Messages

481

Users / Re: MythTV Observations, ugh.

« on: September 04, 2007, 01:10:10 am »

Dopey,

I actually think it should go the other way. ie; remove more and more of the mythTV screens and replace them with the linuxMCE GUI. I think that this would have been originally done in Pluto if the application level integration (via APIs) was easier.
That is not to say that there is not some good technology in MythTV that should be utilised (ie; the stuff in the plugins) but I think this should have orbiter interfaces for it.

The problem with not doing that is the loss of control you get when you hand control over to the application GUI (MythTV) so, for instance, if you want to popup a priority window with a picture of who is at the door it suddenly gets really hard. Whereas if you maintain that GUI control then things like this can be incorporated easier. Ultimately I see an Orbiter as the GUI for accessing any of the devices in you home and MythTV is just one of them.

482

Users / Re: use australian community guide for EPG?

« on: September 04, 2007, 12:58:06 am »

The oztivo guide can also provide guide data for the paytv channels (not sure if icetv can yet though).
You will still need the paytv box and need an infrared channel changer. The signal from the box will come in directly via an analogue capture card (TV Tuner cards are usually fine - you are just not using the tuner). So the guide data is still very useful (and necessary).

atreidae - have you got the wiimote controlling linuxMCE? How well does it work with UI2? I have seen the other threads but I still havn't seen much on how well it actually works under linuxMCE.

483

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: sqlcvs part II

« on: September 03, 2007, 02:19:39 am »

Hi PowrrrPlay,

I do not think there is much to be gained from the actual storage of the media in a relational database. In my opinion surely the filesystem is much better suited to storage of large files and if it was suffering then there is other filesystem types that could be considered. I don't see any duplication currently occurring and given the all the media metadata is being stored in the database then we are already getting the advantages that a DBMS offers.

I can't see any requirements that call for 2 phase commit or DB replication but happy to be proved wrong.

I think our efforts are currently much better spent on things like hardware compatibility and streamlining the efficient recognition of media in the network.

Those are my thoughts anyway...
Darren

484

Developers / Re: All Developers, please read.

« on: August 30, 2007, 01:38:48 am »

Thom,

Excellent post and a good summary of what a lot of the lurking developers here are finding.
Just to add;
* The overall architecture/design of the system is good and very extensible. This includes the centralised messaging router concept and templated device heirarchy.
* The implentation of this design has, in my view, compromised the higher level design. This is not intended to be overly critical, I well understand the time pressures that were placed on the PlutoHome developers. But the device implementations, particularly involving media players/plugins and orbiters, has a high degree of coupling and undocumented dependancies.
* The current project (linuxMCE) has generated plenty of interest, which undoubtedly will include talented developers that have new ideas and are prepared to implement them. At the moment there seems to be some major barriers to this happening. These include lack of documentation to understand the mountains of code that exist and unclear mechanisms on how code can be submitted and absorbed into the project.

The sqlCVS part of the project seemed to be an effective way to have distributed development (including new devices/templates as well as the associated code) and I would like to see it used if possible.
I am keen to know what Paul and some of the others on the contact list for the project think about  these ideas.

I have quite a few ideas and potentially a technical  background that is well suited to helping, however each time I attempt to do something I get overwhelmed by the initial barriers that I mentioned and effectively lose interest. I assume others are probably in the same boat.

Anyway, I hope this thread generates some positive discussion and we can plan a path forward.

Regards
Darren

485

Users / Re: Can I use this as an answering machine on a normal analoge phone line?

« on: August 29, 2007, 12:56:58 am »

The FXO allows you to interface to an analogue phone line.
The FXS allows you to use analogue phone handsets.

The ATA, which I think stands for Analogue Telephone Adapater, is basically an FXS. There are some models which have two FXS (allowing two different extensions) and there are some that also have an FXO built in.

There is a fair bit on info on Asterisk out there, I believe that the best quality solutions come from utilising dedicated digium cards with plug-in modules for FXO and FXS depending upon your needs.

But the short answer to the original question is yes you can use linuxMCE as an answering machine on an Anologue phone line. It integrates with Asterisk and that, with the right hardware, certainly allows you do do what you want (and a whole lot more).

486

Users / Re: use australian community guide for EPG?

« on: August 28, 2007, 06:09:30 am »

linuxMCE is still just wrapping MythTV so everything (most things that work under MythTV still function and work the same under linuxMCE.

For the guide grabber for Australia, you will still need to get the tv_grab_au stuff and install yourself (as you probably had to do with knopmyth I would guess).

When you run mythtv-setup and select Australia it runs the configuration in the console so you are best bet to start the mythtv-process from a console prompt (rather than from orbiter).

HTH
Darren

487

Installation issues / Re: Leadtek DTV1000T in MythTV/LMC Problem

« on: August 28, 2007, 06:02:03 am »

Hi,

I set one up last night, so I'll try and help.

