This article focus on the installation of DVBs/DVB-S MythTV DVR/PVR system and the software. In this guide, I will show you how to setup of the MythTV software and get it working with your DVB s2card.
The Setup
When you setup of the MythTV, please make sure that our mouse will not be able to point and click at the MythTV buttons. MythTV was designed with a TV mindset from day one, so it’s expecting inputs from a remote control. In this case, your keyboard works just fine. The keys you are going to use are:INSERT KEYS HERE
Verify DVB s2 card is operating in Linux
Before starting this process its worth checking your DVB s2 card is correctly recognized by the Linux Kernel. Open a Terminal window (Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and do the following, this would show your card is Linux supported TV card.
Start MythTV-Setup
To begin the setup process, you need to run mythtv-setup. From the menu at the top of your screen, click System->Administration->MythTV Backend Setup. This should fire up the setup process and present you with the initial language selection screen. Select your language, verify your network settings and press enter to bring up the 5 option main setup menu. If you get a ‘no UPNP backend’ error, please verify your network settings. Go into option 1, General.
This should now bring up some networking parameters. If you followed Part 1 of this howto, using ‘apt-get’ to install MythTV, then the MySQL DB and network information should already be filled in for you and you only need to select a PIN (set the PIN to 0000 to disable it. The PIN is not really necessary unless you want to stop other people on your home network from watching TV and recordings), then <TAB> to select the ‘Next’ button at the bottom right of your screen.
On the other hand, if you installed MythTV and MySQL yourself without using apt-get, then input the parameters you set up with here, set your PIN to 0000 then <TAB> to ‘Next’ at the bottom right of your screen. Mine looks like this (Note PIN is not shown in this picture, but you still need to enter it):
On the next screens you should modify the values as specified below. Any values not specified here can be left at the default values. Don’t forget to <TAB> to ‘Next’ after each screen :
Locale Settings screen
* Format = ‘PAL’
* VBI = ‘None’
* Channel Frequency = ‘Europe West’
Misc Settings screen
* Master backend override = ticked
* Delete files slowly = ticked
* HD rungbuffer = 9400
EIT scan options screen
* EIT transport timeout = 1 minute
* Cross source EIT = ticked
* this is useful if you add more sat orbital positions later on)
* Backend idle before EIT = 30 secs,
shutdown/wakeup screen
No changes, leave the default values
backend wakeup screen
No changes, leave the default values
Backend Control screen
No changes, leave the default values
Job Queue (backend specific) screen,
* Max jobs = 2
* Job queue check = 300 seconds.
* If your mythbox is on all night long, set the job queue start and end to the middle of the night when you are asleep so MythTV jobs do not hinder your daytime system performance. For example, start 02:00 end 07:00.
* cpu use = medium
* Allow commercial detect = ticked
* Transcoding = ticked
Job Queue (Global) screen, Job Queue (Job commands) screen, UPNP Server settings screen
No changes, leave the default values.
On the UPNP Server settings screen, the ‘Next’ button should be replaced with ‘Finish.’ <TAB> to finish and select to return you to the main setup menu.
DVB s2 card Setup
Select menu option 2 (capture video cards) then click new capture card. Set Capture card type to ‘DVB DTV capture card (v3.x)’ NOTE: your card may show up as V4L or similar initially. Make sure you select DVB DTV capture card instead. Once selected, the system should auto fill technical details regarding your card, such as type.
* Set tuning timeout to 20000 and signal timeout to 20000
* Select the Diseqc settings button (even if you dont use it). In the new window, hit enter on ‘unconnected’ (Note you may need to press the right arrow key on the word ‘unconnected’ to highlight/select it before hitting enter). This should bring up a menu, from which you select LNB. This will bring up another window, where you set ‘LNB preset’ to ‘universal(europe)’ – this is assuming you have a European style universal LNB (Sky minidish has this). Select finish (you should now be back one page and see ‘LNB’ instead of ‘unconnected’). Hit escape to take you back to the card setup screen
* Select recording options and in the new screen set max recordings to ’2′ (this allows you to watch one channel and record another if they are on the same DTV transponder/multiplex). Tick wait for SEQ start header. Untick open Mythtv supported card on demand. Tick use DVB s2 card for active EIT. Put a ‘tuning delay’ of 100ms to help with Budget DVB cards. Select finish to go back one screen, then select finish again
You should now be at the capture card list and you should see your card, like so:
If you see the DVB S2 card on the list, Hit ESC to go back to the main menu. Congratulations, you have successfully completed Part 2 of this guide and are well on the way to watching Freesat TV on Linux Ubuntu.
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