Just for kicks, I wanted to put together my own Tivo/PVR device. I've had DirectTV with Tivo for a few years, and it was great, BUT I always wanted the option to have the .mpg file off the tivo. I knew you could hack the series 1 (I have a series 2 and the ones are pricey on eBay) pretty easily to give you this, but I also didn't want to constantly fix it when new revisions came out. What pushed me over the edge was the price bundling. I only watch a few shows on a few channels, and I didn't feel I needed to pay $75/mo for that honor. I bought a HDTV tuner card for kicks and put together a little media PC and could not believe the quality of the over the air HDTV. The little computer was having trouble de-interlacing the 1080i channels, so I immediately bought a bigger machine to dedicate to the PVR and went about putting together Hal. This is a compilation of my install notes from the two Myth boxes I made (the little one is megaweapon and the big one is hal). It turns out that my little box CAN keep up with viewing HDTV after I tweaked its settings, so now I have two machines.

I chose Slackware as my Linux distribution because that is what I have been using since around 1995, when someone at work mentioned one of our co-workers wrote a lot of the network drivers for this thing called Linux and you have to try it.

E-Machines T6524 right from BestBuy's shelves as our base

• Processor 2.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+
  
• 2 GB of PC3200 ram [added 1 GB]
• Integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 < – disabled it
• Integrated Realtek AC97 Audio < – disabled it
• BFG Tech BFGR6600GTOCX Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! replaced this old card on 2006/04/21 with:
• AOpen Cobra 7.1 AW-870LP (because it is supported by linux and has optical digital output)
• Hard drive size 200 GB (NTFS Windoze Media Edition) [added a 160 GB Samsung for Linux]
• AirStar-HD5000AV-PCI ATSC/8VSB HDTV PCI Card
• Stream Zap USB remote control.
• ATI HDTV WONDER (installed 2006/04/21)

• Slackware 10.2 Full Install as base
• Compiled kernel 2.6.16.9 (2006/04/22)
• Kernel 2.6.15.4 - Config: kernel.config.txt
• X11 IA32-Nvidia NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run - Config: xorg.conf

This is approximately the order that I installed these libraries and software to get MythTV installed on my Slackware box.

lame-3.96.1 LAME Download Home(from SourceForge)

./configure
make
make install

lirc-0.8.0 (from Sourceforge)

• Don't forget you need to make USB all modular (since the stream zap is a module)
• Don't forget to make unloadable modules for your 2.6 kernel

For some reason, you need to edit this line out of this file for LIRCD to compile:
line 180 of /usr/local/src/mythtv/lirc-0.8.0/drivers/lirc_streamzap/lirc_streamzap.c

static struct usb_driver streamzap_driver = {
/*      .owner =        THIS_MODULE, */
        .name =         DRIVER_NAME,
        .probe =        streamzap_probe,
        .disconnect =   streamzap_disconnect,
        .id_table =     streamzap_table,
};

add this line to /etc/modprobe.conf

alias char-major-61 lirc_gpio

Add LIRC items to your config files: /etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules

# lircd - dlr 20060111
KERNEL="lirc[0-9]*",    NAME="lirc/%n"  , MODE="0666"

./configure
make
make install

Here is my /etc/lircrd.conf - lircd.conf

I had this with a fancy LIRCD start/stop script, but it was breaking my installation. I think I was forcing the device and it didn't like that. In my latest try, I've just added this to my /etc/rc.local at it appears to be working fine:

# LIRC daemon
/usr/local/sbin/lircd

Create for your user: ~/.mythtv/lircrc

mythtv-0.19 (MythTv.org )
TIP: –enable-proc-opt is VERY important for HDTV playback

# link this so we can find qt
ln -s /opt/kde /opt/kde3
./configure --disable-audio-arts --enable-firewire --enable-proc-opt --enable-dvb  --enable-xvmc --disable-joystick-menu
qmake mythtv.pro
make
make install
# SETUP MYSQL (see below)
mythtv-setup
mythfilldatabase

Here is what I have added to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local to get mythtv running:

#echo 'Fire up MythTv Backend'
cd /root/.mythtv ; /usr/local/bin/mythbackend &
#echo 'Fire up MTD ripping daemon'
/usr/local/bin/mtd -d

Modify your /etc/inittab to set your system to level 4 (graphics mode)

<GO SETUP MYSQL - See the MythTV docs. I like to use http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php for helping configure MYSQL> <You also should go setup where you're going to get your guide information from: I use zap2it>

# it is NOT rubberchicken BTW lol
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR root@localhost=PASSWORD('rubberchicken');
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.06 sec)

mysql> 

here is my phpmyadmin config.inc.php file: (which goes right in the main phpmyadmin directory)

