[mythtv-users] Moving MythTV backend to another computer

[Sam Jacobs]

On 1 April 2014 at 23:02:40, Mike Perkins (mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk) wrote:
> On 01/04/14 22:05, jedi wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 02:51:57PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> >> On 04/01/2014 11:48 AM, Tony Lill wrote:
> >>> I don't know
> >>> why they don't make it official since they just have to not break what
> >>> already works.
> >>
> >> Because parts of MythTV's functionality (involving file and file
> >> system management) break when you have any tunerless backends. If
> >> you're going to do things wrong, please don't recommend that other
> >> people do the same. And, really, you should at least create demo
> >> tuners so that your system won't be broken.
> >
> > Given the requirement that content be streamed through a backend
> > rather accessed through a lower level protocol, that requirement seems
> > a bit out of date. If a machine has all of the disks but doesn't have
> > any tuners, then running a tunerless backend on that box should not be
> > problem. Just a basic operational requirement.
> >
> If a machine has all of the disks and doesn't have a tuner, it doesn't need to
> be a backend. You might just as well treat the box as a NAS since there is no
> benefit running a backend on it.

My master backend (and main frontend) is a machine running OS X, which doesn’t support tuners, but *is* always on and has lots of storage—I use a slave backend to provide the tuners, which powers on and off as required by the MBE. 

Benefits to running a backend on my Mac, as opposed to simply having the PC mount it as storage:
 - The PC doesn’t have to power on to schedule a recording, etc.
 - The PC doesn’t have to power on to play a recording
 - The Mac mini is significantly more powerful, so it services the jobqueue

I do need to have a launchd job insert a row into the inuseprograms table and boot the backend to make sure that EIT data is updated. It’s a bit of a hack, but it works.

The one piece of actually broken functionality I have noticed is that the frontend status screen will only show the last two lines (the ones that show me an estimate of how many more hours and minutes I can record based on my current average and maximum bitrates) if the slave is powered on.

What else is broken? Would I see any benefit to creating a “demo tuner”?

Thanks,
Sam


> 
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>  
> Mike Perkins
>  
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--  
Sam Jacobs on MythTV 0.27, UK Freeview SD & Freesat HD, EIT-only EPG
Mac mini, MBE+FE: OS X Mavericks, bundled FE, macports BE
Acer Aspire L310, SBE: Debian testing, Elgato EyeTV for DTT Stick (Hauppauge Nova-T USB Stick in disguise!) & DVBSky S960 DVB-S2 USB

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