MythTV
is a Free Open Source software digital video recorder (DVR) project distributed
under the terms of the GNU GPL.
On Debian & Ubuntu, VirtualBox (current version 3.2.10) can be installed by:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.2
There are two alternative methods:
- Copy the self extracting archive and installer 'mythtv-v0.2*-w32.exe'
created by the build script to the virtual host and run it.
- Copy the entire contents of ./mythinstall/win32 created by the build
script into an empty folder on the virtual host.
Option #1 is the simplest and provides Windows Start menu entries for
mythfrontend and to uninstall.
Option #2 is neater during testing, requiring no registry changes but needs
manual intervention.
MySQL Server Installation
Before running any MythTV program you should consider whether it may be desirable
to install the MySQL database and mythbackend on VirtualBox too.
This will limit damage to your precious live database. If so proceed as follows...
Open Internet Explorer and download MySQL from
here.
Double click the downloaded file to begin installation.
IMPORTANT - during installation select "Detailed configuration" and
ensure to disable "Strict mode" otherwise certain MythTV SQL transactions will
fail and the database will not be updated to the latest schema.
At a terminal, create the database and set the user and password.
C:\>"\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\bin\mysql.exe" -u root -p
Enter password: ********
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS mythtest;
CREATE DATABASE mythtest;
ALTER DATABASE mythtest DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
GRANT ALL ON mythtest.* TO mythtv@"%" IDENTIFIED BY "mythtv";
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit
This will create the MySQL database named mythtest and setup a user named
mythtv with the password mythtv to have access from any machine with network
access to this host.
Running MythTV on VirtualBox
It is preferable, initially, to start MythTV programs from a command prompt
which allows viewing log output. Assuming that MythTV was installed to the
default 'C:\Program Files\MythTV', at a command prompt type:
'C:\Program Files\MythTV\mythfrontend' -p -w -geometry 800x600
The -p option forces a manual database configuration, the following options force
mythfrontend to run inside a managed window (in case of problems).
Select your country and language and press Save to proceed to the MythTV servers
page. Using the tab key, select Manual then press [return]. Proceed to the
Setup page, select General and proceed to the database settings page.
- Ensure that 'Ping test server' is disabled.
- If using a local MySQL server, configured as above, set the database name
to mythtest and the username and password to mythtv.
When the MythTV GUI is displayed, ensure to choose 'settings'. I found it
necessary to go though most of the settings pages and re-enter sensible
values before everything worked. Most of the changes have no effect
until you exit and restart mythfrontend.
NB the MythTV settings are by default saved in
%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.mythtv (typically c:\Documents andSettings\[username]\.mythtv)
but this can be changed by setting MYTHCONFDIR.
What works:
- UI Painter using Qt and OpenGL.
- Sound, best with DirectX.
- TV playback works with OpenGL
- MythVideo. You may need to add "-O DVDDeviceLocation=e:" to the command line to play DVDs
- MythMusic plays files OK but not CDs
- MythGallery
- MythBrowser
- MythNews
- mythbackend
- mythtv-setup
What doesn't work:
- UI Painter using Direct3D hangs.
- UPnP seems broken
- Various niggling crashes here & there.
- MythArchive
- MythGame
- MythNetvision
- MythWeather
- MythZoneminder
Untested:
- mytharchivehelper
- mythcommflag
- mythfilldatabase
- mythfillnetvision
- mythjobqueue
- mythlcdserver
- mythmessage
- mythpreviewgen
- mythshutdown
- mythwelcome
- mythzmserver
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