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Anybody in the UK here?
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5626		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  Dirky [ Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:47 am ]
Post subject: 
Hmm, I got the channel numbers in, oddly it still does not seem to change channel.

Anyway, I got myself a PVR250 card now, I've put this in the frontend box which is a EPIA M1000.
I have a question.

Can I control this box with the haupage remote and the receiver which came with this card?

I'm building a IR blaster to run on the serial port to control the sky box.

Thanks
Mike
Author:  parkinpants [ Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:49 am ]
Post subject:  Uk user
Hi,

I'm been using linux for about 4 months now and making lots of progress. I have my mythbox running in my lounge on a 42" plasma screen in Manchester. I have it wirelessly connected to the house router and can access it from my room via Putty (for ssh) and Cygwin (X client to run the frontend on my Windows PC upstairs)

I have also got my own tailor made MythMusic program working complete with my own theme. The mythusic program now has 4 trees, one for Playlist, Artist, Album and track. I find this far easier to manipulate large mp3 collections. Anyone who wants a copy of the updates just ask.

I have gone for a:

Casetronic C137A silver case
VIA epia MII 1.2ghz
Panasonic Optical Slimline DVDRW
100GB 2.5" HD
Hauppage WinTV PVR 350 DVB-T
Asus WL07G Cardbus/PCMCIA
Knoppmyth R5A16

(I have documented my installation setup for anyone else with the same hardware.)


I am still struggling with the following though:

1. getting wireless to connect automatically on bootup (using ndiswrapper driver)
2. getting Watch TV to work (BBC works but with snow, all others are static)
3. not attempted TV out from the PVR350... seems like a headache!
4. TV-out from the motherboard works but I have to do CTRL ALT F1 and then CTRL ALT F7 (otherwise it comes up in green and purple)
5. Remote doesn't work with mythgame, the colour keys don't do anything, the TV/MUSIC hotkeys don't work.
6. CD ripping takes far too long (tried to enable DMA but doesn't seem any faster). DVD ripping took about 1.5 hrs to rip a 1 hr DVD
Author:  kevinatkins [ Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:46 pm ]
Post subject: 
Hi Parkinpants,

Looks like you've got a nice setup. I'm building something similar with an Epia ME6000 (even slower!!!) and might be able to help you with a couple of your problems -

4. TV Output not working properly. I had this, too. I seem to remember that the CLE266 can be very picky about modelines. And remember to specify the video RAM in your xorg.conf / XF86Config file - I found this necessary. I also found the following article very helpful, and the xorg.conf file shown in the article works well:
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=25587&group_id=102048

6. CD ripping. Yes, it does take *ages*. There are two reasons for this. One is that, by default, MythMusic is set to use full paranoia in the CDParanoia audio extraction process, and even setting it to 'Faster' doesn't disable it completely. Hack the code and add an option to disable completely. The other problem is with compressing to Ogg or MP3 - it just takes ages on a low-powered machine like an Epia (best I've ever had is just over 1x). You could try Flac instead, but the compression is nothing like that achieved using Ogg /MP3 - so it's a trade off of speed of encode vs. disk space.
Author:  miraclemaker [ Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:59 pm ]
Post subject: 
Mephi wrote:

The channel frequencies are stored in the mythtv-setup program.

You need to get the right ones for your area, I got mine from the bbc website, but I don't have the URL any more.

Mephi


The info you're after is in the Wiki:

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... MythConfig

I'm also in the UK, in Leamington Spa. I went to university in Lancaster Dirky.
Author:  parkinpants [ Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:09 am ]
Post subject:  Tv mode
Hi,

As for the Tv mode, I've been through that guide for UKConfig on the wiki to get where I am. However I have the following issues:

1. I have a DVB-T card, so I want more than just channels 1-5; so I also need all the frequency ID's for all the freeview channels aswell - these are not on the BBC website - any ideas?

2. When I lived in Sheffield I could only get BBC1 (I think) and it was black and white, snowy and choppy. Now that I live in Bury. Manchester I have changed the frequency ID's to correspond with the 'Winter Hill transmitter'. Now I can't get anything but static/snow.

