stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

MythNetTV release 6

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:09:00 GMT

New things in this release:

Better testing:

r114: Unit tests for video.py
r148: Updated unit test now that we create more tables
r151: Start work on syndication unit tests
r153: Unit test for bad syndication dates, as well as more flexibility in db connections needed for this unit test
r157: Nicer unit test failure output, and refactor GetVideoDir() into the utility module
r181: Slightly improve syndication unit tests
r183: Add flag parsing to unit tests, and fix some more flag name changes

Better documentation:

r117: Added a man page for video.py -- I'm not 100% happy with its name though

Bug fixes:

r114: Fixed a bug where the new filename for video transcode could be the same as the input filename, resulting in video corruption. This was found with one of the new video.py unit tests
r116: The logic for the --prompt flag was the wrong way around. Fixed.
r119: Nicer download status messages
r121: Handle 404s in feed updates better
r129: Slight tweak to SVN submit script
r131: More accurate tracking of proxy usage (update during download, instead of just at the end)
r137: Proxy budget being exceeded doesn't count as a failed download attempt
r143: Subscribe now renables inactive subscriptions
r146: Add support to decimals to utility byte printer, fix a bug in the check for video directories
r155: Have users send problems to the mailing list, instead of me personally
r161: Don't throw exceptions for the videodir command line
r167, 169: Display friendly sizes in records_tool output
r171: Move verbose update arg into a flag
r173: Add "-vo null" to mplayer invocation per Ryan Lutz. This improves support on machines without X, and speeds up the identify operation
r175: Import patch from Thomas Mashos which fixes subscription removal, started work on syndication unit test improvements
r177: Fix character escaping bug in show subtitles during import
r179: Renamed --datadirdefault to --datadir. If set this will now change your data directory, regardless of if there was a previous value set.
r190: Recording_tool now prompts for deletes
r192: Improved explainvideodir output
r194: Don't crash in explainvideodir if there is no video directory
r197: Order results by subtitle in recordings_tool output

New features:

r115: Upgraded schema to version 15 to support http_proxies for subscriptions. Added http_proxy command line, which allows you to use HTTP proxies for specified URLs. Moved HTTP accesses to use the proxy code.
r127: Bump schema to v17, and add proxy use tracking including the "proxyusage" command
r133: Allow daily budgets for proxy usage
r115: Provide a user agent for HTTP requests, instead of just Python-urllib/1.17
r117: Users will now be prompted to subscribe to an announcements video feed. This will happen exactly once. This behavior may be disabled with the --nopromptforannounce command line flag.
r125: Add a full info dump command to video.py's command line interface
r139: Bump schema to 19, and implement categories with the "category" command
r141: Implement recording group support, and clarify category support
r151: Implement a helper (recordings_tool) for handling the MythTV recordings table, this is useful for testing.
r159: Add videodir and explainvideodir debugging commands, and update man page
r163: Add title list feature to recordings_tool
r165: Include recording count in title list
r185: Add the resetattempts command

Development changes:

r123: Added a submit script to automate putting the revision number into the ChangeLog
r135: Tweak to new ChangeLog auto logging formatting

Release 6 continues the tradition of better testing, improves the documentation (a little, there is more work to be done there), fixes a bunch of bugs, and implements some new features which will hopefully be useful to others. Please grab your copy here.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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Please help me test trunk

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:42:00 GMT

I'm getting ready to do another MythNetTV release, as I've fixed quite a few things recently. I'd appreciate people testing the new code before I do an official release. You can get the current code like this:

svn co http://www.stillhq.com/mythtv/mythnettv/svn

That will create a directory called mythnettv, with a subdirectory named trunk, which is the latest development version of the code. You should probably create that directory somewhere where you don't mind a new directory being created.

This release has lots of small changes, which are listed in the ChangeLog which will be downloaded with the code.

Thanks.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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Couldn't determine the video directory?

