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Mythtv

76K views 397 replies 31 participants last post by  mwalma 
#1 ·
Mythtv has announced version 0.22 release candidate 1 is now available. Hopefully all goes well and a stable 0.22 will come out shortly.

The release notes are here.
 
#32 ·
stampeder said:
Advice for new MythTV users:

Until MythDora and Mythbuntu release new versions based on MythTV 0.22 it is best to stay with their present versions (based on 0.21) unless you are experienced with rolling your own development software and know some or all of those ropes.
MythDora and Mythbuntu are really not relevant yet. Myth .22 is in Release Candidate stage. The Myth web site asks for people to help TEST the release, I believe (can't reach it right now). Bugs are being reported and fixed. When .22 goes final, then the MythDora and Mythbuntu distributions can do their thing. Obviously, new users should stay with .21-fixes until all that happens.

Craig
 
#34 ·
Tried it on a different, yet basic, system last night. Continuous front-end crashes / blank screens. Harkens back to the Windows days, I think (cannot be sure, never having had Windows on any machine).

Still a work in progress. Hopefully within the next month or so it might work well enough to use.

Cheers
 
#42 ·
I spent yesterday banging my head against the wall trying to get Mythbuntu 9.04 installed. The initial installation would work just fine, but when it would get to the "Backend Setup" I would get a blank screen with a large gray rectangle, it would stay like that no matter how long I left it. Initially I thought it was related to using the proprietary ATI driver, so I tried re-installing with the Open Source Driver and got the same thing. I tried rebooting the PC (from the hard drive) and it would start out looking fine while booting, but I would end up with the same rectangle (or when using the proprietary driver the monitor wouldn't sync).

Late last night, I tried installing 9.10 and then went to bed. This morning I was able to run the "Backend Setup" normally. I am guessing the problem is the Mythbuntu 9.04 setup is not configuring my graphics card properly by default (likely an issue with UBuntu not Myth TV).

I guess my options are:
  1. Debug the problem with Mythbuntu 9.04.
  2. Keep Mythbuntu 9.10 installed and downgrade MythTV to 0.21.
  3. Keep Mythbuntu 9.10 installed and upgrade to MythTV 0.22 final
  4. Wait for new MythBuntu package that includes MythTV 0.22 final
  5. Install Ubuntu 9.10 and MythTV 0.21 separately.

Any thoughts which option I should go with? Any other ideas? I am somewhat familiar with Unix/Linux, though it has been about 5-10 years since I have used it so things are a bit rusty, and I am sure a lot has changed in the Linux world.
 
#44 ·
I spent yesterday banging my head against the wall trying to get Mythbuntu 9.04 installed.
..
Late last night, I tried installing 9.10 and then went to bed. This morning I was able to run the "Backend Setup" normally. I am guessing the problem is the Mythbuntu 9.04 setup is not configuring my graphics card properly by default (likely an issue with UBuntu not Myth TV).
..
Any thoughts which option I should go with?
Bring the bare box over here, and we'll get it into a working state quickly enough. Not fully set up (takes hours), but most of the way there (takes one hour).

That's "most", as in "90% of the functionality takes only 10% of the effort/time.. the remaining 10% functionality (aka. "WAF") takes the other 90% of the effort/time." ;)

Cheers
 
#45 ·
Any mythbackend 0.21 -> 0.22 upgrade gotchas?

I upgraded my mythfrontend HTPC's OS from Mandriva 2008.1 i586 to Mandriva 2010 x86_64. I installed 2010's pre-built MythTV packages onto it, which are Version 0.22 and therefore incompatible with my existing 0.21 mythbackend server.

Now I intend to upgrade the mythbackend to 0.22. The mythbackend machine dumps a mythconverg database backup once each morning, so I'll do the upgrade in the early afternoon when I know there is no recording scheduled.

Before pulling the trigger I've read as much stuff as possible from Mythtv.org and other sources, so now I'm asking DHCers if they have experienced any MythTV upgrade glitches in going from 0.21 to 0.22 on the mythbackend?
 
#46 ·
I hope things go well with that database upgrade. Back when we did the 0.20 to 0.21 upgrade, some of the tables required hand edits to get it all working.

