Setting up channels on MythTV for ntl analog

MediaMan

Hi all,

I am in the process of creating a Media Centre based on Ubuntu and MythTV, with the gory details documented in another post.

I've had such a time getting the channels and programme guide set up I thought I would write it up as a separate post in case it might be useful to someone else setting out on this journey.

Starting point:

I am running MythTV on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. I have an ntl analog source (Dublin area) into the RF input of a Hauppauge PVR-150. I had scanned for channels, which found about 30 channels, of which only 17 were legit, the remainder being duplicates or noise. All channels show up as “unknown”. I wanted to get the channel list down to the 17 actual ntl analog channels, with correct naming and positioning. I also wanted to get the programme guide set up correcty, as without that, MythTV isn't really much use.

After many, many wrong directions, cul-de-sacs and diversions, here are the steps that I followed to set up my channels and to generate a working electronic programme guide (EPG). The steps are mostly based on information at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Uk_xmltv, which I found only after I had followed about twenty incomplete or non-quite-my-situation approaches.

The steps below may not be in the optimum sequence – rather they reflect the sequence in which I stumbled upon things. In fact there may be a much easier way to do this, so if anyone knows of one please let us know. I've put file names etc. in quotes to distinguish them from the text - in real life of course the quotes are not used.

1. Installed xmltv and xmltv-utils using apt-get. I had assumed that these were already installed with MythTV, but they aren't.
2. Ran MythTV Backend Setup, went to Video Sources and selected my source, which is called ‘ntl analog’. Selected tv_grab_uk_rt which created a file called ‘ntl analog.xmltv’ containing information on all the sources that the Radio Times feed supports. It told me to run 'mythfilldatabase --manual' to clean this up before starting the actual information load.
3. As instructed, I ran ‘mythfilldatabase –manual’. I discovered that I would have had to answer yes or no to more than 100 channel names to get the 17 I wanted. I started to do this, but gave up in frustration. (Don’t be tempted to shortcut this by answer “all” to the yes/no/all/none questions, unless you want your PC to go off immediately and repeatedly to spend hours fetching and storing program information that you don’t need.) So in the end I skipped this step and went straight to the next step.
4. Instead of following the previous step, I copied the .xmltv file from elsewhere on this forum to '~mythtv/.mythtv/ntl alanog xmltv'. It’s essential to get the source name exactly right, and to put the file in the correct place. In my case it is ‘ntl analog.xmltv’. Spaces have to be escaped on the command line, so the command becomes something like
   cp file-i-got-from-boards-dot-ie.xmltv ~mythtv/.mythtv/ntl\ analog.xmltv
5. Following advice at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054929608, I started up MythWeb and manually edited the channel table to contain the correct channel numbers, names, and call signs for each channel. The channel table at http://www.gregfarrell.org/mythtv/settings_channels.php.htm was almost correct for me (ntl Dublin analog), except that TG4 is at channel A14 rather than A15. I also deleted the extra channels that had been scanned in by MythTV but were duplicates or had no signal. Similarly to the sample table, I created a duplicate entry for Paramount and Nick on channel A22 so that I would have both schedules in the program guide. This whole process was extremely tedious and error-prone, and that’s only for 17 channels!
6. Still in MythWeb, I edited the xmltvid field for each channel to contain the xmltv identifier contained in the .xmltv file. For example, http://northern-ireland.bbc1.bbc.co.uk/ for BBC1 and so on. I went back into the MythTV backend setup to see if the MythWeb channel setup was carried through to the backend setup and everything look good.
7. I exited the backend setup and it asked if I wanted to run mythfilldatabase, I said yes and off it went. It took 15 mins or so while it fetched the schedule information, and then the channel logos. Note: for most of this time it reports back absolutely nothing by way of status, so I thought it was hung. However looking at the system monitor, it looks like a life support machine – for each channel there was a blast of network activity (to get the channel info) followed by a sustained period of high CPU usage (to munge the data into the db). The logo fetching was more verbose – you can see it retrying etc. There were plenty timeouts and retries, on an otherwise good network connection, so I suspect the source machines are under some pressure.
8. I went back into the MythTV front end, and lo and behold there was a program guide fully populated! The crock of gold at the end of the rainbow! Setanta and Channel 6 had no programme info (I don't think Ratio TImes have info for these channels), but everything else was there.

After all that I was thinking that it could be helpful if people would do a db export of their channel tables for ntl analog, ntl digital, sky, etc., so that people can import them and avoid having to scan for channels and then rename them all. I will make mine available as soon as I figure out how to do so. I will also post my .xmltv file. I am certainly not looking forward to doing this for 100+ ntl digital channels so if anyone is willing to supply the information…

Some pitfalls:
If you run tv_grab_uk_rt or mythfilldatabase from the command line, it will be running within your user context and will look for and place files in your directory tree rather than the mythtv one. You could set a password for the mythtv user and log in as that to run these programs manually, but I suggest you don’t bother running these things on their own – there’s no need. Just go into the myth back end setup and exit. It will prompt you to run mythfilldatabase and you can just say yes, and it will then run in the mythtv context.

Last word:
It is difficult to convey how much time and effort went into getting this working. I must have looked at 000’s of pages, all offering partial or incompatible solutions. If the above looks easy (and it could be made to be), then it is easy in the same way that opening a safe is easy after you have found the correct combination by trying all 9,999 wrong combinations. Maybe I didn’t read the docs carefully enough, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Nowehere did I find this whole process documented from start to finish - http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Uk_xmltv was the closest.

