[mythtv-users] What's required for mythfrontend

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/22/2006 07:55 PM, Andrew Robinson wrote:
> I'd like to use my laptop as a mythtv frontend. (I've got a master 
> backend server.) How much of the myth suite do I need to install to do 
> that?

mythtv (that's mythbackend /and/ mythfrontend).  mythplugins and 
myththemes are optional.

>  Do I need to run the backend to run the frontend?

No.  But, if you don't have a fast network connection to your backend, 
then basically, yes, but in that case, MythTV is probably not the right 
program because you'd have to have your laptop as a separate combined 
frontend/master backend (i.e. not part of the same MythTV system that 
includes your home master backend).  Then, you'd have to synchronize the 
data from the home system to the laptop system (and you'd only want to 
pull in the DB data for the shows you actually copy over to the 
laptop).  Doing so would be a /lot/ of effort if done manually...

I do a /lot/ of traveling and take TV with me on my laptop to keep me 
busy in airports and on airplanes.  It's also nice to be able to watch 
TV I like on my schedule when I'm sitting around in the hotel (rather 
than wasting time watching whatever TV--and commercials--are currently 
being broadcast (and, received by the TV in the hotel)).

(Long, long ago) I thought about making a plugin for mythtv to allow me 
to use a nice GUI to copy over a bunch of shows along with the 
commercial-skip info and other metadata and a sort of "proxy" backend 
that could allow me to use the normal frontend with only the data on my 
laptop, but my plan--until I had it written--was to use xine to play 
back the shows.  It turned out that xine works so well, I no longer have 
any desire to start work on MythTraveler.  :)

I use mythrename.pl to create views of my recordings sorted by different 
criteria (i.e. by title/starttime, by starttime/title, by title/original 
airdate, etc.--really, the only one I use for traveling is the original 
airdate one).  Then, I copy over the shows using the links, so I get 
"real" names on my shows:

Veronica_Mars-20061003-_Welcome_Wagon.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061010-_My_Big_Fat_Greek_Rush_Week.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061017-_Witchita_Linebacker.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061024-_Charlie_Don't_Surf.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061031-_President_Evil.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061107-_Hi,_Infidelity.mpg
Veronica_Mars-20061114-_Of_Vice_and_Men.mpg

created with a once-per-30-minute cron job that runs:

mythrename.pl --link /path/to/link/directory \
              --format '%T-%oY%om%od-%S' --underscores \
              --separator '-' --replacement '_'

Then, I just watch them in xine in the order they're listed and move 
them to a "Viewed" directory when done (but you could just as easily 
delete them once watched).

As far as commercials go, I don't transcode to cut them out.  With 
xine's 4 different skip amounts, I've found I can skip any commercial 
break in 5 keystrokes and many in only 3 keystrokes.

Mike