before starting mythfrontend:


       # modprobe realtime gid=18



  5.2.1.3.  run as root option (not safe)

  The final and least preferred option is to set the sticky bit on the
  mythfrontend executable. This opens a security hole, but is the only
  option on systems that do not support either rlimits or the realtime
  module. This does not work on modern distributions either, and is not
  recommended on any system connected to the Internet. This may also
  make it impossible to debug MythTV without running gdb as root. If you
  would still like to do this, do the following as root:


       # chmod a+s /usr/local/bin/mythfrontend /usr/local/bin/mythtv



  5.2.2.  Frontend-only configuration

  Since MythTV uses a client/server architecture, multiple frontend
  computers can simultaneously access content on a Myth system. Live TV,
  watching and scheduling recordings, etc. are all possible from
  multiple frontends.

  To get a better picture of what is needed to run a frontend, note the
  following:

  You do NOT need the MySQL server installed on your remote frontend

  You do NOT need XMLTV installed on your remote frontend

  You do NOT need to run the mythtv-setup program on your frontend
  machine

  Other than the exclusion of the MySQL server and XMLTV, the MythTV
  compilation procedure is the same as when you're setting up both a
  backend and a frontend. However, you will need to install the database
  access libraries.

  Once MythTV is compiled and installed:

  Run the mythtv-setup program on your Master backend. Under the
  "General" menu, change the IP address of the current machine (by
  default, "127.0.0.1") to the real external IP address - 127.0.0.1 is
  the internal loopback address and no external machine can access it.
  Change the Master Server IP setting to the same IP address as well.

  Run the mythfrontend program on your frontend machine, and a "Database
  Configuration" screen should appear.  Set the "Host name" field to
  point to your Master backend's IP address.

  6.  MySQL.

  You will also want to comment out "log-bin" in your my.cnf
  configuration file. This option will quickly fill your "/var" disk
  partition with many gigabytes of data, unless you are doing database
  replication and deleting these files regularly.

  6.1.  Distribution-specific information

  6.1.1.  Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core

  If this is the system maintaining the database, make sure that MySQL
  is running and started at boot. Click on Redhat menu>Server
  Settings>Services and enter the root password when asked. Check
  "mysqld" and then click Start.  Click Save, then close the window.

  This can be done from the command line by typing:


       # /sbin/chkconfig mysqld on
       # /sbin/service mysqld start



  6.2.  Setting up the initial database

  This step is only required on the system maintaining the database,
  which may or may not be one of your MythTV boxes. If the database is
  on a non-MythTV machine you'll need to copy the database/mc.sql file
  to it.

  To setup the initial MySQL databases:


       $ cd database



  6.2.1.  Mandriva and Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core



       $ mysql -u root < mc.sql



  6.2.2.  Debian



       $ mysql < mc.sql



  6.2.3.  Gentoo



       $ su
       # mysql < /usr/share/mythtv/database/mc.sql



       NOTE: It is good practice to set a root password for MySQL.
  Instructions for doing so can be found on MySQL's web site at
  http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Security.html
  <http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Security.html>.

  6.2.4.  Modifying access to the MySQL database for multiple systems

  If you're going to have multiple systems accessing a master database,
  you must grant access to the database from remote systems. By default,
  the mc.sql script is only granting access to the local host.

  To allow other hosts access to your master database, you can either
  configure MySQL database access with no security or with additional
  granularity.



         NOTE: The "no security" option is very dangerous unless
  you're in a controlled environment.

  The "%" is the wildcard character in MySQL.

  This example has no security at all, and allows access from any host.


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



  For a more secure setup, you can restrict which machines or subnets
  have access. If you have a complete DNS system operational, you could
  do the following:


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



  Finally, if you just want to restrict by IP subnet (in this example,
  the 192.168.1. network):


       $ mysql -u root mythconverg
       mysql> grant all on mythconverg.* to mythtv@"192.168.1.%" identified by "mythtv";
       mysql> flush privileges;



  You'll also need to check that the "networking" feature of MySQL is
  turned on. Check that /etc/mysql/my.cnf does not contain skip-
  networking. If it does, either remove that line or comment it out.
  Also verify that bind-address is set to your IP address instead of
  127.0.0.1. If you change either of these items, restart MySQL.

  NOTE: Your distribution may have a customized MySQL configuration
  file; in Mandriva, check /etc/sysconfig/mysqld for additional
  configuration.

  7.  Configuring Sound.

  In the past, when analog frame buffer video capture cards were the
  primary means of obtaining video, many did not include audio capture
  circuitry, so a sound card was required to record the audio. Now that
  most users will have a hardware capture device which multiplexes the
  audio and video into a single stream this is not as great a concern as
  it once was.

  NOTE: This portion of the HOWTO will be removed in MythTV v0.23.

  See the ``Troubleshooting Audio'' section for more information if
  you're having issues with sound. Also, ensure that no other programs
  are grabbing the audio output, like arts or esd.

  You must mute the "line-in" of your sound card and also set it as the
  recording source. Muting the line-in will ensure that you don't hear a
  time-delayed version of any live programs you may be watching if you
  have a combined frontend/backend system.

  There are two ways to do this. Graphically, and from the command line.

  7.1.  Graphically setting up the mixer

  7.1.1.  Mandriva and Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core

  Open Kmix by clicking K->Multimedia->Sound->Kmix for Mandriva, or

  RedHat Menu>Sound & Video>Volume Control



  Click on Settings->Configure Make sure that "Tick Marks" and "Show
  labels" have "X"'s in them. This will make it easier to find the
  correct audio source. Click OK.

  On the mixer page, look for Line-In on your sound card. You should see
  two LED's - a green one at the top, and a red one at the bottom. The
  green one at the top is for muting; you want to make sure that the
  green LED is a dark green, meaning that it's "off". You also want to
  click on the red LED so that it turns bright red, indicating that it's
  "ON"; this insures that the Line-in is used as the source. Click OK,
  and make sure that you save the settings so that this is your default.

  7.1.1.1.  Using ALSA.

  To use ALSA, you'll need to correctly setup your asoundrc file.
  Configuring this file is beyond the scope of this HOWTO. Once ALSA is
  working correctly, change the output sound device in
  mythfrontend->setup->Audio from /dev/dsp to ALSA:default.  This field
  may be edited to suit your ALSA requirements.

  7.2.  Setting the mixer from the command line

  If you have installed the alsa-utils package, then the amixer program
  can be used to setup the mixer. The "Master" volume setting is only
  required on a frontend machine to ensure that the sound channels are
  unmuted and configured for outputting sound. The "Line" and "Capture"
  controls are required for your sound card to actually capture audio
  from the external Line-in if it's connected to an analog frame
  grabber. Not all sound cards have a "Capture" control, but if yours
  does and you don't set it then MythTV will not capture audio.


  ______________________________________________________________________
  Note the spelling in the following commands.
  ______________________________________________________________________



       $ amixer set Master,0 100%,100% unmute
       $ amixer set PCM,0 100%,100% unmute
       $ amixer set Line,0 75%,75% mute captur
       $ amixer set Capture,0 100%,100% captur
       $ su
       # alsactl store
       # exit
       $



  If you have multiple sound cards, then use the -c parameter to specify
  which card to adjust. Note that the first card will be "0", the second
  will be "1", etc.

  That takes care of setting the volume correctly, and the ALSA startup
  script will restore the volume after a reboot. If you find that your
  sound is distorted, it's possible that the levels in the above
  examples are too high for your particular hardware combination. Try
  reducing the percentages by 5-10% and checking again. Once you're
  satisfied, re-run the alsactl store command.

  You may also use the alsamixer program to set the volume. If you are
  using an ALSA version after 1.0.6, use alsamixer -V all First, start
  alsamixer from the command line. You should start out on the "Master"
  volume control slider. Use the up and down cursor to set the master
  volume to around 75%. Next, use the left and right cursor keys to move
  around on the screen until you find the "Line" slider. Press SPACE to
  set it as the capture source, set the level to around 50-75% and press
  "M" to mute it. You can now press ESC to exit out of the alsamixer
  program. You can also have MythTV manage all volume and mute settings,
  but this will only affect the "Master" or PCM volume, not the capture
  volume. See the mythfrontend setup page for options.

  Finally, if you've performed all of the above steps, and you still
  don't seem to have any sound, it's possible that your video capture
  device is muting the audio output.



       $ v4lctl -c /dev/video0 setattr mute off



  8.  Setting up a remote control.

  MythTV does not have native remote control receiver and decoder
  software built-in. Instead, remote control functions are implemented
  by cooperating with lirc, the Linux Infrared Remote Control program.
  lirc handles the IR hardware and passes keystrokes to MythTV, which
  then acts as if the user had pressed the keys on the keyboard. The
  file keys.txt describes the keys used to control MythTV.

  Compilation of lirc is outside the scope of this document.

  You can dispense with lirc altogether by purchasing an IR keyboard and
  a learning remote control. The IR keyboard receiver plugs into your PC
  and you would train your learning remote to emulate the various
  keystrokes from keys.txt of your IR keyboard. Using this method
  removes lirc entirely from the picture - your remote will be sending
  keypresses that your PC "sees" on the keyboard port.

  The "Big Picture" for lirc is that there are a few different things
  that fit together.

  First, lirc has a portion which is connected to an IR receiver. The IR
  receiver senses the pulses and sends them to the lirc daemon. The
  lircd loads a file called lircd.conf which instructs it how interpret
  the IR pulses that it received and convert them to a human-readable
  name.

  For example, the hardware may receive pulses may correlate to "Channel
  Up".  The lircd.conf file will then contain a line that looks
  something like this:



                 ChannelUp                0x0000000000001020



  The lircd.conf file can have multiple remote controls defined.

  The second part is lircrc, which takes the name of the button which
  was pressed ("ChannelUp") in the above example, and associates that to
  an action to be performed by a program using the remote control. So in
  MythTV, ChannelUp means one thing, while in mplayer it means something
  different. lircrc gives you the flexibility of taking the name of the
  button and having it perform different actions depending on which
  program you're using at the time.

  NOTE: The definitions in lircd.conf come from the user community, and
  there is no standard for the common button names. One lircd.conf file
  may contain a definition for a button called "ChannelUp", while
  another may contain a definition for "Chan+". Your lircrc file must
  therefore be configured appropriately, or it won't work.

  Look for pre-made lircd.conf configuration files at
  http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/
  <http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/>. If you find one of your
  remotes either on the website or on your system, download or copy the
  file, name it lircd.conf and put it in your /etc directory. If you
  couldn't find your remote, you must make your own lircd.conf file.

  To make your own lircd.conf file


       $ irrecord myremote



  Follow the on-screen directions to train your remote and define keys.
  If your remote ends up working well, you should consider submitting
  your lircd.conf file back to the lirc developers. Once finished:


       $ su
       # cp myremote /etc/lircd.conf



  now try to start lircd again:


       # /usr/local/sbin/lircd



  This takes care of the lircd portion, which "listens" for the IR
  signals. If everything went well, the install script for lircd put an
  appropriate configuration file for your remote into /etc/lircd.conf
  This file maps the buttons on the remote control to the IR pulses
  coming from the receiver.

  The next step is to convert those signals into something that can be
  used to control MythTV. MythTV now includes native support for lirc
  and can interact directly with it.



       $ cd mythtv/contrib/config_files/lirc
       $ cp lircrc.example ~/.lircrc



  or


       $ cp lircrc.example.pinnaclestudiopctv ~/.lircrc



  if you've got a Pinnacle Studio PCTV remote.


       $ irw



  Start pressing the keys on your remote; irw will print the name of the
  button as it is defined in your /etc/lircd.conf. If you don't see any-
  thing at this point, you need to troubleshoot further by going back to
  the lirc home page and investigating from there.

  If it is working, then press CTRL-C to abort the program. Once you
  know that your remote is working, you can either recompile MythTV with
  native lirc support by enabling it in configure or you need to run the
  irxevent program, which takes the key presses and sends them to
  MythTV. If you use native lirc support, you don't need to run
  irxevent. If you are going to use irxevent, then you need to run it
  like this:


       $ irxevent &



  If irxevent isn't running, then MythTV will not respond to your remote
  control unless you're using native lirc support.



  8.1.  Additional information for lirc

  Take a look at the lircrc.example files in the contrib/configfiles/
  directory. In my case, (Pinnacle Studio card) the channel up and down
  functions weren't working, due to the fact that the button names were
  different than the default lircrc.example file that came with MythTV.

  The lircrc.example file has this:


       begin
           prog = irxevent
           button = ChannelUp
           config = Key Up CurrentWindow
       end

       begin
           prog = irxevent
           button = ChannelDown
           config = Key Down CurrentWindow
       end



  but the /etc/lircd.conf that comes in the lircd package defines the
  buttons for the Pinnacle Studio PCTV as:


                 channel+                 0x0000000000000017
                 channel-                 0x000000000000001C



  rather than "ChannelUp" and "ChannelDown". I added the following to my
  /home/[yourusername]/.lircrc file:


       begin
           prog = irxevent
           button = channel+
           repeat = 3
           config = Key Up CurrentWindow
       end

       begin
           prog = irxevent
           button = channel-
           repeat = 3
           config = Key Down CurrentWindow
       end



  which took care of basic functionality. Because the PCTV Studio remote
  has additional buttons, look at the contrib/config_files/lirc/lir-
  crc.example.pinnaclestudiopctv for an example of how to define addi-
  tional buttons, and how to debug potential button name conflicts
  between the lircrc.example file and how your remote defines the button
  names.

  By examining the button names defined in /etc/lircd.conf and using the
  irw program to make sure that your remote is working, you can create
  the appropriate mappings in .lircrc to get excellent remote
  functionality with MythTV.

  Note the repeat = parameter. This informs the irxevent program to pass
  through every third keypress. By default, lirc will only send one
  keypress to the application, even if you're holding down the key. The
  actual repeat = number will vary from system to system, so experiment
  and see which value works best for you.

  9.  Configuring MythTV.

  By this point, all of the compile-time prerequisites have been
  installed, mysql is running and has had its initial database setup.
  It's now time to configure MythTV.

  9.1.  Configuring the Master backend system

  Open a shell and decide where you will store your video files. This
  may be one directory or multiple directories on the same or different
  filesystems. There is no default directory used for new recordings, so
  you must create at least one storage directory and configure Myth to
  use it by running mythtv-setup. If you do not do this, then MythTV
  will be unable to record anything. The following example is specific
  for /var/video, but the same instructions would apply for any
  directory name you choose to use. See the ``Advanced Partition
  Formatting'' section for hints on creating a partition for MythTV.



       $ su
       # mkdir /var/video
       # chmod a+rwx /var/video
       # exit



  NOTE: The last slash "/" is not required.


  TIP: Try not to have your video mount point on the same partition as
  your root partition, which could lead to the filling up of your root
  partition with video data if the mount fails. For example:

  If /var/video is created on your root partition and you then perform a
  mount of another drive to this directory there won't be any problems
  if everything is working the way it should. However, if the mount
  fails for some reason, /var/video still exists, so MythTV will find
  the directory and write files to it. If your / mount point is space
  limited, /var/video will also be space limited, and it won't take long
  to fill the partition. This will cause a number of side-effects, most
  of them bad. Instead, create subdirectories as the destination for the
  storage group.

  Your directory structure could then look something like this:


       /mnt/video/drive1/video
       /mnt/video/drive2/video



  Your /etc/fstab would look like this:



  /dev/hdb1 /mnt/video/drive1
  /dev/hdc1 /mnt/video/drive2



  Because the Storage Group path is /mnt/video/drive1/video, if the
  mythbackend can only find /mnt/video/drive1 it will not write files to
  that share, because the "video" directory doesn't exist.

  After you create the desired directory or directories for storing your
  video files, you will need to add them to the proper Storage Group
  using mythtv-setup. This procedure is described below in the ``Storage
  Groups'' section.

  The first thing to configure is the Master backend system. If you are
  running multiple backend systems, the Master backend will make all
  decisions about which programs will be recorded on which tuners. If
  you have only one backend, then it will be its own master.

  The Master backend will always choose the first available tuner in the
  same order as you add cards through "mythtv-setup". In other words,
  the second card you add will only be used when there are two
  overlapping recordings, the third when there are three, and so on.



         NOTE: It is possible to not have the cards on the Master
  backend be the first ones used. However, if you are new to MythTV it
  is easier to configure the Master backend first before moving on to
  the Slaves, at least until you become more familiar with the MythTV
  system. See ``Advanced Backend Configurations'' for information on
  configuring multiple backend systems in various ways.

  Because MythTV uses a database to store all configuration variables,
  part of the bootstrap of MythTV is to indicate the location of the
  MySQL database server. If the frontend, backend and MySQL database
  server are all going to be running on the same box, you can continue
  to the next step. If not, you'll need to change the Host Name in the
  "Database Configuration" screen of the mythfrontend program.

  Run the setup program:


       $ mythtv-setup



  The backend setup program will start and offer you a number of
  choices. It is strongly recommended that you go through them in order.

  The first question will ask if you wish to clear out your existing
  configurations for your capture cards. Initially, you should say "YES"
  so that there are no surprises later.

  The next question will ask you if you wish to clear out your video
  source information. You should answer "YES" to this as well.

  Once the graphical setup starts, you'll see that there are six
  choices:


  1. General

  2. Capture Cards

  3. Video Sources

  4. Input connections

  5. Channel Editor

  6. Storage Directories

  Use the arrow keys to move around, and press the space bar to select
  which option you wish to configure.

  9.1.1.  General

  The first screen of the General configuration deals with IP addresses
  of the system that you're running mythtv-setup on and any master
  backend you may have.  If you've only got one machine, then the
  default values are fine and you can move to the next page by pressing
  the space bar. If you need to move around the screen, use the arrow
  keys to move focus between settings, not the mouse.

  If you will be deploying multiple backends, or if your backend is on
  one system and you're running the frontend on another machine then do
  not use the "127.0.0.1" IP address.

  NOTE: If you modify the 127.0.0.1 address and use a "real" IP address,
  you must use real IP addresses in both fields, otherwise your frontend
  machines will generate "Unexpected response to MYTH_PROTO_VERSION"
  errors.

  Changing any of the port settings is very strongly discouraged.  (If
  you do accidentally change them, the defaults are 6543 for the
  master/backend server, and 6544 for the HTTP requests)

  Once you're satisfied with the values, move the focus down to Next and
  hit the space bar.

  The next screen details the Host-specific Backend setup. This is where
  you will set the specific directory paths for this particular backend.
  Make sure that you've followed the steps at the beginning of this
  section and created a directory that exists and that MythTV will have
  write privileges to. When you're done, press Next to continue, taking
  you to the Global Backend Setup.

  On the Global Backend Setup configure your backend with the
  appropriate settings. Use the left and right arrow keys to iterate
  through the choices available on each setting, and the up and down
  keys to move between settings. Move to Finish when you're done and
  press the space bar, taking you back to the main configuration screen.

  9.1.2.  Capture Cards

  You should have no capture cards defined, so the highlight will be on
  (New Capture Card). Press space to begin.

  Choose the appropriate settings for your particular tuner. Use the
  arrow keys to move around and to make your choices, and press RETURN
  when complete. Pressing RETURN will take you back to the Capture Cards
  screen; if you have additional capture cards in this machine, press
  the space bar when the highlight is on the (New Capture Card) row to
  define another card.


  If you have made a mistake, you can delete a card by highlighting it
  and pressing the 'D' key, or you can highlight it and press the RETURN
  or 'E' key to edit it.

  Once you have no additional cards to setup, press ESC.



     NOTE: If you have a dual digital/analog card, such as the pcHDTV
  cards and some DViCO cards, then you should not configure this as two
  separate cards. Configure the digital portion as a DVB card, then
  click on the "Analog Options" button within the DVB configuration
  panel for the card and configure the analog portion of the card there.

  9.1.3.  Video Sources

  When you start, the highlight should be on (New Video Source). Press
  the space bar to begin. The first field asks for the name of the video
  source.  You may choose something easy to remember, like "Antenna" or
  "Cable". Once you've chosen a name, press the down arrow to move to
  the next field.

  If you're in North America, change the grabber to
  "SchedulesDirect.org(Internal)", then continue pressing the down arrow
  to move to the next field. Fill in the username (lowercase only) and
  password that you have established with Schedules Direct, then move to
  the "Retrieve Listings" button and press the space bar.

  NOTE: You need wget version 1.9.1 or higher to use Schedules Direct.

  The mythtv-setup program will contact the Schedules Direct servers and
  get your account information. Once you're done, you may click the
  Finish button and skip the next few paragraphs in this document since
  they only apply to users that are using the external XMLTV script to
  get their guide data.

  If you wish to continue using the XMLTV grabber, then move to the
  Zip/postal code field and put in the appropriate value.

  If you're outside of North America, then some manual interaction will
  be required with XMLTV. You may need to switch from the MythTV setup
  program to the console it was run on to interact with XMLTV.

  Once you have chosen your provider, press RETURN to continue. XMLTV
  will now begin collecting the initial data for your location. The
  screen may blank for a few seconds to several minutes, depending on
  the load of the listings provider and the speed of your connection to
  the Internet. Be patient!

  You will then be returned to the Video Sources screen. If you have
  multiple video sources available, such as Antenna, Cable, etc, go
  ahead and define them all, even if they're not all going to be
  physically connected to the master backend server. Once you're done,
  press ESC to return to the main screen.

  9.1.4.  Input Connections

  The final configuration item is Input Connections. On this screen, you
  will associate the various video sources you defined earlier with a
  physical input to a encoder card. It's entirely possible that you have
  multiple tuners, and each tuner has a different input, so on this
  screen you let MythTV know which device will connect to which input
  source.
  When you start this screen, you should see a listing of the various
  input connections available on each of the Capture cards you defined
  earlier. For example, you may have a capture card with a tuner, a
  SVideo and a Composite connection. If you wanted to associate the
  tuner (a.k.a., "Television") with an "Antenna" source you defined in
  Video Sources, you would move to the /dev/videodevice (Television) ->
  line and press the space bar.  Using the left and right arrow keys
  will show you the various choices you have already created for video
  source. In our case, you would use the left/right cursor keys until
  "Antenna" was shown in the Video Source field.  Press down to move to
  the next setting.

  On the connection pane there is a "Scan for channels" button, if you
  are configuring a digital source such as a DVB card, you need scan for
  channels and you must do this before pressing the "Fetch channels from
  listings source" button. You may scan for analog channels on an analog
  input, but this is not needed.

  The other button is called "Fetch channels from listings source". As
  long as you have a real listings source you should fetch channels from
  them for analog channels. You can do this for digital sources as well
  (unless the listing source is transmitted EIT data). If you are using
  XMLTV, you may need to switch from the MythTV setup program to the
  console it was run on to interact with XMLTV after pressing this
  button. It is possible to fetch the channels on the command line using
  mythfilldatabase. But if you need to do this, you will probably need
  to re-enter the MythTV setup program to configure the "Starting
  channel" setting for this source->input connection.



         NOTE: If you have a Hauppauge PVR-500, you must think of
  it as two PVR-150's on a single PCI card. For example, if you have a
  single PVR-500 card, it will appear as /dev/video0 and /dev/video1.
  Each /dev/video device will have a Tuner input.  Once you're done,
  press RETURN to go back to the Input Connections screen.  You would
  then finish associating the video sources to any other hardware
  devices you have available.



     NOTE: Don't add a video source to a hardware input if you don't
  actually have anything connected there. For example, adding "Cable" to
  the Tuner and to the Composite inputs without having something
  connected to Composite will lead to blank recordings.

  Press ESC to return to the main menu, and press ESC again if you have
  no further items to configure, thereby returning you to the command
  line.

  9.1.5.  Channel Editor

  The channel editor is used to globally alter channel information,
  including items like hue, contrast, fine tuning and others. Users in
  North America shouldn't run the channel editor until you've completed
  the initial mythtv-setup and ran mythfilldatabase at least once to
  populate the database.



  9.1.6.  Storage Groups

  9.1.6.1.  Introduction.

  Storage Groups are lists of directories that are used to hold MythTV
  recording files, giving you a flexible way to add capacity to your
  MythTV system without having to use exotic solutions such as LVM,
  filesystem expansion or RAID Online Capacity Expansion. You can also
  use Storage Groups to organize recordings and to put recordings of a
  certain type into one subdirectory.

  Storage Groups do not offer redundancy in case of hard drive failure,
  but unlike LVM, if you lose a hard drive, you only lose the recordings
  that were on that drive. With LVM, if you lose a hard drive, you will
  most likely lose everything.

  9.1.6.2.  How to use Storage Groups.

  By default, there is only one Storage Group called "Default", and it
  is used for all recordings and Live TV.



       NOTE: You need to add at least one directory to the Default
  Storage Group or else you will not be able to record anything with
  MythTV.

  For example, if you have 5 hard drives in your system, your first hard
  drive could be your "boot" drive, and the remaining four could be
  dedicated to media storage. You could format the drives and mount them
  as /mnt/store/d2, /mnt/store/d3, /mnt/store/d4 and /mnt/store/d5.

  Within each mount point, it's strongly recommended that you use a sub-
  directory and make that the destination path for the Storage Group.
  See the ``Tip'' in the "Configuring the Master backend" section for
  additional information.

  You would then add the four subdirectories you created under the mount
  points (/mnt/store/d1/video, etc) into the "Default" Storage Group.

  At recording time, if there were four simultaneous recordings, MythTV
  would put one recording onto each drive.

