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Plextor Myth Tv

Martin
This are some notes on the installation of the Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U and MythTV on SUSE 10.0. This is not a complete list of instructions.

Resources

Driver

  • Install the kernel sources
  • Install fxload

The Makefile in 0.9.6 has some issues that make it fail at SUSE 10. My Makefile fixes: 

  install -m0755 hotplug/wis-ezusb \
    $(DESTDIR)/etc/hotplug/usb/wis-ezusb
  install -m0644 hotplug/wis.usermap-ezusb \
    $(DESTDIR)/etc/hotplug/usb/wis-ezusb.usermap

For some reason, I had to upload the firmware by hand. For this, I've modified wis-ezusb by dropping the cases and setting the variables to values specific for my card: 

  FIRMWARE=$FIRMWARE_DIR/hpi_PX-TV402U.hex
  FLAGS="-t fx2 -D $1"

The device is in this way specified as an argument to the script. You can find out the device with lsusb or cat /proc/bus/usb/devices.

Check if everything works by running gorecord. This will show information on the device.

MySQL

Install database: 

  $ mysql_install_db --datadir=/tmp/mythdb/

Start database server: 

  $ mysqld_safe --datadir=/tmp/mythdb

Run MythTV commands for MySQL (as root) 

  $ mysql < /home/martin/.nix-profile/share/mythtv/sql/mc.sql

MythTV Setup

Requirements:

  • install driver
  • install xmltv (see later)
  • start mysql
  • start mythbackend

Start the mythbackend with: 

  $ mythbackend

Start setup with: 

  $ mythtv-setup -geometry 640x480

If the font is weird or you want to see the mouse, then you can use mythtvfrontend to configure the font size and the visibility of the mouse. Also, you can make mythtv run in a window there (which I prefer).

General

  • TV Format: PAL

Capture Card

  • Remove other capture cards with 'D' (delete does not work)
  • Card type: USB Mpeg-4 Encoder
  • Video device: /dev/video0
  • Audio device: /dev/dsp1
  • Audio samping rate limit: none
  • Default input: Tuner

You can find out the audio device using gorecord (part of the ConvertX SDK) or cat /proc/asound/cards.

Note that you have to restart the backend if you have modified the sound configuration.

Channel Editor

You cannot enter the actual frequence. Frequence IDs are numbers like E6, 42 etc, see:

Most of the providers only list the numbers and not the complete frequence ID. You have to look up the actual ID by its frequency.

Finetuning is required if there is a +/- . Calculation of the finetuning:

  • (actual frequence - frequence of ID) / 62.5

You don't have to restart the backend if you have edited the channels.

MythTV front-end

Recording profiles must be configured:

  • No compression for audio (i.e. not MP3)

xmltv for Netherlands

The python xmltv implementation is extremely slow. It works, but that's about it. Use the following one as an extension of xmltv (so, you have to install xmltv as well) :