<?php
/*
 * Generated configuration file
 * Generated by: phpMyAdmin 2.8.0.3 setup script by Michal .iha. <michal@cihar.com>
 * Version: $Id: setup.php,v 1.23.2.2.2.1 2006/03/08 19:06:48 nijel Exp $
 * Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 07:29:41 GMT
 */

/* Servers configuration */
$i = 0;

/* Server 10.0.0.3 (config:root) [1] */
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = false;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'rubberchicken';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose'] = '10.0.0.3';

/* End of servers configuration */

?>

Insert the MythTv mysql database:

cd /usr/local/src/mythtv/mythtv-0.19/database/
mysql -u root -p < mc.sql

• Add mythtv to the audio,disk and video groups

mkdir /usr/local/share/store
chgrp disk /usr/local/share/store
chmod g+w /usr/local/share/store
ln -s /usr/local/share/store /mnt/store

mythplugins-0.19
myththemes-0.19

libdvdread-0.9.6 (From Freshmeat )

Home / download page is here: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/downloads.shtml

./configure
make
make install

libdv-0.104 (Sourceforge)

./configure
make
make install

mjpegtools-1.8.0 (From Sourceforge)

I ran this after already setting my kernel to Athlon64 and it complained about -k8 not being a valid CPU arch type. Modify this file in the distribution cpuinfo.sh (around line 139):

                        15)
                            # Despite what the gcc into says 'athlon64' is not accepted as
                            # synonym for 'k8'
                           proc=k8
                           ;;
                        *) proc=athlon-xp
                           ;;

Just change the k8 (which was failing for me) to athlon-xp and then re-run .configure.

# to find libdv, i had to add this:
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig'
./configure
make
make install

xvidcore-1.1.0 (http://www.xvid.org)

cd build/generic/
./configure
make
make install

a52dec-0.7.4 (Directly from the development page )

./configure
make
make install

libfame-0.9.1 (Sourceforge Page )

./configure
make
make install

mpeg2dec-0.4.0b (From Sourceforge)

./configure
make
make install

libtheora-1.0alpha5 (The Theora development page)

./configure
make
make install

libogg-1.1.2 (The Theora development page)

./configure
make
make install

libvorbis-1.1.1 (The Theora development page)

./configure
make
make install

libdvdcss-1.2.9 (Video Lan Development page )

./configure
make
make install

libid3tag-0.15.1b (Sourceforge Page )

./configure
make
make install

flac-1.1.2 (Sourceforge)

./configure
make
make install

libcdaudio-0.99.12p2 (Sourceforge)

./configure
make
make install

fftw-2.1.5 (Their development page)

./configure
make
make install

faad2-2.0 (Sourceforge)

NOTE: After you generate the Makefile you need to edit out the bottom. It is broken.

autoreconf -vif
./configure
# edit the Makefile and REMOVE the bottom RPM section (it is broken and we aren't doing that anyway)
make
make install

http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html

svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/x264/trunk x264
cd x264
./configure
make
make install

ffmpeg-0.4.9-pre1

download from CVS:

# cvs -z9 -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co ffmpeg
svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg

# latest compile on megaweapon
./configure --enable-liba52 --enable-shared --enable-gpl  --cpu=athlon-xp --enable-libmp3lame \
--enable-libogg --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libfaad --enable-xvid --enable-pthreads \
--enable-x264

./configure --enable-a52 --enable-shared --enable-gpl  --cpu=athlon-xp --enable-mp3lame \
--enable-libogg --enable-vorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-faad --enable-xvid --enable-pthreads \
--enable-x264

# for the 64bit athlon
./configure --enable-a52 --enable-shared --enable-gpl  --cpu=athlon-xp --tune=athlon-xp --enable-mp3lame \
--enable-libogg --enable-vorbis --enable-theora --enable-faad --enable-xvid --enable-pthreads
# for the new box (pentium 4 celeron)
./configure --enable-a52 --enable-shared --enable-gpl --cpu=pentium4 --tune=pentium4 --enable-mp3lame \
--enable-libogg --enable-vorbis --enable-theora --enable-faad --enable-xvid --enable-pthreads
make
make install
# find this file and put it in /usr/include (I think I had to download it somewhere)
cp mp4ff_int_types.h /usr/include/

TIP: - Here is my mp4ff_int_types.h.txt

NOTE: I found this in the FAAD source tree:

cp /usr/local/src/mythtv/faad2/common/mp4ff/mp4ff_int_types.h /usr/local/include/

transcode-1.0.2 (Transcode Main Page)

./configure --enable-libfame --enable-sdl --enable-a52 --enable-ogg --enable-vorbis --enable-theora --enable-libdv --enable-gtk \
--enable-mjpegtools --with-mjpegtools-includes=/usr/local/include/mjpegtools
make
make install

