[mythtv-users] New HTPC case from Antec

[Ian Macdonald]

On Sun 10 Sep 2006 at 13:52:24 +1000, you wrote:

> I have the same case and find the irtrans IR receiver to be excellent, it
> will learn just about all remote codes!

I've only tried to use it to learn my set-top box's remote control. It
worked, but it produced a file that wasn't lirc-compatible. I needed an
lirc-compatible file, so that I could use it to send the signals to my
IR blaster.

> For those interested the IR receiver will also allow the PC to be
> turned on/off by the remote, it has an on board relay that you can run
> your case power switch through.

Do you have this working? I couldn't quite figure out how to do it, as
the Linux CLI doesn't seem to have a way of enabling/disabling this
feature.

My frontend and backend are on the same machine, which means that I'll
never really want to shut the machine down, anyway, so I didn't spend a
lot of time on it. I also have a small daughter tottering around the
house, so having the machine capable of being shut down via a button on
the remote control is asking for trouble. :-)

> So you have Marcus' (Irtrans) port of LCDproc working with MythTV for the
> irtrans vfd? I thought Marcus' port was based on version 0.4.3 of LCDproc
> and MythTV required version 0.4.5 or greater.

I have the code from here:

  http://www.irtrans.de/en/download/linux.php

which is, indeed, based on 0.4.3 of LCDproc, but it works fine with
mythlcdserver.

> but this seems like some good news as I have just got "Welcome to
> MythTV" as the welcome/default message and haven't tried to get
> LCDproc going yet. It has been like this for nearly 12 months now :)

It's quite easy to get working.

My rc.local contains the following:

/usr/local/sbin/irserver -daemon -netmask 127.0.0.1/32 -http_port 8080 \
  -no_lirc -loglevel 4 -logfile /var/log/irserver /dev/ttyUSB0 2>/dev/null

/usr/local/sbin/LCDd -s 2>/dev/null &

I'll write proper init scripts for irserver and LCDd at some point.

The VFD display is nice to have. You get a progress bar to show you how
far through a recording you are, you can see which programme is
recording even when the TV is off, plus you get tag data displayed when
you use MythMusic.

> 379 Euro seems awfully dear, this case is AU$399 is Australia!

This is The Netherlands: everything is dear!

The X11 case was the most expensive component of my entire system
(unless you include my time!).
 
> PS: I am not a programmer, but was considering attempting to port the
> irtrans driver from Marcus' code to 0.5.0 ( there is a new driver API in
> 0.5.0), and see if we can get it included in LCDproc tree.

I looked at doing that, too, but 0.5.x is quite different and it didn't
look trivial to do (for me, at least). Updating for 0.4.5 would be quite
easy, but it wasn't clear that even doing the work for 0.5.0 would yield
any obvious benefits for a dedicated MythTV box that already has the VFD
working.

Ian
-- 
Ian Macdonald               | Robustness, adj.:  Never having to say
ian at caliban.org             | you're sorry. 
http://www.caliban.org/     | 
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