Xbox Mythtv Users Help Options

[anitabill]

I got MythTV working on my Xbox.

I do not know Linux at all but it was not really that difficult to get started.
I grabbed an old P2 400, Put in a WinTV PVR-250 capture card. And used the two distributions located on this sight.

http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=Web...=viewlink&cid=3

I have it working and looking as good if not better then my Tivo, I can watch live TV on my XBOX and use the remote to change channels, I can also setup season passes.
And if I get a cheap modem that supports CID, I can screen pop caller ID to the Xbox while watching TV.

Here is my problem. My wife just loves it and we are truly considering getting a second Xbox for the bedroom. But she is a weather nut and for some strange reason I cant get the MythWeather to work or Mythnews. They both work perfectly on the backend. Has anyone gotten these two features working and if so what did you do?

Thanks
Bill

AOL IM
Billtwin605

Yahoo IM
bill_twin

This post has been edited by anitabill: Jan 20 2004, 10:21 PM

[anitabill]

I fixed it.

The documentation on http://bit.blkbk.com/ website reads.

/etc/network/interfaces - set for your local IP addresses

But if you set your local IP it does not work. Follow the directions on Ed’s Debian site located here. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/how...owtodebian.html

----From his site---
Changing TCP/IP network settings
By default, the IP address of your Linux installation is 192.168.0.2. The subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. You can change these and other important TCP/IP network settings (such as the default gateway) by editing the text file

/etc/network/interfaces
For example, to do this in nanoyou would type

cd /etc/network
nano -wz interfaces

If you would like to configure your Xbox for DHCP (automatically getting the IP address and other TCP/IP networking settings from a DHCP server), ensure that it reads

iface eth0 inet dhcp

there and not
iface eth0 inet static.
The DNS server and your domain name are defined in a file called
/etc/resolv.conf
You can edit this file the same way as described above.


By the way if anyone still knows the answerer to the caller ID question. Please contact me


Bill

[shortstuff22090]

so i need to set up my backend then install this
sounds easy. i thought you needed a usb tv tuner. im gunna turn my server into a myth tv backend, cuz its not used much anyway
this is gunna be sweet

[falser]

QUOTE (shortstuff22090 @ Jan 21 2004, 10:35 PM)

so i need to set up my backend then install this sounds easy. i thought you needed a usb tv tuner. im gunna turn my server into a myth tv backend, cuz its not used much anyway this is gunna be sweet

I also have the WinTV 250 card, and the recordings turn out really really nice. Highly recommended.

Using a mini-distro would be a lot easier than getting it to work yourself. I know I ran into a lot of problems before I was able to get everything working well, and I more or less know what I'm doing.

[anitabill]

Falser,

You are rite I used the disto from this site for the backend. http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html and it was really simple to do. It asks you a series of question during the install but nothing that difficult to answer. I also ran into a few problems with my zip code but again it was easy to fix. As far as the Xbox was concerned once you had the right programs it was a piece of cake to setup. We configure the backend and the Xbox at my brother’s house in just less than 2 hours.

The picture from the live TV on the Xbox is better then the picture of the live to on my Tivo. The interface of myth after you get used to it…is just as user friendly. And the quality of the low quality setting in Myth is in my opinion just as clear as the source.

I will be more then happy to share my knowledge (not much ) with anyone who wants to give it a whirl. But I highly suggest that you get a WinTV PVR-250 or 350.

Bill

[shortstuff22090]

so you can get live tv on your xbox with a p2 400 as your backend? i have an amd k6-2 500 i might try, i figured it wouldnt work and that you need a good backend pc

[shortstuff22090]

also i was wondering if recorded tv is recorded on the backend or the frontend, cuz i only have a 10 gig on the pc im gunna use for a backend

[falser]

The shows are recorded on the backend - that's why it's called the backend

If you were to get a WinTV 350 you should be okay with a K6 500. That card has both a hardware MPEG2 encoder and decoder so very little CPU is needed to record or play the files. With my recording settings the files are about 2GB per hour. You could sacrifice quality and get it lower but I wouldn't. With hard drives so cheap these days (120GB for $60 after rebate) you have little reason to settle with a small drive.