  MythTV will balance concurrent recordings across the available
  directories in a Storage Group in order to spread out the file I/O
  load. MythTV will prefer filesystems that are local to the backend
  over filesystems that are remote until the local filesystem has 2
  concurrent recordings active or other equivalent I/O, then the next
  recording will go to the remote filesystem. The balancing method is
  based purely on I/O, Myth does not try to balance out disk space
  unless a filesystem is too low on free disk space in which case it
  will not be used except as a last resort.

  Or, say that you originally installed MythTV to a 750GB hard drive,
  and that hard drive is now filling up. You could simply add a new
  drive to your system, mount it and update the Storage Group to add the
  additional space.

  You may create additional Storage Groups to store specific recordings
  in their own directories. Storage Groups are edited via the 'Storage
  Directories' section of mythtv-setup.


  You can also create multiple Storage Groups to group recordings
  together; recording schedules now have an option to specify which
  Storage Group to use.

  Storage Groups are global, but can be overridden on a slave backend by
  creating a local Storage Group by running mythtv-setup on the slave.
  If a problem occurs and the slave backend is unable to use the desired
  Storage Group, it will fail back and try the directories defined in
  the master's Storage Group.

  There's also a special 'LiveTV' Storage Group, but the directory list
  starts out empty. If you add a directory to the Storage Group, it will
  be used instead of putting LiveTV recordings in the Default Storage
  Group and will allow you to put your LiveTV recordings on their own
  filesystem.

  Of course, you don't have to do anything, and Live TV recordings will
  just go into the Default Storage Group where they'll be the first
  programs eligible for expiration if the system needs free space for
  recordings.

  Usage information for all Storage Group directories is visible on the
  mythfrontend status screen as well as the mythbackend status webpage.
  MythTV is smart enough to determine which directories are on shared
  filesystems so it should not count free or used space multiple times
  if you have more than one directory on the same filesystem.

  9.1.6.3.  Migrating to Storage Groups.

  Migrating to Storage groups is very simple: if you have existing
  recordings in a storage directory, then the system will automatically
  add that directory to the Default Storage Group. If you then add
  additional directories to a storage group, the system is flexible
  enough to check all Storage Groups for a file before deciding that it
  can't be found, which means that you can use the mv command from the
  Unix command line to arrange files however you'd like.

  9.1.6.4.  Advanced: Algorithm used by the Storage Group

  This section details the logic of the Storage Group allocation engine.

  The current load-balancing preferences (in order) are:

  o  Local filesystems over remote

  o  Less-busy (less weight) over more-busy (more weight)

  o  More Free Space over Less Free Space

  The 'business' of a filesystem is determined by weights. The following
  weights are added to a filesystem if it is in use for the following
  things:

  o  recording = +10

  o  playback = +5 (mythfrontend)

  o  comm flagging = +5 (mythcommflag)

  o  transcoding = +5 (mythtranscode)

  If a recording is due to end within 3 minutes, it is not counted
  against the weight of a filesystem. This is done to account for the
  pre/post-roll and start-early/end-late settings.


  9.2.  Post-configuration

  Run the mythfilldatabase program as directed. The master backend will
  obtain guide data for all the video sources you defined during setup.

  NOTE: If you are using Schedules Direct and watching the output
  messages on the console or the log file it is normal to see a "401
  Unauthorized" error followed by a "200 OK" when the connection to
  Schedules Direct is being established.


       From : Sun Jun 13 05:00:00 2004 To : Mon Jun 14 05:00:00 2004 (UTC)
       --02:58:01--
       http://datadirect.webservices.zap2it.com/tvlistings/xtvdService
                  => -'
       Resolving datadirect.webservices.zap2it.com... 206.18.98.160
       Connecting to datadirect.webservices.zap2it.com[206.18.98.160]:80...
       connected.
       HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
       Connecting to datadirect.webservices.zap2it.com[206.18.98.160]:80...
       connected.
       HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
       Length: unspecified [text/xml]

           [    <=>                              ] 114,125       63.57K/s

       02:58:03 (63.53 KB/s) - -' saved [114125]

       Your subscription expires on 08/20/2004 12:00:00 AM
       Grab complete.  Actual data from Sun Jun 13 05:00:00 2004 to Mon Jun 14
       00:00:00 2004 (UTC)



  Once mythfilldatabase has finished, start the master server before
  continuing.


       $ mythbackend



  mythbackend will print information about connections and what it's
  doing to the console. If you'd like to see the options that are
  available for mythbackend, type mythbackend -h for help.

  As of MythTV v0.22, the available options are:



  $ mythbackend --help
  Valid options are:
  -h or --help                   List valid command line parameters
  -l or --logfile filename       Writes STDERR and STDOUT messages to filename
  -p or --pidfile filename       Write PID of mythbackend to filename
  -d or --daemon                 Runs mythbackend as a daemon
  -v or --verbose debug-level    Use '-v help' for level info
  --printexpire                  List of auto-expire programs
  --printsched                   Upcoming scheduled programs
  --testsched                    Test run scheduler (ignore existing schedule)
  --resched                      Force the scheduler to update
  --nosched                      Do not perform any scheduling
  --nojobqueue                   Do not start the JobQueue
  --noautoexpire                 Do not start the AutoExpire thread
  --version                      Version information



  Running mythbackend as a daemon and using the logfile option will
  allow you to have mythbackend automatically start up during boot. You
  can follow the steps outlined in the section called ``Automatically
  starting mythbackend at system boot time'' for configuration steps.

  If you enable the -l parameter, you will want to keep your logfiles
  rotated (so that they don't fill up a partition). See the section
  called ``Automatically rotating logs'' for more information.

  9.3.  Configuring a non-master backend

  Ensure that you've granted access to the master MySQL database for
  remote backends as discussed in the section titled ``Modifying access
  to the MySQL database for multiple systems'' and that you have the
  correct IP address for the database server in the "Database
  Configuration" screen of the mythtv-setup application on this slave
  backend.



             NOTE: Slave backends must not run a local MySQL
  daemon. By default, they will connect to their local daemon rather
  than the central database, causing unexpected behavior such as empty
  "Watch Recordings" lists and a failure to locate the Video Sources
  defined on the master backend. Modify the
  /usr/local/share/mythtv/mysql.txt file on all slave backends to ensure
  that the DBHostName has the address of the MySQL server.  Caveat: You
  may make a slave backend the primary MySQL server, or run a non-MythTV
  database on a slave backend as long as you have edited the mysql.txt
  file on all systems and made it consistent.  There can be only one
  authoritative MySQL database in a MythTV system - errors such as the
  one above ensue if backends and frontends have differing ideas of
  which MySQL database they should talk to.

  Make sure that the IP addresses on the General setup screen are
  accurate.  If the slave backend can't communicate with the master
  backend due to IP address misconfiguration then MythTV will not
  function properly.

  Configuration of a non-master backend follows the same general
  procedure as that of the master backend, with the exception that you
  skip over the "Video Sources" step. All possible video sources need to
  be defined on the master backend system; only the master backend will
  query a listings provider to obtain guide data for all the non-master
  backends.



        NOTE: Do not run mythfilldatabase on a non-master backend.

  9.4.  Configuring and running mythfilldatabase



          NOTE: mythfilldatabase might take a while to complete,
  depending on any number of factors, most of which you can't control.
  It's best to just let the program run to completion.  mythfilldatabase
  --help will give a full listing of the options available.

  mythfilldatabase --manual is another option; the manual option will
  allow you to fine tune channel frequencies and specify which channels
  will be added to the database.

  mythfilldatabase --file is an option if there isn't an XMLTV grabber
  for your country, but you do have an XML formatted listings file
  created by some other program.

  mythfilldatabase --xawchannels is an option if you have used xawtv to
  fine-tune your channels and would like to import the fine tuning
  offsets into MythTV.

  mythfilldatabase --refresh-today will only pull guide data for today
  (in case of late-breaking changes to the schedule).

  9.4.1.  Periodically running mythfilldatabase

  In order to keep your database filled, mythfilldatabase should be run
  once a day.

  To use MythTV's built-in capability, you'll need to run the
  mythfrontend Setup option. From the mythfrontend, enter the
  Setup>General screen and advance to "Mythfilldatabase", the fourth
  screen.  Select the checkbox, then complete the options as you see
  fit. The mythbackend program will now run mythfilldatabase for you.

  9.5.  Grabbing channel icons for Schedules Direct users

  While the Schedules Direct TV listings service has several advantages,
  it does not support grabbing logo icons for the stations you receive.
  However, there are utilities provided with MythTV which you may use to
  grab your initial set of icons and to keep them updated if your
  lineups change.

  First, you need to generate or obtain an XML file with the information
  for your stations.

  If you have XMLTV software installed, there is a perl script in
  MythTV's contrib/ directory which will generate this file for you. Run
  the command:


       $ perl mkiconmap.pl


  You will be asked for your zip code and the service that you use. If
  there are no errors, the iconmap.xml file that you need for the next
  step will be created.

  If you do not have XMLTV software installed and do not want to install
  it for the sake of this minor task, there is a generic
  contrib/master_iconmap.xml which you can copy and use but this may not
  be as complete as using the specific information for your service.

  Once you have an iconmap.xml file, add the icon information to your
  database and grab any new icons with the command:


       $ mythfilldatabase --import-icon-map iconmap.xml --update-icon-map



  10.  Configuring mythfrontend.

  Once you have completed the configuration of your backend systems, the
  next step is to configure the frontend client.

  When you start mythfrontend for the first time, it will attempt to
  connect to a configuration database on the local machine. If there is
  none, a "Database Configuration" screen will appear, and you will need
  to fill in some details. The "Host name" field needs the backend or
  database server's IP address or DNS name, and the User or password
  fields may need to be set to match your database user accounts. After
  editing those fields, press Enter twice to write these configurations
  on your local machine, and attempt to connect to the database. If you
  make any mistakes, the screens will pop up again.

  Now that mythfrontend has started up, you should have a number of
  buttons/choices. Before doing anything, go to TV, then to Setup and
  configure the frontend client.



         NOTE: You should go through the various setup screens in
  mythfrontend before using any other modules to ensure that the the
  database is correctly initialized.

  10.1.  General

  The General screen has configuration items that don't really fit
  anywhere else. The first few configuration items ask you to indicate
  the number of seconds to record before or after a program, which is
  useful if the broadcast network or your system clock are out of sync
  and will help prevent you missing the beginning or end of a program.

  To change the value, use the left and right arrow keys to increment
  and decrement the number of seconds. When you're satisfied with the
  result, use the down arrow to put the input focus on the Next button
  or press RETURN to continue to the next page.

  The next page has a number of options to do with how channels are
  displayed on your system. The help text will give you more
  information. Move the focus to Next and press the space bar to
  continue.

  The last General page sets up some final configuration items. See the
  help text for more information.

  10.2.  Appearance

  This set of screens is mostly concerned with how MythTV will look on
  your system. From here, you can choose different themes and set the
  resolution of your system.

  10.3.  Program Guide

  Fairly self explanatory. Note that the alternate program guide does
  not use the same font settings as defined in Appearance, so if the EPG
  is unreadable this is where you make the adjustments to fonts, number
  of elements displayed, etc.

  10.4.  Playback

  The one configuration item which may cause problems on your system is
  the "Deinterlace playback" setting. MythTV uses a linear blend
  algorithm for deinterlacing, which will improve how the image looks on
  your screen.  Deinterlacing requires that your processor support SSE.
  (Streaming SIMD Extensions, aka "MMX2"). Early Intel Celeron (those
  that don't use the Coppermine 0.18um core and are usually <600MHz),
  Pentium Pro and Pentium II CPUs do not have SSE, so make sure you
  haven't enabled deinterlacing if your processor doesn't support it. If
  you enable it, and your processor doesn't support SSE, you will get
  "Illegal Instruction" errors.

  To determine if you've got SSE on an Intel processor, you can:


       $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
       [snip]
       flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
       cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse



  Notice the sse at the end of the line - this tells you that this
  processor will be able to deinterlace correctly.

  On an AMD processor, look for "3dnow" in the cpuinfo line; "3dnow" is
  AMD's implementation of SSE instructions, so if your processor has
  3dnow you shouldn't have any issues with deinterlacing.

  10.4.1.  Video Filters

  MythTV provides a means of employing video filters while recording and
  during playback. These filters can be used to improve or modify the
  video image, including hiding the effects of an interlaced image or
  reducing the impact of noise in a poor video signal. The following is
  a brief introduction to introduce you to the filters that are
  available in MythTV version 0.20 and higher.

  10.4.2.  Applying filters

  One or more filters can be included in a "filter chain". The filters
  to be used are identified in a "filter string". A filter string is a
  group of filter names and parameters separated by commas. To include
  parameters, the filter name is followed by "=" and the parameter
  information. There should be no spaces in the filter string. Here is
  an example filter string:

  With parameters: kerneldeint=10:1,denoise3d=12

  Without: kerneldeint,denoise3d

  Recording filters are set for each individual channel. These may be
  used when encoding in software (MPEG-4, RTjpeg) but do not apply when
  using a capture card with hardware encoding such as those supported by
  the ivtv driver, DVB, HDTV or MJPEG cards. You can run MythTV's
  "setup" program and select the "Channel Editor". On the first page for
  each channel, you can enter a filter string in the box titled "Video
  filters". If you are running "mythweb" on your web server, you can
  click on "Settings" then "Channels" and enter filter strings in the
  "videofilters" column.

  Playback filters are per-host and apply to any recording you watch
  from the frontend where filters have been applied. Playback filtering
  can only work with software decoding so the viaslice, xvmc, and ivtv
  outputs ignore filters entirely. From "mythfrontend" go to Setup->TV
  Settings->Playback.  Enter your filter string in the box titled
  "Custom Filters".

  10.4.3.  Currently Available Filters

  "Deinterlace Playback" checkbox.

  This implements special behavior needed for the "bobdeint" filter but
  can also be used to choose any of the deinterlace filters. If you
  prefer, you may leave this unchecked and include any of the
  deinterlace filters, other than "bobdeint", in your custom filter
  chain.

  o The "invert" filter

  Invert ignores any parameters and inverts the pixel values of the
  video frames. In other words, a negative image. This would rarely be
  useful but may be a good example to verify that your filter strings
  take effect.

  o The "linearblend" filter

  It is a simple deinterlacing filter that ignores parameters and works
  by blending adjacent lines. It replaces combing in interlaced video
  with a less distracting "ghost" image.

  o The "bobdeint" filter

  This filter splits the interlaced image into two separate fields that
  can be line doubled then displayed at twice the frame rate. If the
  display is at the same refresh rate as the recording (59.92Hz NTSC or
  50Hz PAL) this will cause each refresh to show objects in motion in a
  new position with no jagged edges. However, if the display is not
  synchronous, it will cause flickering or the appearance of the picture
  moving up and down by one line.



         NOTE: This filter requires the frame rate to be doubled
  and therefore can only be used with the "Deinterlace Playback"
  checkbox.  Do not include this in your filter chain.

  o The "kerneldeint" filter

  Kerneldeint is a more complex deinterlacing filter which applies a
  filter kernel using input from several lines. It generally removes
  combing without a "ghost" image, sometimes leaving a faint outline of
  the image from the other field. It is considered to be less
  distracting to watch than linearblend or no filter at all. It accepts
  one or two integer parameters separated by a colon.

  The first parameter is the filter threshold and defaults to 12.
  Adjacent lines differing by more than the threshold value are
  filtered. The second option defaults to 0. If set to a non-zero value,
  it will cause the filter to skip chroma, and filter only the
  luminance. It may be useful on some capture cards which do not capture
  the chroma fields of interlaced video correctly.

  o The "onefield" filter

  This is a simple one-field deinterlacing filter that uses only one
  field of the interlaced video. By default it keeps the top field,
  though passing the parameter "bottom" will cause it to keep the bottom
  field instead.

  This filter is primarily useful for those who display 1080i HDTV
  signals with a video mode that has 540 pixels vertically. The
  advantage over other deinterlacing filters is that scenes with motion
  never show combing or ghosting.

  o The "adjust" filter

  This filter adjusts the digital values for luma and chroma to ensure
  that they will fall within the ranges specified in the ITU-R601
  standard. By default, this corrects a known problem for the luma range
  used by bt8x8 chips which causes video to look washed out. If
  parameters are passed, there need to be exactly six. However, passing
  a single parameter of "-1" will disable the filter.

  1: luma minimum input value (int) 2: luma maximum input value (int) 3:
  luma gamma correction (float) 4: chroma minimum input value (int) 5:
  chroma maximum input value (int) 6: chroma gamma correction (float)

  The default bt8x8 correction values are equivalent to
  "16:253:1.0:2:253:1.0". Output ranges are fixed at ITU-R601 values
  (16-235 luma, 16-240 chroma).

  NOTE: If it is not already specified in the filter chain, this filter
  will be automatically applied when recording with the "bttv" driver.

  o The "quickdnr" filter

  A fast temporal denoiser. This can take 1, 2 or 4 parameters, each
  being a value from "0" for the least filtering to "255" for the
  greatest filtering.  With one parameter, the filter will compute the
  values it should use for all of its variables. Two parameters will set
  the filter strength for luma and chroma independently. If you are
  interested in how the algorithm works, you may examine the source code
  to see how four parameter are used.

  o The "denoise3d" filter

  A slower denoiser that applies a spatial and temporal low-pass filter.
  The spatial filter can remove some noise that quickdnr can't, but a
  more powerful CPU is needed. This filter accepts 3 float parameters:


  o  luma spatial filter strength

  o  chroma spatial filter strength

  o  luma temporal filter strength

  Reasonable defaults will be selected for omitted parameters. The
  chroma temporal filter strength is calculated from the other filter
  strengths.

  o The "crop" filter

  Covers edges of video with black bars. This helps improve video
  quality when the edges of the frame are distorted. By default, this
  removes 16 pixels from each edge. This can optionally take four
  parameters representing top:left:bottom:right. The number times 16 is
  the number of pixels to remove so, for example, the default is
  "=1:1:1:1".

  o The "forceyv12" and "forceyuv422p" filters

  These force the filter manager to use the given format. You can use
  one of these at the head of a filter chain to change the capture
  format. The most likely use would be forceyuv422p to use YUV422P
  capture on cards with known chroma interlacing problems with YV12.

  There are some filters included in the MythTV source code that should
  not be used:

  o The "forcergb24" and "forceargb32" filters

  The two RGB formats should not be used because there is no conversion
  filter for them yet.

  o The "convert" filter

  It exists but don't use it. The filter manager uses this filter
  automatically when it is unable to match the input/output formats of
  two adjacent filters.

  o The "postprocess" filter

  While this exists in MythTV source code, it is currently not
  recommended for use.

  10.4.4.  Usage Considerations

  There are trade-offs to consider when deciding if it would be wise to
  use a filter. Any processing will modify the original image so you
  should assess if the filter has made a noticeable improvement to the
  picture in order to justify the impact of the processing. Adding any
  filter will inherently increase CPU usage. The impact can vary
  dramatically depending on your CPU type and speed, the resolution of
  the recording, which filters you are using and other factors. You can
  only determine what is right for you through experimentation. However,
  as a starting point, here are some filter strings that you may find
  useful:

  For typical broadcast stations: "kerneldeint,quickdnr"

  For stations with poor signal quality: "linearblend,denoise3d=12"

  For synchronous TV-out: check Deinterlace with "Bob (2x framerate)"

  10.5.  Recording

  Depending on your capture card, MythTV offers different video
  encoders.  The following types of hardware encoding cards are
  supported:

  o  MJPEG - Zoran-based cards; see http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net
     <http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net>


  o  MPEG-2 - iTVC15/16 based cards (Hauppauge PVR-250/PVR-350); see
     http://ivtvdriver.org <http://ivtvdriver.org>

  o  HDTV - pcHDTV cards; see http://pchdtv.com <http://pchdtv.com> and
     the Air2PC-ATSC-PCI

  o  H.264 - HD PVR

  o  DVB - cards supporting DVB; see http://linuxtv.org
     <http://linuxtv.org>

  o  HD Homerun

  For cards without hardware encoding capabilities (all cards supported
  by V4L not listed above), Myth includes two methods for software
  encoding: RTjpeg and MPEG-4. RTjpeg has significantly fewer CPU
  demands than MPEG-4, but it generates larger files than MPEG-4 for a
  given recording.

  Any cards which simply demodulate MPEG-2 which has been encoded by the
  broadcaster (HDTV/ATSC/DVB cards) will not offer much in the way of
  configuration because the broadcaster will be choosing the bitrate,
  etc.

  For all other cards, configuration is done through MythFrontend.
  Selecting 'Recording Profiles' from the 'TV Settings' screen will list
  the profiles currently available for the cards in your system.
  Depending on what types of cards you have installed you may see:


       (Create new profile group)
       Software Encoders
       Hardware MPEG Encoders
       Hardware MJPEG Encoders
       Transcoders



  The '(Create new profile group)' option will allow you to create cus-
  tom profiles in case you have multiple backends. Note that custom pro-
  files are per backend and card type. If you have 2 MPEG-2 encoders in
  a given backend system, creating a custom profile will affect both of
  them. This option should not be needed otherwise.

  The 'Transcoders' group is a little different from the others.
  Selecting this group will result in a menu with the following options:
  'RTjpeg/MPEG-4' and 'MPEG-2'. These types indicate what transcoder
  options will be used for a given input type (i.e. the 'MPEG-2'
  settings would be used to transcode MPEG-2 files into MPEG-4. The
  source of the MPEG-2 stream (DVB, HDTV, or PVR-x50) does not matter.
  Configuration of the options is the same as below (although any
  resolution settings will be ignored).

  Selecting any of the other options will show a new screen with a list
  of four profiles:

  o  Default

  o  Live TV

  o  Low Quality

  o  High Quality


  The Default profile will be used for any recording which does not
  otherwise have a specific profile assigned. The 'Live TV' profile will
  be used when watching TV. The remaining two profiles are available for
  customizing to allow for more precise control over what quality is
  used for a given program.

  Selecting a profile will allow you to adjust the relevant options for
  that card. The most significant setting is the recording resolution,
  but you can also choose encoding format, audio format, and tweak other
  encoder specific properties.



       NOTE: although the width and height can be changed to almost
  anything, if you start MythTV and don't see video or you get
  "segmentation fault" errors, it is likely that the video4linux (v4l)
  subsystem did not like the height and width parameters specified. It's
  best to leave the default as-is until you're sure that MythTV is
  operational.

  See the ``What capture resolution should I use? How does video work?''
  section for more information.

  11.  Using MythTV.

  11.1.  Keyboard commands

  The keys.txt file describes what the various keyboard commands are.
  If you have loaded mythweb, you may change the default keys to your
  liking.

  11.1.1.  mythfrontend


   Arrow keys     used to move the highlight point around
       ALT-F4     exit out of the application
  Space/Enter     take action on the item under the highlight point
            P     play in both "Watch a Recording" and "Delete a Recording"
            D     delete in both "Watch a Recording" and "Delete a Recording"
            U     to view details for the currently selected show on the Watch or Delete screens, EPG, "Program Finder", "Fix Scheduling Conflicts" and search results screens
            O     to list the upcoming episodes for the currently selected show on the EPG, "Program Finder", "Program Recording Priorities", "Fix Scheduling Conflicts" or search results screens
            I     edit recording options from the EPG, "Program Finder", "Program Recording Priorities", or "Fix Scheduling Conflicts" screens. From the Playback and Delete screens, 'I' presents options for recorded shows such as Auto Expire or Stop Recording. Pressing 'I' while on the Recording Options screen will take you to the Advanced Recording Options screen.


  11.1.2.  Watching TV or a recording


  11.1.3.  Watching TV only


  G     rotate between the various Picture Adjustments (Colour, Hue, etc.) for recording. These values affect the look of the resulting .nuv file, and are independent of the playback picture settings. While Picture Adjustment is on-screen, use Left and Right arrows to adjust.
  H     Channel history. Each repeat steps back through the previous channels.
  O     Turns on 'Browse' mode, allowing user to browse channels and program info while watching current show FullScreen.
  Y     switch between multiple capture cards.  NOTE: you will lose your LiveTV buffer on your current card. Useful for different-sourced cards (such as Dish Network on one, HDTV over-the-air on another card.)