3. The guide on the wiki does mention that DVB setup is much more tricky and then gives a load of instructions of updating the kernel with drivers etc. However these refer to a very old release of Knoppmyth and I am running R5A16 Mythtv0.18. I am assuming (perhaps naively) therefore that I do not need to follow this? Is that right? If so they should probably update the wiki?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!

I haven't looked into the other advice about the Tv-Out bug yet, will get back to you on that later.

thanks
Nick
Author:  parkinpants [ Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:21 am ]
Post subject:  cd-ripping
ok,

so as for the cd-ripping....

If I put MS Media Centre on my system (god forbid) it would rip mp3's using the Lame encoder (CD-EX) pretty quickly. You mentioned processor power being crucial so bear in mind though I have 1.2ghz compared to your 600mhz (the price you've paid for a fanless system I guess).

So, anyway, the MS MC comparison shows that the problem is software rather than hardware. I may be wrong but I suspected it may be because win32 programs rip and encode simultaneously or 'on-the-fly'. Are the 'linux mp3 ripping' project guys just a little bit behind perhaps?

In any case, can you tell me how I go about 'hacking' the code to diable Paranoia as that seems to be my best step forward at the moment. FLAC is not for my needs whereas OGG vorbis is still a bit of a compatability issue with portables etc, though ultimately OGG something I'd like to go for.
Author:  kevinatkins [ Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:24 pm ]
Post subject: 
hi parkinpants,

i think the main bottleneck with the ripping is really with the use of cdparanoia and the error checking this entails - i don't think that the win32 programs use error checking, and frankly, i think it's overkill anyway for the myth application. i've got another machine running an athlon 1100, and did some tests using 'grip', and using cdda2wav instead of cdparanoia, rip times were more than acceptable. turning paranoia 'off' when using cdparanoia also yielded similar favourable results.

to hack the code, having first made a backup of your original files, you need to make a couple of changes. in the mythmusic source tree, find the file 'globalsettings.cpp' and add another option to the ParanoiaLevel stanza, thus:

Code:
static HostComboBox *ParanoiaLevel()
{
    HostComboBox *gc = new HostComboBox("ParanoiaLevel");
    gc->setLabel(QObject::tr("Error checking"));
    gc->addSelection(QObject::tr("Full"), "Full");
    gc->addSelection(QObject::tr("Medium"), "Faster");
    gc->addSelection(QObject::tr("None"), "Fastest");
    gc->setHelpText(QObject::tr("Error checking during CD import. Set to "
                    "none if you're not concerned about "
                    "possible errors in the audio."));
    cout << "gc = " << gc << endl;
    return gc;
};


now open the file 'cdrip.cpp' and find the 'int Ripper::ripTrack(QString &cddevice, Encoder *encoder, int tracknum)' method.

find the part a few lines down relating to setting the paranoia level and change it to -

Code:
    if (gContext->GetSetting("ParanoiaLevel") == "Full")
   {
        paranoia_modeset(paranoia, PARANOIA_MODE_FULL |
                                   PARANOIA_MODE_NEVERSKIP);
   }
    else if (gContext->GetSetting("ParanoiaLevel") == "Faster")
   {
        paranoia_modeset(paranoia, PARANOIA_MODE_OVERLAP);
   }
    else
   {
        paranoia_modeset(paranoia, PARANOIA_MODE_DISABLE);
   }


this will then make use of the extra setting you've added to the global settings file.

Compile the thing, then when you run, go into music settings and make sure paranoia level is set to 'none' and paranoia will be turned off.

I've made quite a few changes to Myth Music, including the ability to select individual tracks for ripping and burning tracks to audio cd, amongst other things. i'd be happy to email you the code if you're interested - i'm not the best programmer, but the code works and gets the job done!
Author:  parkinpants [ Wed Sep 21, 2005 7:43 am ]
Post subject:  tv out
Hi, thanks for the knowledge, will have a monkey around with that later on

As for the tv-out problems I was playing around with that before. I changed my Xf86Config-4 to that sample file on the website you gave me:

http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_d ... _id=102048

That just killed X, so I recovered the old file.

I then tried makign an adaptation of my current file by adding the following options and settings to the VIA device part....

