[mythtv-users] Secondary viewing location help

[Roger Heflin]

Allen Edwards wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 6:36 AM, Allen Edwards <allen.p.edwards at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 4:30 AM, jansenj <jansenj+myth at gmail.com<jansenj%2Bmyth at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 2) You can use a modulator and a RF to IR module to us the remote from
>>> the
>>>> other room.  The remote transmits RF due to a special "battery" that is
>>> an
>>>> RF transmitter and a half length battery to make up the difference.  The
>>> RF
>>>> Rx is put near the myth box.  I think you can have two instances of myth
>>> on
>>>> one box but I don't know how to control them with the remote as on my
>>>> system, both instances respond to the remote commands.  ie. doesn't
>>> work.
>>>> 3) You can run coax to the other room.  One for video, one for audio.  I
>>>> have done this and can explain what I did if you ask.  Doesn't help with
>>> the
>>>> remote. I just did it to be able to watch what is being watched in the
>>> other
>>>> room.
>>> I'm not too worried about the remote control aspects, I figured I
>>> could use my wifi pda to control using mythweb to control one of the
>>> frontend sessions.
>>>
>>>  What it really comes down to is,  Can you run a seperate user
>>> login(and hence a second myth frontend config for video and audio) on
>>> a secondary video card, I'm guessing no, since I wouldn't have a clue
>>> how to do that with xorg.conf without using xinerama.  And even if I
>>> could get that far, I'm not sure video overlay would work on the
>>> second screen.  I just didn't really want to blaze that trail by
>>> myself.
>>
>>
>> You can definitely run two instances of mythtv on one machine.  I just did
>> it.  The problem was that the first one grabbed the sound card so the second
>> one had no sound.  Plus, they will both respond to the remote.
>>
>> I don't know how to solve the sound issue.  Sounds like you would need two
>> different versions of the program (two data bases, two setups, etc), not
>> just two instances, with each somehow targeting a different sound card.  I
>> don't know how to do that or if that can be done.
>>
>> Allen
>>
>>
> I forgot to say that this machine is a 5400+.  I also forgot to check the
> load at the time I did the experiment.  I know this will not work on a 2.4G
> machine.  My guess is that it is pushing the 5400+ but if you get more
> serious on this, I can make some measurements for  you.
> 
> Allen
> 

You would definitely need a dual core setup with reasonably fast cpus, 2 2.4Ghz 
intels or amd's *should* be fast enough, but you may need even more to pull it 
off, and the graphic cards might be an issue, as it used to be that the second 
screen (off of one card) is not always accelerated the same as the first, which 
means mpeg2 acceleration would only work on 1 screen at a time.   Anyone know if 
this is still the case?

And you would need to setup X to have 2 distinct servers each with separate 
keyboards/mice/remotes, and that would have to be done by *MANUALLY* editing the 
xorg config files, I don't believe any of the graphic/automatic tools has any 
options to do this sort of thing.    Several years ago, manual editing was 
required to do dual monitor, but now the config tools are mostly up to the job.

                              Roger