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11. Running mythtvsetup

Make sure that the DVICO driver is loaded, that user 'mythtv' is allowed to access /dev/dvb/adapter0/* and that generally everything is ready. While logged in as 'mythtv' with KDE as your window manager open up a command prompt and type in:

$ mythtvsetup

When asked if you would like to clear all capture card settings and all program/channel settings answer 'yes'. The graphical setup program will start and take over the whole screen. Now is a great time to play with your remote and to feel good about having managed to make it work. I will quickly go through my setup, only noting where i make changes from the defaults. I will go through each menu in turn.

Note: use the left/right arrows to change settings in the drop-boxes, type answers into text boxes.

11.1 General

• no changes 1st page

• directory to hold recordings: /video/recordings

• directory to hold live-TV buffers: /video/buffer

• I keep the the rest of the 2nd page settings default

• TV format: PAL

• no changes for the remaining pages

11.2 Capture cards

• select (New capture card)

• Card type: Digital Video Broadcast card (DVB)

• DVB Card Number: 0

• No need to use Advanced Configuration, just click Finish and then press Esc to get back to main menu

11.3 Video sources

• Video source name: d1.com.au

• XMLTV listings grabber: Australia

• Channel frequency table: default

• Click Finish.

• Now you have a progress bar stuck at half way on the screen, press alt-tab to change back to the terminal window you launched mythtvsetup from, and answer the questions that the tv_grab_au configuration program asks

• For 'Grab listings for which region?' I answer 12, as I am in regional Victoria. Your answer may vary.

• d1.com.au does not yet have programs for the SD or HD Digital broadcasts for most of the regional areas. So for 'Grab listings for which service?' I answer 4, 'Free to Air'. I mainly watch SD and this is identical to the free to air program anyway.

• Now tv_grab_au contacts d1.com.au and gets a list of channels based on your region and service. Answer yes or no to each one in turn. My answers are:

  • Network TEN: yes

  • ABC Victoria: yes

  • Prime Television: no (until Prime finally start broadcasting digital)

  • SBS: yes

  • WIN Television: yes

  • WIN Television SA: no (Latrobe Valley doesn't receive SA tele)

• The script lets you know that it is "All done, run with no arguments to grab listings." Fantastic. Do another alt-tab to return to mythtvsetup, which is now back at the Video sources screen. You now have a source d1.com.au configured. Hit Esc to return to the main menu.

Unfortunately d1.com.au is not always reliable so I'm investigating other sources of programming data which may be better.

11.4 Input connections

• Select the top line: [DVB : 0] (DVBInput) -> (None)

• Video source: d1.com.au

• Input preference: 0

• External channel change command and Preset tuner to channel I leave blank

• Starting channel: 2

• select Finish and then press Esc at the Input connections screen (the top line of which now says [DVB : 0] (DVBInput) -> d1.com.au )to get back to the main menu.

11.5 Channel Editor

Using the information from the channels.conf file we generated at section , and the channel/network names that tv_grab_au gives us, lets configure the channels for MythTV. We also need some information from tv_grab_au, and the easiest way to do this is to copy the newly created D1.com.au service configuration and run tv_grab_au from the command line.

Use tv_grab_au to create a list of channels

• alt-tab back to the KDE desktop. Open a new terminal and run the following commands:

$ mkdir ~.xmltv
$ ln -s ~/.mythtv/d1.com.au.xmltv ~/.xmltv/tv_grab_au.conf
$ tv_grab_au --list-channels

Now pick from the regions. In my case:

$ tv_grab_au --list-channels --loc VICReg

Pick a service, in my case:

$ tv_grab_au --list-channels --loc VICReg --srv free

This produces the following output:

tv_grab_au - (version 0.6 - release 2004-07-19)
using config filename /home/mythtv/.xmltv/tv_grab_au.conf
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE tv SYSTEM "xmltv.dtd">
grabing channels: ##################################################
<tv source-info-url="http://www.d1.com.au/" source-info-name="D1 Australia" source-data-url="http://www.d1.com.au/d1xmltv.asmx/GetChannels?provider=free&amp;region=VICReg" generator-info-name="XMLTV - tv_grab_au v0.6" generator-info-url="http://www.onlinetractorparts.com.au/rohbags/">
<channel id="free.VICReg.10.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">Network TEN</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/10.png" />
</channel>
<channel id="free.VICReg.2.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">ABC Victoria</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/abc.png" />
</channel>
<channel id="free.VICReg.Prime.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">Prime Television</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/prime.png" />
</channel>
<channel id="free.VICReg.SBS.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">SBS</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/sbs.png" />
</channel>
<channel id="free.VICReg.WIN.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">WIN Television</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/win.png" />
</channel>
<channel id="free.VICReg.WinSA.d1.com.au">
<display-name lang="en">WIN Television SA</display-name>
<icon src="http://d1.com.au/icons/win.png" />
</channel>
</tv>

We use this output to determine the XMLTV ID of each channel for mythtv.

configure the channels

Now change back to mythtvsetup and from the main menu select Channel Editor. Use the information from the tv_grab_au output to fill in the details for your channels. Here is an example for channel 10:

• On the Channels screen select (New Channel) to make a new channel.

• Channel Name: type in Network TEN

• Channel Number: type in 10

• Callsign: type in TEN

• keep Visible selected, Commercial Free unselected

• Video Source: select d1.com.au from the drop-box using left/right arrows

• TV Format: leave on default (we've already selected PAL for the TV format)

• Rank: leave on 0 (play with this later if required)

• Icon: leave blank (mythfilldatabase will update this field later)

• Video filters: leave blank

• Playback filters: leave blank

• XMLTV ID: type in free.VICReg.10.d1.com.au

• select Next and do nothing on the Video 4 Linux page, just select Next again.

Channel Options - DVB page using the information from your channels.conf file enter data as follows:

Note: Only the frequency, bandwidth, video pid and audio pid are required for the DVICO FusionHDTV card, as it is capable of autodetecting everything else.

• Frequency: I type in 606500000 check your channels.conf file what you should type here

• Symbol Rate: leave blank

• Satellite: [NONE CONFIGURED] not required for dvb-t

• Polarity: not required, leave on Horizontal

• FEC: leave on Auto

• Modulation: leave on Auto

• Inversion: Auto

• Bandwidth: select 7MHz using left/right arrows (channels.conf gave us this information)

• Constallation: Auto

• LP Coderate: Auto

• HP Coderate: Auto

• Trans. Mode: Auto

• Guard Interval: Auto

• Hierarchy: Auto

• select Next to continue to DVB Pids & IDs page

• Video: I type in 257 check your channels.conf and use the number in the third last column of the channel

• Audio: I type in 258 check your channels.conf and use the number in the second last column of the channel

• leave the other settings empty on this page and select Finish.

Now select (New Channel) and enter the next channel. Remember that after the first page you only need to set the Frequency, Bandwidth, Video and Audio PIDs. The DVICO FusionHDTV DVB-T card can work out the other parameters. Repeat until finished. Here is a table of the required channel information that I currently use: (table not working automatically – lyx linuxdoc doesn't like exporting tables grrr.)

Press Esc to return to main menu, then Esc, Yes, to leave mythtvsetup. Run mythfilldatabase to populate the database:

$ mythfilldatabase

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