“For some reason it is not saving a bookmark when you stop watching a recorded program in the middle, so that you have to find where you were manually. This worked fine on our old machine, so just need to find out what is wrong. I can research this when I have time.” Read original post.

Well I am delighted to say that this was fixed by an option in the Playing TV settings for saving bookmarks.

• Live TV - Pause Rewind etc
• Programme Guide
• Schedule Recordings
• MythVideo (for ripped DVDs)
• MythWeb (personal webpage for controlling Myth and viewing programme guide)

The best news is that Audio is now working over HDMI; although to be honest, I don’t believe I ever fixed this, so I suspect I just hadn’t tested it properly. All I did was select the Audio over HDMI setting in KDE Control Centre and it just worked.

So what is left to fix?

• System does not shutdown automatically - this is normal behaviour for MythTV, but I prefer to have it shutdown when not in use. This is a neat feature actually, as it will literally completely shutdown with a timer set in the bios to come on for the next schedule. Hopefully I can sort this out soon.
• MythTV Backend needs to be restarted every time the machine is powered up - this is a known issue and may even have been sorted; having been without Internet for the past three weeks, I have no idea where we are. Basically on first boot we just type $ sudo service mythtv-backend restart. Obviously if there is no fix, it would be simple enough to add to the start-up process. Subsequently fixed.
• My card has dual tuners, so can record one thing and watch another, or record two things. I have now read that some channels are on the same “mux” and that you can therefore record multiple programs on a single card. I need to research this further, but sounds exciting.
• For some reason it is not saving a bookmark when you stop watching a recorded program in the middle, so that you have to find where you were manually. This worked fine on our old machine, so just need to find out what is wrong. I can research this when I have time. Subsequently fixed.
• The case fans are a little noisier than they ought to be, so really need replacing for silent alternatives.

And, not MythTV related, but I am still struggling with KDE4, Akonadi and our Contacts in Kontact. I suspect this may be related to the use of MySQL for both MythTV and Akonadi. In the meantime my wife is using Gmail, but obviously would prefer to have Kontact back.

It seems that the HVR-2200 is something of a work-in-progress under Linux. Plenty of people seem to have it working, but it is not simple to configure. See the references at the end for further reading.

I now have this card working under MythTV, but I have not yet managed to get the programme guide updating via EIT (Freeview).

Those new to MythTV should visit: http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php

Installation

$ sudo apt-get install mercurial libncurses5-dev unzip

$ wget http://www.steventoth.net/linux/hvr22xx/22xxdrv_27086.zip
$ wget  http://www.steventoth.net/linux/hvr22xx/HVR-12x0-14x0-17x0_1_25_25271_WHQL.zip
$ wget http://www.steventoth.net/linux/hvr22xx/firmwares/4019072/NXP7164-2010-03-10.1.fw
$ wget http://www.steventoth.net/linux/hvr22xx/extract.sh
$ sh extract.sh
$ sudo cp *fw /lib/firmware
or
$ sudo cp *fw /lib/firmware/`uname -r`

$ hg clone http://kernellabs.com/hg/saa7164-stable/

$ cd saa7164-stable
$ make CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV:=n
$ sudo make install
$ wget http://www.steventoth.net/linux/hvr22xx/firmwares/4038864/v4l-saa7164-1.0.3-3.fw 
$ sudo cp v4l-saa7164-1.0.3-3.fw /lib/firmware

$ sudo adduser <userid> video
$ sudo reboot

Create Channel.conf

$ sudo apt-get install dvb-apps
$ scan ./uk-CrystalPalace -o zap > ~/.mythtv/channels.conf

Scan

Now go to Mythbackend-Setup and perform a full scan.

Test

You should now have a working system, unfortunately I found that the programme guide, or EPG, was not updating.

Fixing EPG

(Thanks to “Neon Dusk” from the second Ubuntu forum link in the references below.)

Using channels.conf to get the channel information is OK, but sometimes it doesn’t fill in all the information required.

Make a note of your mysql password from /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt - there should be a field DBPassword

$ mysql -u mythtv -p
<enter mysql password>
use mythconverg;
select * from `dtv_multiplex`;

Copy the resulting output into a text editor, here was mine. Note the networkid is null.

