[mythtv-users] Transcoding on a non myth machine

[Michael Cowell]

Jay Ung wrote:
> I was wondering if it iis possible to transcode .nuv to avi on a
> machine that is not a mythtv machine using nuvexport.    I am a total
> noob when it comes to transcoding.  I would love to use my home server
> as the transcode machine.  The mythtv box doesn't really have the
> horsepower.  But the server is not a backend or have any mythtv stuff
> installed.  If it is possible to transcode this way, is it possible to
> cut commercials?
>
> Basically what I would love to do is record a program, copy it to the
> server via cron job, cut commercials, and transcode to xvid, then move
> it back.  I would love to do this completely automatically.  So am I
> smoking crack, or is this possible.
>
> Thanks,
>
> joe 
I do this at home (well, not the automatic bit). You need to set up an
nfs mount of your myth video directory (from your backend, or other nfs
server, or whatever) and install mythfrontend on the box to do the
transcoding. Nuvexport uses mythtranscode -- so it needs *some* myth
tools installed, but you don't need a whole slave backend. You actually
don't *really* need mythfrontend, but it will make setting up your
mysql.txt easier.

Run mythfrontend once, and it will ask you a bunch of questions (backend
server ip, server port, mysql ip, mysql port, etc.). Then nuvexport
should work, but only as that user (mythfrontend writes
~/.mythtv/mysql.txt, which nuvexport needs). It shouldn't be too hard to
cron job this all up -- although a cron job obviously won't start
straight after a program is done. You might be able to do something
fancy by setting up a user job on the myth backend that sends some sort
of signal to your transcoding box to go fetch a show and start
transcoding it. Python's RPC might be handy there, the scripts would be
pretty simple.

By the way, you don't need to do any copying. If you want everything to
live on the backend, just do it all with a remote mount. You'll save
disk space, and it shouldn't be any slower.

Michael