MediaMan

Here's my .xmltv file as mentioned above. Since my previous post, I noticed I was missing the Setanta line, which explains why I was getting no programme info for it, but I've a feeling that the ID below may be for Setanta 1 rather than Setanta Ireland.

channel rte-1.rte.ie
channel rte2.rte.ie
channel tv3.ie
channel tg4.ie
channel utvlive.com
channel channel4.com
channel northern-ireland.bbc1.bbc.co.uk
channel northern-ireland.bbc2.bbc.co.uk
channel sky-one.sky.com
channel sky-news.sky.com
channel discoveryeurope.com
channel mtv.co.uk
channel livingtv.co.uk
channel e4.channel4.com
channel paramountcomedy.com
channel nickelodeon.co.uk
channel 1.setanta.com

MediaMan

Here's my MythTV channel table. Don't go importing this into your database as is! Someone more techie than I can possibly suggest if this might be useful and how to import it risk-free. The path to the icons is definitely not generic, so at a minimum that would need to be removed or adapted.

adrian.s

I feel your pain!

Having endured this experience a few years ago when first putting together my myth box, I remember countless hours of surfing, finding the site which gave you 60% of the solution, making a complete mess of your system and not being able to revert the change. It's not for the faint hearted! You really need persistence to get this thing set up.

I guess that everybody is a little different with their setup, so no one page is able to cover everything end to end. I'm not sure if you've ever used the mythtv-ireland [1] mail alias, but it might help you set up with some of the more local issues you find when configuring myth.

Well done on getting it up and running, hopefully you'll be able to get the system into "production" shortly!

A.

[1] Mythtv Ireland Mailing LIst

stiofanD

Hey MediaMan. Thanks for posting your experiences. Its quite a while since I first setup MythTV so its always interesting to hear a 'new' users experience.

Personally, I find it much easier to edit the channel info using mythweb than using the mythtv-setup utility. For big changes I edit the database directly. I used to have just the 17 analogue channels setup. When I added ntl digital to the setup, editing the database table directly was really the easiest way for me personally.

I now have three sources setup - ntl analogue, ntl digital and DVB-T. I'd be happy to share details on how to do this for anyone interested.

If you are interested in getting programme details for the ntl channels that are not available through tv_grab_uk_rt (i.e. Channel 6 and Setanta Ireland) then I would suggest you check out the grabber circulated on the mythtv-ireland mailing list mentioned above. Specifically this post

MediaMan

Thanks people for the responses and encouragement. I've had to put this project to one side for the moment, but hopefully will get back to it in the not-too-distant future. I've subscribed to the MythTV Ireland mailing list - good to see a dedicated forum for this minority sport - where a little help can go a long way!

Technoteze

Hi there guys. I was just going through the forums looking for some help with setting up MythTV here in Ireland. I saw you guys mentioning a MythTV mailing list for Ireland. Is that still going around?

I need some help setting scheduling info for Sky TV. Also I'm sure I'll be having a few more problems in the future. If there's a dedicated site or mailing list with peoples previous experiences setting up MythTV in Ireland that I could benefit from, please could I join.

Any help would be great!!!!

Thanks much!

stiofanD

as far as I knew, the mythtv-ireland mailing list was still up and running, albeit very quietly, but I see now that the mailman link posted above is no longer working, so maybe the list is really gone? If this is the case, thats a real shame as it was the only dedicated Irish MythTV resource that I know of.

Well, in the absence of that, feel free to post your questions in this forum - there's at least a couple of active MythTV users here (myself included)

Technoteze

Good man and thanks very much stiofanD. I had tried all the links and yup they aren't working. Too bad. After the build when it comes time to install and configure I'll be sure to ask.

Thanks again!:)

MediaMan

I've had to abandon my attempts to get the digital stuff working for now. Got analog ntl going, but as for digital...

Simply too much of the cycle of configuring stuff, things not working, searching the forums, repeat ad infinitum. Someone said it previously, and it's very true, you will learn a lot about Linux while getting anything other than a trivial MythTV configuration going.

I've had particular trouble with:
- the labour-intensiveness of getting an ntl digital channel table entered
- trying to get the IR Blaster working
- trying to get my PC to drive my flat-screen TV via DVI

All solvable I'm sure, and I've got a lot of great help here on this forum, but when you throw in a family and a day job, the time simply wasn't there. Hopefully I'll get back to it some time in the future.

Don't want to be discouraging, but best to know what you are letting yourself in for. And to repeat a previous post, ask away for help 'cos people are very willing to help out.

Technoteze

I know I may have bitten off more than I can chew for now but I am fairly persistent. I'll keep you guys updated as soon as everything arrives and I can get started.

Getting sky to work will be my biggest problem for now but I'll soon see. I have a lot of respect for linux and have been trying to learn as much as possible. I read that post too that I'll learn a load about linux by configuring MythTV.

I'll be sure to ask for help though if and when I'm about to pull my hair out!!!

Thanks:)

tomc

Hi Guys

Just reading your posts as i am currently upgrading from NTL Analog to a DVB T&S. Will post any relevant info that will apply to SKY box as I learn.

TomC

tomc

BTW The MythTV mailing list for Ireland is alive and kicking!!!!

TomC