  11.1.4.  LiveTV Browse Mode


  11.1.5.  Playback Recording Zoom Mode



  Up or down     keys change the channel
     num pad     Type a number to enter a channel number or jump amount (HHMM format)
           P     pause / play. You may also add an explicit keybinding for 'Play' through MythWeb, returning you to normal speed if you are in slow motion, rewind fast forward or pause mode.
           C     change inputs on TV Tuner card
         ESC     quits
           I     puts the On-screen Display up again. During playback, 'I' toggles between position and show description info. If a jump amount is entered, jump to that position.
           M     brings up the electronic program guide (Grid) -- see the EPG section
     Page Up     jump back the configured number of minutes (default is 10)
   Page Down     jump ahead the configured number of minutes (default is 10)
    End or Z     skip to next commercial break marker
   Home or Q     skip back to previous commercial break marker
           T     toggle close caption support Pressing 0-9 (preferably 3 times) + T changes teletext page and turns on teletext.
           F     rotate between the various Picture Adjustments (Colour, Hue, etc.) While Picture Adjustment is on-screen, use Left and Right arrows to adjust. These settings adjust the look of the video playback, and are independent of the G-key settings used at record-time.
    [ or F10     decrease volume
    ] or F11     increase volume
                 or F9                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   toggle mute
           /     jump to the next "favorite" channel
           ?     mark/unmark the current channel as a "favorite"
           U     increase the play speed
           J     decrease the play speed
           A     Adjust time stretch (speed up or slow down normal play of audio and video
           W     cycle through zoom and fill modes: 4:3 aspect ratio, 16:9, 4:3 Zoom  (like Pan and Scan), 16:9 Zoom, and 16:9 Stretch (eliminates black  sidebars in TV signal)
          F8     toggle the sleep timer 30m->1hr->1hr30m->2hr->Off
      CTRL-B     Jump to the beginning of the recording / ringbuffer
           +     Switch between audio streams
        Left     (if a jump amount is entered) to jump back that amount
       Right     (if a jump amount is entered) to jump ahead that amount


                 Without the stickykeys option selected
        Left     rewind the configured number of seconds (default is 5)
       Right     fast forward the configured number of seconds (default is 30)
           <     starts rewind mode as if stickykeys are selected
           >     starts fast forward mode as if stickykeys are selected


                 With Stickykeys option selected
       Right     starts fast forward mode
        Left     starts rewind mode


                 In fast forward or rewind mode:
  Left/Right     increases the ff/rew speed
           0     plays at normal speed, but leaves the time indicator on screen
      1 or 2     plays back more slowly than normal ff/rew speed (1 is slowest)
           3     plays back at normal ff/rew speed
         4-9     plays back faster than normal ff/rew speed (9 is fastest)
       Space     exits fast forward or rewind mode


                 While video is paused:
        Left     rewind 1 frame
           <     rewind 1 second
       Right     advance 1 frame
           >     advance 1 second

  11.1.6.  If you have two or more tuner cards


  V     toggle Picture-in-picture on or off
  B     toggles the window focus (lets you change channels on the PiP window)
  N     swaps the two channels by changing channels on both cards



         Left     browse program prior to current listed program
        Right     browse program following current listed program
           Up     browse program on channel above current listed channel/program
         Down     browse program on channel below current listed channel/program
            /     browse program on next favorite channel
          0-9     enter a channel number to browse
  Space/Enter     change channel to channel of current listed program
          R/r     Toggle recording of current program (cycles through types)
        ESC/O     Exit Browse mode


         Left     Move video to Left
        Right     Move video to Right
           Up     Move video Up
         Down     Move video Down
       PageUp     Zoom In
     PageDown     Zoom Out
  Space/Enter     Exit Zoom mode leaving picture at current size and position
          ESC     Exit Zoom mode and return to original size

  11.1.7.  Watching a recording only


      Space/Enter     set a bookmark at that point. Next time you start the recording, you will automatically jump forward to this point and clear the bookmark.
                X     queues the current recording for transcoding
                O     brings up menu to allow toggling settings such as Commercial Auto-Skip, Auto-Expire, etc.
                D     exits the current recording and displays the Delete menu
           E or M     enters/exits edit mode.


                      In edit mode
       Left/Right     move forward and backward
          Up/Down     alter the amount of time you jump forward and backward. Increments are: nearest cutpoint, nearest video keyframe, 1 frame, 0.5 seconds, 1 second, 20 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 10 minutes.
  PageUp/PageDown     move forward and backward to the nearest cut point
           < or >     move forward or backward by 10 times the normal jump amount
      Space/Enter     allows you to set or delete a cut point
                Z     loads the commercial skip list (if one exists) into the cutlist
           C or Q     clear all cut points in the cutlist
                I     Inverts the cutlist


  11.1.8.  EPG


           Arrows     are used to move the highlighted program point around
       A, D, S, W     perform the same as left, right, down and up
  PageUp/PageDown     move the channel list up or down a page
         Home/End     move the highlight left or right by one day
   Ctrl+Left or <     move the highlight left by one page
  Ctrl+Right or >     move the highlight right by one page
       9, 3, 7, 1     (like a numeric keypad) perform the same as PageUp, PageDown, Home and End
                U     bring up more information about a show
                I     allow you to schedule a recording. If you select "Record this showing" while watching Live TV you can "Instant Record" a program.
      Space/Enter     when watching LiveTV will change to that channel and exit the EPG if the selected show is in progress or starts within 15 minutes; or otherwise will allow you to resolve conflicts or change overrides. If the program is not already scheduled to record, it will instead act like pressing I
                X     change the channel to the currently selected channel without leaving the EPG (Most useful in the alternate EPG)
         ESC or C     exits without changing the channel
                R     change the current item from Recording/Not-Recording. Successive keypresses cycle through the scheduled recording type list.
                ?     mark/unmark the current channel as a "favorite"
           / or 4     toggle the guide listing between all channels and filtered "favorites"


  11.1.9.  Setting Program or Channel Recording Priorities



                   Right     increases priority value
                    Left     decreases priority value
                       1     sorts by title
                       2     sorts by priority
                Home/End     toggle sort priority
                       I     edit recording options
                     ESC     commits changes and exits

  11.1.10.  Viewing Scheduled Recordings/Resolving Conflicts


                    1     show all recordings
                    2     show only important recordings
             Home/End     toggle show showing all/important
                    I     edit recording options
          Space/Enter     resolve conflict or override


  11.1.11.  Viewing Search Listings


  Home     change to the previous view if applicable
   End     change to the next view if applicable
     M     select another view if applicable. In the title and description search popup, press M again to edit or delete the selected view.


  11.1.12.  Recording Profiles Setup Screen


  D     on a custom profile group displays a popup to delete the group


  11.1.13.  Recording Groups

  In the Watch Recordings screen, Recording Groups allow you to separate
  programs into user-defined categories, such as "Kids", "Alice", "Bob",
  etc.  This can be used to reduce clutter, or to segregate content if
  you use the PIN function.

       M     change the view or to set a group password
       I     move a program from one Recording Group to another


  11.1.14.  Watch Recordings Screen


  1 or F1     Meaning of the icons
        /     Tags a recording. Tagged recordings can be played either in order or shuffled and deleted as a group. You can also change the recording group for several recordings at once by tagging them and using the  Menu (m) button, selecting "Playlist options",  then "Change Recording Group".
        ?     Clear the tagged list.


  11.1.15.  Remote Controls

  If you are using MythTV with just a remote control then it is
  suggested that you map the remote control keys as described below.
  Your remote control may not have the same set of keys as those named
  below, the names are only a suggestion that roughly correspond to the
  function.

  If you are adding new key bindings to the program then consideration
  of this suggested list will help users with remote controls.

  This list assumes a minimal remote control that only has 20 keys,
  nearly all features can be used with this configuration. If you have
  more keys then you can access all of the features. With only 16 keys
  most features are usable.

      REMOTE CONTROL     LIRC KEYSTROKE     FUNCTION
               0 - 9     0 - 9              channel selection, EPG navigation, ff/rew speed setting (with stickykeys)
          Left Arrow     Left               scroll left, rewind
         Right Arrow     Right              scroll right, fast forward
            Up Arrow     Up                 scroll up, channel change up
          Down Arrow     Down               scroll down, channel change down
  Select / OK / Play     Space              Select item, play (with stickykeys) set bookmark
              Cancel     Escape             Cancel, quit playback
                Menu     m                  EPG (from watching TV) edit (from playback).
               Pause     p                  Pause
         Other key 1     i                  Information
         Other key 2     c                  Change tuner card input


  11.2.  Using themes with MythTV

  MythTV is "themeable", meaning that the visual appearance of the
  program can be modified by the user without re-compiling or altering
  the program functionality. Download the MythThemes tarball from the
  website and untar it:



       $ tar -xjf myththemes-0.22.tar.bz2
       $ cd ~/myththemes-0.22
       $ qmake myththemes.pro
       $ su -
       # make install
       # exit
       $



  The theme will now be available in the mythfrontend Appearance
  section.

  11.3.  Adding support for an external tuner

  MythTV supports changing the channel on an external tuner. If you have
  an external tuner, such as a DirecTV or digital cable set top box, you
  should add /usr/local/bin/changechannel to your Input Connections in
  the mythbackend configuration GUI.

  However, there is not changechannel program per-se, because this is
  going to be dependent on what sort of external tuner you have. Look in
  the contrib/channel_changers directory for a number of programs and
  scripts which may be used to change channels. Once you find one which
  works, copy it to /usr/local/bin/changechannel.

  Feel free to browse some of what sort of hardware is available at
  http://store.snapstream.com/accessories.html
  <http://store.snapstream.com/accessories.html>, or if you wish to
  assemble your own, rather than purchase, the following may be helpful:
  http://www.dtvcontrol.com/ <http://www.dtvcontrol.com/> for cable
  pinouts.

  11.4.  Using Shutdown/Wakeup

  What does the MythTV Shutdown/Wakeup function do? The scheduler on the
  Master backend (MBE) keeps track of the idle status of the entire
  MythTV system, including the Slave backends (SBE). If it considers the
  system to be idle, and thus ready to shutdown, it sets the wakeuptime
  to the time of the next recording and then proceeds to shut down all
  Slave backends and then itself. Once it is time to begin recording,
  the Master backend and the Slave Backends are automatically woken up.
  This system allows MythTV to record like a normal VCR, thereby
  conserving power when not in active use.

  In order to use the Shutdown/Wakeup function there must be some method
  of waking up the Master backend. There are any number of solutions,
  but we will discuss in detail two possibilities:


  o  Use another server that runs 24/7 and have it send a WakeOnLAN
     (WOL) packet to wake the Master backend. This assumes that you have
     the WOL tools installed, and that your Master backend motherboard
     supports WOL.

  o  Use your motherboard's BIOS wakeup capability. You'll need a
     motherboard that supports BIOS wakeup, and some tools. See
     http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ACPI_Wakeup
     <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ACPI_Wakeup> for details on the best
     ways to accomplish this.

  11.4.1.  A deeper look into the operation

  The scheduler keeps track of the idle status of the MythTV system. To
  determine whether or not the MythTV system is idle, the following
  conditions must be met for a period of time defined in the "Idle
  timeout (secs)" parameter.

  o  no client is connected to the server

  o  no recording (neither LiveTV nor a regular recording) is currently
     taking place

  o  no recording starts within a definable amount of time ("Max. wait
     for recording (min)")

  o  the "pre Shutdown check-command" returns 0

  If we get to this idle state the Master backend will set the
  wakeuptime using the "Set wakeuptime command", which is the same for
  WOL and BIOS wakeup. The Master backend will then shut down the Slave
  backends and itself using the "Server halt command".

  One caveat is that the scheduler tries to guess if the Master backend
  was started by a wakeup call or by the user. If it thinks it was woken
  up by a user, it blocks shutdown until a client connects to the Master
  backend, after which it will behave as described above. To disable
  this feature, unset "Block shutdown before client connected" in the
  mythfrontend Setup->Setup->General screen.

  Once it is time to startup the system, the Master backend is woken up
  first and will wakeup the Slave backends using the "Wake command for
  slaves". At this time, there is no support for starting only the
  required Slave backend, so all Slave backends will startup.

  11.4.2.  Setting up the MythTV side of this extension.

  There are a number of options that are used to control the Shutdown /
  Wakeup feature.

  Shutdown/Wakeup Options:

  o  "Idle timeout (secs)" is the time the server waits while idle until
     a shutdown occurs.


  o  "Max. wait for recording (min)" is the time the Master backend
     waits for a recording without shutting down. For example, this
     would be used to prevent a 10 minute system shutdown if a recording
     is set to start 15 minutes from now.

  o  "Startup before rec. (secs)" Sets how long before a programmed
     recording the MythTV system will be woken up. This should be
     roughly be the time your systems need to bootup, and if you have
     Slave backends, you'll need to ensure this value is long enough for
     all your machines to perform their bootup cycle.

  o  "Wakeup time format" is the format of the wakeup time that is given
     in the "Set wakeuptime command" as a parameter "$time". You need to
     set this according to your wakeup mechanism. If you need seconds
     since the epoch (1970-01-01) set the "Wakeup time format" to
     "time_t".

  o  "Set wakeuptime command" is the command executed to set the new
     wakeuptime.

  o  "Server Halt Command" is the command executed to shutdown the
     Master backend and the Slave backends.

  o  "pre Shutdown check-command" is used to give a "Go/NO-GO" decision
     from a non-MythTV source. This command is executed immediately
     before the shutdown would occur. The return value is use to make
     the following choices:

     o  If it returns a "0" the shutdown will occur as scheduled.

     o  If it returns a "1" the "idle timeout" will be reset and the
        system waits again for the timeout.

     o  If it returns a "2" the entire shutdown sequence is reset. This
        means that a new client connect is needed before a shutdown
        occurs, unless you have the "Wait for client connect" setting
        disabled, in which case this is the same as returning "1". An
        example of a use for this return value is to prevent the
        shutdown if a user is currently logged in, or if a specific
        program (i.e. transcode, automatic updates, etc.) is currently
        running. If you don't need it, leave the field blank.

  The "WakeOnLan settings": These settings have nothing to do with using
  BIOS or WOL wakeup, they are the same for both.

  o  "Master backend" This setting defines timings for the frontends to
     wakeup the Master backend using WOL. Useful if your frontend can
     emit a WOL packet so you don't need to physically go to the Master
     backend if you're trying to watch TV.

  o  "Reconnect wait time (secs)" is the time the frontend waits after
     executing the "Wake command" before attempting to retry the
     connection. This should be roughly the amount of time your Master
     backend needs for bootup.  Set to "0" to disable. The frontends
     will retry to connect for "Count of reconnect tries" times before
     giving up.

  o  "Wake command for slaves" is the one command executed to wake your
     Slave backends. This should be a script that contains the calls to
     wakeup all Slave backend systems.

  11.4.2.1.  Using WOL to wake your Master backend.

  To use WOL to wake your Master backend you will need a WOL capable
  Master backend, a machine that runs 24/7 which can execute an at-job
  and nc (netcat) on the Master backend. I use some little bash scripts
  to make my DSL router wakeup my mythbox if required.

  Replace $SERVER and $PORT with your own settings!  On my Master
  backend I have a script that gets called as 'setwakeuptime command'
  which looks like the following:


       #! /bin/sh
       echo $@ | nc $SERVER $PORT



  This simply cats the parameters (that is $time) to my 24/7 server. On
  my $SERVER I have (x)inetd listening on $PORT starting a little script
  which cares about setting the at-job. The following additions are nec-
  essary on the $SERVER:

  If you use inetd:

  In /etc/inetd.conf add:


       mythwake stream tcp nowait mythtv /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/bin/mythwake



  If you use xinetd, save the following as mythwake in your
  /etc/xinet.d/ directory:


       service mythwake
         {
               socket_type     = stream
               wait            = no
               user            = mythtv
               protocol        = tcp
               id              = mythwake
               server          = /usr/local/bin/mythwake
         }



  and add the following to /etc/services:


       mythwake        $PORT/tcp



  Finally, /usr/local/bin/mythwake looks like:



  #! /bin/bash
  #this should be a command to wake your server
  WAKECMD="#!/bin/sh\n /usr/local/bin/wakeMBE"
  #first we need to delete all wake jobs in queue
  for JOB in atq | cut -f 1 ; do
      atrm $JOB;
  done
  #now we read the date from 'nc'
  read date;
  #now set the atjob
  echo -e "$WAKECMD" | at $date ;



  SECURITY WARNING: Be sure to secure $SERVER:$PORT from untrusted net-
  works, because this allows 3rd parties to run arbitrary code on your
  server!

  11.4.2.2.  Using BIOS wakeup to wake your Master backend.

  See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ACPI_Wakeup
  <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ACPI_Wakeup> for the best ways to
  accomplish this.

  11.4.3.  Wakeup the MySQL server using WOL

  If your MySQL server and your Master backend are not on the same
  machine, you can have the Master backend wake your MySQL server using
  WOL. You will find the settings for this in the second page of the
  mythtv-setup program, or at the end of mysql.txt. The meanings are the
  same as discussed in "The WakeOnLan settings" above.

  11.4.4.  Tips/Tricks:

  If, for example, one of the Slave backends is also your desktop
  computer, you could simply use a little script as 'server halt
  command' which first calls /sbin/shutdown -t TIMEOUT where TIMEOUT is
  a value sufficient for you to react. You could then popup a window
  using *dialog, asking for permission to shutdown. If you cancel the
  shutdown, simply call /sbin/shutdown -c.

  If you get "nvram-wakeup: /dev/rtc: Device or resource busy" your set-
  wakeuptime-script should stop the program that uses /dev/rtc before
  setting the wakeuptime.

  11.5.  Controlling the mythfrontend via telnet

  To use this feature you must first enable it in
  Settings>General>General

  The network control listens on port 6546, as demonstrated below:



  $ telnet basement 6546
  Connected to basement.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  MythFrontend Network Control
  Type 'help' for usage information
  ---------------------------------
  # help
  Valid Commands:
  ---------------
  jump               - Jump to a specified location in Myth
  key                - Send a keypress to the program
  play               - Playback related commands
  query              - Queries
  exit               - Exit Network Control

  Type 'help COMMANDNAME' for help on any specific command.

  # help jump
  Usage: jump JUMPPOINT

  Where JUMPPOINT is one of the following:
  channelpriorities    - Channel Recording Priorities
  channelrecpriority   - Channel Recording Priorities
  deletebox            - TV Recording Deletion
  deleterecordings     - TV Recording Deletion
  guidegrid            - Program Guide
  livetv               - Live TV
  livetvinguide        - Live TV In Guide
  mainmenu             - Main Menu
  ...snip...
  # exit
  $



  Please note that this feature only allows one connection at a time, so
  any new connections will automatically terminate prior ones.

  12.  Scheduling Recordings.

  The MythTV master backend is responsible for managing the schedule for
  all TV tuner cards on the master and any slave. Its job is to search
  the TV listing for the shows you have requested and assign recordings
  to the TV tuner cards. If none of the shows that you've chosen
  overlap, it simply records all of them. However, if there are shows
  where the beginning and end times overlap, the scheduler follows rules
  that you've specified or makes logical decisions about what would be
  best if you haven't expressed your preference. Further, the "Upcoming
  Recordings" page allows you make specific decisions about what you
  really do and don't want to record.

  12.1.  Record Types

  When you choose a show that you would like to record from the Options
  Page, there are eight different types of rules to help the scheduler
  find which showings you would like to record.


  o  Single Record -- record only this title at this specific time and
     this station. This is the best way to be sure that a certain
     showing will be recorded. However, if the TV listings change and
     the show is not broadcast at that time, the show will not be
     recorded but will be marked as Not Listed to let you know that you
     should investigate.

  o  Find One -- this will record a title once from any of the times
     that appear in the TV listings. This is useful for recording a
     movie or special that has multiple showings because it allows the
     scheduler to choose one that doesn't conflict. It is not a good
     choice for recording a single episode of a series because it
     records the first available showing of the title without regard to
     the episode information.

  o  Record Weekly -- this records a show whenever the title is listed
     on the same channel, weekday and time. Note that if the TV station
     changes the schedule for a special episode, it would not be
     recorded. However, you can add a Single record for the special
     episode. If there are no matching showings in the TV listings, a
     Not Listed item will be added to your schedule for the next time
     slot to let you know that you should investigate.

  o  Find Weekly -- this will record a title once per week from any of
     the times that appear in the TV listings beginning from the time of
     the showing that was selected when the rule was set. This is useful
     for news, current events or other programs where the same episode
     is shown several times each week but the listings may not include
     descriptive information. This may not be a good choice if there are
     different episodes shown during the week.

  o  Record Daily -- this records a show whenever the title is listed
     for the time and station on any day of the week. Here again, a show
     will not be recorded if the time was altered by the station. If
     there are no matching showings in the TV listings, a Not Listed
     item will be added to your schedule for the next time slot to let
     you know that you should investigate.

  o  Find Daily -- this will record a title once per day from any of the
     times that appear in the TV listings beginning from the time of the
     showing that was selected when the rule was set. This is useful for
     news, current events or other programs where the same episode is
     shown several times each day but the listings may not include
     descriptive information. This may not be a good choice if there are
     different episodes shown during the day.

  o  Channel Record -- records one showing of each unique episode from
     any of the times the title is listed on this station. This is
     perhaps the most common rule to use for most shows.

  o  Record All -- records one showing of each unique episode from any
     of the times this title is listed on any channel. This can be
     useful if a station has sister stations where shows are rebroadcast
     allowing the scheduler to record rebroadcasts on the other station
     when the original airing cannot be recorded.

  12.2.  Scheduling Options

  12.2.1.  Priority

  By default, all shows you select have equal value to the scheduler.
  There are a set of rules to make good choices when two or more shows
  are in conflict. However, priority values let the scheduler know what
  you prefer so that it can set the schedule based on your preferences.

  Initially, recording rule priority values are set to zero. You may
  choose to leave everything at "0" and let the scheduler follow rules
  to guess what you might prefer when there are conflicts. However, if
  you have one or two favorite shows, you may want to increase the
  priority value so the scheduler will know that you would prefer
  recording these over other shows. You might use certain values to rate
  shows so that all favorites are 2. good shows are 1 and extra 'filler'
  shows are all -1 for example. You could sort each title on the "Set
  Priorities" page to have a unique value so the scheduler can know
  which show you'd prefer versus any other show. The choice and style
  are entirely up to you. However, the more information you give to the
  scheduler, the more likely it will make the choices you would prefer
  in the first place.

  The scheduler choices are based on the total priority for a showing by
  adding up all priority factors that match the showing. By default,
  most of these factors are "0" but you may use any combination to
  express your likes and needs.


  o  Per record rule -- this is the "priority" selection in the
     "Scheduling Options" section of the options page and this value is
     included for any showings that match the recording rule. You may
     choose to only use these values and not use the other factors for
     the sake of simplicity and clarity.

  o  Per record type -- Setup->TV Settings->Recording
     Priorities->General allows you to add to the priority based on the
     type. It may make sense to increase the value for "Single" so that
     by default they have an extra advantage over other shows. The
     default is +1. You may want to decrease the value for Find rules so
     that they will be less likely to interfere with regularly scheduled
     shows and will be more likely to record in a non-conflicting time
     instead.  The default is -1.

  o  Per channel -- Setup->TV Settings->Recording Priorities->Channel
     Priorities can be useful if you believe that you prefer any of the
     shows on certain channels. This would give all shows on a channel
     an advantage by default.

  o  Input priority -- in the "mythtv-setup" program, the "Input
     Connections" section allows you to add additional priority in the
     "Input priority".  This is simply another priority factor but has
     an interesting effect. If a card input has a higher value than the
     other cards, the scheduler will see that you would rather record
     showings of episodes on this input rather than a showing on other
     inputs. If you have multiple cards of different quality, you may
     want to set input priority to encourage the scheduler to record
     shows on your best card(s) whenever possible. This can also be
     useful if you have multiple video sources which include the same
     stations. For example, with digital and analog cable you could
     increase the digital cable input preference by 1 to tell the
     scheduler that you want to record from the digital channel whenever
     possible but the channel on the analog input could still be used
     when the digital input is busy.

  o  Custom Priority -- this allows you to add any specialized factors
     you would like in order to influence scheduling decisions. See the
     ``Custom Priority'' section below.

     For any single showing of any show you've chosen to record, these
     factors are added together to find the "total priority". This is
     the priority that the scheduler uses to decide which showings are
     given the first choice when filling in the schedule.

  The scheduling priority of a show may also be used to determine auto-
  expiration of recordings when disk space gets full (see ``Auto-
  Expire'', below).

  12.2.2.  Duplicates

  Singles will record without regard to duplicate matching.


  The standard recurring methods of All, Channel, Weekly and Daily use
  the descriptive information in the TV listings to try to record only
  one showing of each unique episode. However, This goal is sometimes
  complicated by the fact that the stations may not include a
  description for a specific episode but use a generic description for
  the series instead. When there is a generic description, the default
  behavior is to assume that it may be an episode that you have not seen
  and to record it for you. One of the duplicate matching options is
  "Record new episodes only". If this is selected, listing that have an
  original air date of more than 14 days earlier are considered repeats
  and are not eligible to record. Generally, generic episodes will be
  marked as repeats also.

  Because of generic episodes and other situations, MythTV offers an
  alternative approach where shows may be recorded by choosing from
  multiple showings even when the descriptive information is not
  reliable. All of the "Find" record types look for matching titles in
  the listings. If there is a showing with specific episode information
  and that episode has recorded before, that showing is marked as
  previously or currently recorded. The scheduler will then choose to
  record the earliest non-conflicting showing from any of other
  remaining showings regardless of the descriptive information.
  Generally, Find One is most useful for movies or specials and the Find
  Daily and Find Weekly rules are best for news or current events shows
  that are repeated. However, these may be useful in other situations
  where the standard recording rules may not work correctly.

  12.2.3.  Conflicts

  As you add more shows that you would like to record, the scheduler
  will eventually encounter conflicts. If there are two shows at the
  same time and you have two or more TV tuner cards, both shows will
  record. However, if there are more shows than cards, the scheduler
  will have to decide what it thinks it should not record based on the
  information you have given. If you see an unexpected situation you are
  not "stuck" with the scheduler's choice. You can still tell the
  scheduler exactly which shows you do want to record and/or don't want
  to record in any situation.

