Mailing List Archive: Newbie questions.

Newbie questions.

Apr 11, 2003, 6:24 AM

Post #1 of 7 (2610 views)

Dear Myth-TV users,

I've read about Myth-TV on the web, and it seems to be very good.
However, since it also seems to be rather difficult to install,
judging from all the problems reported from this list, I would
appreciate if you could answer some questions I have that I couldn't
find answers to on the net.

For a while, I've been using home brewed software to automatically
record TV. Specifically, a value is assigned to a each show based on
category, keyword matching and a list of shows I don't want to see. The
shows to record in order to maximize the sum of values is then
calculated using an exact algorithm (as opposed to a probabilistic).
The shows are then recorded as NuppelVideo and later denoised,
deinterlaced and converted to divx. Thus, I am able to store one weeks
worth of good TV, all automatically. The questions are then:

1. Does MythTV have a similar system that automatically records good
shows? How does it work?
2. Does MythTV have a simple way of scheduling recordings from the
command line? This would be good if I need to integrate my system with
MythTV.
3. Does MythTV support the option of encoding the recordings to divx in
the background? This is necessary, since there is no way I can store
some 70 hours of recordings as NuppelVideo.

Any help you could give would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Ake Brannstrom

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

joelf at altelco

Apr 11, 2003, 8:02 AM

Post #2 of 7 (2549 views)

Permalink

As far as I know the only conflict-resolution is manual. If two shows
are always in conflict you can set it to remember your selection of
which one should be recorded. If you have multiple tuners, you can
record both :)

Joel Feenstra

Åke Brännström wrote:
> Dear Myth-TV users,
>
> I've read about Myth-TV on the web, and it seems to be very good.
> However, since it also seems to be rather difficult to install, judging
> from all the problems reported from this list, I would appreciate if
> you could answer some questions I have that I couldn't find answers to
> on the net.
>
> For a while, I've been using home brewed software to automatically
> record TV. Specifically, a value is assigned to a each show based on
> category, keyword matching and a list of shows I don't want to see. The
> shows to record in order to maximize the sum of values is then
> calculated using an exact algorithm (as opposed to a probabilistic). The
> shows are then recorded as NuppelVideo and later denoised, deinterlaced
> and converted to divx. Thus, I am able to store one weeks worth of good
> TV, all automatically. The questions are then:
>
> 1. Does MythTV have a similar system that automatically records good
> shows? How does it work?
> 2. Does MythTV have a simple way of scheduling recordings from the
> command line? This would be good if I need to integrate my system with
> MythTV.
> 3. Does MythTV support the option of encoding the recordings to divx in
> the background? This is necessary, since there is no way I can store
> some 70 hours of recordings as NuppelVideo.
>
> Any help you could give would be much appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ake Brannstrom
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

ake at math

Apr 12, 2003, 6:06 AM

Post #3 of 7 (2572 views)

Permalink

Thanks for the answer. I've been considering adding another tuner to my
system, but I haven't done the math yet and I'm afraid that it could
significantly increase the complexity of the TV-selection problem since
I have more than two stations and take the approach that a show should
be recorded if it hasn't been explicitly rejected.

It seems then as if I will have to feed MythTV each morning with a list
of shows to record. I've read that this can be done over the web, so in
a worst case scenario, I can write software to do just that.
However, because of limited disk-space, it is imperative that the shows
that get recorded can be encoded to divx in the background. Is this
possible?

Sincerely,
Ake Brannstrom.

fredagen den 11 april 2003 kl 17.02 skrev Joel Feenstra:

> As far as I know the only conflict-resolution is manual. If two shows
> are always in conflict you can set it to remember your selection of
> which one should be recorded. If you have multiple tuners, you can
> record both :)
>
> Joel Feenstra

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

joelf at altelco

Apr 12, 2003, 7:03 AM

Post #4 of 7 (2540 views)

Permalink

You can set myth to record a show:
whenever it's on anywhere
whenever it's on a certain channel
whenever it's on at a certain time
just one time

It'll remember that setting and setup recording times when new show
listings are grabbed with xmltv (which can also be automated). Then you
just need to go in few days or so and make sure there are no conflicts
in recordings that are comming up.

