Sheeva Plug as a MythTV master backend
How to turn the Sheeva Plug into a MythTV master backend.
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With the transition to digital TV in the US, ATSC USB capture dongles like the Hauppauge 950 don’t require encoding, the signal comes in an MPEG-2 stream. This means that I can put my backend out in the garage, which with your setup would mean that the USB hub would be out of sight. Unfortunately, because digital TV comes in HD, that means that I either need to transcode it, or replace my current frontend with something capable of decoding HD on the fly.
Good discussion, by the way. I’ve been kicking around the idea of replacing my current backend with a sheevaplug. Due to my transcoding requirement, I don’t think this will work for me, unless I completely replace the whole setup, and that’s not quite in the budget right now.
You’re right that with the DTV there won’t be a need to encode the video stream. It’s more or less the same as having a hardware encoder so the end result is just a mpeg stream. This guy name Charles just got a hauppauge 1950 usb tuner and is trying to make it work on the sheeva. No luck yet, I think he is having some trouble downloading the firmware.
If you’re looking for a frontend with hardware decode, try http://fit-pc2.com. They “claim” that it can do 1080p decode on the fly.
While setting up the mysql database, if you get the error: ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘root’@'localhost’ , see http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=70.0 .
The second to last post by pauldy solves it. Although I adapted it slightly:
/etc/init.d/mysql stop
mysqld –skip-grant-tables &
mysql -u root
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO ‘root’@'localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘YOUR_PASSWORD WITH GRANT OPTION;
exit
/etc/init.d/mysql restart
An alternative hardware for the frontend might be something like the Beagle Board or Gumstix Overo (both based on the TI OMAP3530, with an ARM CPU).
I’m not so sure if beagle board or the Overo has enough processor to decode HD content. Also, do they even have VGA or HDMI outputs? I haven’t really been following their developments. As for a mythtv frontend, I’m looking into fit-PC2. Its small and has a great look. Their site also claims it can decode 1080p video.
I don’t think a FIT-PC2 will work for now: the drivers are a mess as it’s not the usual Intel GMA graphics, but a licensed 3rd party core instead (renamed to GMA500). Google a bit for the current state of affairs, but it’s messy.
That’s good to know Marcel. I though the fit-pc2 might be a bit too good to be true. I guess we’ll have to see once they sort out the driver problems.
The HD Homerun by Silicondust Works with MythTV and connects over ethernet.
I have one of those, and I’m very hopeful that the HD Homerun plus an external NAS array (for storage of the actual MPEG files) will offload enough work to allow the SheevaPlug to serve as an effective MythTV backend. My only concern is whether it’ll have enough CPU power to do commflagging…anyone have any thoughts or experience trying this?
As a test, I did use the sheevaplug to do commflag. The result is that it works, but very, very slow. So depending on how much you record this may or may not be a problem. I say that because it doesn’t really matter if it takes 5 hours to do commflag if you don’t need to watch your show until the next day or so.
For my setup, it doesn’t really lend itself to do commflag on the sheevaplug because I have another slave backend to do the recording anyway. So the slave backend does both recording and commflag before it shut itself down.
Most of the work done on the sheevaplug now is web, rtorrent and file servers. I also do my nightly backups on it.
Thx for trying that out. I am going to try to get .22 working and try it out for a week. I will post my results.
I managed to get .22 compiled (just switched the qt3 libraries for qt4), and mythtv-setup runs. I am now trying to get the thing configured.
The nvidia ion (intel atom + geforce 9400M) platform is pretty nice for frontends requiring a low power solution with vdpau support. The acer revo 1600 is the cheapest full system I’ve seen based on the ion.
Would it be possible to keep the recordings on the slave backend and RSYNC the mysql database to/from the sheevaplug ??
fitPC2 link seems to be in error on this page. (the hover-over and actual resolution end with “the”)
I’m impressed. I want a sheeva plug as a masterbackend, it would really be a perfect fit for my house to have that running in the crawl space under my roof right next to the HD antenna, with the Hauppauge/Pinnacle usb HDTV tuner (no encoding necessary)
If anyone can do a rough working installation of mythtv .22 on a sheeva plug and wants to sell it to me, please just say the price and reply to this post.
Thanks!!
By the way, the “guy named Charles” has had the SheevaPlug running as a MythTV backend with its HVR-1950 USB tuner since June 2009.
The problem was that the kernel (built by someone else because I wasn’t quite set up to configure and build plug kernels at the time, and I was trying to get a solution going ASAP to let other folks know how to do it) didn’t have the ‘v4l’ modules configured. Once that was done, the firmware loaded and everything was fine.
Now, the kernels regularly made available at http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/ include ‘v4l’, making it much easier to do this.
Check out http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/ and search for hvr-1950 for more details.
(I visited this forum yesterday because I’m *finally* ready to set up a slave backend to the SheevaPlug master to handle my extra tuner cards, which are PCI-based, and to perform transcoding, and need Kenny’s excellent instructions.)
-Charles Green
Kenny says:
June 1, 2009 at 9:10 am
You’re right that with the DTV there won’t be a need to encode the video stream. It’s more or less the same as having a hardware encoder so the end result is just a mpeg stream. This guy name Charles just got a hauppauge 1950 usb tuner and is trying to make it work on the sheeva. No luck yet, I think he is having some trouble downloading the firmware.
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Hi guy named charles!
Would you be able to put up your complete image so that the less technically sophisticated among us can just buy a sheeva, your same usb stick, and just copy over your disk image onto the sheeva and be happy?
I’m willing to pay for that…
I really can’t find the time to do all the configuration and mess around with kernel patches. I know… I’m weak 
hk89 and others, I have a working Myth 0.23 install on my Sheeva and I may be willing to build an image with Myth preinstalled and ready to go. Please email me at tylernt at gmail dot com if interested.
A premade “PlugMyth” image is now available: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/plugmyth/
has anyone succeeded in getting the hd-pvr usb hd capture device to work? I always get
I am not sure if this is the right list or not, but I have, for fun,
installed a mythbackend on a Seagte Dockstar runn ing archlinux
2.6.34.1. When I try to record from my hd-pvr I get this.
kernel BUG at arch/arm/mm/dma-mapping.c:409!
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000
pgd = c0004000
[00000000] *pgd=00000000
Internal error: Oops: 817 [#1] PREEMPT
On my dockstar. the driver allocated memory for the urb’s without error just when using them I get this error. I have tried using GFP_DMA | GFP_KERNEL as the memory allocation to no avail.
I am stumped so far. Ive adjusted the buffer size to no avail.
same here