MythTV Anyone?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
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Hey all,

I just put together my first MythTV using a Ceton InfiniTV 6 Eth, and a standalone backend server, using the XBMC PVR plugin as a frontend (more frontends to come)

Having some issues, and the MythTV forums are pretty much dead, Was hoping someone here might have some experience.

So When I update the channels all 700+ channels are added to mythbackend automatically. Problem is the frontend chokes if you accidentally pick a channel you don't have.

No problem, I thought, I'll just delete all the channels I don't have.

pressing D, left and enter some 650 times in the backend channel editor things looked the way I liked them, so I updated the listings and started everything up again.

Problem. Updating the database repopulated the channel editor with all the channels I just deleted :(

Does anyone know how I can delete channels and have them STAY deleted?

Much obliged,
Matt
 
I am a mythTV user and I think I know what's going on for you. BUT, it's very late and I need to get sleep.

ping me via PM and we can trade back and forth via PM or IM or email.
 
svet-am said:
ping me via PM and we can trade back and forth via PM or IM or email.
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I don't think you understand the purpose of a public forum. Why would you tell someone to talk about a useful topic in privmsg? No offense but if you are going to help, do it in the thread.
 
dandragonrage said:
I don't think you understand the purpose of a public forum. Why would you tell someone to talk about a useful topic in privmsg? No offense but if you are going to help, do it in the thread.
Click to expand...

Agreed. That way it shows up in search results and other people can benefit as well :)

I'd love to hear your thoughts here, publicly in the thread though!

So, update:

It doesn't appear to be mythfilldatabase that is the problem. After deleting the channels, Exiting MythTV backend Setup and running mythfilldatabase, it pulls records for 70-something channels, rather than the 700-something channels it did originally.

Next time I open up MythTV backend Setup - however, all 700-something channels are back again... :confused:

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Matt
 
I agree, actually. It was well after Midnight local and I wasn't thinking straight.

You don't want to DELETE the channels, you just want to disable them (either in MythTVSetup or in MythWeb)
 
svet-am said:
I agree, actually. It was well after Midnight local and I wasn't thinking straight.

You don't want to DELETE the channels, you just want to disable them (either in MythTVSetup or in MythWeb)
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You mean in the Frontend? I didn't see an option to disable them in the backend...
 
No, I mean in MythTVSetup

MythTVSetup -->Channel Editor-->Select a channel-->Uncheck "Visible"

292035z.png
 
svet-am said:
No, I mean in MythTVSetup

MythTVSetup -->Channel Editor-->Select a channel-->Uncheck "Visible"

292035z.png
Click to expand...

Ah, Excellent! For some reason I completely missed that.

It's going to be a royal pain to enter each one of the channels and check that box, but if that's the only way, so be it.

I wish I could shift or ctrl select multiple channels and make them invisible all at once...


Side note: Do you have a mouse in the setup? For whatever reason whenever I start the setup, my mouse pointer disappears, and doesn't reappear until after I close it.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040893944 said:
Ah, Excellent! For some reason I completely missed that.

It's going to be a royal pain to enter each one of the channels and check that box, but if that's the only way, so be it.

I wish I could shift or ctrl select multiple channels and make them invisible all at once...


Side note: Do you have a mouse in the setup? For whatever reason whenever I start the setup, my mouse pointer disappears, and doesn't reappear until after I close it.
Click to expand...

I do it all over VNC, but yes I have a mouse. You'll find that keyboard is faster anyway, though.

The *fastest* way to enable/disable channels is in MythWeb, as I mentioned prior.
 
svet-am said:
I do it all over VNC, but yes I have a mouse. You'll find that keyboard is faster anyway, though.

The *fastest* way to enable/disable channels is in MythWeb, as I mentioned prior.
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Ahh. Is that installed by default in a mythbuntu backend?

I will have to play with it when I get home.

Thank you for the suggestion!

--Matt
 
Zarathustra[H];1040894033 said:
Ahh. Is that installed by default in a mythbuntu backend?

I will have to play with it when I get home.

Thank you for the suggestion!

--Matt
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about MythBuntu. I use CentOS because I need the stability/reliability/familiarity of Red Hat-like systems.
 
svet-am said:
I don't know anything about MythBuntu. I use CentOS because I need the stability/reliability/familiarity of Red Hat-like systems.
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Ahh, I actually already have an Ubuntu server (which has been stable for me) but still opted to create a separate guest VM on my ESXi machine for the MythTV Backend, due to hearing all about it being finicky about updates and things potentially breaking.

Seeing that I was installing something separate I opted for MythBuntu in order to minimize setup.


And I can happily report that MythWeb is installed by default!


Thank you for all your help!
 
Zarathustra[H];1040894118 said:
Ahh, I actually already have an Ubuntu server (which has been stable for me) but still opted to create a separate guest VM on my ESXi machine for the MythTV Backend, due to hearing all about it being finicky about updates and things potentially breaking.
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I have never seen it be finicky about updates to other packages. what I have seen issues with (which is actually a human issue rather than a machine issue) is making sure that the backend and frontend are the same version of MythTV (or, in the case of XBMC, support the same version of MythProtocol)
 
Are you using schedulesdirect to get your EPG? You can disable channels from there.
 
Pinski said:
Are you using schedulesdirect to get your EPG? You can disable channels from there.
Click to expand...

Disabling the channel in SD doesn't disable it in MythTV. The station will still be there in the EPG but there will just be no guide data for it (unless you are using EIT -- but thatis a whole other conversation)
 
I find it hard to believe there isn't a way to do an insert/modify to the mysql DB for that one field for each record. I don't use mythtv but if it uses a DB there has to be a way to do it.


Edit: Found this in the mythtv wiki. If you aren't familiar with mysql I am sure one of us can whip up something for you if you provided which channels you wanted visible.
 
