[mythtv-users] Dual headed myth-tv box

[Lance Tost]

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, Simon at the Threshold wrote:
> Another possible option for me is to run my office system dual-headed 
> one for the office monitor at a decent res and a second card which 
> supports tv-out which plugs into the living room. THus I can safe some 
> dosh by not buying a second ultra computer for the living room (Although 
>   a new toy does appeal).

I am playing around with this as well.  I'd like to drive two televisions 
off of one frontend by running two instances of mythfrontend.  Here's what 
I've experiemented with so far:

*) Running two X servers.  In my XF86Config file, I defined two screens, 
two devices, two monitors and two layouts.  One layout uses device1 and 
monitor1.  The other layout uses device2 and monitor2.  I then set up 
gdm.conf as follows:

In the [servers] section:
0=Standard
1=TV

Then down a few lines:
# Definition of the standard X server.
[server-Standard]
name=Standard server
command=/usr/X11R6/bin/X -audit 0
flexible=true

[server-TV]
name=TV server
command=/usr/X11R6/bin/X -audit 0 -layout TVLayout
flexible=true     

I'm not 100% certain what flexible means so maybe it's part of my problem.  
The problem with this setup, is that it will only display X on one monitor 
at a time.  This won't work since I want to be able to watch both TVs at 
the same time.

*) Other option I tried was to have one layout contain two screens.  
Here's my layout section from my XF86Config:

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "CRT Layout"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        Screen      1  "TV Screen" leftof "Screen0"
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice    "DevInputMice" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection


Surprisingly, this almost works.  I autostart mythfrontend via kde and 
when I used this config, I got a separate mythfrontend process on each 
display simultaneously.  Currently, I can control both by using my mouse 
to "jump over" to the other display.  However, the problem with this setup 
is that there is only one config for mythfrontend because it is the same 
user running both copies.  So I get sound from both frontends on the same 
soundcard.  That won't work.  Also, I gave a little thought to how I could 
control each frontend with separate remotes on separate serial ports but 
that started giving me a headache and it was 1:30AM so I gave up for now.


Anyone have any pointers for me?

-- 
Lance Tost <ltost at pobox.com>