Mythbuntu12.04

This page records the setup of Mythbuntu [1] a standalone media PVR suite based on MythTV [2]

Hardware

Streacom FC9 Black Full Aluminium Fanless Chassis
Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H LGA1150 Micro ATX Motherboard
Intel 4th Gen Core i7 4770 3.4GHz 84W HD4600 8M Quad Core CPU
Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) Vengeance LP DDR3 Memory
picoPSU 160W picoPSU and AC/DC adapter block
Intel 80GB 335 Solid State Drive SSD
2 off WD Green Power WD20NPVX 2TB 2.5in HDD OEM
Streacom ST-OB2 Slot-Load Blu-ray Drive for Streacom Chassis
Streacom Internal IR Receiver and Remote Control
TBS 6280 Dual Freeview HD Low-profile PCIe TV Tuner Card DVB-T2
TBS 6981 Dual Satellite HD Low-profile PCIe TV Tuner Card DVB-S2

This machines memory and CPU is overkill even for HD TV, the important things are that there is at least one TV tuner source and ample storage space for recordings.

Installation

Firstly identify the architecture of your PC, most CPUs these days (2013) are 64Bit. Head over to the download page [3] and download the required iso file. This guide covers the installation of Mythbuntu12.04 on to a vanilla system, that is an entirely fresh install using mythbuntu-12.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso. Basic Installation is straightforward but is somewhat dependent on you hardware and BIOS settings. This system is connected to a SHARP Aquos TV via an HDMI cable with a USB keyboard and mouse and connected to the internet and my network via an ethernet cable.

Burn the ISO to a DVD
Install and boot the PC from the ISO
Select 'Install Mythbuntu'
Select the Drive to install the OS too. I used the SSD drive and disabled LVM so i can mount the main storage myself later.
Select country, timezone, keyboard etc. This is all the normal questions, pay special attention to the following
1. enable the check box to install 3rd party software that is not Open Source.
2. if you intend to remotely connect to your system during setup, ensure VNC and SSH service are enabled

Once installation is complete the PC will ask you to remove the DVD and press Enter to reboot the machine.

System Setup

Objectives

Demonstrate HD TV, both live recording
Configure TV listings using XMLTV
Control the system with the IR Remote

Since this system is replacing my currently deployed HD-PVR I will also be transfering existing MythTV database and SD recordings to the new system.

Update the System

Once your PC has rebooted it should autologin with the default user and launch the MythTV Frontend. Note

Using the Update Manager or Terminal update the system, you will need to authenticate using the password of the user created during installation.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ uname -a
Linux BlueMidget 3.8.0-30-generic #44~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 23 18:32:41 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Mythbuntu Control Center

Launch the Control Center from Applications/System/Mythbuntu Control Center Work through each of the sections selecting the prefered options, in this first pass I'm only interested in

Graphics Drivers, this wizard will assist in the installation of proprietary drivers for your GPU which can significantly improve performance. On my systems i'm using the embedded Intel GPU which isn't identified so I'm using the stock drivers.
Repository. This is where you can select which version of MythTV you want to run, the default is v0.25. V0.26 is stable and V0.27 is experimental. I selected V0.26 and added both the Mythbuntu and XMLTV repos.
Infrared, this allows you to select enable any remotes for your system. I have a Windows Media Center compatable Receiver and Remote.

After applying any changes it is important to update the system again if you've changed MythTV versions.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you use the above SSH you will be presented with the following prompts

After a further reboot, the database will be updated.

Accessing Network Shares

My system requires access to a NAS for media files, backup etc. I use the method defined here Accessing_Network_Shares.

$ sudo apt-get install autofs cifs-utils

don't forget

create creds file $ nano ~/cifs.cred
add NAS IP and hostname to /etc/hosts

Mounting Addition HardDrives

There are numerous methods for doing this but the follwing is my prefered solution.

Use UUID To Mount Partitions

Identify the hard drive device in you PC.

$ sudo lshw -class disk
  *-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: WDC WD20NPVX-00E
       vendor: Western Digital
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda
       version: 01.0
       serial: WD-WXB1AA3V5194
       size: 1863GiB (2TB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=11a7d569
  *-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: WDC WD20NPVX-00E
       vendor: Western Digital
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sdb
       version: 01.0
       serial: WD-WXB1AA3V2082
       size: 1863GiB (2TB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=11a7d565

Mine are /dev/sda /dev/sdb

Use fdisk to manually create single large partitions and format to ext4 [4].

