[mythtv-users] Anyone have a dual-head setup they'd recommend?

Schlaegel vthtym0505 at schlaegel.com
Wed Feb 22 07:30:45 UTC 2006


On 2/21/06, Michael Jones <mike at phasegate.com> wrote:
>
> That's exactly what I'd like to do.  What kind of card are you
> using?  Are you happy with it?
>

I have a PVR350. It does the encoding, decoding, and acts as a TV/sound
card. Watching live TV, recording, and watching recordings doesn't even
register on the processor usage meters. The only thing that registers is the
flagging of commercials, and it is "niced" to a reasonable level.

The trick was getting mythfrontend to show on a different X server. I really
wanted this so that anyone could log out, or not be logged in at all, and
still have mythfrontend running uninterrupted.

I use FC4, but needed to upgrade the Xorg server to 6.9 to support
concurrent X servers. Before Xorg 6.9 only one X server could be active at a
time. After I did a bit of playing around with Xorg 6.9 and lircd, I ended
up with a separate X server that only takes input from lircd and is
completely independent of my primary head X server. It uses a separate
xorg.conf file specified on the command line, so the gui xorg configuration
tools don't mess up the PVR 350 setup. The X server and mythfrontend are run
as a rc service and start automatically.

To make it easier, I used the X server at
http://washington.kelkoo.net/epia/and advice from
http://blog.chris.tylers.info/index.php?/archives/14-Multiseat-X-Under-X11R6.97.0.html.

I really like the setup, and my wife likes it too, which is always a major
factor. One of the cool parts, is that I can have a separate mythfrontend
running as the currently logged in console user watching a different
recording on the monitor. This feature isn't used often, but sometimes I
want to watch TV while I "work".

I will follow up with more information later and maybe a howto and specfiles
and rpms.
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