Here, I'm saving the 0.22 upgrade for the winter, when inside is often a better place than outside, and when I expect to not have quite as much contract work as at present.

Besides, Duke (our TV butler Myth box) has been functioning rather flawlessly of late, and is tweaked to the hilt, with exactly the behaviours we like. So the motivation to blow all of that away is rather low at the moment. :)

Cheers
 
#47 ·
Success!

I upgraded the mythbackend from 0.21 to 0.22 with only one glitch, caused by me.

Tip: a 0.21 mythbackend cannot support a 0.22 mythfrontend, but if you try it make sure that you DO NOT agree to have the mythbackend database schema upgraded. It will ask you to do that, but for heavens sake EXIT before you do anything.

I had tried connecting from a 0.22 mythfrontend to my original 0.21 mythbackend and when it asked me to update the db to the newest version I said yes. This corrupted some columns. Even running a check on the database didn't repair it. What I should have done was leave the existing mythconverg database alone and upgraded everything around it on the mythbackend.

Thankfully I went to my mythconverg dump site to get a clean backup but I had to take these steps first:
  1. make sure mythbackend is not running
  2. complete all mythtv app upgrades on mythbackend and mythfrontends
  3. upgrade mythbackend to latest MySQL version
  4. drop the existing mythconverg database - you heard me, drop it because it got corrupted ;)
  5. create a new database from scratch called mythconverg
  6. import the freshest clean mythconverg backup into it
  7. run a check on mythconverg
  8. run mythv-setup on the mythbackend (it will automatically update mythconverg to the newest schema in a matter of seconds)
  9. restart the mythbackend services
  10. go to the mythfrontend and run it as you used to with 0.21 to verify that all your old recordings and schedules are still there
  11. enjoy the new features
I used Mandriva's MythTV packages rather than source code so the job was sped up quite a bit.
 
#49 ·
Roger,
I ran into a similar problem with an ATI Radeon 8500 on Ubuntu 9.04. I had to disable DRI in the xorg.conf file and that let me do the setup.
You can check out this bug report and see if it applies to you. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mythtv/+bug/341898
I ended up going with Mythbuntu 8.10, because of that and the mytbuntu-control center not working. You might be better off sticking with 9.10, and testing the mythtv versions to find what works best.
 
#50 ·
In #7 I said to run a check on mythconverg before #8, but after some reading it turns out that its not really necessary unless you are worried about the state of the dump you're using.

I just do stuff like that automatically when my old Unix/Oracle sysadmin habits kick in and I instinctively want to have a clean flag set on everything I work with before proceeding! :D
 
#52 ·
This afternoon I performed a trial upgrade of our main MythTV box to the new MythTV 0.22.

Basically, I installed Mythbuntu onto a fresh SSD, and then installed that in place of the usual boot SSD (older Linux + Mythtv 0.21-fixes) in the system. After it booted up, I restored the old database onto the new SSD, and it upgraded without a hitch.

Lots of other issues to work out before this drive gets installed for real, but it already works much better than I'd expected it to work.

Showstopper things that need fixing (most likely by me, locally):
  • The left-arrow key is totally futzed in several places with mythtv-0.22. I'll have to hack the source code to get it working in a sensisble fashion again, as it used to work fine in mythtv-0.21.
  • mythfrontend mysteriously crashes when pressing (yup) left-arrow during LiveTV playback.
  • None of the themes are palatable. The default Mythbuntu theme thinks I have a 12" screen rather than a 37" widescreen, and all of the other themes are very hard on the eyes, apparently designed by/for adolescents.
  • Still have some settings breakage dating from my original early mythtv-0.20 install. I think I'll have to hand-edit the database at somepoint to fix that h0rkage, since it just seems to live on and on with each new version.
  • Gotta fix my VFD status add-on, and one of my Frankenswitch add-ons.
But very surprisingly, most everything else just worked after the upgrade.

Cheers
 
#53 ·
I'm getting occasional mythfrontend 0.22 instability on Live TV too, but for me its when an ATSC station is first selected from the Program Guide. I've had to kill the mythfrontend process a few times already as it became unresponsive while the data from the mythbackend continued to arrive. It doesn't happen every time, but enough to make me annoyed at it. I've been too busy to look at the logs yet to see what might be happening.

