[mythtv-users] can I use xine (VeXP) instead of mplayer in myth?

[Joseph A. Caputo]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org]On Behalf Of and
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:20 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] can I use xine (VeXP) instead of mplayer in
> myth?
>
>
> Ahh.... I thought it did.
> Could it be done in any other way than copying the recoded .nuv files
> to the video directory and playing them with VeXP? -I'd also like to be
> able to get the live tv through VeXP...
> rgds
> anders

Well, first of all, I see from your other messages that you have a PVR-x50,
correct?  If not, ignore the rest of this post.  The recordings created by
the PVR-x50 cards (assuming you're not transcoding them) are standard MPEG-2
files (the .nuv extension is misleading; it's just for convenience so Myth
knows they belong to it, they're really .mpeg files).  Any player (mplayer,
xine, etc) should be able to play them without a patch.  As far as 'how'...
you could just point your mythvideo storage directory to your MythTV
recording directory, and all the files should show up in MythVideo.  You'll
have to enter the metadata into the database manually, though; otherwise all
the files will show up with just the filenames
(1026_20030826160000_20030826163000.nuv).

As far as watching LiveTV goes, that's more complicated.  If VeXP/Xine can
read from your video device (probably /dev/video0), then you should be able
to watch the currently tuned stream.  However, you will lose Myth's
time-shifting abilities.  Also, you'd have to come up with a way to change
channels with VeXP/Xine.

If this is a Myth-only box, you're probably ok system-resource-wise is you
just go with the status quo; eventually, Myth will probably have native
support for hardware MPEG-1/2 decoding (Isaac's note on the website
indicates that the stars are nearly aligned for him to begin working on
PVR-350 decoder support, and the VIA Epia stuff probably wouldn't be too far
behind).

-JAC