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:32:00 GMT

A couple of people have contacted me in the last couple of days with an error where MythNetTV can't determine the directory to put videos in. The error would look something like this:


Importing data/tekzilla--0050--tehbunniez--hd.h264.mp4
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./mythnettv", line 453, in 
    main(sys.argv)
  File "./mythnettv", line 212, in main
    mythnettvcore.DownloadAndImport(db, guid, out=out)
  File "/home/mythbox/Scripts/mythnettv/mythnettvcore.py", line 92, in 
  DownloadAndImport
    prog.Import(out=out)
  File "/home/mythbox/Scripts/mythnettv/program.py", line 472, in Import
    raise FilenameException(self.db, 'Could not determine the video '
program.FilenameException: Could not determine the video directory for this 
machine. Please report this to mythnettv@stillhq.com

The stack trace is mostly irrelevant. The problem here is that MythNetTV couldn't decide what directory to put the video in once downloaded. Please execute the following SQL statements against your MythTV database:

select * from storagegroup where groupname="MythNetTV";
select * from storagegroup where groupname="Default";
select * from settings where value="RecordFilePrefix";

This will dump all of the possible places MythNetTV will look for a video directory.

Once you've dumped this information, perform some simple checks:

Is there anything listed at all? If not, you need to configure storage groups with the MythTV user interface
Is there anything listed with the hostname that MythNetTV is running on? If not, you need to add configuration entries for your current hostname.

If you're still having problems, please send email to mythnettv@stillhq.com, with the output of those select commands, and the output of the hostname command.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv() tips()

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MythNetTV release 5

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:11:00 GMT

New things in this release:

There is now a users mailing list at http://lists.stillhq.com/listinfo.cgi/mythnettv-stillhq.com
Moved to a public SVN server at http://www.stillhq.com/mythtv/mythnettv/svn/
Added the 'justone' syntax to the download command
Another try at using gflags. This means that all the command lines have changed slightly.
Moved the core of MythTV out of the user interface file.
Started writing unit tests
Changed user output code so that it doesn't insist on writing to stdout. You can now write to other file descriptors, which makes things like unit tests much easier to write.
Added video/msvideo to the enclosure whitelist
Added HTTP download progress information
Added a flag which turns off the prompts for markread (--noprompt)
Patches from Thomas Mashos
- Search ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt, /usr/share/mythtv/mysql.txt and /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt in that order for MySQL connection information
- A manpage
- setup.py
video.py now has a simple command line interface to let you query it
Fix update of inactive programs bug per http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5580005&postcount=4
Better DB error handling
Included a COPYING file with the right version of the GPL (it was missing before)
Fixed a bug where programs would be downloaded more than once (found with a unit test!)
Started raising exceptions instead of just sys.exit(1). This should make life easier for user interfaces in the future
Default to using storage groups for storing recordings before falling back to the RecordFilePrefix. This makes the behaviour: use a storage group named "MythNetTV" if it exists; use the default storage group if it exists; use the value of RecordFilePrefix.
Transcode avc1 videos, because some need it
Force ASCII encoding of title, subtitle, and all fields in the database to get around feeds which use unicode which python / MySQL can't store correctly
If there is only one attachment to an item, and its not in our whitelist of video formats, then warn the user that you're assuming its a video file and then add it to the todo list
Slight tweak to the signature of video.MythNetTvVideo.Transcode()
Fix buf in RepairMissingDates which caused it to consistently crash
Fix typo in date warning code
Better handling of videos where the length of the video cannot be determined by mplayer

Release 5 is by far the best tested release of MythNetTV yet, with both unit tests and several users working quite closely with me to resolve problems found in the wild. You can grab your copy here.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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Please help me test trunk

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:42:00 GMT

I'm preparing a new release of MythNetTV, and would like some help testing the code, as I have re-factored how the user interface works and there is some risk that I have broken things in the process. You can get the code like this:

svn co http://www.stillhq.com/mythtv/mythnettv/svn

That will create a directory called mythnettv, with a subdirectory named trunk, which is the latest development version of the code. You should probably create that directory somewhere where you don't mind a new directory being created.

