Messages

Good Morning

Thanks for that.  I never thought of running a database fill from the live CD.  Good idea

The problem is with MythTv not Ubuntu that is why i thought you guys might have an idea, as you run a large part of MythTv on top of Ubuntu with the KDE desktop, and my problem is with the MythTV database functionality

Cheers
chipppy

Good Evening

Thanks for all the help!
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=8949.msg61121#msg61121

Cheers
chipppy (a fellow mediacentre user trying to find help)

Goodmorning

as mentioned above I have tried the MythTV forum and had no luck.  That is why I am trying in here in despoeration for some help

Good Evening

i have a database problem with my Mythbunutu 9.04 machine.  Yes i do realise that this is not a LinuxMCE machine but I am hoping someone might be able to assist as I have been trying to get help for this problem for some monts now without much luck and I am desperate for help from anyone.  I have already tried the mythtalk and mythbuntu and other forums for assistance.


I am running Mythbuntu 9.04 with the frontend and backend on a standalone machine
I have a problem with my DataBase (I think) not filling.

When I run Utilities/Setup => Video Manager or Music Tools => Scan For New Music, nothing is found.

I have checked the linking in the following
Mythfilldatabse Program: /usr/bin/mythfilldatabase
Directories that hold Videos: /var/lib/mythtv/hdd2/videos (second HDD for storing movies)
Music Settings =>General Settings =>Directories to hold Music: /var/lib/mythtv/music

these are all correct for where the actual videos and music are saved. I have also tried a video database fill after copying a couple of file to the var/lib/mythtv/videos (default file path) folders just in case that worked.

When I go Media Library => Watch Videos I can actually see all my videos and play them all without any problems. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for music. This one is causing a fair bit of grief from the wife.

I have everything else working fine.

I have tried the Repair Database in Mythbunutu Control Center. This has not helped.
It seems to me that the databases as not being filled and I am at a loss for what to try to fix this problem. I am down to a doing a clean rebuild but I have invested to many hours getting my HTPC working perfect to jump down this path. I want to fix this problem

I have attached an errorlog (sorry but its in M$ Word format).

Anyone got any ideas what I can try next?
Any and all assistance is greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Chipppy

Good Evening

I agree with above.. What is people thoughts about using the Mythbuntu distro instead of Kubuntu.  This has the possibliity of reducing development time and therefore reduce time between releases.

I was thinking about the LTS side of things.  I agree with trying to keep up with the latest developments in Linux world.  The only thing is I have read alot of bad press about LinuxMCE simply because of the old distro and therefore the 'instability' of it.  I think this is a misnoma because of the age of the base distro is the instability issue. 
While LTS is another 6 months between distro upgrades it is always possible to add special patches in if there is the mass benifit in doing so.  Eg a kernel upgrade due to specfic support for problem hardware that is super popular.
I refer to the name that the 'Debia' distro has.  It has a rel period of 12-18months and is renown for support of older hardware and being super stable.  The super stable and support is the key point here.
A lot of people just want a HTPC that works.  Once it is setup they dont want to have to touch it again, unless they find a new 'toy' to add or it breaks. 
It breaks can be hardware or software.
We all know the mean time to crash for windows systems.  Linux has a great name for massive uptime and support for older hardware.  It would be great is we could build on that name with a system that is support for many years (6 years for LTSreleases)  remember Windos XP is 8+ years old and most people are still using it today.  Ask any office work what window OS they are using today XP or Vista?

People like the fimilar beast.  It makes then feel secure. 

Remember
1 happy customer tells 3 people per year
1 unhappy customer tells 10 people per year.
happy X 6 years =18 new customers 

While not strictly true this is a business, we are selling a product/service.  We need to promot LinuxMCE in it best possible light.

Anyway thats my 2 bobs worth

Cheers
chipppy

Good Evening

Thanks for the info.

Cheers
chipppy

Good Eveing

At the risk of being nuked I would like to ask a question relating to the base distro that LinuxMCE is based on.
Please correct me for my misunderstandings and mistake, but in a constructive manner.
I ask this question in the hope of helping the LinuxMCE development team of producing big and better version in as fast a time frame as possible.  i also want to free up the valuable developer tim for developing the really cool, bleeeding edge stuff that you guy do instead of bogging you guys down in the more mundane stuff that has already been completed by others in other distros

Firstly full respect to all that have worked hard to get LinuxMCE to where it is today.

Your try to release a new rev every 12 months.  I feel that this is hard to achieve, due to the size of the development team.
Why not base you rev's on the LTS from the Ubuntu team.  this means a longer 18months between major releases but these are supported but the ubuntu team longer and therefore you have more chance of getting a super stable release over time. 
This will allow LinuxMCE to develop a name as a super stable projec that is super reliable (eg Debian distro type respect)

Also
LinuxMCE is based on Kubuntu the KDE version of Ubuntu but doesnt use a huge amount o the KDE desktop features.
LinuxMCE has a small developmen team, when compared to other projects (especially the Ubuntu team).
                This help people to understand why LinuxMCE is a couple of releases behind the Kubuntu release version (9.10 very shortly)
LinuxMCE used a fair few components from MythTV, as far as I understand

Is it possible to use the Mythbuntu distro instead of the Kubunt distro.  This would mean that the Ubuntu team has already completed a heap of the MythTv intergration into ubuntu for you guys.  I dont know what percentage this would reduce your work load by but anyamount is more time on the cool features.

Anyone i hope people take this the way it is intended.
As a possitive couple of questions, with the intent to create positive discussion to help the development team.

