First off, thank you all for your support and great community spirit. It has helped me out more than once in the past.

I built a MythTV for my sister, and she just bought herself an iPod Touch. I set up her backend system to auto-transcode all files to MPEG-4 (system has a PVR-500 card).

Now, looking at the myth2ipod and ipodfeed forums postings, I am at a lost to help her subscribe to her podcast.

Since all programs are automatically transcoded to MPEG-4 format, I would really only need to generate an XML file automatically (let's say after transcoding only) for her to download, if she wish, to her iPod through iTunes.

I modified the hostname in the Myth2ipod script, but really, I do not want to transcode once more only to have the program added to the XML file.

Has anyone thought of a solution to automatically update an XML file with the program details and filepaths for just this purpose, without needing a second transcoding through nuvexport...

Apologies if this is obvious to everyone, I am quite new to this ipod-craze. More of a living-room TV viewer type of a guy.

Thanks in advance

Don't you have a feed at http://machinename/ipodfeed/feed.php ?

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Thank you for you reply, yes I do have a feed, but it is empty (file is only 1.4KB)

I am using Mythtranscode automatically after each recording, I was hoping to find a way to have the MPEG-4 files (actually named .nuv) seem as though they could be loaded onto said iPod through a Podcast feed.

All my attempts of using all the commands of myth2ipod fail to generate a valid feed.

This is all my feed.php file contains the following and no shows are registered:
<?php
header("Content-Type: text/xml");
echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>"; ?> <rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/DTDs/Podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>MythTV - <? if ($_GET['title'] == "") { $title = "*"; echo "Recorded Programs"; } else { $title = $_GET['title']; echo str_replace("_"," ",$_GET['title']); } ?> </title> <itunes:author>MythTV - myth2ipod</itunes:author> <link>http://192.168.1.100/ipodfeed/</link>
<itunes:subtitle>Transcoded recording for your iPod Video.</itunes:subtitle> <itunes:summary>Myth TV Recorded Programs for the iPod v.1</itunes:summary> <description>Myth TV Recorded Programs for the iPod v.1</description> <itunes:owner> <itunes:name>MythTV</itunes:name> <itunes:email>mythtv@localhost</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2005.</copyright>
<webMaster>mythtv@localhost</webMaster>
<itunes:image href="http://myth2ipod.com/mythipod_200.jpg" /> <itunes:category text="TV Shows"></itunes:category> <category>TV Shows</category> <itunes:image href="http://myth2ipod.com/mythipod_200.jpg"/><image><url>http://myth2ipod.com/mythipod_200.jpg</url>
<title>MythTV 2 iPod</title>
<link>http://192.168.1.100/ipodfeed/</link>
<width>200</width>
<height>200</height>
</image>
<? foreach (glob($title."*.ipod.xml") as $file) {include $file;} ?> </channel> </rss>

Instead of using the default transcode option, use User Job #1, which is the transcode to iPod option. That should give you files in the right format for the iPod, and the feed should be where I indicated earlier. I'm not sure what the generic transcode option does or where it puts the results.

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Will try it out, keep you posted.

I think it might be best to try the other approach, where individual shows can be chosen for ipod-transcoding...

I am already transcoding to MPEG-4 for file saving reasons, would be crazy to duplicate each file to a reduced resolution, JUST in case she wants to add to iPod.

Thanks

Setup an upcoming recording schedule to Encode for the ipod.

Checked Myth setup and job is to be executed on new recordings.

Right now, this show has been transcoded, its commercials flagged, but the Encore for ipod job is Queued and not moving (at least it is not stopping other jobs from executing).

Could it be that the auto-transcoding is causing issues and the export to ipod format fails. Where are the error logs for this script?

Thanks for all your help.

Well, are you also doing your normal post-record transcode? You said you do it to save space, so are you deleting the original recordings when done? It's possible that the iPod transcode assumes MPEG2 for its input, and if you transcode to MPEG4 and then try to transcode again to mp4 for the iPod, that could be why it's failing.

/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log
A trick you can do is run this command in a terminal window (ALT+X) while you attempt a manual transcode to iPod. Then you'll see all the log entries as they happen:

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Yes, I am auto-transcoding, so you must be right... I should potentially be able to use the transcoded MPEG-4 files (from the original MPEG-2 files) and view them on the iPod.

I could try and not delete the originals after transcoding...

Thanks for your help, the mythbackend log showed no errors...

There's most likely a set of transcode parameters that will do it, but myth2ipod (the script that runs when you select to transcode to iPod) may not be what you need to re-transcode mp4 into mp4.

Try a baseline test where you don't transcode at all except for manual (via the menu for the recording in Watch Recordings) transcoding to iPod. If that works, gradually incorporate things like auto-transcoding but keeping the original recordings, and then try to manually transcode to iPod.

No problem As for why it's not logging errors, it's possible that it's failing in a way that the author didn't anticipate, so there's no logging for that event Unfortunately, I don't have the time to investigate why it's not logging errors, but if you've ever wanted to get into perl, adding simple logging output at various points in the script would be a great way to start.

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