[mythtv-users] Reserving an encoder for an external program?

[Kevin Kuphal]

Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 08/20/06 21:41, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>
>   
>> Lars Kellogg-Stedman wrote:
>>  
>>
>>     
>>> I'd like to use my MythTv box to record radio programs from the FM
>>> tuner in my PVR-500.  My understanding is that the stock MythTV build
>>> doesn't include support for scheduling radio recordings, so I'd like
>>> to use an external program to accomplish this task.
>>>
>>> The obvious requirement is that I find some way to do this that
>>> doesn't conflict with existing scheduled recordings.
>>>
>>> I'm hoping that there's some way to schedule "idle time" for an
>>> encoder in advance, or otherwise ask MythTV to leave an encoder alone
>>> at specific times so that it can be used by an external program.  Or,
>>> I guess, somehow shoehorn MythTV into doing all this for me.  I'm
>>> running MythTV 0.19.
>>>
>>>       
>> While not straightforward, you could easily combine the telnet support 
>> in mythfrontend with a menu option to use EXECTV on the frontend to run 
>> a mythfrontend session on your backend or another machine where you use 
>> scripted telnet to walk through the menus to the EXECTV menu item which 
>> ties up a tuner and then return when your radio program is done.
>>
>>     
>
> But won't that require that the EXECTV menu item execute a program that 
> runs as long as the radio recording?  Since Myth executes the program 
> with myth_system, EXECTV is appropriate for using another interactive 
> program instead of mythfrontend, but not ideal for the situation 
> described by the OP.
>
> I'm assuming:
>     a) the "external program" "for scheduling radio recordings" runs all 
> the time (thus allowing the scheduling)
>     b) the OP has an interest in using (or at least having the ability 
> to use) mythfrontend while random radio shows are being recorded
>
> If so, he will need to either dedicate the capture card for radio 
> recording (i.e. not set it up in Myth), or modify Myth/the external 
> radio recorder to send a LOCK_TUNER/FREE_TUNER command to the backend as 
> required.  See libs/libmythui/myththemedmenu.cpp line 1998.
>
>   
I assumed the scheduler could handle the interaction with mythfrontend 
via telnet at the appropriate times to reserve the tuner by launching 
the EXECTV menu item (would could be nothing more than a dummy process 
that waits for input from the scheduler to return when the radio 
recording is done).