This post has been edited by falser: Jan 23 2004, 01:32 AM

[anitabill]

Thanks falser

You beat me to it. Can I ask you a question? What on the front-end have you got working?

I've got
Watch live TV (all PVR functions)
TV Guide
Weather
News
DVD
I have not tried the others. (ripping DVD’s, Music, Videos)

But there are 2 features that I would love to have working,

Caller ID (It broadcast to all front-ends including the Xbox)
LED indicator (You can tell the Xbox’s LED to change colors when something is being recorded on the back-end)

The caller ID feature requires a phone modem that supports CID. From what I understand, this is almost a standard today.

In order to get the LED feature working you have to have the blink application installed on Xebian. This sounds simple enough, but I can’t find any instructions on this.

Bill

[falser]

I've only got the TV functions working, cause that's all I wanted on the xbox front-end. I disabled all the other buttons on the main interface.

I remember reading something about the LED. I might even have the page bookmarked at home, I'll check.

I wasn't even aware there is a CID function in MythTV.

Oh BTW I should have tested it sooner - XBMC can play the recorded shows (.nuv files) that MythTV records from the WinTV 250 card. So you can set up Samba on your backend, and make an XBMC bookmark to it to have a quick way to watch shows without loading up linux.

[shortstuff22090]

hmm idont think it will work on my k6-2 system cuz i have a card without hardware mpeg-2. btw i cant get a bigger harddrive cuz im a 13 year old without a job.

also i was thinking that it would be cool to have xbmp or xbmc incorperate the ability to connect to a myth tv backend. that would be a great addition.

This post has been edited by shortstuff22090: Jan 23 2004, 11:59 PM

[falser]

QUOTE

hmm idont think it will work on my k6-2 system cuz i have a card without hardware mpeg-2.

Yes without a hardware mpeg tuner you won't be able to do this. I used to have an AMD 1.4GHz and software encoder and that was enough, but just barely. The system eventually overheated and blew out the motherboard.

QUOTE

btw i cant get a bigger harddrive cuz im a 13 year old without a job.

Ah - then I recommend convincing your parents that this is something they'd want to use also.

QUOTE

also i was thinking that it would be cool to have xbmp or xbmc incorperate the ability to connect to a myth tv backend.  that would be a great addition.

Actually I've just written up a quick script that allows for a nice way for XBMC to list the shows your MythTV backend has recorded. It's pretty much what I was looking for all along. As I mentioned XMBC can already play the files it records - so all you do is make a script that makes soft links to the 1067_209320293_202302 type of files, but query the mythtv database to get the real name.

So now in my XMBC I can have a "MythTV" entry, and see my shows sorted in reverse order they were recorded:

1 Late Night With Conan O'Brien (Jan-24 12 AM).mpg
2 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (Jan-23 11 PM).mpg
3 South Park (Jan-22 09 PM).mpg

Click and play. I don't even have to load up the xbox-mythtv front end to watch shows anymore. If anyone is interested in the Perl script I used let me know.

This post has been edited by falser: Jan 24 2004, 05:11 AM

[shortstuff22090]

im alking about a addon to xbmp for live tv
that would be tight as hell

and my parents wont buy me anything for my computer, they got me a laptop for xmas so i probly wont get much this whole year

edit: if i did set this all up on my linux pc (p4 2ghz, 256 ram) would it work on wlan, like could i watch live tv on my laptop

This post has been edited by shortstuff22090: Jan 24 2004, 11:07 AM

[falser]

Personally I have found that over time I don't use the LiveTV features very often at all. I just record the shows I'm interested in and never channel surf anymore. To me that is the main benefit of MythTV or Tivo.

If your wireless card is fast enough (like 802.11g or whatever is around 55mbps) then it might be okay.

[Beelzabub]

anyone know of a solution/program that has windows/linux client/server? cause in my case I would like to run the backend on my more powerfull machine which is a XP machine and run the frontend on xbox. I have another linux box which runs slackware but its an old pieace of crap 333mhz :| and but my better machine p4 2.6 running xp so this would be great if something like "SnapStream" had a linux version then could run backend on windows and frontend on xbox via linux.