MythTV

Some notes on MythTV

I've used an XBox DVD remote control, since replicated with an RCA Universal Remote, to control the front end. To get the sensor detected by the box (running an embarrassingly old version of Gentoo), I had to download and compile lirc-0.8.0. There's also a patched (I think) version of libirman 0.4.2 in there that may be important...

The config file for lirc is ~/.mythtv/lcirc. After some recent changes:

  • Stop button works
  • Rew/FF buttons work, but suck up so much CPU that it's not watchable
  • ch+/ch- skip forward/back 10 minutes...but it turns out so do the down (forward) and up (backward) buttons
  • If you type in a number, then the left/right button, it skips ahead by that many minutes. However, in this remote, it only sends number codes for the numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6...so you can skip 5 minutes, 33 minutes, 45 minutes, and so on. It'll have to do for now.
  • What also works is a number, then the info button; that makes the playback jump to that number of minutes.
  • The OSD theme was irritating me: when showing the remaining time, the total time of the recording would be unviewable because it was obscured by the progress bar. To change the OSD theme, go to Setup -> TV Settings -> TV Playback and press the checkmark button a bunch of times 'til you see the "OSD theme" setting.

lircd: file too big

Started with /etc/init.d/local.lircd. "File too big" error: /var/log/lircd is 2 GB, which is too big. Remove it and reboot (simplest way of starting everything up again).

Homemade IR blasters

In 2011, digital cable came to Shaw in my neighbourhood. As a result, I had to shift the way I record TV. Previously, my PVR-500 (dual analog tuners) would record two channels at once; now, I need to point them at the one Motorola DCT-700 I've got to record...and since I've only got one of those boxes at the moment, I can record only one thing at a time. I'm not anticipating big problems with that, as we don't often get a lot of conflicts.

Of course, to control the DCT-700 I have to build a fake remote control for it. (I could have bought one of these for $12, but I decided to see if I could do it myself.) I followed these instructions (these were also good for background).

Then I had to compile a separate version of lircd following those same instructions -- I got quite confused at first because I skipped over that part, thinking it wasn't important. This page has some helpful hints about the process, including a reminder to restart the backend after installing.

Some pointers about that process:

  • I went with version 0.9 of LIRC -- latest version.

  • I added this stanza:

    echo "$0: Moving lirc directories" for i in ./drivers/lirc_* ; do mv $i $(echo $i | sed -e's/lirc/ledxmit/') done

  • Had to install libtool and autoconf2.13 on mythbuntu

MythGames

Reprogramming the remote

It always happens...

  • XBox: 3160
  • TV:

  • DVD: *

  • Manual

  • Code list