The biggest change is that the command line syntax has changed slightly -- the dashes have been removed from the commands. Therefore, to update your list of feeds, you now use:

  mythnettv update

Instead of:

  mythnettv --update

And so on. This was done so that I could add "real" flags, which are used to change default values like where the database configuration is read from, as well as what the default location for the temporary data directory is.

"Real" flags which are currently supported are:

  --datadirdefault:  The default location of the data directory
    (default: 'data')

  --db_host:  The name of the host the MySQL database is on,
              don't define if you want to parse
              ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt instead
    (default: '')
  --db_name:  The name of the database which MythNetTV uses,
              don't define if you want to parse 
              ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt instead
    (default: '')
  --db_password:  The password for the database user, don't
              define if you want to parse 
              ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt instead
    (default: '')
  --db_user:  The name of the user to connect to the database
              with, don't define if you want to parse 
              ~/.mythtv/mysql.txt instead
    (default: '')

  --[no]commflag:  Run the mythcommflag command on new videos
    (default: 'true')

(These are the result of adding the gflags module back into the implementation).

I am hoping to release this version in the next few days, so if you find any bugs please send email to the mailing list.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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MythNetTV mailing list

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:56:00 GMT

I get a few support requests for MythNetTV, and I must admit that I sometimes get quite behind on my personal email, especially when I'm travelling. I've therefore created a mailing list for announcements and discussion in the hope that people will chat and come up with great ideas, as well as being able to support each other.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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MythNetTV release 4

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:47:00 GMT

New things in this release:

Removed gflags because people found it hard to find
Bug fix patch from David Linville applied
- Fixed broken imports caused by refactoring
- Transcode not needed for avc1 and m4v
Another bug fix patch from David Linville applied
- Store filesize in the db
Removed some namespace imports I am not a fan of
Made verbosity optional for --update
Small code cleanups
Let the user know of repeated attempts to download a program
Documented the need for bittornado for bittorrent to work
Abandon downloading after 3 failed attempts (you can configure the number)
Detect stuck bittorrent downloads

Release 3 had a few bugs folks reported, this release should fix those problems. Let me know if you still see any. You can grab your copy here.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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Getting rid of cable TV?

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:35:00 GMT

I'm thinking of getting rid of comcast and getting a high def over the air tuner as well as a netflix subscription. I'd be interested in people's opinions of netflix. I guess I'm just fed up with comcast's woeful customer service, quite ordinary analog reception, and complete lack of any new programming. Its been about six months since there was something we really wanted to watch on the channels we get, and I've only just noticed...

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MythNetTV release 3

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:36:00 GMT

New things in this release:

Started work on an RSS exporter for MythTV recordings
DX50 doesn't need transcode
Tweaked supported video mime types so "Tikibar TV" and "Ask a ninja" work
First cut of Bittorrent support
Schema upgrades
Archive recordings as well as importing them
Improved --list output
Subtitle restrictions on download as well
Make subscriptions inactive instead of deleting them (for unsubscribe)
Better filename safening
More markread options
Refactored code to be more sane
Don't archive things imported from the archive location
Bulk import (--importmanylocal)

This version was a long time coming. Sorry about that. You can grab your copy here.

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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init script

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:53:00 GMT

Jake Graft pointed out in a comment that I had forgotten to put the init script from the MythTV book online. My apologies.