OTOH recordings from those ATSC channels have been perfect, without a hitch.
 
#54 ·
Want to stay with 0.21

Hi,

I've been using and learning with Mythbuntu 9.04/MythTv 0.21.

I don't really want 0.22. I just got 0.21 working and I don't see anything new in 0.22 that I need. I like that I can play .iso files with 0.21 and from what I read 0.22 removed that feature. I have gigs worth of .iso backups, so 0.22 is out for the time being.

I would like to "update" my 0.21 to 0.21-fixes with VDPAU, but I'm afraid that by using the avenard.org repo, it will automatically upgrade to 0.22. I guess I need to compile my own using the VDPAU patch?
I'm sure I will have to do that if I want to upgrade to 9.10, but still use Mythtv 0.21.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Marc
 
#55 ·
I would like to "update" my 0.21 to 0.21-fixes with VDPAU, but I'm afraid that by using the avenard.org repo, it will automatically upgrade to 0.22.
No, I think the avenard repo is still good for 0.21-fixes stuff. Get it from there while you can! Then remove avenard from your apt sources afterward, and there'll be no worries about a future misupgrade.

If you truly want to build from source code, then I can give more info -- that's how I do it here (0.21-fixes + VDPAU + stuff). But for this to work well, it's best to first purge the Mythbuntu MythTV packages, after backing up the database.

Cheers
 
#57 ·
vdpau is worth it!

Getting vdpau capability was well worth the transition from 0.21 to 0.22! The clarity and tidiness of the image and the OSD are terrific, although I've noticed a bit of sawtooth in rapidly moving objects probably due to my older Nvidia 8600GT card having the minimum hardware requirements for vdpau. Time for a new one. :)
 
#59 ·
I've noticed a bit of sawtooth in rapidly moving objects probably due to my older Nvidia 8600GT card having the minimum hardware requirements for vdpau. Time for a new one. :)
I seem to recall that the 8600GT is actually one of the better chips for (fanless/quiet) VDPAU. Have you enabled "Advanced 2X" deinterlacing in the Mythtv -> Setup -> TV -> Playback menus ?

EDIT: yeah, my memory is correct. That 8600GT should have slightly more horsepower than a 9500GT, enough for "Advanced 2X" deinterlacing. No jaggies.

My box here has a 9500GT card (fanless), and playback is simply beautiful with it (and VDPAU).

Cheers
 
#60 ·
Yep, I've had it set to Advanced 2X,HW with fallback to Advanced 1X,HW but the particular sawtooth I saw was much more noticeable under other settings before I switched to 0.22 with vdpau so I'm okay with it now.

Occasionally I get a faint horizontal line at mid-screen as the OSD fades so I'll probably disable that fading if I continue to see it.
 
#61 ·
In an ideal world, our MythTV box would have a fanless 9600GT card --> twice the number of shaders as the 9500GT, and faster clock rates too.

This would give enough horsepower to really take advantage of VDPAU extras, like inverse telecine on HD content, and noise-reduction + sharpening for analog OTA content.

As it is, I *do* use those features sometimes, but they also do cause the odd skipped frame here and there. A 9600GT would cure that, and then some.

But.. alas.. I don't think any of the available fanless 9600GT cards would actually fit inside Duke's chassis. So the existing Sparkle 9500GT (1GB,fanless,small) will just have to do. :)

But if fanless is not a high priority, then there are lots of more powerful cards that ought to fit in any case. Should you actually decide to ditch that crappy ;) 8500GT card, I might even offer you a few bucks for it.. if it is fanless. ;)

Cheers
 
#76 ·
In an ideal world, our MythTV box would have a fanless 9600GT card --> twice the number of shaders as the 9500GT, and faster clock rates too.
Well, it now has a fanless GT240 card, with triple the number of shaders as the 9500GT. Noticeable difference, too.

Back to MythTV-0.22.

I *really* want to upgrade, to stay current and get the latest fixes and the like. Especially now that mythtv-0.21-fixes is no longer being maintained.

So I've built mythtv-0.22-fixes from svn, and have added a few of my patches to it to get things working here.

The tuners, database, antenna switches, VFD display program, remote control, etc.. are all now working with 0.22 (yay!), and stability seems good enough.

