MythTV Backend Scheduler

[MadCPUScientist]

I'm using my QNAP TS-109 Pro along with a PS3 and HDHomerun. This feature would be a really nice addition to the PC-less Home Multimedia Center configuration since the HDHomerun is a network attached tuner. I know that it wouldn't be good for stuff like transcoding but it should be just fine for scheduling.

[phantasis]

Hello MadCPUScientist,

I was researching a similar setup and came upon your post. This would be fantastic! I have a few questions about your current configuration.

On your PS3, what distro of linux are you using? How was the mythtv frontend compiled? I have read of playback issues due to the use of the fb. If HD playback wasn't available it would be somewhat pointless.

Would you use MythTV backend for the recording of the video and then use Twonky to stream the video to the PS3?

I think this could be done easily enough. I know people have used the Linksys NSLU2 with MythTV backend which is less powerful than the 109/209.

[ybot]

I have done this myself, tho it took about a weekend of hackery. I have an install of Mythtv backend 24.1 running on a QNAP 219P, with a $20 dvb-usb dongle.

Steps involved:-
Some dependances
-- Install ipkg, along with the following packages (I'm not sure all of them are required, confirmation either way would be good):-
-- (compilation helpers) - autoconf, automake, binutils, coreutils, gcc, n-curses-*, make
-- (x windowing system) - sm, x11, xau , xauth, etc (pretty much everything with x at the start)
-- (mythtv) - fontconfig, ffmpeg, expat, lame, libdb, libjpeg, libpng, libtiff, libstdc++

Kernel (skip this if you have a network DVB tuner)
-- compile the various dvb-usb modules you require
-- make sure they load and you can at least get w_scan/dvbscan working
-- I found I was unable to get the hotplug mechanism to work correctly (not an issue for me currently as my module has firmware compiled into it), I am looking into this, I was able to just run the necessary commands for quick testing.

Qt
-- compile Qt (this takes _more_ than a few minutes, grab a <favourite beverage of your choice>)
-- ./configure --opensource -release -reduce-relocations -qt-libtiff -qt-libpng -qt-libmng -no-multimedia -nomake tools -nomake examples -nomake demos -nomake docs
-- make (wait many! hours) then make install (I set up a soft link from the install path to a much larger disk after running out of space installing the first time)

MythTV
-- compile mythtv (this also takes a long time)
-- this was where I had the most pain sorting out dependances, fixed the tmpfile creation in configure, and in some cases removed entire sections of mythtv code referencing CD/DVD management, but it works now.
-- configure --prefix=/opt (otherwise it installs into /usr/local and runs out of space)
-- make (again long wait) and make install

MythTV backend setup
-- get xterm forwarding to a remote X server using ssh
-- run mythtv-setup, run a scan, populate the channels, I had some issues with fonts and themes here, it was really annoying

MythFrontend
-- on a macbook I have a frontend running streaming 720p DVB streams from the QNAP, it does about 3-5 percent CPU usage (that is only an estimate, I haven't performed any meaningful tests as yet) it is quite handy replacing a 200W backend with a tiny QNAP server.

I pretty much just followed this guide (http://jantino.nl/blog/1/67/USB-Webcam-on-QNAP-s.html) and extended it for mythtv usage. If people are interested I will write up a full Howto with the various issues I encounted. And if anyone needs a trouble shoot for their own QNAP feel free to PM me.

[BS33DK]

If people are interested I will write up a full Howto with the various issues I encounted. And if anyone needs a trouble shoot for their own QNAP feel free to PM me.

Hi Ybot and others
I am very interested in some help. I have a TS219P and a HDHomerun tuner that I would like to have running MythTV. So any help from a guy with the know-how would be appreciated.
Thanks

[ybot]

Hi BS33DK,

So how far did you get?

Providing a detailed Howto (other than the general steps above) is hard unless I know if other people are attempting this. If you have a HDHomerun tuner the setup will be a little easier.

[fstrange]

Hi

I'm also looking for this kind of solution. I have HDHomerun tuner and is using WD TV Live for playback for now. Looking for recorder solution running on the NAS.

I haven't any compiling experience. Can I be of any assistance in order to get this solution you and running?

Regards, Fredrik

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

[BS33DK]

Well, I only got to step 1 (Install ipkg) after that, i'm not sure what you mean by "the following packages" and how to install them, and from where.
I do have telnet and ssh access to my TS219P. But apart from open I don't have a clue where to start...
Please point me in the right direction. (Then I could help write a complete how-to guide)
Thanks in advance
BS33DK

[ybot]

Hi everyone,

People seem interested in getting this up and running, excellent.