#! /bin/sh
#
# mythbackend
#

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

BACKEND=/usr/local/bin/mythbackend
BACKEND_NAME=mythbackend

MYTHUSER="myth"

test -x $BACKEND || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
  start)
        echo -n "Starting MythTV: $BACKEND_NAME"
        su ${MYTHUSER} -c "$BACKEND -v all -d -l ${MBE_LOGFILE}" &
        echo "."
        ;;
  stop)
        echo -n "Stopping MythTV: $BACKEND_NAME"
        killall $BACKEND
        echo "."
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

exit 0

Tags for this post: mythtv() book()

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The book is doing ok

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:43:00 GMT

I must say I am pleased with the Amazon rank for the MythTV book. The ranks seem volatile though -- the other day it was doing well in "Linux books", now its doing well in "video books".

Tags for this post: mythtv() book()

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Illegal download sites for the MythTV book

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:43:00 GMT

In the last week, I have discovered three download sites offering illegal downloads of the MythTV book e-book. If I can find three without really trying, I assume there are a lot more of them out there. This raises a question for which I don't have a good answer. Do illegal downloads of books increase, or decrease sales? I can see arguments either way, but I'm tending towards the belief that they don't increase sales.

Does anyone out there have any data which isn't merely anecdotal? Want to share it?

Tags for this post: mythtv() book()

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MythNetTV release 2

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:24:00 GMT

This release has bug fixes (including code from "nickca" for FLV support), and some new minor features. Enjoy!

Started working harder to ensure video filenames are unique once imported into MythTV, I now prepend video files with epoch seconds at time of import
DIVX (not divx) doesn't need transcode, added. Check for the existence of the video directory, and return an error if it needs creating.
Handle storage groups, check for the existence of the data directory
Updated docs
Complained about the poor state of SWF support
WMV support
FLV support

Get it here if you care: http://www.stillhq.com/mythtv/mythnettv/

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

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Schedules direct is live!

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:36:00 GMT

Ok, for those of us in the US, we'll be glad to know that Schedules Direct is now live with two weeks to spare. It seems that the easiest way to perform the upgrade is to upgrade to 0.20.2, and then change the configuration to use SD instead of Zap2IT. Note that I haven't done it myself yet, but that there are instructions on the MythTV wiki.

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

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Guide data update

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:50:00 GMT

Its been a while since I have commented on the state of US guide data for MythTV here. That's mainly been because I have been waiting for the situation to become more clear. At this stage there are some interesting things to report:

zap2it shutdown is still slated for September 1, 2007
MythTV developers, and others, have teamed together to form Schedules Direct as a replacement
There are forums for Schedules Direct discussion
Schedules Direct will be charging around $5 US a month, at least initially
The first 100 beta testers have been added, and bugs found
Code has been added to the development version of MythTV to start handling Schedules Direct (although you are not forced to upgrade to use the new guide data source)

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

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Video and slides from the Google talk

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:57:00 GMT

I'm a little slow at posting this, because I've been really busy. Google had the video of the MythTV talk online a day after the talk, which was nice. I haven't watched it myself, but hopefully it turned out ok. The talk got a little exciting when I had to reboot one of the machines mid talk because it wasn't seated in its dock properly. Such is life I suppose.

Here are the slides for the talk. Hopefully they'll help someone.

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MythTV talk at Google

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:01:00 GMT

I'm giving a MythTV talk at Google in the next week (although I can't find it on the events calendar at the moment, I'll update this post when I do) so I've been playing with MythTV 0.21 a little more than I have in the past. Its pretty cool.

I'm still writing the talk, so I don't know 100% what it will cover, but I'm thinking it would be good to include some of the stuff from 0.21 as a teaser. Storage groups, the flash player in MythWeb, and the tweaks to the theme system seem like good things to include. Does anyone have other things they think are really cool in 0.21?

Oh, and I'll have to cover guide data for the US, so it might be time to catch up with my MythTV email backlog once again.

Hopefully in you live near Silicon Valley you can come along to the talk and we can chat afterwards.

Update: I found a Google blog post with the details. To quote the most important information:

Like all sessions of the Open Source Developers @ Google Speaker Series, Michael's presentation will be open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 PM at our Mountain View campus; guests should plan to sign in at Building 43 reception upon arrival. Refreshments will be served and all are welcome and encouraged to attend. Michael's presentation will also be taped and published along with all of the public Google Tech Talks.