6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

In mythtv-setup -> channel editor -> Edit transport Delete all existing transports (highlight transport then press d)

Go to channel scanner Select Scan Type: Full Scan (Tuned)

Use the values recorded from the sql statement and then do a scan. You’ll need to do this for the 6 muxes.

Hopefully this should find all the channels and if you repeat the sql commands you’ll see the networkid value filled in. This should then allow the EIT EPG to work

My resulting output was as attached:

9 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Test Again

Have a look at your programme guide, give it a few minutes - it isn’t instantaneous.

References

• http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php
• http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=942403
  • http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9351505&postcount=271
• http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9292366&postcount=3
• http://www.zedlopez.com/strangeloopiness/2010/04/mythtv_on_ubuntu_lucid_gotchas.html
• http://www.kernellabs.com/blog/?p=721
• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1167640
• http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hvr2200mc.html
• http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/hardware/8096-there-status-hvr-2250-linux-driver-2.html#post46347
• http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-2200
• http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/hardware/12229-hvr-2200-not-picking-up-all-channels.html
• http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1410407.html

The tuner card is now working under MythTV to “Watch TV”; however the programme guide is still not updating correctly over EIT. In theory this should happen automatically after a full scan, but for some reason this seems not to be working. It may be that this is because I have simply not left the backend to idle for long enough for an EIT scan to be initiated.

More news when I have it.

I have updated my notes on the following page:

• Hauppauge HVR-2200

• Hauppauge HVR-2200

Just a reminder of what I was wanting for our HTPC:

• Low power
• Silent
• Powerful enough to run KDE fully
• DVI and HDMI interfaces
• Decent on-board sound
• Plenty of USB slots
• Needs to visually go with our HiFi amp and Blu-Ray player
• Powerful enough graphics to support 1080p (or 720p if not possible)

The Case: Lian Li PC-C37

I started, perversely, with the case. Normally you would start with the cpu/mb, but I knew that, in order to get spouse approval, it had to look right. You can spend from £20 to £1000 on cases, and I dare say more. I wanted something that looked like a black HiFi separate, both in dimensions and styling. I would have thought that there would have been a considerable choice, but there really wasn’t, the only one I found was the Lian-Li PC-C37. It would seem to be a well made quality case, for about £100. I would have liked to have spent a little less, but really there was no choice whatsover.

Motherboard/CPU: Asrock A330ION

The Lian-Li PC-C37 takes both Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX motherboards. Well that’s just fine, given that my aim was a low power, silent and powerful PC, really the Intel Atom was the only choice and they invariably come in Mini-ITX motherboards. Well there is a vast array of Intel Atom motherboards on the market but, oddly enough, almost all of them had problems. Most of them only had 4 usb ports, which would be okay, just. Almost none of them had DVI, let alone HDMI. One motherboard stood out from the rest, the Asrock A330ION. Yes it’s the old Atom 330, but it allowed the faster DDR3 RAM, and the specification of the motherboard was fantastic, including:

• 2 x DDR3 DIMM slots (up to 4GB)
• Integrated NVIDIA® GeForce 9 Series
• DVI and HDMI
• 7.1 channel HD Audio
• Gigabit LAN
• 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot
• 4 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors + 2 e-SATA
• 4 rear USB plus support for upto 4 front USB

That feature set is almost unbelievable, (4+2 SATA!! 4+4 USB!! DDR3!!!) by the time I had read the specification, I barely cared about the price.

I also bought 2gb of compatible DDR3 RAM.

DVB-T Tuner

Well, as I said in my last post, we need to have DVB-T, and of course I have my Hauppauge Nova-T500 PCI card. Ah, but I have just bought a motherboard that only has PCI-Express; so a new card is required. I do hope my wife isn’t reading this. Anyway, I like Hauppauge products, and the HVR-2200 is the obvious PCI-Express low profile dual DVB-T tuner card. No decision to make really, other than should I pay twice the amount for the HVR-4400, which has satellite capability, err no, have to draw the line somewhere ;).