Find the UUID of each partition

$ sudo blkid -o full -s UUID
/dev/sda1: UUID="dd3e3288-eb4a-48f3-a1c4-42043b96f645"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="61d71482-8a81-469c-ae12-d0b539335fc2"

Add the mountpoints

$ sudo mkdir /media/disk01
$ sudo mkdir /media/disk02

Add the following to the end of fstab. [5]

UUID=dd3e3288-eb4a-48f3-a1c4-42043b96f645    /media/disk01               ext4    rw 0 0
UUID=61d71482-8a81-469c-ae12-d0b539335fc2    /media/disk01               ext4    rw 0 0

Mount the drives and make the writable.

$ sudo mount -a
$ sudo chown jack:jack /media/disk01/
$ sudo chown jack:jack /media/disk02/

Restoring Old Database

This is only required if your porting a database from and existing system or restoring after a rebuild, see Database Backup and Restore for details. [6]

Backup the existing database in case anything goes wrong

$ /usr/share/mythtv/mythconverg_backup.pl

Check the database is created

ls -l /var/lib/mythtv/db_backups/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   mythtv 39832 Sep  6 19:09 mythconverg-1299-20130906190902.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 mythtv mythtv 47373 Sep  7 14:36 mythconverg-1299-20130907133615.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mythtv mythtv 49280 Sep  7 14:36 mythconverg-1307-20130907133652.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mythtv mythtv 50022 Sep  7 18:41 mythconverg-1307-20130907184143.sql.gz

Copy the original database from its location to the default '/var/lib/mythtv/db_backups/'

$ cp /media/nfsshares/mythtv_db_backups/mythconverg-1264-20130907185125.sql.gz /var/lib/mythtv/db_backups/

Stop the backend:

$ sudo stop mythtv-backend

Obtain the mythtv password from here:

$ grep DBPassword /etc/mythtv/config.xml
 <DBPassword>JHxeUhn0</DBPassword>

Restore the original system database to the new system using:

/usr/share/mythtv/mythconverg_restore.pl --drop_database --create_database --directory /var/lib/mythtv/db_backups --filename mythconverg-1264-20130907185125.sql.gz

At this stage your system is fragile. You must do the following

Run mythtv-setup and allow the schema to be upgraded
Check the setting in mythtv-setup, in particular the IP address of the backend etc.

If you reboot the system and the frontend get stuck in a crash / reload loop, Kill the frontend using

$ sudo killall mythfrontend
$ sudo killall mythfrontend.real

Ensure both the front and backends are at version 75 shown by:

$ mythfrontend --version
xprop:  unable to open display ''
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version : v0.26.1-14-gdbdd455
MythTV Branch : fixes/0.26
Network Protocol : 75
Library API : 0.26.20130225-1
QT Version : 4.8.1
Options compiled in:
 linux profile use_hidesyms using_alsa using_oss using_pulse using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_crystalhd using_dvb using_firewire using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_ceton using_hdpvr using_iptv using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_libcec using_libcrypto using_libdns_sd using_libxml2 using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl_video using_qtwebkit using_qtscript using_qtdbus using_v4l2 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vaapi using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_live using_mheg using_libass using_libxml2

$ mythbackend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version : v0.26.1-14-gdbdd455
MythTV Branch : fixes/0.26
Network Protocol : 75
Library API : 0.26.20130225-1
QT Version : 4.8.1
Options compiled in:
 linux profile use_hidesyms using_alsa using_oss using_pulse using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_crystalhd using_dvb using_firewire using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_ceton using_hdpvr using_iptv using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_libcec using_libcrypto using_libdns_sd using_libxml2 using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl_video using_qtwebkit using_qtscript using_qtdbus using_v4l2 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vaapi using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_live using_mheg using_libass using_libxml2

After the database schema is updated, the hostname needs to be changed.

/usr/share/mythtv/mythconverg_restore.pl --change_hostname --old_hostname="mr-flibble" --new_hostname="BlueMidget"

If there are other changes to file and folder structures these need to be all changed before any fronends are connected to the restored backend. I can never get this to work satisfactorily.