  12.2.4.  Scheduling decisions

  Here are the actual decisions made by the scheduler as it fills in the
  schedule.


  o  Currently recording beats not currently recording -- A recording in
     progress can not be moved to another input or time so it "wins" its
     current timeslot.

  o  Single, Daily, or Weekly rules with no match are marked Not Listed
     -- If these or Overrides do not match the current listings because
     the listings have changed, they are added to the schedule and
     marked to indicate that they will not record.

  o  Rules that could record beat rules that can not record a showing --
     If two rules match the same showing of a program, a rule marked as
     inactive or a showing marked as a repeat, for example, yield to the
     other rule.

  o  More specific record type is used in place of less specific -- If
     two rules match the same showing of a program, preference is given
     to Don't Record then Override, Single, Find One, Record Weekly,
     Find Weekly, Record Daily, Find Daily, Channel and finally All.

  o  Higher total priority beats lower total priority -- This is the
     core of the scheduling process. Episodes of the highest priority
     show are placed on the first available input followed by the next
     highest priority show and so on.

  o  Future start time beats past start time -- If there is an episode
     in progress and also a later showing of the same episode, it is
     better to record the complete episode. If there isn't another
     showing, it will start recording immediately to record the
     remaining portion. This should only happen if you add a new rule
     while the show is in progress or if the master backend is started
     after the start time of a scheduled show.

  o  More specific record type beats less specific record type -- If two
     shows are on at the same time and have the same total priority but
     different types they will be sorted by Single then Find One, Record
     Weekly, Find Weekly, Record Daily, Find Daily, Channel and finally
     All. This only applies if the priorities are the same.

  o  If both start times have passed, later start time beats earlier
     start time -- This attempts to miss the least amount of time.

  o  If neither start time has passed, earlier start time beats later
     start time -- This helps assure that the earliest showing of an
     episode has the advantage.

  o  Lower input id beats higher input id -- The scheduler fills in open
     time slots on the first available input for the video source. The
     next input is used when there is another show already placed for
     the card of the first input.

  o  Older record rule beats newer record rule -- If two shows are still
     equal after all of these other checks, the show whose record rule
     was added first is preferred over a more recent addition.

  o  Postpone showings to resolve conflicts -- If Reschedule Higher
     Priorities is set or if a conflict has the same priority as a show
     that was scheduled at the same time, the scheduler will check to
     see if a scheduled show can be moved to another input or later
     matching showing without creating a new conflict so that the
     conflicting show can be scheduled to record.

  12.2.5.  Reschedule Higher Priorities

  Setup->TV Settings->Recording Priorities->General has a checkbox for
  "Reschedule Higher Priorities" which tells the scheduler to try to be
  a little smarter in certain situations. If this is checked, the
  scheduler will look for situations where a show cannot record because
  all inputs for the channel are used for higher priority shows. It will
  check to see if any of the other shows could be recorded at another
  time so that the conflicting show can be recorded in its place.

  Generally, this is a good strategy but there are tradeoffs. If a
  higher priority show is postponed, you will not get to watch it until
  it is recorded in the later timeslot. There is also a risk that the TV
  listings may change and the later showing may go away. In this rare
  case the higher priority show may never record. On the other hand, if
  you do not use this option you will miss recording some lower priority
  shows unnecessarily unless you manually make similar changes.

  By using Reschedule Higher Priorities, the scheduler will do a better
  job of recording as many of your shows as possible when left
  unattended. It will also be easy to see that shows have been marked to
  record at a later time.  You can then decide for yourself when you
  would prefer to record the first showing by clicking "Record anyway".



  12.2.6.  Controlling Your Schedule

  The Manage Recordings->Upcoming Recordings page is your control center
  for the MythTV scheduler. Unlike other DVR systems, this one page
  gives you all of the information and tools you need to see all of your
  alternatives and make whatever adjustments you desire.

  The upper half of the screen has a scrollable box listing items that
  match your record rules sorted by time. The lower half shows the
  details for the highlighted item. There are two 'views' available.
  Press "1" to include all of the items that match record rules even if
  they do not need to be recorded. Press "2" to focus on just the things
  that will record and items that may need your attention. The message
  in the upper right-hand corner will remind you when there are
  conflicts that would prevent one or more shows from being recorded.

  The items in the list are colored in the record color for things that
  will record, white for things that may need attention, gray for those
  that do not need to record and yellow when there is a time conflict.
  Items at the top of the list may also be highlighted indicating that
  the recording is in progress.

  Along with the channels, start times and titles, the right-hand column
  has a status code. Numbers indicate which card number has been
  assigned to record the show. Letters are used to indicate the reason
  that something will not be recorded. Just below the box is a short
  status message for the highlighted item that indicates the type of
  record rule that was matched, the "total priority" for this showing
  and a one or two word explanation of the status code. If you press
  SELECT, you will see more information about the status.

  There are a few status codes that may require your attention. "C"
  indicates that there are more overlapping shows to record than there
  are TV tuners to record them. "L" indicates that the scheduler found
  that it may be better to record a later showing of this episode. These
  states happen as a result of your choices and should normally reflect
  your preferences. However, you may notice situations where you would
  like to modify the scheduler's initial choices.

  The first thing you can do is to highlight an item and press INFO to
  see the recording options page. From this page you can change the
  record rule type, the duplicate matching rules, or raise or lower the
  priority to resolve whatever problem you noticed.

  Additionally, you can treat any individual showing as an exception
  that you do want to record or don't want to record. To use these
  "override" features, highlight the item and press SELECT. You will see
  a message explaining the current status and at least an "OK" button to
  exit without making changes.

  For items scheduled to record, there will be a button for "Don't
  record" which will prevent recording this showing but will still allow
  the same episode to record in the future. If there is episode
  description information, you may also see a button for "Never record".
  This prevents recording this showing and tells MythTV to remember that
  this is an episode that you've seen or don't need to see if it is ever
  in the TV listings again.

  For items that are not scheduled to record, the message will describe
  the reason and in the case of "C" or "L" it will include a list of the
  shows that are scheduled to record instead. For any item that could
  potentially be recorded there will be buttons for "Edit Options" and
  "Add Override". "Edit Options" will allow you to change the options
  for the existing record rule such as raising the priority so that the
  show will record. These changes would apply to this and all future
  showings that match this record rule.  "Add Override" will allow you
  to set options that apply to the specific showing without affecting
  the recurring record rule.

  If you return to an override page after an override has already been
  set, you will also see a "Clear Override" to undo your changes. This
  option makes it very easy to try out some "what if" attempts when
  deciding on your best strategy in a difficult situation.

  For a recording in progress, there will be a "Change Ending Time"
  button.  This will take you to the options page for a Single or
  Override or create an Override if it is a recurring rule. Here you can
  go to the Recording Options section to change the program end time
  offset. If you extend the end time so that it overlaps upcoming
  recordings, the schedule will change to accommodate the new end time.
  This may cause a conflict or later showing even for a show with higher
  priority. Therefore, it is a good idea to check your schedule after
  changing the end time of a recording in progress.

  12.3.  Storage Options

  12.3.1.  Recording Profile

  Each recording rule can be configured with a different recording
  profile. For example, colorful cinematography can be configured with a
  "High Quality" profile, while 'talking heads' interviews shows can be
  configured with a "Low Quality" profile. These recording profiles need
  to be configured before using them (see ``Recording'', above).

  12.3.2.  Recording Group

  For organization of the "Watch Recordings" screen and the MythWeb
  interface, recordings can be assigned into "recording groups".

  12.3.3.  ``Storage Groups''

  This allows you to select any special "Storage Groups" you may have
  created to determine where recordings from this rule should be stored
  on your disks. The "Default" storage group is always available.

  12.3.4.  Playback Group

  This selects a set of pre-configured playback parameters which can be
  created and edited in Setup->TV Settings->Playback Groups. When the
  recording is played, the values from this playback group will be used.
  This allows you to choose a default time stretch value, skip and jump
  amounts appropriate for this type of television program.

  12.3.5.  Auto-Expire

  MythTV will "autoexpire" old recordings to make room for new
  recordings when disk space gets filled up. This option can be set to
  "Don't allow auto expire" to prevent these recordings from being
  automatically deleted when disk space fills up.

  The default setting is for all scheduled recordings to be eligible for
  auto-expiration; this can be changed in the Settings->TV
  Settings->General page by manipulating the "Auto Expire Default"
  checkbox.

  The default auto-expire policy is "Oldest Show First"; the oldest
  recordings are deleted first. The "Lowest Priority First" method
  chooses to expire the lowest-priority recordings first.



  12.3.6.  Episode Limit

  An episode limit can also be configured to limit the maximum number of
  episodes recorded of a single series, to restrict that series' disk
  usage. If this is set, you can further decide what to do when this
  limit is reached; either stop recording that series, or to delete the
  oldest episodes in favor of the new ones.

  12.4.  Post Recording Processing

  12.4.1.  Commercial Flagging

  Select whether or not to automatically flag commercials for these
  recordings. Commercial Flagging parameters can be set in Setup->TV
  Settings->General.

  12.4.2.  Transcoding

  Select whether or not to automatically transcode recordings to save
  disk space. Before using this, you must first enable auto-transcode in
  the recording profile and configure the transcoding parameters; see
  ``Recording'', above.

  12.4.3.  User Jobs

  User Jobs allow you to configure up to 4 custom commands to run on
  recordings. They can be configured in mythtv-setup. The following
  tokens have special meaning when used in the User Job commands:


  o  %DIR% - the directory component of the recording's filename

  o  %FILE% - the filename component of the recording's filename

  o  %TITLE% - the title of the recording (e.g., name of the series)

  o  %SUBTITLE% - the subtitle of the recording (e.g., name of the
     episode)

  o  %DESCRIPTION% - description text for the recording (from guide
     data)

  o  %HOSTNAME% - the backend making the recording

  o  %CATEGORY% - the category of the recording (from guide data)

  o  %RECGROUP% - the ``recording group''

  o  %CHANID% - the MythTV channel ID making the recording

  o  %STARTTIME% - the recording start time (YYYYMMDDhhmmss)

  o  %ENDTIME% - the recording end time (YYYYMMDDhhmmss)

  o  %STARTTIMEISO% - the recording start time in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-
     MM-DDTHH:MM:SS)

  o  %ENDTIMEISO% - the recording end time in ISO 8601 format

  o  %PROGSTART% - the recording's start time (from guide data;
     YYYYMMDDhhmmss)

  o  %PROGEND% - the recording's end time (from guide data)

  o  %PROGSTARTISO%, %PROGENDISO% - the recording's start and end time
     in ISO 8601 format.
  12.5.  Advanced Recording Options

  12.5.1.  Creating Power Search rules with Custom Record

  MythTV's "Custom Record" feature gives you unlimited control for
  creating specialized search recording rules to meet your needs. It
  allows you to choose your criteria to search for matching shows based
  on any of the information in the program listings, channel
  information, time functions and more. This goes beyond the
  capabilities of any other DVR system and it is unlikely that this
  level of scheduling customization will ever be available in any
  commercial DVR system.

  12.5.2.  Getting Started

  Go to Schedule Recordings->Custom Record. This page, helps you build a
  database search one clause at a time. Each added clause further limits
  which showings will be matched in the TV listings. You can test the
  search at any time and when you are done, you can save your search as
  a recording rule.

  To familiarize yourself with how you can create custom rules, create a
  simple rule to record "Nova" only in primetime.

  The first item at the top of the page allows you to edit an existing
  rule or create a new rule. Leave it on "<New rule>". Arrow down to the
  third item which says "Match an exact title". Right and left arrows
  would allow you to select any of several prefabricated pieces or full
  examples but leave it on the default for now. Arrow down to "Add this
  example clause" and press SELECT (Enter or Space on a keyboard). The
  large text box should now show:


            program.title = 'Nova'



  As you have probably guessed, this says that we want to search for all
  programs with the title "Nova" regardless of the time, day, channel,
  etc.

  If you do not receive a PBS station that carries "Nova" or would like
  to use another title, edit the title by pressing the down arrow to
  highlight the text box and right arrow over the the word "Nova". If
  you are using a keyboard you can simply delete the four letters and
  type a different title between the quotes. With a remote control, you
  can do 'cell phone' style text entry with the number pad. The delete
  key is the "X" in the grouping for "1", zero is grouped with "9" and
  "0" acts as the "Caps Lock" key. You can press ENTER in the text box
  to popup a virtual keyboard.

  Note: the text box honors many familiar Emacs control keys. It is also
  possible to cut and paste text into the text box so you can edit with
  a favorite editor or insert a rule sent in email or from other
  sources.

  In any case, choose a title that is shown both in primetime and late
  night or daytime. Next, click the "Test" button. You should see a list
  of the upcoming episodes for "Nova" just as if you had clicked the
  Upcoming button for "Nova" elsewhere in MythTV.

  Press ESC to go back to the Custom Record page. Move to the example
  selector then press the right or left arrows until you find "Only in
  primetime". Click "Add this example clause". You should now see:

              program.title = 'Nova'
              AND HOUR(program.starttime) >= 19
              AND HOUR(program.starttime) < 23



  Click "Test". You should now see a shorter list with only the showings
  that begin between 7PM and 11PM. To create a rule for this, press ESC
  to go back to the custom page and move to "Rule Name:" then type
  "Nova" or anything else you would like. This is only a label and will
  not affect the search results. Once a name has been entered, the
  "Record" button will light up.  Click this to enter the recording
  options page. If you named it "Nova" the title will say "Nova (Power
  Search)". Set whatever options you would like then click "Save these
  settings". You now have a special rule to record "Nova" but only when
  it is shown in primetime.

  You can make further modifications to this rule by returning to the
  Custom Record page then press the right or left arrow keys on "Edit
  Rule:" until you find "Nova". You can experiment and test but the
  saved rule will not be updated until you click "Record" then "Save
  these settings".

  To remove this, or any other rule, you can go to the "Recording
  Priorities" page, arrow down to the title, press Enter and change the
  the recording type to "Do not record this program" then "Save these
  settings".

  12.5.3.  How it Works

  MythTV stores TV program information in a database and uses the
  Structured Query Language (SQL) to access the data. Information about
  each TV program is stored in the 'program' table and information about
  each TV station you receive is stored in 'channel'. These two tables
  are used in the scheduler queries and their columns are available to
  be used in your rules. The rules you create are stored in 'record'.

  Normal rules in MythTV simply match the title in the rule with the
  titles in the 'program' table. MythTV also has search rules for
  "Titles", "Keywords" and "People". These store the key phrase in the
  description column of the rule and includes them in specialized SQL
  replacements for the normal title check. There is also a type called
  "Power Search" which takes the raw SQL in the description as the
  replacement for title matching.

  Custom Record is a tool to help you build valid SQL for Power Search
  rules.  You do not need to be a SQL expert to use Custom Record
  because the examples are known to work correctly and are usually self-
  explanatory so you can choose the pieces you need then modify them.
  Many powerful solutions to unique problems are possible by combining
  the examples. With some creativity and some knowledge of SQL, the
  possibilities are limitless.

  12.5.4.  Common Tricks and Tips

  The example clauses marked "complete example" are actual rules that
  have been used to address specific problems. You may find that some of
  these are useful for you as-is or with slight modifications. These
  show off how powerful custom rules can be but there are also several
  simple idioms that you may find useful for many of the shows you would
  like to record.

  Wait for a known title -- If there is a movie that you anticipate will
  be televised in the coming months but is not yet in the listings, you
  can select "Match an exact title", edit the movie title, click
  "Record" then choose "Record one showing of this title". The rule will
  wait weeks, months or years until this title shows up in your listings
  then it will record one showing. These rules have no impact on the
  scheduler throughout the day and only take a tiny fraction of a second
  when the master backend starts or when the listings are updated.

  Silence series out of season -- "Celebrity Poker Showdown", for
  example, will have new episodes for a while then long periods where
  reruns are shown dozens of times per week. By checking the previously
  shown flag you can create a rule that will only match new episodes.
  Therefore, your schedule won't be polluted with dozens of entries
  marked as "Repeat" or "Previously Recorded".


              program.title = "Celebrity Poker Showdown"
              AND program.previouslyshown = 0



  This allows you to keep rules for your favorite shows that are dormant
  while out of season but will spring back to life when new episodes
  appear.

  Choose showings on certain days -- Several cable stations will show
  their highest rated shows a dozen on more times per week. However, the
  scheduler only needs two or three choices to do a good job of making a
  flexible choice.


              program.title LIKE "Celebrity Fit Club%"
              AND DAYNAME(program.starttime) = "Sunday"



  This says to choose any showing of an episode that hasn't been
  recorded when it appears on Sunday. This prevents all the other show-
  ings during the week from being listed in the schedule.

  Notice the word "LIKE" and the "%" at the end. This does wildcard
  matching so that this would match even if the title ended with "2".
  "III" or ":Revenge of the Snapple Lady". This can be useful where the
  title may change from one season to the next like "Survivor: %", "Big
  Brother%" or "The Amazing Race%".

  12.5.5.  Working with SQL

  As you experiment, it is possible that you may misplace a quote or
  mistype a word. If there is a mistake when you press "Test" or
  "Record" you will see an error message returned from the database.
  This will usually give you a good idea about what needs to be fixed.
  However, for more subtle MySQL syntax errors, you can find more
  information in the documentation at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/
  <http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/>. This contains a lot of
  information that can be useful for Power Search rules such as the
  "Date and Time Functions". There are many other good resources for SQL
  on the Web.

  While the example clauses demonstrate how to use many of the data
  columns, you can get a more complete list of all the columns that are
  available by using a MySQL client program:



  $ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg
  mysql> describe program;
  mysql> describe channel;



  This will show the names of all of the columns along with their type
  and default value. Most are easy to understand but a few need some
  explanation in order to use them effectively with Power Search.

  o  "program.category_type" holds one of these exact four strings:
     "movie", "series", "sports" or "tvshow".

  o  "program.airdate" is a string representing the year of release for
     movies and may have no meaning for other types of shows.

  o  "program.stars" is a floating point number from 0.0 to 1.0. On a
     four star scale, 1.0 would be four stars, 0.75 would be three stars
     and so on.

  o  "program.originalairdate" if provided is the date when a show was,
     or will be, first televised. This may be useful for finding
     episodes before or after a certain date such as finding just the
     original series of "Battlestar Galactica".

  o  "program.previouslyshown" is a column created by MythTV to try to
     determine if a showing is more than 14 days after its original air
     date or if the show was marked as a repeat and did not have a date
     for the first airing. If this is "0" it usually means that this is
     a brand new show or a rebroadcast within the first two weeks.

  o  "program.generic" is a column created by MythTV to try mark
     showings for a series where the specific episode information is not
     included. When these generic showings appear, it is impossible for
     the system to determine if they are repeats of the same episode(s)
     or if they are all different episodes.

  o  "program.first" is a column created by MythTV to mark the first
     showing in the current listings for each episode, movie or special.
     Choosing to match only the "first" showing can be useful for sports
     that are brodcast live then repeated.

  o  "program.last" is a column created by MythTV to mark the last
     showing in the current listings for each episode, movie or special.
     If a showing is marked both "first" and "last" then it is the only
     showing of that program in the current TV listings.

  o  "program.programid" is the Tribune Media Service database record
     identifier for each program description. In general, these start
     with a two letter prefix, MV, EP, SP or SH that correspond to the
     "program.category_type". For most, the last four digits are "0000"
     except EP where the last four digits are the episode number in the
     series. Note that these are generated by TMS and not the show's
     producers but they are usually in the same order as the original
     air dates for the episodes.

  o  "program.videoprop" also "audioprop" and "subtitletypes".  These
     columns contain bit flags for a variety of attributes that may be
     associated with a program. These are filled with information
     offered by the TV listings provider. However, your listings source
     will not have information for all of the available flags.
     Therefore, some of these may not be useful for your search rules.
     This information is organized in "sets" and the MySQL function
     FIND_IN_SET() can be used to test for any of these flags. For
     example:
       FIND_IN_SET('SURROUND', program.audioprop) > 0



  would be true for the programs where the surround sound bit is
  present.  To see all of the available attribute names:


       $ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg
       mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM program LIKE '%prop'\G
       mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM program LIKE 'subtitletypes'\G



  Finally, if you are doing something very experimental and a column is
  not giving you the results you had anticipated, you can always check
  the MythTV source code to see exactly how a column is used. The open
  source for MythTV is available from http://www.mythtv.org/
  <http://www.mythtv.org/> .

  12.6.  Scheduling with more than one Input

  MythTV is designed to allow recording television programs from one or
  more service providers, or video source, on one or more video input
  from each provider. Some inputs may not be allowed to record at the
  same time as each other while others may record simultaneously.

  A television station may be broadcast on more than one channel from
  one provider or may be available on channels from two or more
  providers. If a TV station is available from more than one source, the
  video quality or type of broadcast may differ. Therefore, MythTV
  allows you to control how you would like the scheduler to select the
  best channel and input for a show which is available on more than one
  input or more than one channel.

  12.6.1.  Mutually Exclusive Inputs

  A single TV capture card may have video connections to more than one
  of its inputs and each input may be from a different service. The card
  may only be allowed to record from one of these inputs at one time
  because there is only one encoder on the card that actually captures
  the content.



  These are mutually exclusive meaning that only one input or the other
  may record at a given time but not both.

  Usually, inputs on different cards can record at the same time but two
  or more inputs on the same card cannot. However, there are cases where
  inputs on different cards should not be allowed to record at the same
  time, for example, a firewire card and s-video analog card connected
  to the same set top cable box.



  |
  |   coax +--------------+ firewire    ------------------+
  |     .-=|Cable Provider|=------------=| Card 1 input 1 | HDTV
  |     |  |HD/Cable STB  |=--.          +-----||||||||||||
  |     |  +--------------+   | s-video ------------------+
  |     |                     `---------=|        input 2 | Digital
  |wall |               coax             | Card 2         |
  |=---=^=------------------------------=|        input 3 | Cable
  |                                      +-----||||||||||||



  Input 1 and input 2 receive content from the same set top box and the
  channels can not be tuned independently. Therefore only one of these
  two inputs should be used at any given time. The solution is to create
  an "Input Group" with mythtv-setup in "Input connections". Including
  these two inputs in the same Input Group will tell the scheduler that
  these are mutually exclusive and may not record at the same time.
  Inputs 2 and 3 are automatically mutually exclusive because they are
  on the same card so there is no need to create an Input Group for
  these inputs.

  Cards such as the Hauppauge PVR-500 are able to record as two cards
  simultaneously because it has two MPEG-2 encoders and each encoder
  appears as a separate device. DVB cards may be allowed to capture
  content from more than one channel at a time if the channels are in
  the same MUX.

  12.6.2.  Stations, Channels and Video Sources

  Although we may be accustomed to thinking of a broadcast station and
  its channel number as being synonymous, stations and channels are very
  different things. A "station" is in a building with wires and
  employees. A "channel" is a carrier frequency or digital ID that
  carries a broadcast stream. The same TV station may be broadcast over
  different frequencies in different cities or by different providers in
  the same city. The same frequency will carry different stations in
  different cities. In the digital realm of DVB and ATSC (HDTV), it is
  even possible for a single frequency to carry multiple program streams
  but each of these streams of content are actually different channels
  that the receiving devices can 'tune' to independently.


  o  Station: building

  o  Channel: frequency

  In MythTV, a "video source" is a set of channels from a provider, or
  over the air, that can be received by an input. The set defines the
  channels and the broadcasters primarily associated with each of those
  channels. If you have more than one device or cable from the same
  provider connected to more than one card and input, you only need to
  create one video source in mythtv-setup then associate that one source
  with each of these connected inputs. This will let your MythTV system
  know that the same channels and their TV listings are available to be
  recorded from any of these inputs.

  For example. A MythTV system may have two capture cards. Both have a
  cable connected to the coaxial connectors. These cables carry the
  local cable TV service. In mythtv-setup, the user should create one
  "Video source" called "Cable", for example. Under "Input connections",
  "Cable" should be associated with each of the two tuner inputs. The
  scheduler will then know that any program on one of the channels from
  the "Cable" source could be recorded by either card from the card's
  tuner input.
  You need to create a different video source for each provider or
  service that has a different set of channels. Each input with a
  connection to that service should be associated with the video source
  for that service so the system will know which set of channels are
  available for each of your active inputs.

  Let's say that this user also has one digital cable set top box. The
  digital cable service carries channels that are not available over
  basic cable. The user would create another source called "Digital".
  This set top box is connected to the second card by S-Video so under
  "Input connections", "Digital" is associated with the S-Video input of
  card 2. The system would then know that programs on channels from the
  Digital source can only be recorded from this input. Further, the
  scheduler understands that it can only record one show at a time from
  card 2 so it can assign Cable or Digital shows to the card but not
  both at the same time.

  Some TV stations may be broadcast over a channel from the Cable source
  and also broadcast over a channel from the Digital source. Note that
  two channels carrying the same primary station may not have the same
  TV listings due to carrying the primary station part time, including
  local programming exclusive to one of the channels, the channels may
  be in different timezones, etc. Listings information must be
  associated with each channel even if two or more channels report that
  they carry the same station.

  12.6.3.  Order of Inputs

  By default the scheduler chooses the first (lowest numbered) input
  which has a showing of the scheduled program as it fills the schedule.
  If a lower priority show is on at the same time as a higher priority
  show that has been assigned to input 1, then input 2 will be used next
  and so on. Therefore, configure your best card and input first and
  next best card and input second. There may be differences in the type
  or brand of capture card, signal quality from the cable, system
  resources such as disk space, CPU, etc. By configuring your best input
  first, more recordings, and your highest priority recordings, will use
  that input.

  A common situation is that a newer and better card is added last. For
  example, you may initially setup your system with two analog cable
  cards and then add a HDTV card. If NBC is on a cable channel and "The
  Apprentice" is shown in HDTV on an NBC HD channel, the scheduler would
  still prefer analog inputs 1 and 2 over the new HD input 3.

