Mailing List Archive

I think this would be possible. There may be two options:

(a) I believe there is a 'transcoding' patch circulating that will
automatically transcode recordings once they are finished... however, I'm
not sure but I think the resulting file is still in the Myth .nuv format
(which you could, of course, play with a patched MPlayer, but I'm assuming
your laptop is running Windows)

(b) there is also a Perl script circulating called MythMkMovie, which will
do exactly what you want. Right now I think you have to run it manually,
but I seem to recall the author saying that he wanted to add the ability (if
it's not there already) to have it pull the recording information from the
database. All you'd have to do would be somehow kick off MythMkMovie
automatically, perhaps as a daily cron job or something.

All in all, the answer is YES, but you may have to do a little bit of
scripting on your own to get the exact setup you want.

-Joe C.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Mark Levitt
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 6:28 AM
> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
> Subject: [mythtv-users] Can I use MythTV for this?
>
>
> I've got a spare PIII 800 that I'm using as a headless
> fileserver. What I'd
> like to do is stick a WinTV-250 into it and set up MythTV so that it
> automatically records various shows (ER, Westwing, Simpsons,
> etc). Then, once
> the WinTV-250 captures them to Mpeg2, have them automatically
> converted to a
> DivX AVI.
>
> So, a few questions:
> 1) Is this possible?
> 2) If it is possible, is it possible with MythTV?
> 3) Is MythTV the best solution for this? Or are their simpler
> solutions that
> will get me what I want.
>
> Thanks!

> (which you could, of course, play with a patched MPlayer, but I'm assuming
> your laptop is running Windows)

I copied a .nuv file to my windows XP machine and was suprised to find that it played just fine under Windows Media 9 player... I don't know about Media Player 8, or other players though

(Linux would be great on this machine, but at least a few months ago there were no drivers for an 802.11a card, and wires are out of the question according to the significant other...)

On Thursday 08 May 2003 09:39 am, Edward Wildgoose wrote:
> > (which you could, of course, play with a patched MPlayer, but I'm
> > assuming your laptop is running Windows)
>
> I copied a .nuv file to my windows XP machine and was suprised to find that
> it played just fine under Windows Media 9 player... I don't know about
> Media Player 8, or other players though

You didn't copy a .nuv file, you copied a mpeg file.

Isaac

> > > (which you could, of course, play with a patched MPlayer, but I'm
> > > assuming your laptop is running Windows)
> >
> > I copied a .nuv file to my windows XP machine and was suprised to find that
> > it played just fine under Windows Media 9 player... I don't know about
> > Media Player 8, or other players though
>
> You didn't copy a .nuv file, you copied a mpeg file.

Oh, I see. Sorry for the misinformation all...

I had assumed that the mpeg 2 stuff was recording to the ringbuf.nuv file in the same way as when recording analogue.

Others have already answered the main part of your question. I'll offer a
comment on this part ...

At 11:28 AM 5/8/2003 +0100, Mark Levitt wrote:
[...]
>3) Is MythTV the best solution for this? Or are their simpler solutions that
>will get me what I want.


It depends on how "automatic" you want the recording to be. If you are
willing to pre-schedule recording yourself (via crond, for example), then
there are alternatives that will record directly to the DivX format. Look
for application names such as vcr, pvr, avicap or avirec (I forget which is
the capture-from-card app for avifile), and mencoder. This is how I did it
(using vcr/avifile) for over a year; I'm just now in the process of
switching over to MythTV.

MythTV offers greater convenience than any of these other methods, in that
it manages the process of getting the TV schedule and then manages the
vidcap process itself. (The pause-"live"-TV option is another important
benefit, but one that does not seem to apply to your requirements.) The
cost, in your setting, of using MythTV is the post-capture conversion you
need to do (and MythTV's filenaming convention, designed to tie to its
database rather than use filenames that identify the content immediately to
the eye).