Joel Feenstra

Åke Brännström wrote:
> Thanks for the answer. I've been considering adding another tuner to my
> system, but I haven't done the math yet and I'm afraid that it could
> significantly increase the complexity of the TV-selection problem since
> I have more than two stations and take the approach that a show should
> be recorded if it hasn't been explicitly rejected.
>
> It seems then as if I will have to feed MythTV each morning with a list
> of shows to record. I've read that this can be done over the web, so in
> a worst case scenario, I can write software to do just that.
> However, because of limited disk-space, it is imperative that the shows
> that get recorded can be encoded to divx in the background. Is this
> possible?
>
> Sincerely,
> Ake Brannstrom.
>
> fredagen den 11 april 2003 kl 17.02 skrev Joel Feenstra:
>
>> As far as I know the only conflict-resolution is manual. If two shows
>> are always in conflict you can set it to remember your selection of
>> which one should be recorded. If you have multiple tuners, you can
>> record both :)
>>
>> Joel Feenstra
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

tack at auc

Apr 12, 2003, 1:09 PM

Post #5 of 7 (2573 views)

Permalink

On Sat, 2003-04-12 at 10:03, Joel Feenstra wrote:
> listings are grabbed with xmltv (which can also be automated). Then you
> just need to go in few days or so and make sure there are no conflicts
> in recordings that are comming up.

If there is a conflict that hasn't been manually resolved, what is
MythTV's default behaviour?

Jason.

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

bjm at lvcm

Apr 12, 2003, 4:12 PM

Post #6 of 7 (2571 views)

Permalink

Jason Tackaberry wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-04-12 at 10:03, Joel Feenstra wrote:
>
>>listings are grabbed with xmltv (which can also be automated). Then you
>>just need to go in few days or so and make sure there are no conflicts
>>in recordings that are comming up.
>
>
> If there is a conflict that hasn't been manually resolved, what is
> MythTV's default behaviour?

The lowest chanid number are assigned to the available
tuners in order. So if you have two tuners and a conflict
for 1003, 1005, and 1008, cardinput 1 gets 1003 and cardinput
2 get 1005. The exception is if you resolved a conflict and
marked it to "remember". An earlier start time also wins so
that if 1008 started earlier, 1 = 1008 and 2 = 1003 even though
the conflict list shows 1008 and 1005 in red before 1008's
start time. If 1005 is the show you decide to not record
you couldn't resolve it and would need to remove it through
the EPG.

It would be better if you could declare what your favorite
show is and the rest in descending order so the it would
choose by preference rather than by accident but this isn't
implemented yet in the scheduler.

Other nice improvements would be if all overlapping shows
could be selected for conflict resolution (red, white or gray).
Hitting "i" on anything in the conflict list should go to
the info page seen in the EPG or program finder.

-- bjm

Re: Newbie questions. [ In reply to ]

ijr at po

Apr 12, 2003, 4:21 PM

Post #7 of 7 (2558 views)

Permalink

On Saturday 12 April 2003 07:12 pm, Bruce Markey wrote:
> Jason Tackaberry wrote:
> > On Sat, 2003-04-12 at 10:03, Joel Feenstra wrote:
> >>listings are grabbed with xmltv (which can also be automated). Then you
> >>just need to go in few days or so and make sure there are no conflicts
> >>in recordings that are comming up.
> >
> > If there is a conflict that hasn't been manually resolved, what is
> > MythTV's default behaviour?
>
> The lowest chanid number are assigned to the available
> tuners in order. So if you have two tuners and a conflict
> for 1003, 1005, and 1008, cardinput 1 gets 1003 and cardinput
> 2 get 1005. The exception is if you resolved a conflict and
> marked it to "remember". An earlier start time also wins so
> that if 1008 started earlier, 1 = 1008 and 2 = 1003 even though
> the conflict list shows 1008 and 1005 in red before 1008's
> start time. If 1005 is the show you decide to not record
> you couldn't resolve it and would need to remove it through
> the EPG.

It's slightly more complicated than that.

Higher priority recordings are selected over lower (ie, the order on the
screen that lets you select the recording type is the priority -- a single
one-time recording is the highest priority and an any-time & any-channel
recording is the lowest priority). Then, if the two conflicting shows are
the same type, it'll choose the one that starts first. If they both start at
the same time, it'll choose the longer show. _Then_, finally, If they're
both the same length, it'll choose the lower channel id over the higher. Of
course, the manual conflict resolution overrides all that.

Isaac