Looking through dmesg it looked like it was already detected correctly and loaded module cx88.
See if yours has done the same;
dmesg | grep -i winfast I think
lsmod | grep -i winfast Again, I think from memory

You should get matches for both

I did not have the DVB devices that I expected though (which I discovered from mythtv-setup recognising there was a card there but not able to connect)

Bit of a google suggested loading the modules cx8802, cx88_blackbird(i think) and cx_dvb

modprobe cx8802Seemed to work fine
cx88_blackbirdGave me a module not found - I ignored at this stage
cx_dvbSeemed to work fine

With these modules loaded everything looked a bit better and I had DVB devices and mythtv-setup was happy with the card and scanned for channels OK - so I have not worried about the module not found.

google "winfast DTV1000T linux" for more. There was plenty of info on it.

HTH
Darren

488

Installation issues / Re: Installation confusion

« on: August 28, 2007, 03:06:10 am »

Don't know if this helps at all but.. when I initially booted one of my MDs which was plugged into a widescreen LCD monitor via DVI cable it went through everything until it got to running the AV wizard. The screen then went black (and turned itself off as it was getting no signal) I plugged another monitor into the VGA port and there was the AV wizard running. I switched it to DVI (which is the first screen) and it changed back to the other monitor and was fine from then on.

I guess the same could be happening to you, where the TV-OUT is the same as the DVI - So my suggestion would be to try what you proposed and plug in a monitor (via VGA) for the first step of the wizard.

HTH
Darren

489

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Some idears

« on: August 27, 2007, 01:51:13 am »

All this is certainly possible and fits in with the design of linuxMCE.

The basic design of the software is that everything electronic is a device or can be represented by a software device. These are all configured heirarchically so that Parent devices can handle things for their children. Each device then has handlers for events that can occur. In response to these events they can send commands to other devices.

The messages between the devices all go through a centralised router that runs on the CORE.

So everything you have mentioned is certainly possible with the current version of software that exists now. You may need to create some new devices but these are not overly difficult and may already even exist.

The potential is even there for you front door security camera to stream images of the person at the door directly to your mobile, where you can press a button to let them in.

Go through the scenarios shown at plutohome.com (which is the software that this project was developed from)

Regards
Darren

490

Users / Re: Linux MCE documentation

« on: August 27, 2007, 01:30:36 am »

Just pointing out a couple of things...

The linuxMCE project may only be a couple of months old, but the code that it is running has been developed over many years under the guise of the PlutoHome project. The code and documentation was copied over(forked) to form this project, effectively with PlutoHome gobally replaced with linuxMCE.

So given that, the documentation is in fact quite scarce and lacking, I know I have been frustrated with it.

The only way it will improve in this project though is from the user base. So as Zaerc hinted at - if you can't find something then add it. I think that the best mechinism for this is to start a forum thread to get input from others and if and when that thread reaches a conclusion, summarise it and post it on the wiki.

Just my comments
Darren

491

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: sqlcvs part II

« on: August 24, 2007, 04:08:35 am »

It already uses MySQL locally as the database.

sqlcvs is a technology developed by the Plutohome guys to allow sychronisation with the Pluto servers.
The idea is that when a home user creates and adds a new Device Template then the sqlcvs software allows that to be absorbed back into the full set so that once approved and checked by Pluto people everyone else would automatically have access to that template.
I think it works the same (or is meant to) for local configuration setups like new remotes etc and also for local documentation. The idea there was that you would create the documentation for your new device template on your local pluto core and it would also automatically get distributed to everyone via the central hub.

Now that we have forked and are in linuxMCE world - I am not sure if the sqlcvs server still works and does the automatic updating. If Paul is reading this he might be best placed to answer. If it is not, it would be a good thing to bring back as it allows new devices to quickly become available - or even updates to existing ones. I am not sure how this is meant to occur otherwise - I guess it would need to be release based.

A seperate issue might be whether postgresql is a better option than MySQL. I am not sure about this one. Is the database really proving to be a problem at the moment.

Regards
Darren

492

Users / Re: diskless media directors working as only mythtv frontends without being slave ba

« on: August 24, 2007, 03:56:10 am »

I think you can safely disable the backend process on startup for any MD without capture cards.
It is intended only to have a distributed setup where MDs have their own cards but can share the others as well.

I have two cards in the core and one MD with a card so I only need two backends running. The core one is the master and the MD one is a slave.

All MDs will run MythFrontend (plus my desktop in the study which runs Ubuntu).

493

Installation issues / Re: Diskless MD and installation of graphics drivers

« on: August 23, 2007, 06:45:48 am »

If you do that from the Core though you will just get another console session on the Core. We need to ssh into one of the moons (ie MD's) as root to install some drivers etc.

If I do an 'rlogin moonXX' from my core it has never prompted me for a passwd and puts me in as root.

494

Users / Re: My audio has gone!

« on: August 23, 2007, 06:36:54 am »

I have had similar problems with updates causing the default sound card to change when I was using Debian/Plutohome.

The solution probably is to completely disable the on-board sound card. Alternatively you can use utilities such as alsaconf to change the default sound card (which is what I ended up doing). I assume the same works for Ubuntu/linuxMCE - although you may not have the alsaconf on the machine by default.

HTH

495

Installation issues / Re: Diskless MD and installation of graphics drivers

« on: August 22, 2007, 05:21:04 am »

On my machines at least, going to a different tty screen and logging on with root does not prompt for password. (ie: ctrl-alt-F1). Not very secure but that may serve your need.