  So, if you'd like the scheduler to prefer a new source, the simplest
  thing is to run mythtv-setup and "Delete all capture cards" then enter
  your cards and inputs in your preferred order. This will not remove
  your sources and channels - you want to keep those and only renumber
  your cards and inputs. In this example, once the changes have been
  made and the Master Backend is restarted, the scheduler would then
  choose "The Apprentice" in HD on the new input 1 and only use the
  analog inputs (now numbered 2 and 3) when the HDTV input was occupied
  with another show.

  12.6.4.  Matching Callsigns

  If a recording rule is a type that can record from any channel, "The
  Apprentice" would match for any channel that shows episodes which may
  include CNBC or BRAVO. However, for Single, Timeslot, Weekslot or
  Channel rules, "The Apprentice" would only match showings on the
  selected station as identified by the "callsign". For example, KVBC is
  an NBC affiliate on channel 3. Channel 733 is KVBCDT which is HDTV
  over cable from the same station. If a Single record rule was set for
  "The Apprentice" on KVBC channel 3, it could not record this showing
  from KVBCDT on 733. If 733 was chosen when the rule was saved, channel
  3 could not be used to record.

  However, the "Channel Editor" in mythtv-setup can be used to change
  the Callsign for channel 733 to "KVBC". MythTV would then understand
  that both of these channels are from the same broadcast station.
  Assuming the HDTV input was input number "1", "The Apprentice" would
  record on 733. If, however, this HDTV input already had a higher
  priority show assigned to it in that time slot, "The Apprentice" would
  be assigned to KVBC channel 3 on input 2.

  Having two channels with the same callsign may affect how program
  information is shown in mythfrontend. If two sources have the same
  callsign and channel number, the program guide and program lists will
  only show one instance of the channel number and callsign. If the same
  callsign is on two different channel numbers, both will be shown and
  if two sources have different callsigns with the same channel number,
  both of those will be shown.

  Continuing with the example above, the Electronic Program Guide would
  include rows for both "3 KVBC" and "733 KVBC". If channel 3 KVBC was
  also included in the Digital cable source, the EPG would still include
  just one line for "3 KVBC" even though there are two different
  channels, Cable and Digital, with this identification. Regardless of
  how these are displayed and which "KVBC" channel you select to add a
  rule to record "The Apprentice", the scheduler will pick the best
  channel, source and input to record "The Apprentice" on "KVBC".

  12.6.5.  Using Priorities to Prefer an Input

  The fundamental concept to keep in mind is that the MythTV scheduler
  will choose the lowest numbered input available when showings have the
  same priority. If there are factors that cause two showings of the
  same show to have different priorities then the higher priority
  showing will be considered before the showings with lower priority.

  12.6.6.  Input Priority

  "Input Connections" in mythtv-setup includes a box to set "Input
  priority" which defaults to "0". If a value is set, that amount will
  be added to the "total priority" for showings on that input. This can
  be used to influence using favored cards or not using less favored
  cards unless necessary.

  Let's say the "The Apprentice" is on at 8:00pm with a priority of 3.
  "Who Cares" is -2 and an episode is shown at 8:00pm then repeated at
  11:00pm. The scheduler would assign "The Apprentice" to card 1 and
  "Who Cares" to card 2 at 8:00pm. If the input priority for the input
  on card 2 was changed to -1, "Who Cares" would have a total priority
  of -2 for showings on card 1 and -3 for showings on card 2. The
  scheduler would assign "The Apprentice" to card 1 at 8:00pm and "Who
  Cares" to card 1 at 11:00pm when the better card is available. If
  there was another higher priority show at 11pm, the next best choice
  for "Who Cares" would be card 2 at 8pm with the priority -3.

  Card 1 and 2 have input priority "0":



   Time  Title     Priority  Card  Status
   8:00  The Apprentice  +3  1     Will Record
   8:00  Who Cares       -2  2     Will Record
  11:00  Who Cares       -2  1     Earlier Showing



  Card 2 with input priority "-1":



        Time  Title     Priority  Card  Status
        8:00  The Apprentice  +3  1     Will Record
        8:00  Who Cares       -3  2     Later Showing
       11:00  Who Cares       -2  1     Will Record



  Card 2 at "-1" but higher priority shows at both 8 P.M. and 11 P.M.:



        Time  Title     Priority  Card  Status
        8:00  The Apprentice  +3  1     Will Record
        8:00  Who Cares       -3  2     Will Record
       11:00  The Daily Show  +1  1     Will Record
       11:00  Who Cares       -3  2     Earlier Showing



  Note the two different effects, each of which may be what you desire
  depending on circumstance. If input priorities are equal, shows will
  record at the earliest time if any input is available. If input
  priorities differ, shows may be postponed to a later time in order to
  record on the best input.

  12.6.7.  Channel Priority

  Priority can be added for individual channels (remember, frequencies
  from a video source, not stations). This can be used to tell the
  system that you generally prefer the content of the station on a
  channel over the formats of other stations. You may want to raise the
  priority for ESPN, SciFi, Comedy Central or lower the priority for
  CSPAN, CourtTV, etc. If the same station is on two different channels,
  you can use channel priority to have the same effect for these
  channels as input priority would have for whole inputs.

  For example, say CNN is on analog channel 20 and there is an HD CNN on
  750.  You may not want to tie up the HD input for news originating in
  standard definition. Under TV Settings->Recording Priorities->Channel
  Priorities you could set channel 750 to -1. The scheduler would then
  prefer to record CNN shows on any analog channel 20 before considering
  using 750 only when there are no analog inputs available.

  12.6.8.  Preferred Input

  For an even finer grain of control, there is a per rule option to
  specify which input should be preferred for showings that match the
  rule. By default, this adds +2 to the priority for showings on the
  specified input.

  For illustration, let's say there will be a Space Shuttle launch on
  CNN that will be broadcast in high definition. Adding a rule to record
  the launch with priority "0" should default to channel 20 on input 2.
  Channel 750 would have this at -1 due to the channel priority set in
  the previous example. If on the recording options page for this rule,
  the "Scheduling Options" had the input set to prefer the HD input on
  card 1, then the showing on channel 750 for this input would be
  increased in value by +2 for a total of +1 and would be the best
  choice for this launch coverage. While this one rule would prefer the
  HD input with channel 750, all other rules that match shows on CNN
  would still prefer channel 20.

  Note that this will not work properly if the preferred input priority
  does not out weigh differences in input and channel priorities. The
  value of the priority boost when this option is chosen defaults to +2
  but can be modified in TV Settings->Recording Priorities->Set
  Recording Priorities.

  12.6.9.  HDTV Priority

  In the preceeding fictious example, the Space Shuttle launch is
  broadcast in high definition and a preferred input is selected to give
  preference to the HD input. However, TV listings from zap2it.com
  through the DataDirect service may allow this to work without having
  to use this per rule option.

  In Settings->Recording Priorities->Set Recording Priorities there is
  an option for "HDTV Recording Priority". This value will be added
  automatically if the listings for the show have the "hdtv" flag set.
  DataDirect will set this flag for shows known to be broadcast in HDTV
  on HD channels. However, the flag is not set for standard definition
  channels. This is another example of the listings being different for
  the same station on a different channel. If the HDTV priority is set
  to "+2", the shuttle launch would automatically have a total priority
  of +1 so that channel 750 would be preferred over channel 20 for this
  HDTV broadcast.

  Channel "750 CNN" at priority "-1" and HDTV broadcast priority at
  "+2":



  12.6.10.  Custom Priority

  While Input, Channel, and HDTV Priority can be used for indicating a
  preference for certain programs and inputs, there may be circumstances
  that cannot be resolved easily with these standard features. MythTV
  version 0.22 includes a feature for "power priority". The Custom
  Priority editor in mythfrontend's "TV Settings" screen is similar to
  Custom Record, however, Custom Priority allows you to create
  specialized power priority factors to influence scheduling decisions.

  For example, the 'program.closecaptioned' flag can be used in a
  similar way as the 'program.hdtv' flag.



       Priority Rule Name: Closed Captioned priority
       Priority Value: 2
       program.closecaptioned > 0



  This will raise the priority of shows marked with "CC" over those that
  are not by applying the "Priority Value" whenever the SQL fragment
  evaluates to true. If the expression evaluates to false for a showing,
  the "Priority Value" is not applied.



       Priority Rule Name: Priority when shown once
       Priority Value: 1
       program.first > 0 AND program.last > 0



  The "first" and "last" flags for an episode will only be set for the
  same showing when there is only one showing of that episode in the
  current TV listings. This rule would raise the priority in these cases
  so that these shows would have an advantage to record in their only
  available time slot.



       Priority Rule Name: Input 1 signal quality
       Priority Value: -1
       cardinput.cardinputid = 1 AND
       channel.channum IN (3, 5, 39, 66)



  A common issue with two or more analog capture cards is that one of
  the cards may have more interference on some channels than the same
  channels on other cards. This example gives a disadvantage to the
  channels in this list but only for the first input. Therefore, a show
  on channel 39 would choose input 2 or 3 if possible but for channels
  not in this list, input 1 is still the first choice.

  The Custom Priority editor includes many example fragments and
  complete examples that can be used or you can create your own to suit
  your needs.

  13.  MythPlugins.

  MythTV has a rich set of plugins available. Once you have downloaded
  the tarball, untar it and run the configure script:



  $ tar -xjf mythplugins-0.22.tar.bz2
  $ cd mythplugins-0.22
  $ ./configure --help

  Usage:   configure [options]
  Options: [defaults in brackets after descriptions]
  NB:      all --enable-* options can be reversed with --disable-*

  Generic options:
    --help                   print this message
    --enable-all             Enable all options
    --enable-opengl          enable OpenGL (Music and Gallery) [default=no]

  MythBrowser related options:
    --enable-mythbrowser     build the mythbrowser plugin [default=yes]

  MythDVD related options:
    --enable-mythdvd         build the mythdvd plugin [default=yes]
    --enable-transcode       enable DVD ripping and transcoding [default=no]
    --enable-vcd             enable VCD playing [default=no]

  MythGallery related options:
    --enable-mythgallery     build the mythgallery plugin [default=yes]
    --enable-exif            enable reading of EXIF headers [default=no]

  MythGame related options:
    --enable-mythgame        build the mythgame plugin [default=yes]

  MythMusic related options:
    --enable-mythmusic       build the mythmusic plugin [default=yes]
    --enable-fftw            enable fftw visualizers [default=no]
    --enable-sdl             use SDL for the synaesthesia output [default=no]
    --enable-aac             enable AAC/MP4 audio file decompression [default=no]

  MythNews related options:
    --enable-mythnews        build the mythnews plugin [default=yes]

  MythVideo related options:
    --enable-mythvideo       build the mythvideo plugin [default=yes]

  MythWeather related options:
    --enable-mythweather     build the mythweather plugin [default=yes]



  The sections detailing configuration of the plugins assume that you
  are already in the ~/mythplugins-0.22/ directory.

  Note that a single configure script now does configuration for all
  modules. By default, it will compile all modules. If you do not wish
  to compile a module, either because it is of no use to you, or you do
  not have the prerequisites, the simplest course of action is to go
  through the various sections below, satisfying the prerequisites, and
  then compile all modules at once.

  For example, you would only like to compile and install MythGallery
  and MythMusic. For MythGallery, you would like to use the EXIF data in
  the .JPG file to present additional information onscreen. For
  MythMusic, you would like to enable support for the opengl and FFT
  visualizations. The command line would look like:



  $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
  $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-opengl --enable-mythgallery --enable-exif --enable-mythmusic --enable-fft
  $ qmake mythplugins.pro
  $ make
  $ su -
  # make install
  # exit
  $



  For simplicity, the examples below will disable compilation of all
  other modules other than the one being discussed.

  14.  MythWeb.

  MythWeb allows you to use a web page to control various aspects of
  your MythTV system. MythWeb is a separate application, but it's
  dependent on MythTV being installed and operational.

  14.1.  Installation and prerequisites

  Mythweb is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins'' for
  instructions on downloading the tarball. The next step depends on
  whether your distribution has a web server and if you have PHP
  support.

  14.1.1.  Mandriva

  Mandriva has apache and PHP pre-packaged, so installation is quite
  simple.



             NOTE: Mandriva 9.1 users, perform the following:


       # urpmi apache2 apache2-mod_php php-mysql
       # chkconfig --level 345 httpd on
       # /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart



  14.2.  Completing the installation



       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22/mythweb
       $ su
       # mkdir /var/www/html/mythweb
       # cp -r . /var/www/html/mythweb
       # exit
       $



  By default, MythWeb uses an Apache .htaccess file to restrict access
  to the website and to configure some variables.


  To create the password file for Apache (if your system doesn't already
  have one), you could do something like this:


       # cd /var/www
       # htpasswd -c htpasswd mythtv
       New password:
       Re-type new password:
       Adding password for user mythtv



  See the man page for htpasswd for more examples.

  To access the web page, open a web browser and use http://[name or ip
  address]/mythweb/



        NOTE: Make sure that you have a trailing slash on the URL,
  otherwise you will get a 404 Page not Found error.

  14.3.  Resetting the key binding table

  MythWeb allows you to configure which keys are bound to which actions
  within MythTV. If you'd like to reset this back to the default,
  execute the following command:


       $ echo "delete from keybindings ;" | mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg



  14.4.  Resetting the theme.

  If you find yourself wedged into a theme that isn't working, open your
  web browser and go to site:
  http://mythweb_name_or_ip_address/mythweb/settings.php?RESET_THEME=yes

  15.  MythGallery.

  MythGallery is a photo and slideshow application. MythGallery is a
  separate application, but it's dependent on MythTV being installed and
  operational.

  15.1.  Installation and prerequisites

  MythGallery is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins''
  for instructions on downloading the tarball.

  There are a number of transitions available, some requiring OpenGL
  support. You will also need to install a TIFF library. Under Mandriva,
  you would perform the following command:


       # urpmi libtiff3-devel



  Once you have satisfied the prerequisites for your distribution,
  install the application:


       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
       $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-opengl --enable-mythgallery
       $ qmake mythplugins.pro
       $ make
       # su
       # make install
       # exit
       $



  The configuration for MythGallery is accessed through the main Setup
  option in mythfrontend. Make sure you set your pictures directory to
  wherever you're storing your photos.

  The controls for MythGallery can be found in the README that comes
  with the application.

  15.2.  Using MythGallery

  When you first start MythGallery, you will see a thumbnail view of any
  folders and pictures in the Gallery Directory you specified in setup.
  If this is the first time you have accessed this directory, the
  thumbnails will be generated on the fly. If the Gallery Dir is
  writable, these thumbnails will be cached thus speeding up future
  access. On the left is a greyed-out menu of options.

  Use the arrow keys to select a folder or picture to open/view with the
  Select key, or use the Menu key to toggle access the menu on the left.
  The menu options are as follows:

  o  Slideshow - Will cycle through all the pictures in the current
     folder.  The currently selected item must be a picture (not a
     folder) for this to work. It does not currently traverse
     subfolders.

  o  Rotate CW - Rotate the current image 90 degrees in the clockwise
     direction. This change persists if the current directory is
     writable.

  o  Rotate CCW - As above except the direction of rotation is
     counter(anti) clockwise.

  o  Import - Import pictures into your Gallery Dir. This option is
     described in the next section.

  o  Settings - Access the MythGallery settings screen.

  15.3.  Importing Pictures

  The import path in the setup dialog is a colon separated list of
  directories and/or executable files. When the import key is pressed, a
  new directory (the destination directory) under the current directory
  will be created and the import path will be searched. If the item in
  the import path is a directory (the source directory), the contents of
  that directory will be copied to the destination directory. If you
  would like the source directory to be that of a removable device, it
  might be a good idea to use autofs. See the automount howto at
  www.linuxdoc.org <www.linuxdoc.org> for info on how to get it working.

  If the item in the import path is an executable file, MythGallery will
  attempt to execute it with the destination directory as its sole
  argument.  Be careful when using executable scripts that the script
  runs unattended (doesn't need user intervention) and returns properly,
  otherwise it could create the appearance of MythGallery hanging (e.g.
  running smbclient and prompting for password). Also be sure that
  scripts have executable permissions set.

  Here is an example script that a user may want to run on import:


       #!/bin/csh

       if ($#argv == 0) then
               echo "Usage: $0 dest_dir"
               exit
       endif

       cd $argv[1]

       # get stuff over the network
       wget http://www.somesite.dom/dir/file1.jpg
       wget http://www.somesite.dom/dir/file2.jpg
       wget http://www.somesite.dom/dir/file3.jpg

       # stuff that requires manual module loading and/or fs mounting
       modprobe camera_module
       mount /dev/camera /mnt/camera
       cp /mnt/camera/* $argv[1]
       umount /mnt/camera
       rmmod camera_module

       # perform some processing
       foreach pname (`ls *.jpg`)
               jpegtran -flip vertical $pname > $pname.new
               mv $pname.new $pname
       end



  16.  MythGame.

  MythGame can used as a frontend to start any emulator that your host
  OS runs. This is an example of how to set up xmame on Linux.
  http://www.mameworld.net/ <http://www.mameworld.net/> is an excellent
  resource for all things mame.

  Installation overview:

  1. Setup directory structure

  2. Download and install xmame

  3. Download and place extra files (artwork/catver.ini/etc..)

  4. Download and install MythGame plugin

  5. Setup xmame in MythGame

  6. Hints

  16.1.  Setup Directory Structure

  To keep things organized, create the following directories for xmame
  to use in /usr/local/share/xmame: hiscore, roms, and snaps.


       $ mkdir -p /usr/local/share/xmame/{highscore,roms,snaps}



  16.2.  Download and Install xmame

  NOTE: There may be pre-packaged versions of xmame available for your
  distribution. Check http://x.mame.net/download.html
  <http://x.mame.net/download.html> for the latest version.

  Download the source to xmame from
  http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.103.tar.bz2
  <http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.103.tar.bz2>



       $ wget http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.103.tar.bz2
       $ tar -xjf xmame-0.103.tar.bz2
       $ cd xmame-0.103



  Edit the Makefile with your favorite editor. Adjust the options as
  required for your system.


       $ joe Makefile



  Then make and install xmame


       $ make
       $ su
       (enter password)
       # make install
       # exit



  After mame has been installed, we need to create some defaults.


       $ mkdir ~/.xmame
       $ cp docs/xmamerc.dist ~/.xmame/xmamerc



  Because some ROMS work better with different display toolkits, or
  possibly even older versions of xmame, it's convenient to keep all of
  your xmame binaries and to rename them to include the version number.
  MythGame allows you to match individual roms to preferred binaries.



       $ su
       (enter password)
       # mv /usr/local/bin/xmame.x11 /usr/local/bin/xmame-0.103.x11
       # exit

  NOTE: Depending on how you compiled xmame, you may have xmame.X11,
  xmame.SDL or xmame.xgl based on what display toolkit you used. Also,
  you may need to remove and recreate xmamerc after upgrading since some
  of the default options may have changed.



       ### Fileio Related ###
       rompath                         /usr/local/share/xmame/roms
       snapshot_directory              /usr/local/share/xmame/snaps
       cheat_file                      /usr/local/share/xmame/cheat.dat
       hiscore_file                    /usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat
       hiscore_directory               /usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore
       history_file                    /usr/local/share/xmame/history.dat
       mameinfo_file                   /usr/local/share/xmame/mameinfo.dat



  Confirm that xmame works before running it inside MythTV. Place your
  ROM in the /usr/local/share/xmame/roms directory you created earlier.

  NOTE: There are three public domain ROM sets available at
  http://www.mame.net/downmisc.html <http://www.mame.net/downmisc.html>

  Launch xmame with your game of choice. In this example, we are using
  Gauntlet.


       $ xmame gauntlet



  Some basic mame keyboard commands:


       5 = Insert coin
       1 = Player 1 start
       arrow keys = movement
       left control = button 1
       left alt = button 2
       SPACE = button 3
       ESC = exit
       TAB - menu
       ~ to adjust Volume
            < and >



  16.3.  Download extra files

  The following files allow you to add extra functionality. Place them
  into /usr/local/share/xmame

  - catver.ini is a catalog of categories and versions of popular mame
  ROMs.

  Useful for keeping large libraries of ROMs organized.

  It may be downloaded from http://www.catver.com
  <http://www.catver.com> or http://www.mameworld.net/catlist
  <http://www.mameworld.net/catlist>


  - Screenshots aka "snaps"

  These may be downloaded from http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/
  <http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/>

  Screenshots are displayed when you are browsing your ROMS in mythgame.
  Unzip and place them in /usr/local/share/xmame/snaps

  - history.dat

  Download from http://www.arcade-history.com/ <http://www.arcade-
  history.com/> This file fills in a bit of background about each ROM.

  - hiscore.dat

  Download from http://www.mameworld.net/highscore/
  <http://www.mameworld.net/highscore/>

  - Cheats

  Download from http://cheat.retrogames.com/
  <http://cheat.retrogames.com/>

  16.4.  Download and Install MythGame.

  MythGame is part of the mythplugins package. See the instructions in
  the ``Downloading and Compiling'' section to obtain mythplugins.

  Switch to the mythplugins directory:


       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22



  Compile and install mythgame:


       $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythgame
       $ qmake mythplugins.pro
       $ make
       $ su
       (enter password)
       # make install
       # exit



  16.5.  Setup xmame in MythGame

  Start mythfrontend and navigate to Utilities/Setup > Setup > Media
  Settings > Game Settings > Game Players. Select (New Game Player).

  To set up a new player for xmame enter the following:



  Player Name:    xmame-0.103.x11                  (Name by which you want your emulator or game called)
  Type:           xmame                           (This is used for display purposes only and does not affect the function of your system)
  Command:        xmame-0.103.x11 -vidmod 1 -fullscreen     (Path and name of binary + any optional parameters)
  Rom Path:       /usr/local/share/xmame/roms     (This tells MythGame what directories to scan for roms to be used with this emulator)
  ScreenShots:    /usr/local/share/xmame/snaps    (This tells MythGame what directories to scan for snapshots to be used with these roms)
  Working Directory:                              (Directory to change to before launching game or emulator. Blank in our case ignores this setting)
  File Extensions:                                (List of all file extension to be used for this emulator. Blank menas any file under the Rom Path)
  [] Allow games to span multiple roms/disks      (will treat game.1.rom game.2.rom game.3.rom as one game)



  16.6.  Hints:


  o  Rom name before options: %s can be used as a standin for rom names
     on the command line.

  o  Multiple disk/rom games: %d1 %d2 etc can be used as standins for
     multiple disc games on the command line.

  o  Associating a rom with an emulator: Browse to the desired rom and
     press 'M' to enter the settings page for that rom.

  o  Assign a Game Favorite Status: Browse to the desired game and press
     "/".

  17.  MythMusic.

  MythMusic has a number of prerequisites that must be satisfied before
  it is operational. Depending on your distribution, some of these
  prerequisites can be satisfied through the various package managers.
  If your distribution doesn't offer pre-compiled versions of the
  software below, then follow the generic instructions for manually
  compiling and installing the software.

  The prerequisites for MythMusic are:

  o  MAD

  o  taglib

  o  libogg and libvorbis

  o  FLAC

  o  libcdaudio

  o  CDParanoia

  17.1.  Manual installation of prerequisites

  These instructions are for distributions which don't have pre-compiled
  versions of the software necessary to run MythTV.

  Download MAD from http://www.underbit.com/products/mad
  <http://www.underbit.com/products/mad> and install:



  $ tar -xzf mad-0.15.1b.tar.gz
  $ cd mad-0.15.1b
  $ ./configure
  $ make
  $ su
  # make install
  # exit



  Download TagLib from http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html
  <http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html> and install:



       $ tar -xzf taglib-1.4.tar.gz
       $ cd taglib-1.4
       $ ./configure
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # exit



  Download libogg and libvorbis from http://www.xiph.org/downloads
  <http://www.xiph.org/downloads> and install in a similar manner to the
  above packages.

  Download FLAC from http://flac.sourceforge.net
  <http://flac.sourceforge.net> and install:


       $ tar -xzf flac-1.1.2.tar.gz
       $ cd flac-1.1.2
       $ ./configure
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # exit
       $



  Download libcdaudio from http://libcdaudio.sourceforge.net
  <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=27134> and
  install:


       $ tar -xzf libcdaudio-0.99.12p2.tar.gz
       $ cd libcdaudio-0.99.12p2
       $ ./configure
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # exit
       $



  Download cdparanoia from http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/down.html
  <http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/download/cdparanoia-III-
  alpha9.8.src.tgz>.


       $ tar -xzf cdparanoia-III-alpha9.8.src.tgz
       $ cd cdparanoia-III-alpha9.8
       $ ./configure
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # cd /usr/lib
       # ln -sf libcdda_interface.so.0.9.8 libcdda_interface.so
       # ln -sf libcdda_paranoia.so.0.9.8 libcdda_paranoia.so
       # exit
       $



  17.2.  Mandriva

  Mandriva has a number of the prerequisites available on the
  installation CD. Some of the software you're going to need will have
  to be obtained from the "contrib" or "cooker" development
  repositories.  Applications downloaded from "cooker" come from the
  development branch, so there may be issues with some software. It
  isn't recommended that you mix cooker and release-level software.

  urpmi is the simplest tool for installation of packages from the
  command line. The difficult part is the configuration, but this has
  been made easier at the following website:
  http://addmedia.linuxfornewbies.org/
  <http://addmedia.linuxfornewbies.org/> The website will allow you to
  choose a mirror site and then present the command-line configuration
  text for that mirror. You will most likely need to add a "Contrib"
  mirror to your setup. Once you have done that, you can proceed. If
  urpmi prompts you about other modules that need to be installed to
  satisfy dependencies, say "Yes".