Alternative Approach to Database Backup

It seems I can never port an old system and the database sucessfully, usually there's a conflict with some setting or I've restructured the support systems. Either way, one possible way to export all your recording and reimporting them as videos without changing the can done using mythlink.pl[7].

run mythlink to create simlinks on our old backend.
cp the simlinks to a backup drive, NAS or other external media with plenty of space. When copied the simlink will retain the folder and name structure from mythlink making the filenames user readable.
Import the old recording into the video folder

Install TV Card Drivers

The TV cards in the system require drivers to be compiled in to the kernel, which means this needs to be repeated each time theres a kernel update.

$ lspci | grep media
01:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 04)
02:00.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7160 (rev 03)

Installing the drivers [8].

$ cd ~
$ wget http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v130802.zip
--2013-09-07 20:58:24--  http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v130802.zip
Resolving www.tbsdtv.com (www.tbsdtv.com)... 143.95.60.2
Connecting to www.tbsdtv.com (www.tbsdtv.com)|143.95.60.2|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16296304 (16M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `tbs-linux-drivers_v130802.zip'

100%[======================================>] 16,296,304  1.27M/s   in 22s

2013-09-07 20:58:46 (731 KB/s) - `tbs-linux-drivers_v130802.zip' saved [16296304/16296304]
$ mkdir tbs-linux-drivers
$ cd tbs-linux-drivers
$ sudo apt-get install unzip
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ unzip ../tbs-linux-drivers_v130802.zip

The instructions for the continued installation are in the readme file README_TBS6981. Extract linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2 archive:

$ tar xjvf linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2

The permissions of the tarball are wrong, this can be corrected using

chmod -R 755 .

The build script needed is depending on your kernel version. Determine the kernel version using:

$ uname -a
3.8.0-30-generic #44~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 23 18:32:41 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

for any x86_64 kernel (x86 64 bit installations of Linux):

$ cd linux-tbs-drivers/
~/tbs-linux-drivers/linux-tbs-drivers
$ ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh
TBS drivers configured for x86_64 platform.

Build and install the driver:

$ make
$ sudo make install

Reboot in order to load the newly installed driver:

$ shutdown -r now

After reboot check that the newly installed driver is loaded correctly:

$ dmesg | grep frontend

If everything is OK, the output from the above command lists the registered frontends for your card model and their number is equal to the number of tuners on the card, for example:

DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 6981 DVBS/S2 frontend)...
DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 6981 DVBS/S2 frontend)...

If its not ok you'll get something like

[    1.355497] videobuf_dvb: disagrees about version of symbol dvb_frontend_deta                                    ch
[    1.355498] videobuf_dvb: Unknown symbol dvb_frontend_detach (err -22)

To fix it...

sudo rm -R /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media
sudo make install
sudo reboot

Try again!

$ dmesg | grep frontend
[    2.087311] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 62x0 DVBT/T2 frontend)...
[    2.174999] DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 62x0 DVBT/T2 frontend)...
[    2.676974] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[    2.760952] DVB: registering adapter 2 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 6981 DVBS/S2 frontend)...
[    2.787563] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[    2.867740] DVB: registering adapter 3 frontend 0 (TurboSight TBS 6981 DVBS/S2 frontend)...

Success.

Audio and Video Setting

In the MythtvFronend selection the Setup/Setup Wizard, follow the simple instructions to select and test your audio and video. My system which uses an Intel GPU supports Audio over HDMI and VA-API[9]

Adding Tuner Cards

Application/System/MythBackendSetup, the backend will have to be stopped before you can continue, agree to the prompt and authorise it with your password.

General

Follow the wizard, the defaults are fine, just make sure you set the IP address and select the correct TV Format for the region.

Capture Cards

Follow the prompts and add your cards, these should be auto detected if the drivers were properly installed Mythbuntu12.04#Install_TV_Card_Drivers

Video Sources

My prefered video source is to use XMLTV, use the following [10]

Figure Gallery

Initial Screen After Reboot (Oscar)
Epinephelus lanceolatus (Giant grouper)
Pterois volitans (Red Lionfish)
Macropodus opercularis (Paradise fish)
Psetta maxima (Turbot)
Ecsenius axelrodi

References