Tags for this post: mythtv()

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MediaMVP

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:34:00 GMT

Here is a nice video explaining the MediaMVP. I've been looking for silent ways to park MythTV front ends in the kids bedrooms for a while, and this might end up being the way to go. The xbox that Matthew uses at the moment is simply too loud for most use.

I am left wondering if ad skipping works on the device though. I guess there is only one way to find out...

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More reviews

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:41:00 GMT

I just got back from a lovely four days in Tasmania, and am just now catching up with the resulting email backlog. There are some new alerts about reviews of the MythTV book in there which are worth pointing out:

I'm surprised and disappointed that the installation of MythTV through pre-built packages or a CD distributions like KnoppMyth or MythDora were not covered deeper than a sentence or two in passing. This is likely to be a turn off for readers who were hoping for a quick and simple method of getting MythTV up and going.

...

On the whole I consider this a good book that is excellent for the new to intermediate MythTV user, although advanced users may pick a few good pieces of information out of it as well. It was well written and covered most items at just about the right introductory (yes -- practical) level. Once it has taught you the basics, you can then go and look up more details online for features you want to get more information about.

http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/books/Practical_MythTV.html
Linked at: http://smart-home-blog.com/archives/670
Linked at: http://mythtvnews.com/2007/06/29/more-practical-mythtv-book-reviews/

I think the comments about installation technique are fair, although the method described in the book is very likely to result in a nicely working MythTV system, which was not true for the MythTV packages that shipped with Ubuntu at the time of writing (they were a quite old version). Additionally, if you already have a Linux system you want to add MythTV to, then the way described in the book is better than the CD distributions because it doesn't involve a reinstall. I think it's horses for courses -- CD distributions are better for new users, but not for advanced users.

I'll add coverage of CD distributions to my TODO list of things to cover here sometime in the future.

Another review:

My main concern would be the assumption of prior Linux knowledge. The introduction states you need limited or no experience with Linux or Unix. I think that in this case, some time should have been taken to introduce complete Linux newcomers into the Ubuntu environment, which is something that wasn't touched on an awful lot. The installation of Ubuntu was well-covered and is generally a very simple process, but after that not much time was given to familiarise the user with the Ubuntu environment used throughout the book.

The rest of the book is extremely well written, clear and is a very good companion to MythTV. True to its name, it takes a practical approach to solving problems and if you're a Linux user interested in setting up a MythTV installation, it will make a very good resource.

http://fosswire.com/2007/07/11/book-review-practical-mythtv/

Again, it is fair comment to say that we don't spend much time introducing Ubuntu apart from the bits needed to get MythTV working (we talk about installing Ubuntu on bare metal, apt, packages, LVM, disk resizing and so forth). Then again, I imagine that most people who build a PVR machine for their living room only run the PVR software on the machine, and don't tend to use the machine as a general purpose system. After all, who wants to write email on a TV sitting on the couch? Laptops are much better for that. There are also many excellent Ubuntu and Debian books out there already, so it would be a shame to lose focus on our core content and try to be too general. For those needing a more complete Ubuntu introduction I highly recommend Beginning Ubuntu, The Official Ubuntu Book and Ubuntu Hacks.

So, I'm going to chalk that up as two positive reviews, both with useful comments to consider for next time.

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Zap2IT shutdown update

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 02:44:00 GMT

I've been silent on the Zap2IT shutdown issue for a week or so now, mainly because of travel, and also because I was waiting for something useful to happen. I've ready literally hundreds of emails of the users mailing list -- many proposing architectures for distribution of data, or placing various demands about how much someone would be willing to pay for the data. I am yet to see someone actually sit down and write some code though.

So hence this update. There isn't any useful news yet, except for a general reassurance that the developers promise that they are still working on a solution. So, keep on waiting is the plan for now...

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

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