       # urpmi libmad0 libmad0-devel libflac4 libflac4-devel libcdaudio1 cdparanoia
       # urpmi libcdda0 libcdda0-devel libvorbis0 libvorbis0-devel
       # urpmi libcdaudio1-devel libid3tag0 libid3tag0-devel



  17.2.1.  Additional options with MythMusic

  Additional visualizations have been added to MythMusic. If you wish to
  use these, there are some prerequisites you must install prior to
  compiling.


  o  fftw

  o  OpenGL

  o  SDL

  fftw may be obtained from http://www.fftw.org/ <http://www.fftw.org/>.
  In Mandriva it may be installed by typing:


       # urpmi libfftw2 libfftw2-devel

  OpenGL should be installed on practically all distributions.  However,
  you will need the devel module. In Mandriva it may be installed by
  typing:


       # urpmi libMesaGLU1-devel



  SDL may be obtained from http://www.libsdl.org
  <http://www.libsdl.org>. In Mandriva it may be installed by typing:


       # urpmi libSDL1.2 libSDL1.2-devel



  17.3.  Red Hat Linux 9

  Red Hat provides packages for several of the prerequisites, making
  installation very simple. Of the prerequisites, Red Hat provides
  packages for Vorbis, cdparanoia, SDL, and OpenGL (which you probably
  already have installed). To install these all at once, simply type
  (all on the same line):


       $ up2date --solvedeps libvorbis libvorbis-devel vorbis-tools cdparanoia-devel cdparanoia-libs cdparanoia SDL-devel SDL



  If you get the following message: "None of the packages you requested
  were found, or they are already updated" it probably means you already
  have all of those packages installed.

  You must install the remaining packages, (MAD, FLAC, libcdaudio and
  optionally fftw) manually following the installation directions above.
  When installing fftw do not use the rpm package offered on the website
  because it will cause an error, so use the source package instead.



  NOTE: you can use the instructions given at the ``automated
        installation section'' to install all of MythMusic in one
  step.

  17.4.  Compiling MythMusic

  Once all the prerequisites have been installed, you can proceed with
  compiling MythMusic.



       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
       $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythmusic --enable-fftw --enable-sdl --enable-aac
       $ qmake mythplugins.pro
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # exit

  17.5.  Configuring MythMusic

  Configuration of MythMusic occurs in two places. The main mythfrontend
  Setup is for global MythMusic configuration. Go to the
  Setup/MythMusic/General Setup screen and adjust it for your particular
  configuration.

  The second configuration screen is within the MythMusic program and
  will allow you rescan your music library, etc.

  Here's some explanation about the Ignore_ID3 and The
  NonID3FileNameFormat:

  If Ignore_ID3 is set to TRUE, MythMusic will try to determine the
  Genre, Artist, Album, Track Number, and Title from the filename of the
  mp3 file. The NonID3FileNameFormat variable should be set to the
  directory/file format where the mp3 files are stored. For instance, I
  store mine in the above shown Genre/Artist/Album/Track format.
  MythMusic will then use this information to fill in the proper fields
  when it populates the musicmetadata table rather than searching for an
  ID3 tag in the mp3 file.

  The files can be laid out in any format, such as:

  Genre/Artist/Album/Title Artist/Genre/Album/Title Artist/Album/Title
  (with Genre left as Unknown)

  The track number is optional but can be specified with the title by
  using the TRACK_TITLE keyword instead of TITLE. If TRACK_TITLE is
  used, then the filename can have a space, hyphen, or underscore
  separating the track number from the track title. Keywords are case
  insensitive, so if you specify GENRE it's the same as Genre in the
  format field.

  The Ignore_ID3 option does not disable the code that determines the
  track length, just the portion that tries to read ID3 info.

  17.6.  Using MythMusic

  MythMusic is fairly simple to use. It is recommended that you insert
  the CD before selecting "Import CD". You should also ensure that your
  system doesn't try to automount the CD and begin playing it
  automatically.

  Here's some information on playlist management:

  Q: How do I create a new playlist?  A: Using the MythMusic "Select
  Music" menu option, setup the playlist as you normally would by adding
  songs or other playlists as needed. When you are ready to save the new
  playlist, highlight "Active Play Queue" at the bottom of the selection
  tree and hit the "i" key. This will pop up a menu allowing you to name
  and save the new playlist. You can also hit Enter to bring up the
  popup on the Active Play Queue. This does not work on the playlists
  above, as Enter is obviously bound to checking/unchecking the boxes.
  Any number (i.e. keypad on remote) will also bring up the menu in both
  cases.

  Q: How do I enter the playlist name in the text field without a
  keyboard?  A: Use the keypad number keys (bound to your remote) to
  select letters quasi-cell phone style. Keys 2-9 work pretty much like
  any cell phone text entry. 1 cycles through a few special characters,
  delete, and space. 0 is like a CAPS LOCK. Hard to describe, fairly
  easy to use. You will soon be able to specify the cycle timing in a
  Setup screen. You can type fairly quickly through a combination of
  jumping around the number keys AND hitting a non-number key (right
  arrow is particularly good for this) to force the current character.
  Q: How do I edit a playlist?  A: Highlight the playlist in the
  selection tree and hit the "i" key then select "Move to Active Play
  Queue" in the popup. You can now modify the "Active Play Queue" like
  normal, adding songs and playlists by selecting them from the song
  tree. When you are done, highlight the "Active Play Queue" in the
  selection tree and hit the "i" key then select "Save Back to Playlist
  Tree". And whatever you were editing as your Active Queue before you
  moved an existing playlist "on top" of Active reappears. Think of
  Active has having a push on, pop off capability, but with a depth of
  only 1.

  Q: How do I delete an item from a playlist?  A: Highlight the item in
  the selection tree and hit the "d" key.

  Q: How do I rearrange the songs in my playlist?  A: Highlight a song
  and hit the "space" bar, the song will now have pair of red arrows in
  front of it. Use the up and down arrow keys to move it around in the
  playlist. When you have it where you want it, hit the "space" bar
  again.

  Q: How do I delete a playlist?  A: Highlight the playlist in the
  selection tree and hit the "i" key then select "Delete this Playlist"
  from the popup.

  17.7.  Troubleshooting MythMusic

  You may run into errors when running MythMusic.

  17.7.1.  When I run MythMusic and try and look up a CD, I get an error
  message

  The full text of the message will say:

  databasebox.o: Couldn't find your CD. It may not be in the freedb
  database.  More likely, however, is that you need to delete  /.cddb
  and  /.cdserverrc and restart mythmusic. Have a nice day.

  If you get this message, you should go to the home directory of
  whatever user MythMusic is running as and type:


       rm .cdserverrc
       rm -rf .cddb/



  These files aren't automatically deleted because of a conscious design
  decision by the author that programs that automatically delete things
  are bad.

  The files are used to locally cache CD lookups. If you are re-
  inserting CDs, your machine will not actually have to go out to the
  Internet to determine what is on them. However, the URL used to access
  the freedb database has recently changed, so the stale information in
  the files from previous runs of MythMusic would cause the error above.
  Once the files have been deleted the stale information will be gone
  and your local database will be rebuilt as you use CDs.

  18.  MythWeather.

  MythWeather is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins''
  for instructions on downloading the tarball.



  $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
  $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythweather
  $ qmake mythplugins.pro
  $ make
  $ su
  # make install
  # exit



  MythWeather uses MSNBC.com as its source for weather data and
  weather.com for its radar image.

  These are the keyboard commands for MythWeather:


       Left Key             Goes back one page, and extends the time spent
                            on the page you are on.
       Right Key            Goes forward one page, see above.
       Space                Pause, wait on the current page until space is hit
                            again.
       Numeric Keys         You can check other weather by keying in other ZIP codes.
       Enter Key            Switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit. Can also
                            be used a way to force a data update.
       "m" Key              Resets the location to the database default, then updates the data.
       "i"                  Enter / Save settings
       ESC                  Exit the settings screen without saving / Exit the program



  MythWeather also has an "Aggressiveness" setting. This affects how
  long MythWeather waits for data from the msnbc.com website before
  timing out. If you are on a slow connection, or have a slow DNS, or
  MythWeather just doesn't seem to be working and you've already tried
  everything else, then try increasing the aggressiveness level
  parameter. This parameter is inverse; a higher number actually means
  that MythWeather will be less aggressive, and will therefore wait
  longer before timing out.

  MythWeather will print debugging information on the terminal. If you
  wish to see additional debugging information while MythWeather is
  running, run mythweather from the command line with as mythweather
  --debug

  You may also force mythweather to re-run the configuration by starting
  it on the command line as mythweather --configure. These two options
  are mutually exclusive.

  19.  MythVideo.

  MythVideo is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins''
  for instructions on downloading the tarball.

  MythVideo will allow you to use an external program to watch media
  files that are not directly supported by MythTV.



  $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
  $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythvideo
  $ qmake mythplugins.pro
  $ make
  $ su
  # make install
  # exit



  See MythVideo's README file for additional information.

  20.  MythDVD.

  MythDVD is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins'' for
  instructions on downloading the tarball. MythDVD is an application
  which rips DVDs and makes them available for use with MythVideo. You
  may also transcode the DVD content from MPEG-2 to other formats which
  should greatly reduce the amount of space the DVD material takes up on
  your hard drive.

  MythDVD has a number of prerequisites to enable transcoding
  functionality.  If you only wish to play DVDs rather than convert them
  to something like MPEG-4 or xvid you may skip the prerequisite
  installation step.

  20.1.  Manual Compilation of Prerequisites

  20.2.  Pre-compiled binaries

  Mandriva users may install the prerequisites this way:


       # urpmi libdvdread3 libdvdread3-devel a52dec liba52dec-devel
       # urpmi mplayer ogle xine



  Assuming that you've added a PLF mirror, you may also load the rest of
  the prerequisites using the following command:


       # urpmi xvid xvid-devel fame libfame0.9-devel transcode libdvdcss



  In the example below, we have enabled support for transcoding and for
  VCD playing. You may remove these options if you don't need them.


       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.20
       $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythdvd --enable-transcode --enable-vcd
       $ qmake mythplugins.pro
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install



  20.3.  Running the Myth Transcoding Daemon

  Transcoding ("ripping") a DVD requires you to run the Myth Transcoding
  Daemon (mtd). To ensure that mtd is configured correctly, you should
  first test it at the command line.


       $ mtd -n



  The last line of text should show something like:


       mtd is listening on port 2342



  This indicates that mtd is ready for use. Once you've successfully
  tested mtd in the foreground, type CTRL-C to stop mtd. You may then
  start it as a background (daemon) process.


       $ mtd -d



  Running mtd as a daemon will allow you to automatically start it
  during the boot process. For example, you may add mtd -d to your
  rc.local file, or you can adjust the script/steps outlined in the
  section called ``Automatically starting mythbackend at system boot
  time'' to start mtd instead of mythbackend.

  21.  MythNews.

  MythNews is a part of the mythplugins package. See ``MythPlugins'' for
  instructions on downloading the tarball. MythNews is a RSS reader.


       $ cd ~/mythplugins-0.22
       $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-mythnews
       $ qmake mythplugins.pro
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install



  22.  Troubleshooting.

  22.1.  Compiling

  22.1.1.  Compile errors

  Some compile errors are worse than others. If you get an error that
  doesn't abort the compilation, and says something like:



  cc1plus: warning: changing search order for system directory
  "/usr/local/include"
  cc1plus: warning:   as it has already been specified as a non-system
  directory



  then it shouldn't be a problem.

  If you get an error like /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lXext, the compiler
  is telling you that you don't have XFree86-devel installed, or that
  your distribution hasn't set it up correctly. This needs to be fixed
  before MythTV will compile.

  22.1.2.  make: *** No rule to make target
  /usr/lib/qt3/mkspecs/default/qmake.conf', needed by Makefile'. Stop.

  This error happens when there's a missing link in the
  /usr/lib/qt3/mkspecs directory. There are two ways to fix this error:

  1. Create the link manually:


       $ su
       # cd /usr/lib/qt3/mkspecs
       # ln -sf linux-g++ default



  and then restart the compile,

  or

  2. Run qmake mythtv.pro in the mythtv directory. Rerunning qmake will
  create a new Makefile for you, however this still doesn't fix the root
  cause of the issue, which is that your distribution didn't create the
  symlink for you when the qt3 package was installed. The first choice
  is the better solution.

  22.1.3.  make: *** No rule to make target
  /mkspecs/default/qmake.conf', needed by Makefile'. Stop.

  You didn't set your QTDIR. Re-read the section on ``Setting up
  paths''.

  22.1.4.  Internal Segmentation Fault.

  This is most likely to be caused by an overheating processor rather
  than an actual programming fault within gcc.

  22.2.  Debugging

  22.2.1.  MythTV segfaults

  22.2.2.  MythTV isn't doing anything

  22.2.3.  Debugging with GDB

  Without details, the developers will not be able to determine if you
  have discovered a genuine code-bug, or if the problem is with your
  system. In order to determine what's going on, you must recompile
  MythTV with debugging support and run MythTV within gdb, the GNU
  debugger.  Note that, on OS X, some data is provided without going
  through these steps.  See
  /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MythFrontend.crash.log

  Re-run the configure script and add --compile-type=debug to any
  previous configuration options you may have used. Check the config.log
  file if you have forgotten.

  Now, you need to clear out the old versions of the software to ensure
  that you're running with the debugging code, then compile and install.


       $ make distclean
       $ ./configure --compile-type=debug
       $ make
       $ su
       # make install
       # exit



  At this point, you now have debug-enabled software ready. To make sure
  that you don't forget to type a command required for debugging, it's
  best to setup a gdbcommands file. This will be read by gdb when it's
  started.  Put the following into gdbcommands in your home directory:



       handle SIGPIPE nostop noprint
       handle SIG33 nostop noprint
       set logging on
       set pagination off
       set breakpoint pending on
       break qFatal
       set args -l myth.log -v record,channel,siparser
       run
       thread apply all bt full
       set logging off



  Let's assume that the problem you're having is in mythbackend.



       $ gdb mythbackend -x gdbcommands
       GNU gdb 6.3-debian
       Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
       welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
       Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
       There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
       This GDB was configured as "i386-linux".Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/libthread_db.so.1".
       [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]



  gdb will automatically read the commands that you've placed in the
  gdbcommands file and begin running the program you specified on the
  command line.

  If the program appears to be locked up, press CTRL-C to create the
  backtrace file.


  All of the output from gdb.txt should be posted to the mythtv-dev
  mailing list, along with the steps you followed to get the program to
  crash.

  NOTE: If you're trimming the gdb.txt file to remove extraneous
  information from the beginning of the file, make sure you include at
  least 10 lines prior to the point where the backtrace actually begins.
  This ensures that there is some context to the backtrace, and so that
  it's possible to see what exactly caused the segfault.

  gdb has a number of options, read the man page for more information.

  Using the gdbcommands file in conjunction with a while loop will
  ensure that gdb creates a trace file and then restarts:



       $ while true; do date >> gdb.txt; gdb mythbackend -x gdbcommands; done;



  NOTE: To exit this loop you will need to kill the while loop.

  If you're trying to troubleshoot and you can't get back to the gdb
  window for some reason, it may be easier to use two systems or to
  start mythfrontend from the text console.

  If you're going to troubleshoot from a remote system, connect to the
  machine that you're going to test using ssh or telnet. Next, type $
  export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0. This will allow the graphics to be
  displayed on the X console (usually ALT-F6 or ALT-F7) and still give
  you output and control of mythfrontend, either from the ssh session,
  or by switching back to the text console by pressing CTRL-ALT-F1.  You
  can now continue troubleshooting using gdb as detailed in the
  instructions.

  22.2.4.  MythTV is crashing your system

  When run as a non-privileged user, MythTV can not crash your system.
  If your system is crashing when you run MythTV, then you have some
  issue with the drivers for your capture card or other hardware, or the
  CPU fan has fallen off/broken and your system is overheating when
  asked to perform a CPU intensive task like encoding video.

  If you are running as root, which is strongly discouraged, it is
  possible that your system may crash due to the real-time thread using
  all available CPU. You will not be able to interrupt the process, so
  for all intents and purposes your computer will have crashed.

  22.3.  Installing

  22.3.1.  When trying to run mythtv-setup, you get an error like this:
  "mythtv-setup: error while loading shared libraries:"

  You didn't add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf. See the section on
  modifying ``/etc/ld.so.conf''.

  22.4.  Using

  22.4.1.  No programs are displayed in "Watch Recordings"

  This situation occurs most often with a system that acts as a frontend
  and a slave backend. MythTV supports system-global and user-specific
  configuration files, with user-configuration files taking precedence.
  99% of the configuration for MythTV is in the MySQL database, but
  MythTV still needs to know where the MySQL server is running. This
  information is in the mysql.txt file. By default, it will be installed
  to /usr/local/share/mythtv, but a copy placed into ~/.mythtv will
  over-ride the global configuration.

  You must ensure that there aren't multiple, conflicting versions of
  this file on your system!


       $ locate mysql.txt
       /usr/local/share/mythtv/mysql.txt
       /home/mythtv/.mythtv/mysql.txt
       $



  As you can see, in this example there are two mysql.txt files. If they
  are not identical, then there may be unintended consequences.

  You may also see this error if you completely fill the /var partition.
  The most likely mythtv-related reason for this is an overly large
  mythbackend or mythfrontend log file in /var/log. If you have logging
  enabled for the backend, and myth runs for weeks at a time, this may
  creep up and surprise you. Note that many system processes also write
  to /var and the system may not boot if it is unable to write to /var
  due to a full partition.

  22.4.2.  MySQL not connecting correctly

  Your MySQL installation may have networking turned off.  Check that
  /etc/mysql/my.cnf does not contain skip-networking. If it does, remove
  it. Also verify that bind-address is set to your IP address instead of
  127.0.0.1. If you change either of these items, restart MySQL.

  22.4.3.  MySQL database is corrupt

  If you have reason to believe that your MySQL database is corrupt,
  execute the following commands to attempt to repair it.

  NOTE: Ensure that there are no programs accessing the database while
  you attempt to repair it. Make sure that all backend and frontend
  programs have exited.

  mysqlcheck -r -umythtv -p<password> mythconverg

  22.4.4.  Using a MPEG-2 encoder card and the video appears "jittery"

  22.4.5.  Using a MPEG-2 encoder card and the video is jumping up and
  down

  This is a different problem than the one discussed in the previous
  section. Currently, the ivtv driver or firmware appear to have some
  issues if the vertical capture resolution is not the full screen
  height. If you are having a jitter problem then ensure that you are
  capturing either 480 lines (for NTSC) or 576 lines (for PAL). The
  default capture profiles may need to be edited for your setup. Go to
  Settings->TV Settings->Recording Profiles and adjust the Default and
  Live TV options to 480 or 576 from their defaults.

  22.4.6.  Screen goes blank but returns when mouse is moved or keyboard
  is used

  This is due to DPMS, the Display Power Management System, which is
  used to save power by turning off your monitor when the system decides
  that it's not being used or due to a screensaver that has defaulted to
  a blank screen.  MythTV now has DPMS support built-in, and should
  intelligently handle the screen. Continue reading if you wish to
  override DPMS and force it off.

  Since it's likely that watching TV will not generate keyboard or mouse
  events for a time, you need to turn off DPMS and the screensaver.
  There are a few ways to do this. You may also need to check your BIOS
  for power saving modes and disable screen blanking there as well.

  Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 or /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, and look
  for:


       Section "ServerFlags"
           #DontZap # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
           #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
           AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse doesn't work

           Option "blank time" "0"
           Option "standby time" "0"
           Option "suspend time" "0"
           Option "off time" "0"
           Option "NoPM" "1"
       EndSection



  Also, look for:


       Section "Device"
           Identifier "device1"
           VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
           BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 256 (generic)"
           Driver "nv"
           Option "DPMS"
       EndSection



  In this case, you would need to either delete the Option "DPMS" line,
  or change it to # Option "DPMS" to comment it out. The next time you
  start XFree this change will take effect.

  Finally, check:



  Section "Monitor"
      Identifier "monitor1"
      VendorName "Plug'n Play"
      HorizSync 30-85
      VertRefresh 50-160

      # Sony Vaio C1(X,XS,VE,VN)?
      # 1024x480 @ 85.6 Hz, 48 kHz hsync
      ModeLine "1024x480"    65.00 1024 1032 1176 1344   480  488  494  563 -hsync -vsync

      # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
      # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
      ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630

      # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
      ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
  EndSection



  Ensure that there isn't an Option "DPMS" in the Monitor configuration.

  You can also turn off DPMS from the Command Line, but this will not
  survive a reboot.


       $ xset -dpms



  Using xset +dpms will turn it back on.

  Another technique to try, which will turn off the screensaver:


       $ xset s off



  You may also combine the command to turn off DPMS and the screensaver:


       $ xset -dpms s off



  Finally, depending on your distribution, you may be able to turn it
  off from within the control panel.

  22.5.  Miscellaneous

  22.5.1.  mythfilldatabase failing

  If mythfilldatabase suddenly appears to be failing, there are at least
  two things to check.

  First, if you are in North America, ensure that your DataDirect
  subscription is still valid, otherwise, check to see what version of
  XMLTV you're running and that it's the latest version.



          NOTE: It is highly recommended that you run the latest
  version of XMLTV available. Your listings provider may have made
  changes which negatively impact XMLTV.

  22.5.2.  Frontend appears to be slow at jumping / seeking.

  22.5.3.  On-screen Display shows incorrect program length.

  This may occur when MythTV doesn't have an accurate seek table. Run
  mythcommflag --rebuild

  22.5.4.  Troubleshooting audio



       NOTE: the following instructions do not apply to PVR-250/350
  encoders; the MPEG-2 file will have the audio embedded in the stream
  so it is not accessible using /dev/dsp.

  Audio appears to be one of the bigger issues that users run into on
  the mailing list. If the audio isn't configured correctly, then MythTV
  will often appear to hang, when in fact it is trying to manipulate the
  audio subsystem and failing. You may or may not receive error messages
  indicating that the source of the error is the audio subsystem.

  You can not use xawtv to determine if your audio is working correctly,
  since xawtv is simply using the analog sound patched through line-in
  to line-out. It doesn't need to digitize the sound unless you are
  using the recording function.

  A better test to verify that sound will work for MythTV (and recording
  with xawtv for that matter) is to startup xawtv, mute the line-in then
  run aplay /dev/dsp. You should hear the recorded audio slightly
  delayed behind the real-time video. You should see messages about
  "underrun". These can be ignored but they do confirm that the driver
  is loaded and there is an active device. Once this test succeeds,
  MythTV should work correctly because it writes to and read from
  /dev/dsp in the same way that aplay does.

  To record audio along with video the audio signal must be digitized by
  a DSP so that the audio data can be stored in a file. On playback, the
  audio data is written to /dev/dsp and converted back to an analog
  signal. This analog signal should then be sent to your speakers. Here
  is what is needed in alsamixer. If you are using an ALSA version after
  1.0.6, use alsamixer -V all:

  CAPTUR source - the analog source to be sent to the DSP. This should
  be set to the input source from the tuner card to the sound card. In
  most cases this is Line but this could also be Aux, CD, Mic, etc.,
  depending on how you connect the input cable. This source should be
  muted to prevent patching through the analog sound. The volume of this
  source will not affect the record level.

  Capture mixer - this sets the level for the analog to digital
  recording.  While a volume of 100% is recommended for testing,
  distortion may occur.  Lowering this level to 75% to 85% may result in
  better audio quality.  "Capture" should be marked as the CAPTUR
  destination.

  PCM mixer - this sets the level for the digital to analog playback.
  While a volume of 100% is recommended for testing, distortion may
  occur. Lowering this level to 75% to 85% may result in better audio
  quality.
  Master mixer - sets the level for the analog signal sent to line-out
  or the speakers.

  You may also want to ensure that /dev/dsp , or whatever device file is
  being used, hasn't already been grabbed by another process, like esd
  or artsd. If the device file isn't available, then MythTV won't work.
  You may wish to run configure and enable support for these.

  If you wish to see what application is grabbing a resource, you can
  use the fuser command:


       # fuser -v /dev/dsp



  To disable aRts in KDE, go to KDE->Control Center->Sound->Sound System
  and uncheck the "Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup" box. Run #
  killall artsd from the command line to stop the artsd program.

  If you're using multiple sound cards and multiple tuners, use
  alsamixer -c 1 to work with the second sound card. The first card is
  #0, the second card is #1, etc.

  22.5.5.  Mythbackend reports that your card is not reporting full
  duplex capabilities

  22.5.6.  The mythbackend program told me to look at this section

  mythbackend does a check to see if your sound device is capable of
  full duplex operation. If it's not, it's most likely that you're going
  to run into issues when you try to record and play sound at the same
  time. If your backend is a separate machine than your frontend, then
  there's no problem, since you're only going to be doing one thing at a
  time with the card.  Likewise, if you're running the frontend and
  backend on the same machine, but you're using btaudio or a hardware
  encoder card such as the Hauppauge PVR-250, DVB cards or HDTV capture
  cards as your recording source and you're only using the playback
  function of your sound card, then you also shouldn't have an issue,
  since the sound card isn't being asked to perform two functions at
  once.