But I still cannot stand (any of) the 0.22 themes, and nor the destroyed functionality that was once on the left/right arrow keys. This is just too b0rked for words.

Compared with other stuff in this space, it's probably normal; par for the course. But compared with mythtv-0.21, this really bites.

Specifically, I need to fix these things before the GUI is useable here:
  • The theme menus show only 3-4 items on the screen, as if I'm using a 1960's 12" B&W TV or something. I'm not! A modern big-screen LCD can show a lot more detail than that, and it does do so with mythtv-0.21 and the G.A.N.T. theme. I simply cannot tolerate having to scroll when the total menu has only 5-6 items on it.
  • The Program Guide suffers from a similar stupidity. All of the themes put 3 channels x 4-5 timeslots on the screen. My mythtv-0.21 install shows 13 channels x 7 timeslots, and even that feels like an unnecessary limitation.
  • The left/right arrow keys work in mythfrontend to enter/exit menu levels, and then suddenly stop working like that when one enters MythUI, where they have no function at all on most screens. Absolute rubbish, and the singlemost common complaint on 0.22. And met by the usual arrogant deaf ears.
  • The scheduling algorithm is messed up. On 0.21, I have specific "Vancouver 2010" programming selected on various nights. On 0.22, MythTV chose to "record a later broadcast", causing us to nearly miss out on the hockey games. I'm still not sure why, but we reverted back to 0.21 as soon as that was noticed.
That's my shortlist. And it's pretty short, but those are fairly MAJOR items which kinda blow the WAF sky high.

I'll work on fixing them, and post patches etc.. as they get ticked off my list. Sometime in the next year.

Cheers
 
#62 ·
Yep, my 8600GT has a fan, as it audibly reminds me every time I power on the myth-frontend box. :D

I'll have to check inside that box for video card space because I'm pondering something like a GeForce GT220, which offers complete VDPAU-based acceleration for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a MPEG-4 ASP), VC-1/WMV9 and H.264 and can be found for relatively cheap these days.
 
#64 ·
Water cooled is not fanless. You need a big fan at the back to cool the radiator for water cooled systems. That and it's quite expensive. Best kept for gamers in need of more "bling" for their pimped up PCs. :)
The HTPC market needs has brought forth some very good fanless video cards, and some are low profile which is great for those who need them in micro cases.

Marc
 
#65 ·
Signal meter?

Is there a signal meter in MythTV 0.22? I can't find one in 0.21

Actually, I've only found utils to scan for channels, but none for signal metering. What do you guys use to line up you antenna and tune your reception on Linux/Myth? I can't bring my 32" HDTV up on the roof. It's not very portable. ;)

Marc
 
#66 ·
There's a signal meter for (most) digital tuners, but I don't see one for analog. I've long since hacked the digital one on my system here, to show an extra decimal point as well as the raw value from the hardware (rather than only the cooked "dB" number from software).

To get the signal monitor, use Edit Keys to assign signalmon to a button on your remote control.

Cheers
 
#67 · (Edited)
There's a signal meter for (most) digital tuners, but I don't see one for analog. I've long since hacked the digital one on my system here, to show an extra decimal point as well as the raw value from the hardware (rather than only the cooked "dB" number from software).

To get the signal monitor, use Edit Keys to assign signalmon to a button on your remote control.
I think I could use that hack. I have an HVR-1600. :)
I found signalmon under Edit Keys, TV Playback (0.21). It was assigned Alt-F7. I changed it to another key, but it still doesn't do anything. I must be missing something. I want to use it to line-up my new antenna.

Edit: Ok. I got it working, sort of. Signal is always 0% and S/n at 2.3-2.4 but I have a picture. Must need to be hacked to work on the HVR-1600 or something.

Marc
 
#68 ·
Yeah, that's "normal" for the cableTV-centric MythTV stuff. :(

Signal-strength always reads zero for the HVR-950Q as well as the HVR-1600 here, with both of those showing SNR instead.

The HDHomerun shows signal-strength, but not SNR.

In my experience, the SNR must be greater than 2.2dB for reliable HVR-950Q reception, and greater than about 2.28dB for the HVR-1600.

:)
 
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