HOWTO: LinHES
R6
and the Hauppauge HD-PVR
Overview:
This guide details installing the Hauppauge
HD-PVR drivers and the SVN trunk version of MythTV using LinHES R6
(previously KnoppMyth) as a starting point. My current test
platform is a KRP
Dragon v2.0 (specs)
which uses a DirecTV receiver as the HD source.
Requirements:
- You must have a Hauppauge HD-PVR which has been previously
loaded with firmware by installing and testing it in a Windows machine.
Go no further until you do this!
- You must have at least a dual core CPU with enough power to
handle software H.264 decoding. My test platform shows 65% CPU usage
during playback (that's more than one whole core). OR you
must have an nVidia video card with VDPAU support. NOTE:
Software decoding speed has been improved in MythTV 0.23.
- You must have a working LinHES R6 installation on the
machine
you plan on using. Make sure everything works as expected before
proceeding. Make a backup of this configuration.
- You must have tolerance for beta type software and
the various bugs and broken things which will
occur.
Words of
Caution:
Read the requirements above! If you
don't meet the requirements, don't expect it to work. This is
crazy beta stuff, so no warranties. Don't complain about loss
of data, broken features/drivers/software, headaches, etc...
Your
myth database will automatically be updated to the latest version and
you cannot go back. Backup your mysql database
before proceeding.
Currently,
all the nice MythVantage system
configuration stuff will not work (it is using the stable mythtv API).
This will be fixed in the future. The
MythVantage menus work in the latest LinHES release.
What is working?
All the basics work
including: LiveTV (but still a buggy), recordings, commercial flagging and skipping.
What does not work?
Currently, you
can't playback
HD-PVR recorded interlaced
content (480i or 1080i) without the frontend crashing. This is a known
problem and the developers are working on it. Currently, I have my
DirecTV box set to output only
720p. My HDHomeRun continues to work fine with any
resolution and will deinterlace just fine. It is rumored that
you
can playback interlaced content under VDPAU, but I have not verified
this yet. All resolutions are reported to be
working fine in 0.23-fixes, but I have not verified this with my setup.
Lossless
transcoding of HD-PVR recordings does not work. This is
something that mythtranscode will need added support for in the future.
The is currently a work-around script which requires
compiling
the latest ffmpeg and AVIDemux (see the wiki page for details).
I don't have
mythstream working. I have not tired to get it working
since I don't use it.
The weather
stuff seems a little broken. MythVideo works, but
is in flux. This all works in 0.23-fixes.
There is
probably more broken stuff, so let me know what you find.
With the exception of live TV, everything should be stable
when using 0.23-fixes.
Prepare Your
System:
Since you currently have a working and happy LinHES R6
installation, you will need to verify a few things before backing up
your working baseline configuration.
First, make sure your R6
installation is up to date with the latest MythTV (with 0.22-fixes or greater installed).
sudo pacman -Syu
Make sure you are using a supported theme and OSD. If not, you will
need to switch before
updating. Here is the link to the stock themes currently in
SVN:
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/browser/trunk/myththemes
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/browser/trunk/themes
Now it's time to make the backup. Go to the LinHES menu
option and choose the backup option and make sure it reports success.
Here are some links to making backups:
http://knoppmyth.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=112490#112490
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=MythBackupAndRestoreHowTo
Install the
HD-PVR Driver:
The
HD-PVR driver is now merged with the main v4l-dvb source code
repository and is included in the latest v4l-dvb package.
sudo pacman -Sf
v4l-dvb
sudo modprobe hdpvr
You
should now see a /dev/videoX device. This should be
/dev/video0
if you have no other capture cards in the chassis (which I strongly
recommend). If you do not see this device reported, then
reference the MythTV
HD-PVR wiki page for more info.
You
probably need to add the hdpvr module to your /etc/rc.conf. I'm not
sure of this step yet, so chime in and let me know.
Install the nVidia Driver with
VDPAU Support:
Optionally, if you
have a supported nVidia video card, you can install the nVidia drivers
with VDPAU support. These may already be installed
automatically by LinHES.
sudo pacman -S nvidia
nvidia-utils
It is currently suggested that you disable the compositing extension of
Xorg.
sudo nvidia-xconfig
--no-composite
Also enable "OpenGL VSync" in the MythTV playback setup.
For more info on VDPAU, see the MythTV VDPAU wiki
page.
Install MythTV
SVN Packages:
Finally, remove the stable MythTV packages and install the SVN version.
sudo
pacman -R mythtv mythtv-extras
sudo pacman -S mythtv-svn mythtv-extras-svn
This step is no longer necessary as MythTV 0.22-fixes and up have
support for the HD-PVR.
Add the HD-PVR
Tuner
This
procedure is currently in flux. The best place for the latest info
is the MythTV wiki page.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/HDPVR
References:
The Hauppauge HD-PVR page on the MythTV wiki: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/HDPVR
The MythTV SVN ticket for HD-PVR support: http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/5443
The DirecTV serial interface script: http://www.pdp8.net/directv/directv.shtml (Now included in the mythcontrib package)
My post to the forum: http://knoppmyth.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19656