Author Topic: MythTV Plugin  (Read 4468 times)

chaos1965

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MythTV Plugin
« on: March 24, 2008, 07:56:28 pm »
I saw another guy talking about recompiling the MythTV Pugin so that some of the interlacing options aren't forced on him.  I started a new thread since that other user was being bashed to death for some dumb comments.  I was wondering if, he or anyone else has ad any luck with this and could give me a hand or point me in the right direction?  Here is my situation.

I could care less about the interlacing setting, but I do wish to change is the save path for TV shows, i'd rather not have all those miscellaneous channel flipping recordings that are only 5 and 4 minutes long showing up on my media list.  Besides, the way I handle MythTV recordings does not require it to be inside pluto's structure. I never leave my recordings as 4239592345_929435.mpg, I also change it's name (in database also) and move it to a more proper location, something like /home/public/data/video/tvshows.  On top of that, I could never figure out how to tell it to record it's shows on a network share that I told to use auto and use pluto structure.  But everytime I changed the path in mythtv-setup, i noticed, it would revert back every reboot or quickreload. So after reading that guys post about changing the setting in the source, I downloaded and checked the source and sure enough, /home/public/data/tv_shows_# is set in the source code.  I would like to have this go elsewhere outside of pluto's structure and i'll compensate anything looking for that directory as I get to it.

Anyways, that was my situation, here is my problem.

Unlike other guy, I managed to compile the plugin successfully first try.  Except when I put the resulting MythTV_Plugin.so in place of the distro /home/usr/pluto/MythTV_Plugin.so, TV won't start from the interface with an error of
Code: [Select]
"I cannot play this media. Perhaps there is not a valid device in this entertainmnt area capabale of playing it."
So, how can I tell the interface to open MythTV properly?  I know my .so works because MythTV runs perfectly find from the KDE Desktop, it just won't launch from lmce.  I checked the log files while I attempt to launch MythTV, and there was nothing of any interest.   I do admit I might not have been thorough in checking the logs, there are just so many of them.  I tried to just grep for myth with a a numeric expression to match the time frame I was trying to start MythTV, and found nothing of any relevance.

Oh I used the charonmedia source, I understand the linuxmce.org source is not stable yet/will break installs?  I think i read that somewhere...
I'm compiling on a 7.04 updated installation.
I'm running 7.10b3 as production box.
Any ideas?

tschak909

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Re: MythTV Plugin
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2008, 05:12:48 am »
look in DCERouter.log, to see if the Plugin is registering.

-Thom

chaos1965

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Re: MythTV Plugin
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2008, 07:01:37 pm »
Ok, Thank you much, now I know where to look.  I'm sure I looked in that log before, but I also didn't know exactly what I was looking for, now I do, thank you.  I'll look into this tonite.

dopey

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Re: MythTV Plugin
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2008, 08:10:32 am »
I know my .so works because MythTV runs perfectly find from the KDE Desktop, it just won't launch from lmce.

Actually, that .so is only used with LinuxMCE. If you load mythfrontend from the KDE Desktop you are completely bypassing that .so and using MythTV all by its lonesome.

One thing I noticed is that you are running b3 and if I remember correctly there were some MythTV changes from b3 to b4 (what the sources should be loosely based on). Of course there could have been other changes after the b4 release that would make that .so compatible... 'tis the nature of using bleeding edge sources... I'm sure it's doable, you just may have to recompile a few other things, like the player, for example.

chaos1965

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Re: MythTV Plugin
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2008, 09:21:16 pm »
The problem was that I was not paying attention and I was compiling the binary for 32bit os, and I was running the amd64.  Easy fix, just an oversight.  I did try compiling the binaries for amd64 platform, but was not very successful so I just re-installed with the i386 version on my system.

I don't continually upgrade my distro because I am a firm believer in several philosophies that involve simplicity. Among them are Occam's Razor, many of Confucious's Ideals, etc...  Simply put...

If it isn't broke, I won't fix it.

There are no updates in b4 I have seen that will benefit me, therefore screw it.

The plugin was broke for me though.  Using BOB interlacing puts lines and jitter in my TV picture, Kernel method was smooth as hell.  But the source code was forcing the Bob setting on me.  Also enabling Vsync did my picture alot of justice.  Enabling vsync removed the jitter from MythTV's channel info overlay (when changing channels)  I also wanted my saved tv shows to go elsewhere.  I had modified everything neccessary in LMCE to do this, but couldn't figure out why recording kept going into the old folder, until again, I looked in the source code and it was hardcoded.  All is well now, recompiled, and works exactly the way I want it.

I was confused, I originally got into LInux because of it's versatility, I could configure it any way I please.  So why all of the sudden products that enforce optional settings?  (Not calling the save path optional, I understand it's concept, I just didn't like it being in the same path that UpdateMedia looks in.  Kept getting mytht's 10342342_342342.mpg files in my media list.  Moving the location of the files worked perfectly.

dopey

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Re: MythTV Plugin
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2008, 08:36:31 am »
I was confused, I originally got into LInux because of it's versatility, I could configure it any way I please.  So why all of the sudden products that enforce optional settings?  (Not calling the save path optional, I understand it's concept, I just didn't like it being in the same path that UpdateMedia looks in.  Kept getting mytht's 10342342_342342.mpg files in my media list.  Moving the location of the files worked perfectly.

This is a LinuxMCE thing and it's extremely frustrating, I agree. There really aren't a whole lot of Linux programs that do this. LinuxMCE does this because it's based off of Pluto@Home, which is an appliance. LinuxMCE, however, is supposed to lean more towards customizable distribution, but it's still in its early stages. I think settings like this. in all third-party applications. should be set during install and maybe during a "restore to defaults" option, but otherwise left alone. This would satisfy both the appliance and customizable distribution aspects of LinuxMCE. From what I read, most people agree with me, it's just a matter of dev time.