Anyway here hoping

Cheers
chipppy

yep done.

hey you dont know how to edit the grub file do you.  For some reason kgrub is installed but I cannot find the little bugger.
I want to edit it so that 8.10 is not the primary load.  I want to keep the system on 7.10 for the moment so that the kids can just press the on button and it automagic start into there normal setup.

cheers
chipppy

I have just installed 8.10a2 onto my second HDD (HDD2)so that i can play with it.
So far so good. 
I need to somehow force 8.10 to search HDD1 so that I can play my video and music files.  I havent had to do this before.
How do i force a search of HDD1?

HDD1 is the primary HDD

Cheers
chipppy

Thanks for that.  I have downloaded and I will ask a mate that writes apps for the iphone to help me have a look.

cheers
chipppy

Hello

Is there a way i can setup a dual boot with something and LMCE 7.10 and LMCE 8.10
It just that my 3 year old will go mental if i kill my current setup, and his million plus videos.  they are what he uses for his afternoon nanna nap and all three boys use it for there bed time.  Also mum will kill me if i stuff up the 3 year olds nanna nap in A N Y W A Y.

I have a second HDD if that helps any.

cheers
chipppy

I have looked at a program called MP3gain
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3gain/

this might be usefully, but I have no idea how to download the source code so that i can have a look through it for some clues as to what can b usefully.

I run Ubuntu 9.04.  Can you tell me how to download the source code and what to open it with and I wil have a look and see if there are any notes pointing towards anything usefull.

Cheers
chipppy

OK so I need to find a true open source project that have volume leveling in the source code. 
I dont know much about the 'metadata' (I think is the word for the data attached to songs that has all the details for that song).  Lets assume metadata is the right word for this post anyway.  Lets aso assume that the term 'audio track' refers to any source of audio (music, video audio, recorded noise, etc)

Can a column of metadata be setup to set the volume at the start of the audio track?
If yes then would it be possible to get the playing program to read this column first as part of setting up to play the track?

If this is possible then we could scan the database and set the 'magic level number'for the whole lot of the audio tracks.  then add in the new metadata column that sets a + or - dB  adustment to the original volume, for that specific audio track to adjust the actual output volume to be consistent with the 'magic level number'.  This means that the original metadata is not affected but the final output is.
This would give us a consistent volume start point for all audio tracks.  Lets call this the 'normalised volume'

The next step would be to then add in theming.  eg then modify 'normalised volume' by again + or - dB as per the theme volume adjustments.  As an example up the volume buy 3dB for an action movie and -3dB for a romantic movie.

How does this theory sound?  Workable?

Cheers
chipppy

Colin

My idea with Realplayer was not to whole scale change from one system to Realplayer but to take a small section of the source code that does the volume leveling from an existing application (possibly Realplayer or others as suggested) and 'tweak' it to work with the existing LinuxMCE application.

As to the what level to set.  I would assume (remember that I have no development skills) that there is somesort of system to calculate a magic number to use in any existing leveling coding.  eg back to my Realplayer experience, it must calculate some magic number for each track after analysing the various levels throughout the track.  (i have no idea how they do this).  I am going to assume that a music song and a video audio track are esentially the same thing, just one is a lot longer then the other.  Take (dare I mention him) Micheal Jacksons music music clips.  The song is the same on both the music clip and the song, but the music clip can be a whoile lot longer (14 minutes longer in the case of the Thriller music clip) so the fundamentals should be the same.  This is probably a good test can if someone wanted to play with it.

as to the 710 v 810*.  I am egarly awaiting the 810 final.  I dont have the skills to sort out any major problems, so at the moment I am only using final release applications.  I have only been using Linux for 6 months, but I am slowly learning.

Cheers
chipppy

Hello out there people.
I have been on holidays and loved it.  Lots of sun, surf, fishing, drinking, and thoses think that we do on holidays at the beach.

Anyway.  Read through this thread and have a few things to reply.

First:  I only have RCA output so while good suggestion, not specificaly applicable to me but I will try and have a play to see if it helps.

Second:  I have since worked out that when I play a xvid the volume get adjusted down a little for some reason.  The next time I play an xvid it get adjuste down a little more, and so on until the master volume is zero.  If i play an .iso video the volume is reset and it all starts again.  Weird but interesting.

As to the original post of leveling the volume across the video ad music collections.  I like the 95%ile idea.  I have recently found that real player does a linux version.  I have not installed yet but I am going to assume that there is the same functionality in the linux version as the windozes version.
Simple questions for the developer gurus.  Can we get a copy of the source code, strip out the section that does the music leveling and modify this to do the same for the LinuxMCE music?
If yes, would it then be possible to modify to do the 95%ile thing to the video audio stream?
If yes, would it them be possible to modify so that the music and video audio streams output is the same level?
If yes, would it be possible to put in some sort of thing in the setup menu to allow a user set offset between music and video audio streams (personally I listen to music a lot louder then videos).

the reason that I ask these questions is that LinuxMCE is about home automation aswell as the music/video.  This would make the whole process automagic if the database ran a script doing this once a week or once a month in the background.  If this is possible it would be safe to assume that theming would also be possible. 
Different music level for party, general, quiet, kids going to sleep by, etc
Different audio level for different video type, actio, romantic (yuk), comadey, drama, etc
I think this is a long way off but one must set goals in order to improve oneself.

I dont even know how to do scripting so I have no ideas on the technical side but I am happy to assist where possible (throw silly ideas into the hat!

Cheers
chipppy).