541. Setting up mythtv on debian with leadtek 1000s (SAA7130)

I've been using me-tv (and occasionally kaffeine and vlc) to watch DVB-T on linux for the better part of two years. While it's working absolutely fine, and I really like me-tv, I'd like to get it to work in mythtv as well in the hope that it will support closed captioning.

Note that mythtv is only available via the deb-multimedia repo and not in the offical debian repos. I first tried to install mythtv that way, and while I got pretty far (scanned for channels etc.) I couldn't get a picture when trying to watch TV using mythtv-frontend. The deb-multimedia packages also screwed up my graphics card set-up somehow, which didn't improve my mood. So while that's probably a viable method, I finally decided to compile things myself. Note that if you do keep deb-multimedia enable and do a dist-upgrade the mythplugins package below will be replaced, and with that the main mythtv package as well, leading to all kinds of fun. You might want to give mythplugins a higher version number than I've done below to circumvent that.

---

Building

sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash

Select 'No', so that /bin/sh/ points to bash instead of dash.

The next port of call was http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/User_Manual:Initial_Installation 

sudo apt-get install build-essential liblircclient-dev libasound2-dev libdts-dev libdvdnav-dev \
 libxv-dev libxxf86vm-dev transcode libmp3lame-dev subversion qt4-dev-tools libqt4-dev libsamplerate0 \
 libxvidcore4 liba52-0.7.4-dev libfame-dev libcdio-dev msttcorefonts libasound2-doc libmad0-dev \
 libid3tag0-dev libvorbis-dev libflac-dev libcdaudio-dev libcdparanoia0-dev fftw3-dev libfaad-dev \
 libsmpeg-dev libmp4v2-dev libtag1-dev mysql-server libvisual-0.4-dev libexif-dev libxvmc-dev \
 libxinerama-dev uuid-dev libicu-dev 
sudo apt-get install yasm checkinstall gdb python-mysqldb python-urlgrabber libnet-upnp-perl
mkdir ~/tmp/mythtv -p
cd ~/tmp/mythtv
git clone -b fixes/0.27 git://github.com/MythTV/mythtv.git
cd mythtv/mythtv/
./configure --enable-proc-opt
make
sudo checkinstall --fstrans=no --install=no

0 -  Maintainer: [ andy@helium ]
1 -  Summary: [ mythtv 0.27 ]
2 -  Name:    [ mythtv ]
3 -  Version: [ 0.27 ]
4 -  Release: [ 1 ]
5 -  License: [ GPL ]
6 -  Group:   [ checkinstall ]
7 -  Architecture: [ amd64 ]
8 -  Source location: [ mythtv ]
9 -  Alternate source location: [  ]
10 - Requires: [  ]
11 - Provides: [ mythtv ]
12 - Conflicts: [  ]
13 - Replaces: [  ]

Exclude files that are in the home directory.

Continue:

sudo dpkg -i mythtv_0.27-1_amd64.deb
cd ../mythplugins/
sudo apt-get install libmysql++-dev python-oauth libdate-manip-perl libxml-simple-perl libimage-size-perl libdatetime-format-iso8601-perl libsoap-lite-perl libjson-perl 
./configure
make
sudo checkinstall --fsmetrans=no --install=no

0 -  Maintainer: [ root@helium ]
1 -  Summary: [ mythplugins 0.27 ]
2 -  Name:    [ mythplugins ]
3 -  Version: [ 0.27 ]
4 -  Release: [ 1 ]
5 -  License: [ GPL ]
6 -  Group:   [ checkinstall ]
7 -  Architecture: [ amd64 ]
8 -  Source location: [ mythplugins ]
9 -  Alternate source location: [  ]
10 - Requires: [  ]
11 - Provides: [ mythplugins ]
12 - Conflicts: [  ]
13 - Replaces: [  ]

sudo dpkg -i mythplugins_0.27-1_amd64.deb

Note that you may want to use a much higher version number for mythplugins than I've done above -- with 0.27 the deb-multimedia version of the package will take precendence, and cause all kinds of fun...

---

Setting up

sudo useradd mythtv
sudo usermod -a -G mythtv $USER
mkdir ~/.mythtv

Create a file called ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt:

DBHostName=localhost
DBHostPing=no
DBHostName=localhost
DBUserName=mythtv
DBName=mythconverg
DBPassword=mythtv
LocalHostName=helium

where helium is my hostname.
Before you can run mythtv-setup you should prepare the mysql database.

mysql -u root -p
> show databases;
> create database mythconverg;zymichost.com
> create user 'mythtv'@'%' identified by 'mythtv';
> create user 'mythtv'@'localhost' identified by 'mythtv';
> set password for 'mythtv'@'%' = password('mythtv');
> set password for 'mythtv'@'localhost' = password('mythtv');
> connect mythconverg;
> grant all privileges on *.* to 'mythtv'@'%' with grant option;
> grant all privileges on *.* to 'mythtv'@'localhost' with grant option;
> flush privileges;
> exit;

Now run setup:

mythtv-setup

The first time I did this it asked about country and language, and then exited. I then ran it again and went through the setup as shown in the figures below. Note that I had to use the IP, 192.168.2.123, of my computer rather than 127.0.0.1 (i.e. localhost).

I then ran

mythbackend

and let it run in a terminal, followed by

mythfrontend

in another terminal. And it worked! I mean, not the first time, but by following the instructions above I actually got it to work -- up to a point. The audio wasn't working.

While TV is a visual medium it's still nice to have sound. So, in mythfrontend I went to Settings, Audio and picked Pulseaudio, since that's what I use by default anyway.

 I did have the occasional issue with sudden white noise, so I changed to ALSA, and all has been perfect ever since:

---

Test driving:
Everything seems to be working fine. Hit M for menu:

 You can choose subtitles (or just hit T):

To bring up the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) hit S:

See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Keybindings for a list of shortcuts.

Anyway, I'm still exploring. The one thing that's not working yet is the remote control, but that will be solved in due course.

---

Missing channels:
Mythtv didn't pick up channels Nine, Gem and Go. While scan found them without issue by doing 'scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/au-Melbourne > channels.conf', I couldn't find an easy way to import the scan data.

Nine Melbourne:191625000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_3_4:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:519:720:1072
GEM:191625000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_3_4:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:0:1073
GO!:191625000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_3_4:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:517:700:1074
EXTRA:191625000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_3_4:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:520:730:1075
EXTRA 2:191625000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_3_4:FEC_3_4:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_16:HIERARCHY_NONE:521:740:1076

Trying to import an existing scan in mythtv didn't allow me to provide a URL, but only showed two old scans pre-populating the import dialogue, which was both weird and annoying.

Instead the key was to add a new transport: fire up mythtv-setup, and go to the Channel editor. Note that I'm using a different skin/menu to the default one (Terra), but the process is the same.

See scan output above for the values to add here

 And you're pretty much done.