  If you can't get your sound card to go full-duplex and need it to,
  then check your distribution for updated sound drivers. If your sound
  card is not capable of full-duplex operation, either because the
  drivers don't support it, or it has been designed that way, then
  you're pretty much out of luck and will either need to purchase a new
  sound card, or will need to get btaudio ``operational''.

  22.5.7.  My remote doesn't work / works sometimes and not others /
  "ghost" keypresses

  This can be due to a number of factors. The simplest case is the
  "ghost" keypresses. For me, it was due to compact fluorescent lights
  in the same room as the IR receiver, which the receiver was picking up
  as keypresses. Once the lights were switched to incandescent bulbs,
  the ghost went away.

  You may have an issue with lirc misinterpreting IR commands from a
  different remote. I also have an issue where the TiVo "Peanut" remote
  will eventually cause lircd to stop responding; even though lircd is
  configured for the Pinnacle Systems remote, the TiVo remote IR
  patterns are being seen by the IR receiver.


  If your remote has been properly configured, and irw and irxevent are
  working correctly, then it's highly likely that your window manager is
  not giving focus correctly to the various Myth programs as they run.
  The following window managers are known to work correctly:


  o  fvwm

  o  blackbox (using "Sloppy Focus" and "Focus New Windows")

  NOTE: You do not need to use irxevent if you are using MythTV's native
  LIRC support, so the window manager focus issue does not apply in that
  case.

  22.5.8.  Where's "canada-cable"?

  22.5.9.  Channels are off by one

  There is no such thing as "Canada Cable"; Canada uses the same
  frequencies as the United States. "Canada Cable" was a hack that some
  people used when they would discover that their channels were off-by-
  one, i.e. when tuning to channel 42, they might get channel 41 or 43.
  This is actually due to the tuner on the video capture device being
  mis-detected.  You must manually specify the tuner type in your
  /etc/modules.conf.  See the video4linux mailing list
  (https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list
  <https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list>) for
  more information.

  22.5.10.  Mythweb is showing a db_open error when I connect to it

  Find your php.ini file. Make sure you've got a line in it like this:

  extension=mysql.so

  Restart apache for it to take effect.

  22.5.11.  Mouse pointer disappears when placed over the MythTV windows

  This is the intended behavior. The MythTV interface is meant for use
  with a remote control or a keyboard.

  22.5.12.  What does "strange error flushing buffer" mean on the con-
  sole?

  Nothing, really. It's just lame (the mp3 encoder) complaining for some
  obscure reason. This seems to be fixed in more recent versions of the
  libmp3lame library.

  22.5.13.  Can't change the channel when watching Live TV.

  Something's wrong with your program database. Did mythfilldatabase run
  with no major errors? Or, MythTV may not have permissions to the
  appropriate video4linux devices.

  22.5.14.  Screen goes black when you try to play something

  MythTV prints error and status messages to the shell that was used to
  start the application. If nothing seems to be happening when you try
  to view a program, try switching back to the shell and look for error
  messages there, or, if you're running from a startup script, check the
  log file.



  22.5.15.  Computer is loading a media player application when you
  insert a CD or DVD

  You need to disable any sort of auto-running media player in your
  environment, otherwise MythDVD or MythMusic will not be able to work
  properly.

  In KDE, you may want to perform the following:


       $ rm ~/.kde/Autostart/Autorun.desktop



  23.  Miscellaneous.

  23.1.  I'd like to watch the files without using MythTV / I'd like to
  convert the files to some other format

  First, check if the mytharchive plugin does what you want. If not,
  then read on:

  MythTV comes with a utility called mythtranscode which can decode nuv
  files into raw format for use with other applications. This command-
  line utility was not designed to be used by the end-user, but instead
  to be called by other applications or scripts. Programs like nuvexport
  (http://forevermore.net/myth/ <http://forevermore.net/myth/>) are
  better suited for the end user.  However, since mythtranscode can be a
  useful tool, directions on using it follow.

  mythtranscode creates raw streams, which means that they do not
  contain any container information such as resolution, frame-rate, or
  audio sampling rate. In order to process the output, you must supply
  this information to the processing utility. mythtranscode provides the
  relevant information on STDOUT.

  There are two modes in which mythtranscode can create raw streams.
  The first has no synchronization and assumes that the processing
  utility will read audio and video at a constant rate. This method is
  useful when a single application will be processing the raw output,
  such as mencoder or ffmpeg. The second method assumes that two
  separate applications will be processing the audio and video streams
  independently, and there is no rate control between them which means
  that the two programs don't coordinate their efforts to maintain
  synchronization.

  23.1.1.  mythtranscode example

  First, start mythtranscode. You will need to determine the channel and
  the start time manually.


       $ mythtranscode --chanid 1036 --starttime 2003-10-20T15:30:00 --profile \
       autodetect --fifodir . &



  When mythtranscode begins executing, it will create two FIFOs
  ("audout" and "vidout") in the directory specified (in this case ".",
  meaning the current directory) and will print out information about
  the video stream.

  The next step is to start the processing application. The following
  assumes that the stream is NTSC 640x480 with 32Kbps audio.
  To use mencoder you would enter a command like:


       mencoder -audiofile audout -audio-demuxer 20 -rawaudio rate=32000 \
       -rawvideo on:w=640:h=480:fps=29.97 -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o out.avi \
       vidout



          NOTE: You must use mencoder 1.0PRE1 or later. mencoder
  version 0.9x WILL NOT WORK!  Using ffmepg:


       ffmpeg -f u16le -ar 32000 -ac 2 -i audout -f rawvideo -s 640x480 -r 29.97 \
       -i vidout -vcodec mpeg4 -b 2000 -acodec mp3 -ab 128 out.avi



  Or to play directly using mplayer (again 1.0PRE1 or later is needed):


       mplayer -audiofile audout -audio-demuxer 20 -rawaudio rate=32000 \
       -rawvideo on:w=640:h=480:fps=29.97 vidout



  If you wanted to write the raw data to separate audio and video files
  for later processing, the following would work (note the use of
  --fifosync for rate-control):


       $ mythtranscode --chanid 1036 --starttime 2003-10-20T15:30:00 \
       --profile autodetect --fifodir . --fifosync &
       $ cat audout > audio.raw &
       $ cat vidout > video.yuv



  23.2.  Using a different window manager

  MythTV is not dependent on any particular window manager. If you wish
  to run a lightweight window manager, the contrib/configfiles/
  directory has an example of a .twmrc and .fvwmrc file you may use.

  23.3.  What capture resolution should I use? How does video work?

  While MythTV allows you to set various GUI and capture resolutions,
  not all combinations make sense.

  First, analog video signals have a defined vertical resolution. In
  NTSC, the video standard specifies that there are 525 vertical scan
  lines. Once the "extra" lines are removed (they're used to synchronize
  the video signal, and encode closed captioning data), you have 480
  horizontal lines stacked vertically.

  In PAL, there are 625 "raw" lines of resolution, with a net of 576
  horizontal lines stacked vertically.
  Horizontally, the maximum value allowed for a Bt8X8 chip is 720.
  However, due to limitations in the chip and other limitations of
  broadcast television, there may not be a noticeable improvement in
  image quality beyond 400 or 500 pixels.

  With this in mind, there are certain commonly accepted values for
  resolution. While other values may be accepted for the vertical
  resolution, they will cause scan lines to be repeated or dropped.

  From "best" to "worst", in NTSC:

  o  720x480 "DVD" resolution. ReplayTV High and medium resolution

  o  704x480 DVD standalone recorder standard resolution

  o  640x480 4:3

  o  544x480 TiVo Best resolution

  o  480x480 SuperVCD (SVCD) Video CD resolution, TiVo High resolution

  o  352x480 ReplayTV "Standard" quality, TiVo Basic and Medium
     resolution, DVD "LP" resolution

  o  320x480

  o  544x240

  o  480x240

  o  352x240 Video CD (VCD) resolution

  o  320x240

  As you can see, the lower quality values are half of the better ones.
  720x240 is possible, but isn't a good tradeoff relative to the number
  of vertical lines lost. In a PAL country, the you would use values
  like 720x576 or x288.

  The higher resolutions will be more CPU intensive if you're using
  software encoding (PVR-250/350 will have minimal host CPU impact even
  if you're using 720x480). If the CPU is overtaxed, frames will be
  dropped causing uneven motion. You will likely see the best results at
  resolutions which average at least 10% CPU idle time. You can use
  system tools such as top or sar to check the CPU % idle while
  recording. If the CPU average usage is consistently exceeding 90%,
  frames will need to be dropped during peak times when more than 100%
  of the available CPU would be needed to process all of the frames.

  If you'd like to read more on this, go to the vcdhelp website at
  http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/94382.php
  <http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/94382.php>.

  23.4.  MythTV GUI and X Display Sizes

  MythTV is designed to be run as dedicated full screen TV application
  but can also be run as a desktop application on a computer monitor.
  Here are a few consideration for configuring sizes to best suit you
  needs.

  23.4.1.  X Dimensions

  For output to a Television, common resolutions are 640x480, 800x600,
  and some rare devices support 1024x768. Generally, higher resolutions
  are better. However, you may find that you prefer the picture quality
  at one of the lower resolutions. Everything in MythTV is scalable and
  should 'fit' regardless of the resolution you choose.

  Edit your X configuration file, usually /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 for
  XFree, or /etc/X11/xorg.conf for Xorg, so that the resolution you want
  to use is listed first in the lists under "Screen". If this resolution
  is higher than the resolutions supported by your output device, you
  will see a 'panning' effect where moving the mouse to the edge will
  scroll around a desktop area which is larger than the display size. If
  this happens, edit your X configuration file to match the display size
  then restart X.

  23.4.2.  MythTV Dimensions

  From "mythfrontend" go to Setup->Appearance.  The default for the
  height and width is "0" - this will cause MythTV to automatically size
  itself to full screen.

  If the MythTV GUI width and height are not 0, mythfrontend uses these
  GUI dimensions and is anchored to the upper left corner of the X
  Desktop. If the GUI X and/or Y are not 0, the upper left corner is
  positioned at the specified coordinates. If the "Run the frontend in a
  window" box is checked, the window will have a frame and can then be
  dragged to any position on the desktop.



      NOTE: When the GUI is full screen, you may see windows rapidly
  flipping on top of each other. If this happens you will need to set
  your window manager to 'Click to Focus' for windows to stack properly.
  The fonts for the GUI and OSD will scale to whatever sizes you use.
  Most font sizes can be changed in setup selections or in the .xml
  files under /usr/local/share/mythtv/ . Make sure to use fonts large
  enough to be read on a TV screen from a distance.

  The full screen TV size is based on the X display size. For Xinerama,
  you can specify a screen in Setup->General. The TV picture will be
  stretched to fit the entire GUI area regardless of the ``capture
  resolutions'' used. However, during playback, the "W" key can to used
  to correct differences between 16:9 and 4:3.

  23.4.3.  Overscan Dimensions

  Because picture edges can be ragged and screen edges aren't straight,
  Television is designed to project an image larger than the physical
  screen.  This is called "overscan". Underscan is fitting the entire
  image inside the screen. Underscan is useful for computer monitors so
  that toolbars and scrollbars at the edges can be seen.

  For best results, match the X display area as close as possible to the
  edges of the physical screen. This can only be adjusted by your tv-out
  device or by the settings for the television set. Many sets have these
  adjustments in a 'service mode'. If you cannot make these adjustments,
  there will be black borders around the edges of the X desktop, MythTV
  GUI and TV playback.

  MythTV has settings for "Overscan" in Setup->Playback. These can not,
  and do not, cause the image to display beyond the edge of the X
  display area. The purpose of these settings are to cut off rough edges
  and to expand the image so that objects will appear to be the same
  size as a normal overscanned TV picture.



  23.5.  Saving or restoring the database

  MythTV includes one script for backing up the MythTV database and
  another for restoring it. Generally, the scripts are easiest to use
  after configuring the backup directory in a backup resouce file:


       $ echo "DBBackupDirectory=/home/mythtv" > $HOME/.mythtv/backuprc



  changing the directory location as desired.

  Once the backup directory is configured, you may back up your database
  by simply running the backup script. The backup and restore scripts
  will be installed in your MythTV share directory
  ($PREFIX/share/mythtv, where $PREFIX is usually either /usr or
  /usr/local). Ensure you have a link to the scripts in an executable
  directory (such as /usr/local/bin) or use the entire path when
  executing the scripts.



       $ mythconverg_backup.pl



  The script will compress and rotate backups. For more information on
  usage and details, see the help output:



       $ mythconverg_backup.pl --help



  To restore: (assuming that you've ``dropped the database'' and
  ``created a new database'')


       $ mythconverg_restore.pl --filename mythconverg-1214-20091010150513.sql.gz



  For more information on usage and details of the restore script, see
  the help output:



       $ mythconverg_restore.pl --help



  You may need to alter the MySQL permissions if this database is being
  shared with multiple systems. See the ``Modifying access to the MySQL
  database for multiple systems'' section for more information.

  23.6.  Deleting the MySQL database



       NOTE: Performing this step will remove the entire database.
  You will lose all of your settings and will need to ``re-run the
  mc.sql script'' to setup the database structure before running the
  mythtv-setup program or performing a database restore.


       $ mysql -u root
       mysql> DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS mythconverg;
       mysql> quit



  23.7.  btaudio

  btaudio allows you to obtain the audio data from your tuner card
  directly over the PCI bus without using a sound card. This is useful
  if you would like to use multiple tuner cards in a system without
  adding a sound card for each one, or if your existing sound card is
  not capable of full-duplex operation.

  In order to use btaudio, your tuner card will need certain hardware
  installed on it, and that hardware must be wired correctly. The chip
  that will allow you to use the btaudio module is the MSP34xx. However,
  having a MSP34xx is no guarantee that you will be able to use the
  btaudio module.

  As of 2003-03-31, this is the current list of cards and their status:
  Works with btaudio:


  o  Hauppauge WinTV-radio with dbx-TV stereo, model 401

  o  Hauppauge WinTV-Theater, model 495, 498 (Europe)

  o  ATI TV Wonder

  The following cards do not work:

  o  Pinnacle Studio PCTV Pro - note: this has a MSP34xx, but it's not
     wired correctly to the BT878 chip.

  o  ATI TV Wonder VE

  o  Leadtek Winfast 2000 XP (PAL, UK and NTSC)

  o  I/O Magic PC-PVR. No MSP34xx chip.

  The following cards have been reported to work, but have issues:

  o  Avermedia AVerTV Studio (no digital DSP output, "whiney noise" on
     analog)

  Once btaudio loads, it should register additional /dev/dsp and
  /dev/mixer devices. Typing $ dmesg will let you know what's going on.

  23.8.  Removing unwanted channels

  If mythfilldatabase grabbed a channel which you do not want to include
  in your TV listings, you can remove the entries from the grabber
  configuration and the MySQL database. This often happens with premium
  channels; for example, HBO or Showtime may be available on your cable
  TV system, but is scrambled because you're not a subscriber to that
  channel.  Since you can never watch it, you want to get rid of it.


  If you are using the DataDirect service, login to your account at
  http://labs.zap2it.com/ <http://labs.zap2it.com/> to modify your
  lineup. Uncheck the boxes for any unwanted channels, and they will no
  longer be included in your download.

  If you are using a grabber from XMLTV, comment out the channel from
  the ~/.mythtv/<sourcename>.xmltv file by inserting the word "not "
  (including the space) in front of the unwanted entry. This will
  prevent xmltv from grabbing future listings.

  Next, delete the unwanted item from the channel table so that it will
  not appear in the EPG or when changing channels. To delete the data
  from the database we need to perform some steps. First, assuming that
  HBO is channel 15, we need to find out the internal chanid used by
  MySQL:


       $ mysql -u root mythconverg
       mysql> select chanid from channel where channum=15;
       +--------+
       | chanid |
       +--------+
       |   1015 |
       +--------+
       1 row in set (0.00 sec)
       mysql> delete from channel where chanid = 1015;



  Old program data will be removed over the course of a week. However,
  you may want to immediately delete any current program listings for
  the channel that has been removed:


       $ mysql -u root mythconverg
       mysql> delete from program where chanid = 1015;



  23.9.  NFS

  You may want to use a central server to store your files.

  On the host machine, (in this case, the hostname is "masterbackend")
  you'll want to edit your /etc/exports file and use something like:


       /var/video (rw)



  To export the /var/video directory with read / write privileges.

  On the "slave" machine, you'll want to edit the /etc/fstab file and
  add something like:


       masterbackend:/var/video /var/video nfs hard,intr,nfsvers=3,actimeo=0



  Then run # mount -a to re-read the file to mount the file system.

  NOTE: Previous versions of this HOWTO gave specific values for
  variables like the "rsize". Best common practice at this point is to
  not specify these and allow the server and the client to
  autonegotiate.

  In this case, the source is a machine called "masterbackend" which is
  exporting the directory "/var/video", which we're mounting locally at
  "/var/video". "hard,intr" is there because that's the recommendation
  of the NFS-HOWTO, the nfsvers is required for filesizes over 2GB and
  actimeo is used to turn off file attribute caching. Attribute caching
  for a shared media point causes problems; you always want to see the
  latest state of the directory and files. See
  http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Optimizing_Performance
  <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Optimizing_Performance> for
  additional information regarding performance optimization.

  23.10.  Automatically starting mythfrontend at system boot time

  Here's an example submitted to the mythtv-dev list by Pat Pflaum
  mailto:pat@netburp.com <mailto:pat@netburp.com> using fvwm:


       $ cat > .xinitrc
       fvwm &
       mythfrontend
       ^D
       $ cat > .fvwmrc
       Style myth* NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip, SloppyFocus, GrabFocus, BorderWidth 0
       ^D
       $



  The following also works with blackbox:


       $ cat > .xinitrc
       xset -dpms s off &
       irxevent &
       mythfrontend &
       blackbox



  Make sure that your .blackboxrc file has:


       session.screen0.focusNewWindows:        True
       session.screen0.focusModel:     SloppyFocus



  in it.

  23.11.  Automatically starting mythbackend at system boot time

  23.11.1.  Red Hat And Mandriva

  Here's a method for automatically starting mythbackend submitted by
  Mike Thomson (mailto:linux@m-thomson.net <mailto:linux@m-thomson.net>)
  and Stu Tomlinson (mailto:stu@nosnilmot.com
  <mailto:stu@nosnilmot.com>).
  Copy the files from the MythTV contrib directory or from Mike's web
  site (http://m-thomson.net/mythtv/ <http://m-thomson.net/mythtv/>) as
  follows:

  etc.rc.d.init.mythbackend should be made executable and copied to
  /etc/rc.d/init.d/:


       $ cd contrib
       $ su
       # chmod a+x etc.rc.d.init.d.mythbackend
       # cp etc.rc.d.init.d.mythbackend /etc/rc.d/init.d/mythbackend



  etc.sysconfig.mythbackend should be copied to /etc/sysconfig/:


       $ cd contrib
       $ su
       # cp etc.sysconfig.mythbackend /etc/sysconfig/mythbackend



  Edit /etc/sysconfig/mythbackend if you want to change the defaults
  (the userid that should start mythbackend, location of the logfile and
  (if required) the name and location of the mythbackend binary).

  Use chkconfig to make sure the script is called when entering
  runlevels 3, 4 or 5:


       $ su
       # chkconfig --level 345 mythbackend on
       # exit
       $



  23.11.1.1.  Log files

  By default, the log file for mythbackend will be written to
  /var/tmp/mythbackend.log. This has been tested and is known to work on
  Mandriva and Red Hat, but many people prefer to place logs under
  /var/log/.

  To do this, create a group called mythtv (or anything you prefer) and
  add your usual MythTV users to that group. If you changed the user
  that starts mythbackend from the default of root you must perform this
  step.

  Create the directory /var/log/mythtv and set its permissions as
  follows:



  $ su
  # mkdir /var/log/mythtv
  # chown root:mythtv /var/log/mythtv
  # chmod 0775 /var/log/mythtv
  # exit
  $ ls -ld /var/log/mythtv
  drwxrwxr-x    2 root     mythtv       4096 Apr 28 21:58 /var/log/mythtv/
  $



  Create a mythtv file in /etc/logrotate.d:


       $ su
       # cat > /etc/logrotate.d/mythtv
       # Set default values for all log files first...

       # Rotate the logs once a week, or more frequently if they
       # exceed 10Mb in size (size is checked daily).
       weekly
       size 10M

       # 'copytruncate' is used for logs generated by
       # currently-running programs that should not be restarted
       # (and can't be signalled to start a new log) after the
       # rotation.  It duplicates the existing log file and then
       # sets the length of the existing file to 0.  The only time
       # this would break would be if the program writing the log
       # was using lseek.
       copytruncate

       # After rotating the files, leave the most recent rotated
       # copy alone but gzip everything else to save space.
       compress
       delaycompress

       # If a log isn't present then don't worry about it.
       missingok

       # Don't rotate an empty file.
       notifempty

       # end of the global options

       /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log /var/log/mythtv/mythfrontend.log {
         # Keep logs until they are 2 months old or the number of
         # logs reaches 12.  If the log files stay small, the age will
         # kick in first and you'll only have 8 log files.  If they
         # get larger than 10Mb then you won't keep all 60 days.
         rotate 12
         maxage 60
       }

       # Different options for mythfilldatabase:
       /var/log/mythtv/mythfilldatabase.log {
         rotate 2
       }
       ^D
       #



  23.11.1.2.  Mandriva

  Mandriva adds one more twist in the form of the msec utility, which
  runs regularly and (at the default or any higher security level) sets
  permissions on many files, including those under /var/log.

  To tell msec about the MythTV log files and their directory, you need
  to edit the /etc/security/msec/perm.local file to include the
  following:


       # /etc/security/msec/perm.local
       # Local overrides to the msec program
       #
       # Full file path                user.group              permissions
       /var/log/mythtv/                root.mythtv             775
       /var/log/mythtv/*               root.mythtv             664



  A copy of the above has been included in the contrib/ directory. You
  may add it by typing:


       $ cd contrib
       $ su
       # cat etc.security.msec.perm.local >> /etc/security/msec/perm.local
       # exit



  Finally run the msec tool to check and implement your changes.


       $ su
       # msec
       # exit
       $



        NOTE: msec can only reduce the permissions of files, so if
  you don't get the results you expect, check that you're not asking
  msec to add missing permissions to the files or directories you
  created.

  23.11.2.  Gentoo

  The portage file for MythTV has scripts that will allow you to run
  mythbackend at startup.

  To run mythbackend as a daemon which starts at boot time:


       # rc-update add mythbackend default



  To stop mythbackend as a daemon:


       # /etc/init.d/mythbackend stop



  To obtain a list of options:


       # /etc/init.d/mythbackend



  23.12.  Advanced Backend Configurations

  MythTV is flexible in the way that you define multiple backend tuner
  configurations. The only hard-and-fast rule is that the Master backend
  must have a capture device defined, but shouldn't imply that the
  capture device in the Master backend must be the first capture card
  defined in the database.

  One example of an advanced configuration is the round-robin scheme.
  Rather than defining all of the cards on the master, you could first
  go into mythtv-setup on the master to define globals such as the
  general configuration and the channel lineup but not the host-specific
  configuration item like the capture card. In this example, we will use
  a 4 tuner configuration, where two slaves have one card each and the
  master has two.

  1. Add the first capture card on one of the slaves. Complete the
     configuration, connecting the input source to the card. This will
     get cardid #1 in the database. Exit mythtv-setup.

  2. Configure the first capture card on the master backend. This will
     get cardid #2 in the database. Exit mythtv-setup.

  3. Configure the first capture card on the second slave. This will be
     cardid #3 in the database. Exit mythtv-setup.

  4. Configure the second capture card on the master backend. This will
     get cardid #4 in the database. Exit mythtv-setup.

  Using this scheme, the master backend will not use both capture cards
  until one of the following happens:

  o  There are four recordings scheduled for the same time

  o  Both slaves are unavailable

  The scheduler in MythTV checks whether an encoder is available; if a
  slave backend isn't running, its encoder isn't available, so the
  scheduler will look for the next available encoder. This makes MythTV
  very flexible; slave tuners can come and go, and as long as there are
  enough tuners for what you'd like to record it doesn't matter which
  tuner in particular is going to be used.

  Using this round-robin scheme along with a shared storage directory
  like NFS and enabling the Master Backend Override setting will allow
  you to view content even if the slave backend that recorded a program
  is not available.



  23.13.  Using the transcoder

  MythTV's built-in transcoder re-encodes recordings from one codec to
  another. The transcoder has three primary uses; it can transcode
  MPEG-2 files captured using a hardware encoder (PVR cards, DVB cards,
  ATSC HD, etc.) to MPEG-4, it can be used to transcode RTjpeg files
  (usually only used on systems that can not real-time encode to MPEG-4
  using a framegrabber) to MPEG-4, and finally it can be used to remove
  commercials from a MPEG-2 file while leaving the file in MPEG-2
  format.

  When MythTV transcodes a file to MPEG-4 or RTjpeg the resulting file
  format is NuppelVideo (nuv). NuppelVideo is a container which provides
  a method of keeping the audio and video in sync throughout the
  recording, which is why it is used instead of the .avi format. You may
  have difficulty playing .nuv files in non-MythTV systems.

