What follows is my experience running MythTV Backend Setup on Mythbuntu. There are plenty of items in the various screens that I don't understand, but I'll provide comments on what I do know, since it seems to be enough to have my system running, for now.
To run the backend setup program exit the front end by hitting <ESC> until it asks you if you want to quit. Select Yes, naturally. You are then back at the minimal Xubuntu screen. At the top left is a button for Applications. The bottom entry under that is System. The fourth entry under System is MythTV Backend Setup. When it starts up it warns you that the backend is running and gives you the option to stop it, which you want to do. Then you have the backend setup menu. The setting choices shown below are for the Portland, Oregon, area. So, if you're reading this from another part of the world, keep in mind that several of your choices will be different. 1. Global The first screen in the Global menu option is titled Host Address Backend Setup. I left everything on this screen the way it was. The next screen is Locale Settings. While we just finished (in another post) talking about how we're now using ATSC instead of NTSC, NTSC is the correct setting for TV Format. I have VBI format set to none. I don't know what that does. Channel frequency table should be set to us-bcast. Your local time zone (for XMLTV) is set to None. Again, I'm not sure what this is for, but it's not something I'm using -- at least I don't think I'm using it. I left everything on the Miscellaneous Settings screen as is. I also left the entries on the EIT Scanner Options screen alone. Ditto for the Shutdown/Wakeup Options screen, the Backend Wakeup settings screen, the Backend Control screen, the Job Queue (Backend-Specific) screen, the Job Queue (Global) screen, the Job Queue (Job Commands) screen, and the Program Schedule Downloading Options screen. 2. Capture Cards Here is where you tell the backend what you're using to grab signals from the ether or the cable. You'll create a separate capture card for each signal source. For your HDHomeRun, assuming you have the one with two coax connectors on the back, you'll need to create two capture cards if you have separate antennas going into them. So far I'm just using one of them. Mine has the name HDHOMERUN:10102DC6-0. I'm guessing that I'll have another one ending in -1 once I put a second antenna on the box. An alternative would be to put an antenna splitter between your antenna and your HDHomeRun box, connecting to each of the inputs. I'll walk through editing the settings of my existing capture card. I'm hoping that will be close enough to creating a new one. On the Capture Card Setup screen the first line is for the Card Type. I chose HDHomeRun DTV tuner box. The next line is for Available devices. I chose 10102DC6-0. The only alternative is 10102DC6-1. (I have my antenna connected to port 0 on the HDHomeRun box.) The next three lines are information only, providing a description of the device, it's IP Address, and which Tuner you're using on the device. Recording options gives you a new screen. I kept the defaults. Finish takes you back to the Capture Card Setup screen, and Finish on that screen takes you back to the Capture Cards screen. If I understand the HDHomeRun Prime correctly it has three tuners in it. If you're using one of those you probably have to go through this process three times, once for each tuner. <ESC> takes you back to the main backend setup menu. 3. Recording Profiles. I kept the defaults for this menu entry. 4. Video Sources. This screen is where you tell the backend where to get information about the programs available to you. You'll give the video source a name. I called mine HDHomeRun - Antenna. I don't know if I'll have to do this again for a second antenna, but I suspect I will need to do it if I get a HDHomeRun Prime box and get a cable card from Comcast. For the Listings grabber line I chose North America (SchedulesDirect.org) (Internal). The User ID and password are for the SchedulesDirect account. As mentioned in an earlier post, this is a subscription service that costs about $25 a year. It provides the names and various other bits of information that they were able to collect for the programs. After putting in your user ID and password, select Retrieve Lineups. You may or may not see a popup window that says it's part way finished. I think that's okay. I'll come back to this later, because I think a later screen has something related to it. I have an entry for the DataDirect lineup which says, PC:97045. That's my zip code. Perform EIT scan is unchecked. I don't know what this does, but the default was unchecked, so I left it unchecked. The Channel frequency table should be us-bcast. Finish takes you back to the Video Sources screen, and <ESC> takes you back to the main backend setup menu. 5. Input Connec... This takes you to the Input Connections screen. I have one entry, [HDHOMERUN: 10102DC6-0] (MPEG2TS) -> HDHomeRun - Antenna. When selecting that one I get a screen titled Connect source to input. The Capture device is [HDHOMERUN: 10102DC6-0] and the Input is MPEG2TS. I gave it a display name -- which is optional -- of HDHomeRun Video Source. I'm guessing that name won't make sense when I get more video sources through HDHomeRun devices. For Video Source I chose HDHomeRun - Antenna, and I left Use quick tuning at never. The next two were confusing to us at the Plug Clinic. Thanks again, Galen, for your invaluable assistance. What you have to do is select the first button, Scan for channels, first, wait for that to finish, and then select the second button, Fetch channels from listing source. I think what this does is to do a channel scan on the HDHomeRun, much like the one done by HDHomeRun Config GUI. Once it knows all the channels it can then make the connection between those and the programs listed by SchedulesDirect. Not doing these results in an error message when you try to exit the backend setup program, and is probably the cause of the error message about not being able to find a backend server when you try to run the front end. At least I think that's why I got those error messages. Once the channels are scanned you can choose which one to start with. Once you're running the front end, when you select Watch TV, this is the channel that will show up first. The next screen, titled Interactions between inputs, I'm pretty sure I left as it appeared. Finish takes you back to the Input Connections screen, and <ESC> takes you back to the main backend setup menu. There are three more entries on the backend setup menu, 6. Channel Editor, 7. Storage Directories, and 8. System Events. I have not changed anything on any of those screens. Hit <ESC> to exit the backend setup program. When you do you'll get a warning reminding you to run mythfilldatabase on the master backend. After acknowledging that a popup window asks if you want to "start the mythtv backend?" I chose Yes. After entering my password I was asked if I wanted to run mythfilldatabase. Again I said Yes. You'll see a terminal window open and see that process running. It might take awhile because it goes out and gets a couple of weeks worth of programming info. After that, go to Applications > Multimedia > MythTV Frontend, and you may be returned to your regularly scheduled program(s). -- Regards, Richard C. Steffens _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