> It depends on how "automatic" you want the recording to be. If you are
> willing to pre-schedule recording yourself (via crond, for example), then
> there are alternatives that will record directly to the DivX format. Look

Yeah, that's why I thought MythTV might be the solution. I actually *don't*
want to manually schedule recordings. I can do that with my VCR, but I always
forget.

So, I want to be able to say "always record ER" and then have it do it.

I actually don't mind if I have to manually do the conversion from whatever
format MythTV uses to a Divx AVI.

One other thing, can MythTV run without a GUI? I mean, obviously, the initial
configuration and picking of shows to record needs to be done in a GUI, but
once that's done, is it possible to quit X and not have the GUI running? Or
does it need the GUI to run?


_____________________________
Mark Levitt - Senior Technical Author
Tel. +44 (0)208 875 9500 x750
Fax. +44 (0)208 877 6209
URL: www.micromuse.com
AIM: mlevittfl

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Olszewski" <ray@comarre.com>
To: <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Can I use MythTV for this?


> Others have already answered the main part of your question. I'll offer a
> comment on this part ...
>
> At 11:28 AM 5/8/2003 +0100, Mark Levitt wrote:
> [...]
> >3) Is MythTV the best solution for this? Or are their simpler solutions that
> >will get me what I want.
>
>
> It depends on how "automatic" you want the recording to be. If you are
> willing to pre-schedule recording yourself (via crond, for example), then
> there are alternatives that will record directly to the DivX format. Look
> for application names such as vcr, pvr, avicap or avirec (I forget which is
> the capture-from-card app for avifile), and mencoder. This is how I did it
> (using vcr/avifile) for over a year; I'm just now in the process of
> switching over to MythTV.
>
> MythTV offers greater convenience than any of these other methods, in that
> it manages the process of getting the TV schedule and then manages the
> vidcap process itself. (The pause-"live"-TV option is another important
> benefit, but one that does not seem to apply to your requirements.) The
> cost, in your setting, of using MythTV is the post-capture conversion you
> need to do (and MythTV's filenaming convention, designed to tie to its
> database rather than use filenames that identify the content immediately to
> the eye).
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> One other thing, can MythTV run without a GUI? I mean,
> obviously, the initial
> configuration and picking of shows to record needs to be done
> in a GUI, but
> once that's done, is it possible to quit X and not have the
> GUI running? Or
> does it need the GUI to run?

The backend, after the initial setup, is a text-mode application and
runs fine as a daemon or from the console.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 7.0.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>

iQA/AwUBPrqML/c1NpCTlP0JEQJdMwCgoiZhaQuOlFVz+AI8tNeWTSnEIS4AoLFC
vBQL45foSNg4n4Z/eU0iTWDS
=fu8w
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Yes; once you setup your scheduled recordings, you can shut down the front
end and just leave mythbackend running as a daemon. You actually don't even
need the GUI (mythfrontend), as you can do your scheduling & recording
management via a web browser using the mythweb package (though you still
need mythfrontend to setup your global recording parameters like codec,
capture size, bitrate, etc; but that only has to be done once).

-Joe C.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Mark Levitt
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 12:44 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Can I use MythTV for this?
>
>
> One other thing, can MythTV run without a GUI? I mean, obviously,
> the initial
> configuration and picking of shows to record needs to be done in
> a GUI, but
> once that's done, is it possible to quit X and not have the GUI
> running? Or
> does it need the GUI to run?

On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 11:56:15AM -0500, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>
> > One other thing, can MythTV run without a GUI? I mean,
> > obviously, the initial
> > configuration and picking of shows to record needs to be done
> > in a GUI, but
> > once that's done, is it possible to quit X and not have the
> > GUI running? Or
> > does it need the GUI to run?
>
> The backend, after the initial setup, is a text-mode application and
> runs fine as a daemon or from the console.

As far as a "GUI", I'd suggest installing Mythweb. Requires Apache and
PHP, but I find it easier and quicker to use than the EPG interface, and
looks good even in links (though not in lynx) Plus, it means my wife can
easily schedule recordings from her computer too.

HTH,
Rob