  The original file is removed when the transcoding process is complete.
  Unless you're sure that you will be satisfied with the result you may
  want to enable the mythtv-setup option which causes mythbackend to
  keep the original file after transcoding. This option is on the second
  page of the General section in mythtv-setup. Enabling this allows you
  to compare the two files and restore the original if you like. Outside
  of the initial setup phase it usually isn't necessary to leave this
  option enabled.  A recording can be transcoded in two ways:


  o  Automatically transcode the file once it has completed recording.

  o  Manually choosing to transcode a recording, usually after importing
     a cutlist or manually marking commercials to be removed.

  The second method can be used on files that have already been
  transcoded (or files which were are already in the desired format), so
  only the frames immediately following a cut section will be re-
  encoded, resulting in a minimal loss of quality when removing
  commercials with the added benefit of being extremely quick.

  The current transcoding system has a lot flexibility, but there are a
  number of steps involved in setting it up. In order to automatically
  transcode a given recording you must do the following:

  1. Configure recording profile for your capture source and enable
     transcoding on one or more profiles.

  2. Configure one or more transcoding profiles.

  3. Create or alter existing scheduled recordings to enable transcoding
     for that recording.

  23.13.1.  Configuring Recording Profiles to Allow Transcoding

  Enter the Utilities/Setup > Setup > TV Settings > Recording Profiles
  section in mythfrontend. Choose the option that corresponds to your
  capture source (ignore the Transcoders for now.) Choose the quality
  profile you are interested in using for transcoding. Ensure that
  "Enable auto-transcode after recording" is checked.

  23.13.2.  Configure Transcoding Profiles

  Enter the Recording Profiles > Transcoders menu. There are three
  quality settings to choose from and a two special Autodetect settings.
  Later, when scheduling recordings you'll have to choose one of
  Autodetect, High, Medium, and Low Quality transcode settings in
  addition to the recording profile we set up above. If you choose the
  Autodetect transcoding profile for a recording, MythTV will use the
  "Autodetect from RTjpeg/MPEG-4" profile for recordings which are
  RTjpeg/MPEG-4 files. Otherwise, it will use the "Autodetect from
  MPEG-2" profile provided it's an MPEG-2 recording. If you choose one
  of the others (High, Medium, Low) it will use the settings in that
  profile regardless of the codec of the original recording.

  There are a number of options for transcoding but the simplest is to
  enable lossless transcoding (the first option) which subsequently
  removes all other options. Enabling lossless encoding simply removes
  commercials (if you've marked them) and attempts to clean up MPEG-2
  streams. Note that with this option MythTV will not apply any sort of
  filters and will only attempt to normalize the stream into something
  cleaner and less likely to have trouble with other less forgiving
  MPEG-2 hardware/software (including players, video editors, etc.)

  If you enable resizing of the recording the next page has the settings
  for choosing the final resolution. MythTV will scale the video as
  appropriate, not crop it to this resolution.

  The final two pages allow configuration of the video and audio codecs.
  Although RTjpeg is an option for video codec there is no reason to
  transcode to this format because it will produce larger files than
  MPEG-4 and the recording will take more CPU power to play back. The
  MPEG-4 settings are described in the documentation for the ffmpeg
  project at http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html
  <http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html>. It's a matter of
  trial and error to discover which settings achieve a good compromise
  between size and quality.

  If you wish to return to the default settings, they are Bitrate:
  2200-2500, MaxQ: 2, MinQ: 15, MaxQDiff: 3, and "Scale bitrate for
  frame size" is enabled. The other options are unchecked.

  23.13.3.  Create/Alter Scheduled Recordings to Enable Transcoding

  Transcoding is actually enabled on a per-recording basis. Two things
  must be true before any given recording will be auto-transcoded,
  however.  The first is that the recording must have been made with a
  recording profile that has auto-transcode enabled. Under "Storage
  Options" for the recording you must set the "Record using the "X"
  profile" to the profile you configured in the first step. In addition,
  under the "Post Recording Options" section of the recording you must
  also set "Transcode new recordings." This is also where you specify
  the Transcoding profile to use (Auto, High, Medium, Low.)

  It may not be obvious from above but the flexibility of this system is
  primarily to make it possible to auto-transcode a show recorded via
  one source (ie: pcHDTV 3000), and not transcode that same show if it's
  recorded on another kind of card (ie: PVR-250.) There are other uses
  however. You could have a PVR-250 and a V4L card. You may want to
  transcode the MPEG-2 from the PVR-250 but there is no need to
  transcode the recordings made with the V4L card, as it's already
  likely to be MPEG-4.

  As an example, you could configure the Default profile for "Hardware
  DVB Encoders" (the profile group used for DVB cards, including ATSC
  cards like the pcHDTV 3000) to "Enable auto-transcoding". In the
  Default profile for MPEG-2 Encoders (PVR cards) you'd leave "Enable
  auto-transcoding" unchecked.  For programs that are available on both
  kinds of cards you'd set the recording profile to Default and enable
  auto-transcoding in the record settings. Then you pick your
  transcoding profile. The result is that when a program is recorded on
  your DVB card, it will get transcoded. When it plays on a channel
  available via your PVR card, it won't be.


  23.13.4.  Manual Transcoding

  Manually transcoding is activated while watching a show by hitting
  'x', from the OSD menu by choosing the Transcode option, or by
  choosing Job Options/Transcode from the info menu from the Watch or
  Delete Recordings screens.

  The transcoding profile used for manual transcoding is whatever was
  set when the recording was originally configured, even if you didn't
  enable auto-transcoding. The only way to change what transcoding
  profile will be used is to alter the transcoder column in the recorded
  table in the database. The transcoder column contains a number which
  corresponds with the id column in the recordingprofiles table. You can
  find out the id number for each profile in the transcoder group with
  an SQL command like:



       mysql> select r.* from recordingprofiles r,profilegroups p where p.name='Transcoders' and p.id=r.profilegroup;
       +----+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+
       | id | name           | videocodec | audiocodec | profilegroup |
       +----+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+
       | 21 | RTjpeg/MPEG4   | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            6 |
       | 22 | MPEG2          | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            6 |
       | 27 | High Quality   | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            6 |
       | 28 | Medium Quality | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            6 |
       | 29 | Low Quality    | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            6 |
       +----+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+
       5 rows in set (0.01 sec)

       mysql>



  Armed with the knowledge of what the profile ID's are you can also
  choose to run mythtranscode from the command line and explicitly
  specify the transcoder profile. Run mythtranscode --help for usage
  information.

  23.14.  Changing your hostname

  If you need to change the name of the computers used with MythTV
  you'll need to perform a sequence of steps. There are a number of
  pieces of information that MythTV keeps track of which are tied to the
  hostname of the box, so changing the hostname involves altering the
  name in the operating system and in the MySQL database. In the
  examples below, the old name of the system was "frontend1" and we're
  going to change it to "kidsroom".



    NOTE: Changing the hostname using direct SQL update commands will
  break things. You MUST use this indirect method.

  1. Stop all backends. If you run mythbackend from a terminal session,
  press control-c. If your backends are started with an init script, you
  would do something like the following:


       $ su
       # /etc/init.d/mythbackend stop

  2. Change the hostname.

  For Red Hat and derived distributions, edit the /etc/sysconfig/network
  file. Look for HOSTNAME=frontend1 and change this to HOSTNAME=kidsroom
  or whatever you'll be using. For other distributions, refer to the
  documentation, such as the

  hostname(1)



  To alter the hostname in the current session, run:


       # hostname kidsroom



  3. Back up the database in case something goes wrong. See ``Saving or
  Restoring the database'' for instructions.

  4. Rename the host in the database. First, ensure that the new
  hostname you'll be using isn't already in the database.


       $ mysql -umythtv -p mythconverg -e "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM settings WHERE hostname LIKE '%kidsroom%';"



  If the count is anything other than 0, you'll need to choose another
  hostname.

  Now we're actually going to change the name. The following should all
  be typed on the same line:


       $ mythconverg_restore.pl --change_hostname --old_hostname="frontend1" --new_hostname="kidsroom"



  See ``Saving or Restoring the database'' for information on configur-
  ing the script.

  If you are running slave backends or frontends, don't forget to re-
  enable access as detailed in ``Modifying access to the MySQL database
  for multiple systems''.

  5. Start the backends. If you use init scripts, do the following,
  otherwise start them from terminal consoles.


       # /etc/init.d/mythbackend start



  6. Quit and restart all frontends.

  23.15.  Can I run MythTV on my TiVo?



  23.16.  Can I run MythTV on my ReplayTV?

  No.

  While it is true that the TiVo runs the Linux kernel, and TiVo has
  released their changes to the kernel under the GPL, the TiVo is not a
  general-purpose computer, and there is no programming information
  available for the custom hardware contained within a TiVo. TiVo is
  under no obligation to release the source code to their application.

  The ReplayTV runs VxWorks, a Real Time Operating System from Wind
  River Systems.

  23.17.  Can a wireless connection be used between the frontend and the
  backend?

  Yes, assuming that your wireless connection has sufficient bandwidth
  to maintain the datarate between the frontend and the backend. 802.11b
  should be sufficient if the encoded bitrate of the content is less
  than the datarate of your wireless connection, which in the case of
  802.11b would be approximately 4 Mbps. (The advertised rate of 11Mbps
  gives an actual throughput of 4 Mbps.) 802.11a and 802.11g, if
  operating in their high-speed modes, or proprietary 802.11b "Turbo"
  schemes should be adequate. Multiple wireless frontends, poor signal
  strength or other factors can severely impact the viewing experience
  on the frontend.

  23.18.  How can I burn shows that I have recorded to a DVD?

  Use the mytharchive plugin.

  23.19.  Using the DBoxII within MythTV

  The configuration of the DBoxII for use within MythTV is tricky (as of
  May 16 2005), that's why it's covered here. Your DBoxII has to be
  running linux and the Neutrino GUI instead of the stock BetaNova
  firmware. For further information, please refer to
  http://www.tuxbox.org <http://www.tuxbox.org>. Additionally, you need
  to enable the SPTS mode in Neutrino.


  o  Add a new "Capture Card" in the setup. The "Card type" is "DBOX2
     Input", the other values have to be adjusted according to your
     setup.  The default values, except for the "DBOX2 host ip", should
     work fine.

  o  Define a new video source. It doesn't need to be configured, you
     just need to define it. MythTV grabs the EPG from the DBoxII.

  o  Connect the DBoxII to the newly defined input source in "input
     connections".

  o  Since channel scanning is not implemented yet, you need to define
     channels in the "Channel Editor". Make sure that you use the same
     value for "Channel Name" as on the DBoxII. You can get a list of
     available channels from the web interface of Neutrino at http://ip-
     of-your-box:80/.  Associate the channel with your new video source
     and repeat when needed.

  You may leave the Setup now and proceed as usual.

  23.20.  What do the icons on the Watch Recordings screen mean?

  Press "1" or F1 to get a popup.


  23.21.  What do the letters mean when I change channels?

  These letters let you know what's going on with the backend as it
  tries to tune to a channel.

  Lower case = seen

  Upper Case = seen & good

  o  l/L = Lock : This could be seen by PVR-250/BTTV users

  o  a/A = PAT : Any recording transmitted in MPEG

  o  m/M = PMT : Any recording transmitted in MPEG

  o  g/G = MGT : ATSC only

  o  v/V = VCT : ATSC only

  o  n/N = NIT : DVB only

  o  s/S = SDT : DVB only

  23.22.  What is the difference between the various Hauppauge PVR mod-
  els?

  This is covered in the hardware section, and extensively covered on
  the Hauppauge website.
  (http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/compare_pvr.html
  <http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/compare_pvr.html>) Please check the
  Hauppauge website for the most accurate information.

  A PVR-150 comes in a number of versions:

  o  The PVR-150 (Model 1045) is the retail kit. It comes with a remote
     control and an IR Blaster. It does not have a radio tuner.

  o  The PVR-150 MCE (Model 1042) will usually come in a plain white box
     and is sold as an OEM device. It does not come with a remote
     control, since it's usually used as the second, third, etc capture
     device.

  o  The PVR-150 MCE Kit (Model 1062) does not have a radio tuner and
     comes with a Microsoft Media Center remote control instead of
     Hauppauge's.

  o  The PVR-150 low profile (Model 1086) is a low-profile card. It has
     a radio tuner and is approximately half the height of a standard
     card.  However, it comes with a low-profile PCI bracket, so it is
     not suitable for use in a standard PCI slot without removing the
     bracket, which may not be worth the trouble.

  A PVR-250 (Model 980) is a retail kit which comes with an IR receiver
  and a remote control.

  The PVR-250 MCE (Model 975) contains a FM radio tuner. The PVR-250 MCE
  does not contain a IR receiver or a remote.

  The PVR-250 Rev 1 contained an MPEG-2 decoder. However, this function
  was not connected to any output jacks, and there doesn't appear to be
  any way to pull decoded video from the card, so it's a fairly useless
  feature.

  The PVR-350 (model 990) has the features of the PVR-250 as well as
  being able to decode MPEG-2. The encode and decode functions may be
  used simultaneously. The MPEG-2 decoder function gives superior video
  quality compared to what you'll find on a standard video card.
  However, the decoder function is only available once Linux has
  started, so you will not see any boot-time messages. Also, the card is
  not capable of resolutions higher than 720x480, so it cannot be used
  with HDTV. Make a conscious decision (and ask for advice on the
  mailing list) that you want to tradeoff potential HDTV use in the
  future compared to video quality.

  The X-driver for the PVR-350 support playback using Xv efficiently but
  does not support any other 2D or 3D acceleration. For some application
  this may place a large load on the host CPU, some will run without any
  problem and others (mplayer, xine, xmame etc.) should be configured to
  utilize the Xv interface.

  Note that for the PVR-350 there are some ``considerations'' regarding
  the way audio is handled.

  The PVR-500 is a dual-encoder version of the PVR-150 card, so you can
  simultaneously record two different programs at the same time, because
  there are two encoder chips on the PCI card. Hauppuage has also
  installed an onboard splitter, so you can use one COAX to feed both
  tuners. Current versions of the PVR-500 should come with an adapter to
  allow you to connect a second S-Video or composite input, but this
  will take up a second PCI slot. Early adopters may need to purchase
  this item separately.

  23.23.  Changing channels on an external Set Top Box

  If you need to use an external Set Top Box (STB), such as for
  satellite TV or for digital cable you will need some way for MythTV to
  tell the STB to switch to a new channel. There are several methods:

  1. Use an IR blaster. An IR blaster is an infrared transmitter
     connected to your computer. When MythTV needs to change channels it
     will send IR pulses, thereby emulating a remote control.

  2. Use a direct serial connection. Some STB's have a serial port on
     the back, although it may not look like a serial port. It may look
     like a phone jack, or a strange VGA connector. It may be labeled
     "Low Speed Data". A direct serial connection is more reliable than
     an IR blaster. Not all STB's that have a Low Speed Data port have
     it enabled; you may need to convince your service provider to turn
     it on. Stating that you have a Tivo may help; the Tivo has a
     direct-connect capability.

  3. Use a firewire connection. There is a 6200ch.c in the MythTV
     contrib directory which may work for you.

  23.24.  Configuring one machine to flag all commercials

  Commercial flagging can be CPU intensive. By default, the backend that
  created a recording is the one which will flag commercials. You may
  wish to use a different machine to run commercial flagging.

  On the slower machine:

  Start the mythtv-setup program. Advance through the pages until you
  get to the Job Queue page. Turn off the setting that says "Allow
  Commercial Detection jobs", thereby preventing any commercial flagging
  jobs from running on this machine.

  Next, make sure that "Run Jobs only on original recording host" is
  turned OFF so that new jobs are allowed to run anywhere.

  Restart mythbackend since it only reads this setting when it starts
  up.
  On the faster machine:

  Start the mythtv-setup program. Advance through the pages until you
  get to the Job Queue page. Ensure that "Allow Commercial Detection
  jobs" is turned ON for this machine.

  Run mythjobqueue. mythjobqueue will examine the JobQueue and run any
  jobs it finds. mythjobqueue should be left running so that it will
  pick up any new commercial flagging jobs that are added to the queue,
  otherwise new jobs will be added to the queue and your programs won't
  be flagged until you run manually run mythjobqueue.

  Using this technique it's possible to add commercial flagging machines
  as needed, even on systems that aren't running a backend. It's also
  possible to run the commercial flagger in a virtual machine
  environment such as VMWare.

  24.  Example Configurations.

  24.1.  Advanced Partition Formatting

  The partitions that your distribution sets up for you may not be
  optimized for large files.

  Unlike a typical filesystem, a MythTV video partition is usually a
  very large filesystem filled with a fairly small number of large
  files.  Filesystem I/O is usually not an issue, even in multi-tuner
  and/or multi-frontend setups.

  There is however, one aspect of filesystem performance that can have a
  bearing on the performance of MythTV. In Linux, deleting a file will
  utilize I/O bandwidth until the deletion has been completed. If
  deleting the file takes long enough, the video capture buffer may
  overrun, thereby resulting in dropped frames. Some filesystems are
  faster at deleting files than others and, for multi-gigabyte MythTV
  video files, these differences can be significant.

  Fortunately, there are published tests
  (http://aurora.zemris.fer.hr/filesystems/big.html
  <http://aurora.zemris.fer.hr/filesystems/big.html>) that provide
  insight into filesystem performance under conditions relevant to
  MythTV usage. In addition, some limited testing (archived at
  http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/52672
  <http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/52672>) with very
  large files (10 gigabytes) was reported in the MythTV Users mailing
  list.

  24.1.1.  Ext2

  Ext2 was the defacto standard Linux filesystem for many years. It is
  stable, provides good I/O performance and can quickly delete large
  files.  The primary disadvantage of Ext2 is that it is not a
  journaling filesystem, so a file system consistency check (fsck, which
  is normally only performed after a system crash) can take many hours
  on a filesystem the size of a typical MythTV partition.

  24.1.2.  Ext3

  Ext3 is Ext2 with a journal, so your biggest gain is that in case of a
  crash and reboot you won't have to wait very long for your partition
  to be remounted.

  There are options available when formatting an Ext3 partition, as in:



  # mkfs.ext3 -T largefile4 /dev/hdb1



  This example assumes that /dev/hdb1 has already been created using
  fdisk. If you're using LVM, /dev/hdb1 may be something like
  /dev/VGforMyth/video.

  The "-T largefile4" option creates one inode per 4 megabytes, which
  can provide a few percent more storage space. However, tests indicate
  that using the "-T largefile4" option can drastically increase the
  amount of time required to delete a large file and thus it should only
  be used with encoder settings that produce small video files (YMMV).

  You can check on your filesystem using the dumpe2fs program. See the
  man page for details.

  24.1.3.  ReiserFS

  The Reiser filesystem is another journaling filesystem commonly
  distributed with Linux. It is known to be an extremely efficient
  filesystem and it especially excels at managing partitions containing
  a large number of small files. However, tests indicate it is not the
  fastest at deleting very large files. For that reason, it may not be
  the best choice when using encoder bitrates that produce very large
  files.

  24.1.4.  JFS

  JFS (Journaling File System) is a journaling filesystem originally
  developed by IBM for AIX which was later released as open source.
  While not as common as Ext3 or ReiserFS, it is distributed with RedHat
  9 (RH9), Fedora Core and Mandriva as well as other distros. According
  to tests, JFS is the file deletion speed king, deleting virtually any
  file in under one second, even files as large as 10 gigabytes.

  24.1.5.  XFS

  XFS is a journaling file system originally developed by SGI for Irix,
  and later released as open source. While not a part of the default
  RedHat Linux 9 or Fedora Core installation (although it is a part of
  Mandriva and Fedora Core 2+), it can be easily installed via ATrpms.
  XFS provides deletion speeds for large files only slightly slower than
  JFS. According to the test results shown at
  (http://aurora.zemris.fer.hr/filesystems/big.html
  <http://aurora.zemris.fer.hr/filesystems/big.html>), XFS provide
  higher I/O rates than JFS, albeit at a higher CPU loading. This may
  cause issues if you do not have the spare CPU capacity to handle XFS,
  potentially leading to dropped frames.

  24.2.  Caching support for Schedules Direct

  MythTV 0.20.2 or later supports caching of downloaded information from
  Schedules Direct, so devices that share a common source do not require
  multiple downloads.

  Before beginning, perform a backup of your existing database. See
  ``Saving or restoring the database'' for instructions.

  In the following scenario, assume that you have the following:

  1. A PVR-150 MPEG-2 encoder card connected directly to a CATV source.

  2. A PVR-250 MPEG-2 encoder card connected via S-Video to a CATV Set
     Top Box.
  What we are going to do is to create a single lineup at Schedules
  Direct and then create two Video Sources which use the same login
  information but have different channels associated with them.

  On your Schedules Direct account, create a lineup that has all of the
  channels that you can receive. Because we have a Set Top Box (STB),
  choose a Digital lineup. Yes, this means that you may have 900
  channels in this lineup, but that's OK.

  Use the Schedules Direct channel editor and unselect any channels that
  you can't tune without the STB. This will usually be channels higher
  than 125, but check your CATV provider lineup if you're not sure. Once
  you've deselected them (using a click on the first channel you can't
  receive and then a shift-click on the last channel you can't receive
  will deselect all the channels in between those two.) click the Save
  Changes button at the bottom of the screen.

  In mythtv-setup, create a Video Source with an appropriate name.  "SD-
  Analog Only" will be used in this example. Click "Retrieve Lineups"
  and select the digital lineup you just created at Schedules Direct.

  Click "Finish" to return to the Video sources selector and then press
  the ESC key to go back to the main screen.

  Now choose Input Connections. Select the PVR-150 which is connected
  directly to the CATV. Set the Video Source to "SD-Analog Only" and
  click "Fetch channels from listings source".

  Set the start channel to an appropriate value.

  NOTE: There is a bug where the "Fetch" command may not work; you can
  tell that the Fetch did not retrieve any channels in one of two ways:
  in the text-mode console, you will see a connection to Schedules
  Direct, but it doesn't appear to retrieve any channel information:


       2007-08-25 15:03:05.526 New DB DataDirect connection
       2007-08-25 15:03:05.526 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: localhost
       2007-08-25 15:03:05.536 DataDirect: Your subscription expires on 11/23/2007 01:12:10 PM
       2007-08-25 15:03:05.707 New DB connection, total: 3
       2007-08-25 15:03:05.707 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: localhost
       2007-08-25 15:03:05.708 sourceid 2 has lineup type: CableDigital
       2007-08-25 15:03:06.623 Data fetching complete.
       2007-08-25 15:03:06.624 DataDirect: Deleting temporary files



  or, the "Please add channels to this source" message in the "Starting
  channel" field stays on the screen.

  If either of these happens, save the information on this screen by
  clicking the "Finish" button. Exit back to the Input connections
  screen by pressing ESC, then select this Input Connection again. This
  time the Fetch will work and the "Please add channels to this source"
  message will disappear.

  If you look at the text-mode console, you'll see this if the channel
  retrieval is working:



  2007-08-25 15:04:32.437 New DB DataDirect connection
  2007-08-25 15:04:32.437 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: localhost
  2007-08-25 15:04:32.447 DataDirect: Your subscription expires on 11/23/2007 01:12:10 PM
  2007-08-25 15:04:32.622 New DB connection, total: 3
  2007-08-25 15:04:32.622 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: localhost
  2007-08-25 15:04:32.623 sourceid 2 has lineup type: CableDigital
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.418 DataDirect: Adding channel 41 'AMC' (AMC).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.422 DataDirect: Adding channel 32 'A & E Network' (AETV).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.425 DataDirect: Adding channel 66 'Black Entertainment Television' (BET).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.427 DataDirect: Adding channel 180 'Bravo' (BRAVO).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.430 DataDirect: Adding channel 51 'ABC Family' (FAM).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.432 DataDirect: Adding channel 146 'Country Music Television' (CMTV).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.435 DataDirect: Adding channel 39 'CNBC' (CNBC).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.437 DataDirect: Adding channel 36 'Cable News Network' (CNN).
  2007-08-25 15:04:33.440 DataDirect: Adding channel 35 'CNN Headline News' (CNNH).



  Repeat the Input Connection configuration for any other capture
  devices that are connected directly to the CATV system. You do not
  need to click Fetch once you've done one successful download of the
  channel information - the Starting channel should be automatically
  populated.

  Go back to Schedules Direct and re-enable the channels that you had
  previously deselected, then click Save Changes.

  Create a new Video Source, here called "SD-All Digital Channels".
  Perform the same "Retrieve Listings" you did before.

  Go back to the Input Connections screen, select the PVR-250 which is
  connected to the STB, assign the "SD-All Digital Channels" video
  source and perform a retrieve channels. This will pull down the
  complete channel listing, but only for this device.

  When mythfilldatabase runs, it will cache the "big" download which is
  appropriate for the STB, and then copy the information to the channels
  that can only be accessed without the STB. But by default
  mythfilldatabase is going to notice that the "Analog only" video
  source is missing the channels that are in the Digital lineup you
  created at Schedules Direct, so we need to override the addition of
  new channels.

  When you run mythfilldatabase to populate your database, you'll need
  to run it like this:



       $ mythfilldatabase --remove-new-channels



  You will also need to modify how the mythbackend calls
  mythfilldatabase when it performs its automatic listings update.

  In mythfrontend, select "Setup" -> "General".

  Continue press ENTER until you reach the Mythfilldatabase
  configuration screen. In the "mythfilldatabase Arguments" field, type
  --remove-new-channels

  then press the TAB key until you reach Finish, then press ENTER to
  save.  You can then press ESC until you return to the main screen.