Hard Drives

Well, we’re making a lower power device, so we need low-power drives. Two were recommended to me, the Seagate Barracuda LP Series and the Western Digital Caviar Green Series. Starting to get rather concerned about the money I have been spending, I decided to opt for a relatively low capacity of 500gb, but to go for two drives, so that I could configure a RAID1 array. For those that don’t know, a RAID1 array means that you have the same data on both drives, so that if you lose one drive, you don’t lose your data. In short, your data is mirrored to the two drives. This doesn’t replace backups, but it certainly saves a headache if you lose one of your drives.

It was suggested to me that I should use a NAS for storage, but I don’t particularly want two machines on almost permanently. I already have an Icybox NAS, which I have stopped using after it ate two drives; so I don’t trust it and I don’t particularly want it. We’ll probably configure our HTPC to behave as a NAS as well as an HTPC.

• Western Digital 500GB Caviar Green 32MB SATA 69T6

Conclusion

All the hardware is now ordered, with the exception of the PSU, as I have one in my stores somewhere, hopefully it will be compatible! More tomorrow, when hopefully I will be starting the build.

Those that say that Linux is free if your time is free have never spent evening after evening setting up XPMCE.

In 2008 we upgraded to Mythbuntu 8.10. My wife was easy to persuade, simply because she could not see how Linux could possibly be worse than Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. And so it proved, it wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was just good enough that we never regretted the change.

Conventional wisdom is that, if you have a working MythTV system, then you should leave it well alone; but I decided that I wanted to move to KDE from the standard XFCE. It was only after the installation was well under-way that I realised that this meant KDE 4.1, which was an unusable version. Kicking myself for such stupidity, I quickly upgraded to 9.04 and 9.10. Both upgrades went almost flawlessly, and the system has been pretty good ever since.

Unfortunately we’ve come to hate the Evesham emedia station that runs our MythTV. I stupidly bought four PCs from Evesham and have always regretted it. Evesham have a good reputation, but my experience is that the hardware is very poor indeed. Specifically it has always been very noisy and suffered from overheating. In addition we have issues with USB support on this PC in Ubuntu. Something to do with OHCI, UCHI etc, I forget what exactly. It’s also ugly as sin. In short it was not a good buy and we have always regretted it.

If you’re interested you can read a review on this god-awful PC. Having read this very positive review, I can only assume that Evesham reduced the component quality significantly by the time I bought this machine.

So we’ve decided to replace our media centre. I have considered XBMC and Boxee, but with such a poor Internet connection, we really do still need to get our TV via our aerial. And that means MythTV, as far as I know.

I considered buying an Acer Revo, but a huge prejudice against Acer put me off this decision (oh god, not Acer, not ever). I did not consider for a second buying a dedicated XP MCE machine and putting MythTV onto it - we’ve experienced what can go wrong first hand - and I wanted 100% control over the components.

So what are we looking for in our new media centre (or Home Theatre PC as the jargon now has it!)?

• Low power
• Silent
• Powerful enough to run KDE fully
• DVI and HDMI interfaces
• Decent on-board sound
• Plenty of USB slots
• Needs to visually go with our HiFi amp and Blu-Ray player
• Powerful enough graphics to support 1080p (or 720p if not possible)

In my next post I will run through the hardware I’ve chosen.

If, like me, you have your laptop permanently on whilst you watch TV, then MythWeb is going to be a shock, a delightful shock. Imagine, from the comfort of your sofa, with your laptop on your lap:

• What’s on TV? Open your browser and you have a beautifully formatted programme guide - far better than an on-TV guide.
• Want to record something? Simply click on it, choose your options and submit.
• Nothing on TV? View your Recorded Programmes.
• Want to know what you’ve got set to record? Upcoming Recordings.
• On holiday and you realise you forgot to record the new series of Doctor Who? Log-into MythWeb remotely and record.
• At work and you want to show your colleagues the funny bit in Big Bang Theory? No problem log into MythWeb and download, or play the episode in Flash.

And there’s more: weather, ripped video, music, and more. If you’re anything like me, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it, and quite simply it has now spoiled me for ANY other PVR system.

The other win is the commercial skipping, enabling a one button press to skip adverts.

Please see my later post on MythWeb.