I am submitting a Howto after this post I will come back and edit with your input. Currently this only gives the steps upto kernel compilation. I will do some more hackery tonight and see if I can't expand it significantly.

Thanks for your patience,
ybot

[ybot]

Using wiki instead

http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/How_to_install_MythTV

[BS33DK]

Hi ybot

Thanks for the wiki link. That took me a step closer (I hope)

However, after installing ipkg add-ons the guide says:
"Ok, so now were are ready to start delving into the compilation of the modules required for MythTV. Depending on your setup you will either want to install modules for USB tuners"
What does that mean? And how should I proceed when I am using a HDHomerun tuner?
Thanks man

BS33DK

[ybot]

Hey BS33DK,

Heh, I hadn't got around to describing the USB tuner vs Network tuner setup. I have just explained the difference in more detail.

So, you have a network tuner, as MythTV supports that natively (only requires network socket control, and some DVB headers) you do not need to build the kernel dvb-usb modules that are outlined in the "Using Kernel modules tuners" section. I'm not 100% certain of this information as I don't actually have a HD homerun tuner, but I'm pretty sure this is true.

What you should do ... is start trying to compile Qt (download the kernel source because that will be required for MythTV compilation). So you would skip directly to the "Compiling Qt" section, hopefully this should allow you to get a working Qt build environment. Tell me if you have any problems.

Good luck,
ybot

[unevenmass]

In order to compile QT I had to also install xrender

Code: Select all

ipkg install xrender

I'm a bit stuck with the MythTV part, I've followed the wiki instructions to

Code: Select all

cd mythtv-0.24.1

But then don't understand how to patch configure to get it to work on this platform.

Is there some files I need to edit or commands to run?

[BS33DK]

Hi ybot
I encountered a different problem:

Code: Select all

[/share/HDA_DATA/labatory] # wget http://get.qt.nokia.com/qt/source/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4.tar.gz
--2011-09-14 20:51:22--  http://get.qt.nokia.com/qt/source/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4.tar.gz
Resolving get.qt.nokia.com... 87.248.203.73, 87.248.201.207
Connecting to get.qt.nokia.com|87.248.203.73|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 220388303 (210M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4.tar.gz'

 8% [======>                                                                                     ] 18,608,006   134K/s   in 2m 5s


Cannot write to `qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4.tar.gz' (No space left on device).

Code: Select all

[/share/HDA_DATA/labatory] # df
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/ram                 32.9M     32.9M      1.0k 100% /
tmpfs                    32.0M    108.0k     31.9M   0% /tmp
/dev/sda4               310.0M    249.2M     60.8M  80% /mnt/ext
/dev/md9                509.5M    100.4M    409.1M  20% /mnt/HDA_ROOT
/dev/md0                  1.8T      1.6T    198.7G  89% /share/MD0_DATA
tmpfs                    32.0M         0     32.0M   0% /.eaccelerator.tmp

How to create more space for this install?
Thanks

[unevenmass]

Looks like you have free space on /share/MD0_DATA

use that drive instead of /share/HDA_DATA

I had this too as I also blindly followed instructions

Maybe the author doesn't have raided disks??

[ybot]

unevenmass,

Correct, no raided disk for me, a lonely 3TB drive at the moment. I fixed both those issues you raised, thanks for the catch.

@BS33DK listen to unevenmass (and please also make sure you remove that tar.gz you partially downloaded, you have 1k in your root partion)

One thing to point out right now unevenmass is to compile the mysql plugin for Qt (sorry I didn't include it in the Qt compile and am changing the howto right now) by doing the following:-
cd /opt/include/mysql/ (create it if not present)
cp /usr/local/mysql/include/mysql/* .

this copies headers from your system to Optwares ipkg system (this is bad bad bad I know, but I am still working out how to do this automagically)

change directory back into your Qt build

cd src/plugins/sqldrivers/mysql/
make
cp ../../../../plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlmysql.so /opt/Qt-4.7.3/plugins/sqldrivers/

(hopefully this should work, sorry)

Continuing on to your original question ... I just updated the howto with more meaningful commands. So to use patch you (normall) go to the root of the source you are interested in and apply a patch. In this case the patch resides in the Appendix area of the howto, grab that text put it into a file and use that file as an argument to the patch command.

[/share/MD0_DATA/labatory/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4] patch < configure.patch

This should set you back on track. I will see if I can get the rest of the guide completed asap.

Good luck to you both,
ybot