I haven't watched tv in many years, I wrote a Linux channel selector that simply sends URLs to the browser. It's basically a TV replacement. The app is up in my google drive but I haven't had time to write the readme file.

MythTV sounds very very interesting, but also seems too technical, and I fear it may pooch my OS just like XBMC.
 
morgwon said:
I find it hard to believe there isn't a way to do an insert/modify to the mysql DB for that one field for each record. I don't use mythtv but if it uses a DB there has to be a way to do it.


Edit: Found this in the mythtv wiki. If you aren't familiar with mysql I am sure one of us can whip up something for you if you provided which channels you wanted visible.
Click to expand...

This is actually how I manage my MythTV but I figured since he was a newbie, we should go with an easier route.

To be clear, you likely want to use the ChannelID field rather than the Channel CallSign field. ChannelID is static and doesn't change where the CallSign is user editable.
 
svet-am said:
This is actually how I manage my MythTV but I figured since he was a newbie, we should go with an easier route.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that. I'm a Linux veteran, and have been running servers for almost a couple of decades, but I have never really had a reason to delve into the world of Databases in general or MySQL specifically.

It's something I really ought to learn though.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040895491 said:
Thank you for that. I'm a Linux veteran, and have been running servers for almost a couple of decades, but I have never really had a reason to delve into the world of Databases in general or MySQL specifically.

It's something I really ought to learn though.
Click to expand...

running MySQL command line can be a bitch, quite frankly. if you use something like PHPMyAdmin, it's easier to wrap your head around.
 
svet-am said:
Disabling the channel in SD doesn't disable it in MythTV. The station will still be there in the EPG but there will just be no guide data for it (unless you are using EIT -- but thatis a whole other conversation)
Click to expand...

As he's using an InfiniTV, deleting all the channels, and disabling the ones you don't want in SchedulesDirect will do what he wants just fine.
 
svet-am said:
I agree, actually. It was well after Midnight local and I wasn't thinking straight.

You don't want to DELETE the channels, you just want to disable them (either in MythTVSetup or in MythWeb)
Click to expand...

So, still having issues.

In mythweb I unchecked the "visible" box on all the channels I didn't want to see, and clicked save.

The page reloaded, and all the boxes were checked again :confused:

Do I need to shut down mythbackend before making these changes in mythweb?

Much obliged,
Matt
 
Pinski said:
As he's using an InfiniTV, deleting all the channels, and disabling the ones you don't want in SchedulesDirect will do what he wants just fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

If this whole "unchecking visible" thing doesn't work, I'll try this next.
 
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Zarathustra[H];1040897530 said:
Thanks for that.

If this whole "unchecking visible" thing doesn't work, I'll try this next.
Click to expand...

Also, a bit unrelated, but is this typical MythTV behavior?

Encoder Status
Encoder 1 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.0 ] is local on myth and is watching Live TV 'Puss in Boots' on FXHD. This recording is scheduled to end at 3:10 PM.
Encoder 2 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.1 ] is local on myth and is recording 'Regular Show' on TOONHD. This recording is scheduled to end at 2:00 PM.
Encoder 3 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.2 ] is local on myth and is recording 'Puss in Boots' on FXHD. This recording is scheduled to end at 3:10 PM.
Encoder 4 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.3 ] is local on myth and is not recording.
Encoder 5 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.4 ] is local on myth and is not recording.
Encoder 6 [ CETON : 10.0.1.16-RTP.5 ] is local on myth and is not recording.
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I would have expected that if I am both recording and watching the same show on the same channel, they would share a tuner. It seems wasteful if it doesn't. Is this a settings problem?

Thank you again :)
 
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Zarathustra[H];1040897530 said:
Thanks for that.

If this whole "unchecking visible" thing doesn't work, I'll try this next.
Click to expand...

Limiting the amount of channels available in Schedules Direct is really not the way to go about it. I too have tons and tons of channels. The way I deal with it is to set up favorites (Channel Groups: Setup -> Video -> Channel Groups) on my EPG. So for example you could set up a EPG for Sports, Action, or Drama. Once you associate your favorite channels (there's only like 30 channels I watch out of the hundreds I have) with your custom EPG you'll never click on something that isn't there. Works well and it's good if you have kids.



It's much easier to do it this way (and it works quite well) then trying to go through 700 channels.
 
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Does anyone know if there is a way to speed up mythcommflag?

It's humming along at ~95fps on my FX8350 server, with CPU usage under 4%.

I remember stumbling across a forum post somewhere where someone made some setting change that allowed mythcommflag to take more of the CPU, but I can't seem to find it now. Any thoguhts?
 
Zarathustra[H];1040898130 said:
Does anyone know if there is a way to speed up mythcommflag?

It's humming along at ~95fps on my FX8350 server, with CPU usage under 4%.

I remember stumbling across a forum post somewhere where someone made some setting change that allowed mythcommflag to take more of the CPU, but I can't seem to find it now. Any thoguhts?
Click to expand...

Same section in the screen shot above. Instead of Channel Groups select General. Speed up is like the 3rd page or so.
 
Thank you guys for all your help thus far.

I have had two issues with the setup. Have you encountered them?

1.) On occasion a recording will just stop before the show is over. The other day I recorded the Brazil - Mexico soccer match for my girlfriend (She is Brazilian). Came back to it later to watch it with her, and it had stopped only 13 minutes in. The back end status said it was still recording, but the viewable recording never grew above 13 minutes in length. It has happened to a couple of shows since. Has this ever happened to anyone else? How did you fix it?

2.) Ad flagging seems hit or miss. Sometimes it works perfectly, and other times not at all. I have noticed in the settings that there are a few different options for what method to use. I've just left it on the default. Are any other methods more effective?

Much obliged,
Matt
 
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