[mythtv-users] Why not MythArchive on Frontend only?

[Ken Scales]

Eric Robinson wrote:
> Certainly a bit of transcoding has to occur.  Why not have the backend
> do the transcoding/ISO preparation and then ship it off to the Frontend
> for burning?
>   
That's pretty much how I've been doing things lately...  have the 
backend do the transcoding and dvd authoring, and then burn from my desktop.

Mytharchive creates the DVD image in "<workspace>/work/dvd" where 
"workspace" is an area you configure for mytharchive.  (Sorry, rusty on 
details, but it's part of setting up Mytharchive.)

My Knoppmyth FE/BE system is set up to export this directory (actually a 
couple of levels up in the heirarchy, because I have some other 
directories I share within my local LAN).  My desktop (Ubuntu Fiesty 
Fawn) mounts this filesystem as "/mnt/myth-SATA/".

I run Mytharchive on the BE to just create the DVD filestructure -- not 
the .iso.

 From my desktop, I then use VLC to preview the authored DVD before 
burning it.  Script in /usr/local/bin/previewdvd (chmod 755):

    #!/bin/bash

    DVDDIR=/mnt/myth-SATA/MYTHARCHIVE

    vlc $DVDDIR/dvd
      

If the playback looks like what I want, I then burn it to DVD, also from 
the desktop.  Script in /usr/local/bin/burnmytharchive (chmod 755):

    #!/bin/bash

    cd /mnt/myth-SATA/MYTHARCHIVE

    nice -n10 growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvdrw -dvd-video ./dvd/

    eject /dev/dvdrw

    echo ""
    echo "Image has been burned to DVD."
    echo ""
      

Note that I let growisofs do the .iso formatting, as it reduces the 
runtime of Mytharchive.  (Yeah, I know -- the above scripts could use 
some tidying up and error checking.  Maybe later...)  Since the Mac is 
also a Unix-alike, something similar should be possible there.  And if 
you don't like the command-line, it would be quite easy to make a clicky 
applet to invoke the above scripts.

I really find Mytharchive useful (actually, mythburn.py, as I always use 
it directly from a ssh login from my desktop).  Thanks, Paul H!

Cheers,
Ken