MPlayer-1.0pre7try2 (MPlayer main page)
ALL Linux x86 Codecs

./configure
make
make install
# untar the codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs and link it as well:
tar -jxvf ../all-20050412.tar.bz2
mv all-20050412 /usr/local/lib/codecs
ln -s /usr/local/lib/codecs /usr/local/lib/win32

In order to get the DVB device working (my capture card requires this interface):

Go here and download: LinuxTV
Here is my script: makedev-dvb.sh.txt

# DVB in the kernel
# need to download dvb-kernel from http://linuxtv.org
# and run this:  (all you need are the devices and the modules working and you're good to go)
/usr/src/dvb-kernel# ./MAKEDEV-DVB.sh

./configure --enable-all --disable-festival
qmake mythplugins.pro
make install

./configure
make install

mkdir /usr/local/share/store/
chgrp disk /usr/local/share/store/ 
chmod g+w /usr/local/share/store/ 
ln -s /usr/local/share/store /mnt/store

• For the X11 setup to keep up with HDTV playback, be sure you add: Option “RenderAccel” “true” to your X11 configuration (see above).
• You MUST compile kernel USB support as modules since LIRC for the Stream Zap remote must be a module.
• Since we're recording using HDTV capture board, you must turn on large audio buffers to keep the sound from crackling.
• Get LIRCD up and running BEFORE you compile MPlayer as it will autodetect it if you have it up when you compile MPlayer. (So the remote will work while watching Video, not Recordings)
• EDIT /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql “SKIP NETWORKING TRUE!” is the default in Slackware 10.2 !?!?!?! argh…. 1 hour wasted figuring out why I couldn't connect to the database remotely!?

• Note this is specific to Mythbuntu

1. Create a directory under recordings that you can write to:

   sudo mkdir /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links
   sudo chgroup video /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links
   sudo chmod 775 /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links

2. Use the mythlink.sh scripts with a couple modifications to make the directories and links to your files whenever you need them.

#!/bin/sh

# mythlink.sh - Symlinks mythtv files to more readable versions
# by Dale Gass modified by Jacob Stoner

if [ ! -d /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links ]; then mkdir /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links; fi
rm -R -f /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links/*

echo "Done RM"
mysql -umythtv -pYOURPASSWORDGOESHERE  mythconverg -B --exec "select chanid,starttime,endtime,title,subtitle from recorded;" >/tmp/mythlink.$$
perl -w -e '
        my $mythpath= "/var/lib/mythtv/recordings";
        my $altpath= "/var/lib/mythtv/recordings/links";
        if (!-d $altpath) {
                mkdir $altpath or die "Failed to make directory: $altpath\n";
        }
        <>;
        while (<>) {
                chomp;
                my ($chanid,$start,$end,$title,$subtitle) = split /\t/;
                $start =~ s/[^0-9]//g;
                $end =~ s/[^0-9]//g;
                $subtitle = "" if(!defined $subtitle);
                my $ofn = "${chanid}_${start}.mpg";
                do { print "Skipping $mythpath/$ofn\n"; next } unless -e "$mythpath/$ofn";
                $start =~ /^....(........)/;
                #my $nfn = "$1_${title}_${subtitle}";
                my $nfn = "${title}";
                if ($subtitle) {$nfn="${nfn}_${subtitle}"}
                $nfn =~ s/ /_/g;
                $nfn =~ s/&/+/g;
                $nfn =~ s/[^+0-9a-zA-Z_-]+/_/g;
                $nfn = "${nfn}.mpg";
                print "Creating $nfn\n";
                unlink "$altpath/$nfn" if(-e "$altpath/$nfn");
                mkdir "$altpath/$title";
                symlink "$mythpath/$ofn", "$altpath/$title/$nfn" or print "Failed to create symlink $altpath/$nfn: $!";
        }
' /tmp/mythlink.$$
rm /tmp/mythlink.$$

In order to get our web based interface to allow you to click the movies and transfer them (they're big, because HDTV is BIG!), we'll need apache 2.0 on our server. I initially downloaded a 'package' from linuxpackages.net for apache2, php5 and mysql. That all worked with just a little tweaking on the /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file. That package, however, did not have big files enabled… argh. Here is my effort to compile apache 2.0 myself and replace these binaries with my own.

in the source for slackware, modify the config.layout and add this section:

#   Layout for Slackware Linux
<Layout Slackware>
    prefix:        /usr
    exec_prefix:   ${prefix}
    bindir:        ${prefix}/bin
    sbindir:       ${prefix}/sbin
    libdir:        ${prefix}/lib
    libexecdir:    ${prefix}/lib/apache2
    mandir:        ${prefix}/man
    sysconfdir:    /etc/apache2
    datadir:       /var/www
    iconsdir:      ${datadir}/icons
    htdocsdir:     ${datadir}/htdocs
    manualdir:     ${datadir}/manual
    cgidir:        ${datadir}/cgi-bin
    includedir:    ${prefix}/include/apache2
    localstatedir: /var
    runtimedir:    ${localstatedir}/run
    logfiledir:    ${localstatedir}/log/apache2
    proxycachedir: ${localstatedir}/cache/apache2
    infodir:       ${exec_prefix}/share/info
    installbuilddir: ${datadir}/build
    errordir:      ${datadir}/error
</Layout>

export CFLAGS="-pipe -O2 -march=i486"
export CPPFLAGS="-D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64"
export CXXFLAGS="-pipe -O2 -march=i486"

# Configure it as follows:

./configure --enable-layout=Slackware \
     --enable-module=all \
     --enable-mods-shared=all \
     --enable-deflate \
     --enable-ssl=shared \
     --enable-proxy \
     --enable-dav

(the deflate option is important as most sites save bandwidth using deflate, as well as mod_proxy and some other ones that isnt included by default)

./configure \
	--disable-cgi \
	--enable-force-cgi-redirect \
        --enable-mbstring \
	--prefix=/usr \
	--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs \
        --with-config-file-path=/etc/apache2 \
	--with-gdbm \
	--with-gettext \
        --with-mysql=shared,/usr \
        --with-xml \
	--with-zlib

So we can use the remote, we need to compile our own xine so it seems that LIRC is running.

Just grab the source off a slackware page and build the package like they do:

cd /usr/local/src/
mkdir xine
cd xine
wget ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-11.0/patches/source/xine-lib/*
chmod 755 xine-lib.SlackBuild
./xine-lib.SlackBuild
#### gui ####
cd /usr/local/src/
mkdir xine_gui
cd xine_gui
wget ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-11.0/source/xap/xine-ui/*
chmod 755 xine-ui.SlackBuild
./xine-ui.SlackBuild
installpkg /tmp/xine-ui-0.99.4-i686-3.tgz

I prefer to use MythWeb to using the remote to pick programs to record and browsing the guide. If I forget to record something or need to change what the box was up to I want to reach it remotely.

I found this apache httd.conf configuration trick for getting to your MythTv box through your firewall (if your firewall happens to be a machine running apache). I was Googling for a method to get MythWeb to run on a machine that didn't have the backend running and this came up and works like a charm. The only suggestion I would have is add a .htaccess to your myth box so that it is password protected, since you don't want strangers filling up your HD with silly shows or deleting something you really like. The ProxyPass allows the traffic to just funnel through your main outside accessable machine to your machine behind the firewall. (I have 2 nics in my main box one for the WAN and one for the LAN)

Here is what I added to my virtual hosts with the names changed to protect the innocent:

<VirtualHost www.YOURMYTHTVDOMAIN.com>
ProxyPass / http://10.0.0.42/
ProxyPassReverse / http://10.0.0.42/
ServerAdmin admin@YOURMYTHTVDOMAIN.com
DocumentRoot "/var/www/htdocs/mythtv"
DirectoryIndex index.html
Servername www.YOURMYTHTVDOMAIN.com
ErrorLog logs/www.YOURMYTHTVDOMAIN.com-error_log
TransferLog logs/www.YOURMYTHTVDOMAIN.com-access_log
</VirtualHost>

You HAVE to share (it is a moral imperative) your newly recorded programs with your LAN. (so maybe some lucky hacker will find your network)
Here is my /etc/samba/smb.conf smb.conf

• Should I attempt 64bit slackware? It specifically says something about X11 KDE things being a problem!?

• I love this thing. It costs $0/month to have HDTV recording to a local drive shared to the LAN.
• The quality of over the air ATSC HDTV is just amazing. I never imagined it would be so clear and at such a high bitrate over a UHF antenna.

Since the listings went away due to the abuse of ZapToIt Labs… I have paid for the subscription to the non-profit listings, forcing an upgrade of mythtv, so I might as well document what I did to get it up and going again.

• BACKUP your database before you do this, i nixed my card, and now it won't find it…ARGH!
• kill (killall) the running daemon on the backend and I took the front end machine to run level 3 effectively killing that machine too.
• uploaded all the code to /usr/local/src/mythtv-0.20.2 and untar it there.

Backend:

cd mythtv-0.20.2
./configure --disable-audio-arts --enable-firewire --enable-proc-opt --enable-dvb  --enable-xvmc --disable-joystick-menu
qmake mythtv.pro
make
make install
mythtv-setup
mythfilldatabase
# plugins
./configure --enable-all --disable-festival
qmake mythplugins.pro
make install
#themes
./configure
make install

Frontend:

cd mythtv-0.20.2
./configure
make
make install
# plugins
./configure --enable-all --disable-festival
qmake mythplugins.pro
make install
#themes
./configure
make install