BoardName "cle266"
Option "PciRetry" "true"
VideoRam 32768
# Option "ActiveDevice" "CRT,TV"
# Option "UseBIOS" "true"
Option "TVType" "PAL"
Option "TVOutput" "S-Video"
# Option "TVOutput" "Composite"
# Option "TVOutput" "RGB"
# Option "TVVScan" "over"
# Option "TVVScan" "under"
# Option "TVDotCrawl"
# Option "DisableVQ" "true"
# Option "NoDDCValue"
# Option "HQVManualSwitch"
# Option "NoHQVVFilter"
# Option "CaptureOverScanOff"
# Option "Cap0Deinterlace" "Bob"
# Option "Cap0Deinterlace" "Weave"
# Option "Cap1Deinterlace" "Bob"
# Option "Cap1Deinterlace" "Weave"
# Option "Cap0FieldSwap"
# Option "NoCap0HFilter"
# Option "NoCap1HFilter"
Option "EnableAGPDMA" "true"
EndSection

As above did nothing. If I commented out most of the #'s then I managed to make it black and white aswell as scrambled.

All I have to do is press CRL ALT FX, then back to F7 to get it to work. What could it possibly be?

thanks
Nick
Author:  kevinatkins [ Wed Sep 21, 2005 4:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
Hmm strange.

Have you checked the TV Out settings in the BIOS - is it set to PAL, and is the output device set to TV, or at least a mix of TV + CRT, etc?

Another thing - make sure the computer monitor is unplugged from the VGA socket when you fire the box up. TV out will work with the VGA plugged in, but the sync will be all wrong.

Oh, there is just one other thing - people have been experiencing problems with RAM on the VIA motherboards (check out the VIA website for more info) - the boards seem to be very fussy about what sort of RAM you install with the latest BIOS - and video is affected because it shares the main RAM. I don't think this is your problem because you are at least getting some output; I ran into the problem myself but cured it by using faster memory. But I really think this is probably not your problem.
Author:  parkinpants [ Thu Sep 22, 2005 3:46 am ]
Post subject:  tv-out
Hi,

yeh I have it set to PAL both in BIOS and XF86onfig-4
BIOS is set to CRT, TV as is XF86onfig-4

It makes no difference, as far as I can tell, whether or not there is a monitor plugged into the VGA at bootup or even at all. Sometimes I have it just plugged into the monitor, othertimes just the TV and other times both.

I don't think it will be RAM related either.
Author:  parkinpants [ Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:41 am ]
Post subject:  tv-out solved
right!

Tv-out on motherboard solved. Just needed to change DPMS to false under the MONITOR part of the XF86Config-4 file.

Now the next main step. Get digital tv tuner to work and then get tv-out to work from the PVR-350!

or rather....

The next step is to realise that there is no such thing as a PVR 350 DVB-T - even though I specifically remember buying it (from DABS). It's a flamin analogue card! Why the hell would anyone be happy to pay £110 for channels 1-5!!!

Off to buy a Nova-T
Author:  kotori [ Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:07 pm ]
Post subject: 
Hope its not too late to reply :)

I'm from Ipswich, but I'm in Mildenhall (Suffolk) currently.

+-+-+-+-+
My KnoppMyth Rig:
Dual Pentium III Mobo w/ dual 833 PIII's
ATI Radeon 9200Pro
512Mb SDRAM
WD 250Gb HD
Author:  Human [ Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:50 pm ]
Post subject:  I'm not in the U.K....
but I encourage all of you who are to list yourselves on the KnoppMyth Frappr: http://www.frappr.com/knoppmythcommunity (link given in case my signature file morphs in the future)

You don't need to use any real contact information, or even your forum name if you don't want to. It's just nice to see pins on the world map where the KnoppMyth community is.
Author:  mattshaw [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:36 am ]
Post subject: 
Mephi and you other UK users

I am in the UK, and my dad has virgin media and a set top box, and I am
trying to get myth going with it.

Could you possibly send me an email to the address below, and we can share experiences.
Author:  Human [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:35 am ]
Post subject: 
mattshaw wrote:
Could you possibly send me an email to the address below, and we can share experiences.

Why not have the discussion on the forum so that others can benefit?
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