[mythtv-users] ECS LIVA as Backend / Frontend Combo: It Works!

Karl Newman newmank1 at asme.org
Fri Jan 2 05:06:54 UTC 2015


On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 2:49 AM, Mike Perkins <mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk>
wrote:

> On 01/01/15 04:07, Dave MythTV wrote:
>
>> Hey everyone.
>>
>> There are several (three?) threads going now about using the ECS LIVA as a
>> MythTV frontend...  but I'm going to take it a different direction.   :-)
>> I'm here to say that the LIVA also works quite well as a *BACKEND*, and
>> amazingly - as a backend / frontend combo as well !!
>>
>>
>> I'm running Gentoo, so I've been tacking my findings on to SiliconFiend's
>> ECS LIVA How-To thread on the Gentoo forums as I go along:
>> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7675300.html
>>
>>
>> Short list of my system hardware configuration:
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> ECS LIVA  (BAT-MINI v1.0)
>> $109 model with 32GB eMMC / 2GB RAM   (NO reason to spend more on the 64GB
>> models)
>> 3x older USB ATSC digital tuners with multirec enabled
>> 1.5 TB USB 3.0 2.5" portable (bus powered) hard drive
>> USB MCE-style IR receiver
>> USB RF wireless keyboard/trackpad combo
>> WiFi on the LIVA (no hardwired ethernet)
>> Audio via the analog output
>> 1080P display connected via HDMI
>> USB slim DVD drive
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  (snip)
>
>>
>>  That seems like a /lot/ of USB peripherals. I understood that box to
> only have two USB ports. How are you connecting your bits? Is there any
> likely contention on the USB bus?
>
> Supplementary question: Is the eMMC card just used for booting, or is it
> used by the OS with r/w access? How is that likely to affect the wear
> rates? As a read-only boot partition I could understand, but r/w seems to
> be asking for trouble.


I'll tack on my latest to this thread. My HDMI-to-Composite converter died
(or maybe it's the power supply; either way it's dead) so I swapped out the
old TV for an old monitor and a pair of speakers. Unfortunately it seems
the analog (and HDMI?) audio output levels are extremely low, so I added an
alsa pre-amp via the softvol plugin. Found a good guide here:
http://blog.tpa.me.uk/2013/10/23/alsa-pre-amp-volume-boost-the-simple-explanation/


Note that in order for the pre-amp to show up in alsamixer you have to
actually play a sound (I used aplay <some wav file.wav>) Then you can open
alsamixer and adjust the pre-amp level. I think Mythfrontend needs to be
restarted to pick up the new configuration, and you'll probably need to
change your audio device from 'ALSA:default:card=PCH' to just read
'ALSA:default' (mine threw an error about invalid device until I deleted
the card= stuff).

Karl
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