I now need to address the ubuntu 11 v 10 issue WRT ASUSLAPTOP. There are several options.
- I discovered that it is possible to integrate XBMC very effectively with MTV. Since XBMC runs OK on XP (ASUSLAPTOP) that's a fix and I can leave all the Ubuntu 10 machines alone. This is straight forward and should go fairly quickly.
- I can upgrade everyone to Ubuntu 11 and run the current MTV. It has a bit more functionality and it's VERY likely that there is a MythTV Frontend for XP.
- I could do nothing and wait to see how things work with WMC hopefully out of the picture. It's also likely that the ASUSLAPTOP is temporary as I bought a nice motherboard/processor/memory from craig's list and will soon have a VERY capable machine to replace it. That will allow me to move the ASUSLAPTOP to another TV or alternately just use it for other things by replacing the keyboard from ebay.
There's not much to recommend any of these options over each other. I am curious about XBMC though. Since that's probably the easiest short term solution I think I'll start there.
Integrate XBMC with MythTV
- Directions here, http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=MythTV
- Granted priviledges on Amazon MTV backend
$ mysql -u root -p mysql> grant all on mythconverg.* to mythtv@"192.168.1.%" identified by "mythtv"; mysql> flush privileges;
- Added the source to XBMC per the directions.
- Success, it works reasonably well. I can see and play MTV content. This is an OK temporary solution. About the only thing not quite right is that the guide doesn't match the documents. Fortunately, the web front end works well for this sort of stuff.
Addenda: It turned out that I had to set /etc/hosts to bind the host name and IP as the mythtv host sometimes sends it's name.
MTV backend daemon
It appears that this is the default case so I've nothing to do here.
XBMC Investigation
Played a bit with XBMC. It's rather more functional that I'd thought. That said the version I'm running on the ASUSLAPTOP XP doesn't match recent documents. I'm beginning to think that there is an XP issue. In particular the XBMC Flicks plugin hangs when trying to interface to Netflix. This is more an anoyance than a problem since I can easily watch Netflix in a browser.
Oddly, a couple of restarts later the Netflix addin started working. Don't you just love open source?
Ubuntu 10.04 on ASUSLAPTOP
Since Ubuntu 10.04 is working well everywhere now, I'll install on ASUSLAPTOP as a dual boot to see how it works as a primary TV controller. I'll need to break down the current TV connections and boot from a 10.04 install disk.
- Install 10.04 alongside XP in a 20 GB partition. The machine could use a larger disk drive or an external. I've got a 160 GB USB 2 that might work that I'll try if everything works OK.
- Installed MythTV frontend and configured.
- Installed Chrome browser.
- Started MythTV. Got expected configuration screen. Set backend IP and MySQL db login.
- Looks very nice. Everything works great.
- Success
Check Browser access to video
- hulu works find
- netflix doesn't. Turns out netflix is not supported on linux. Sign petition. Call netflix and read them the riot act. Netflix is about to get fired.
To DO
- Default web page for TV.
- Install ubuntu 11.04 everywhere. Install mythtv 11.04 as appropriate.
- Dual boot ASUSLAPTOP with ubuntu 11.04 and windows 7.
- Mount 2nd 160 GB drive and fix up place for video storage per section 9 guidelines.
- Clean up and properly configure storage directories in mythtv storage groups
- Configure VNC so that I can always get to the machine.
- Setup mythnettv properly
- Finish mythtv-setup now that DB is connected.
- Finish freenas install
- Build new TV PC
- Improve antenna
- Setuup VNC to work without a loged on user
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