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Mythtv Plugins and Remote Access

There are mythtv plugins that provide many features. Overall, the plugin experience was extremely nice and easy.

Downloading Plugins

See the Plugins section on the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Edgy_Backend_Frontend page. Getting the plugins is only about 4 steps.

Remote Access

I wanted to copy some of my music and pictures from another machine to the mythtv backend computer.

The following way to access the mythtv backend computer requires an IP address. The IP address can be found by running the ifconfig command on the mythtv backend computer. Since I was using a router with DHCP, my IP address was 192.168.1.100 and may change at times. The router must be configured if you would like a static IP address.

The simple way to access the backend server is to use the "Places/Connect to Server" option in the Nautilus file explorer. The SSH setting must be used as the protocol. The Folder and Port edit boxes can be left empty. The Server edit box should have just the IP address of the mythtv backend computer. The User Name edit box must have the user name of the user on the mythtv backend. In my case the user name was mythtv. The "Name to use" edit box can be anything.

Once the Connect button is pressed, the password must be entered. After this, all directories on the mythtv computer will be visible.

Setting up Music and Pictures

Mythtv uses folders under the /var/lib directory as the defaults. These directories did not exist in my case, so I created them by using a terminal from the mythtv computer. I had followed the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Edgy_Backend_Frontend instructions, so the /var/lib directory is actually the large XFS partition.

  mkdir /var/lib/music
  mkdir /var/lib/pictures
  chown mythtv /var/lib/music
  chown mythtv /var/lib/pictures

Since I wanted to copy the music structure from the remote computer, I set up the music directory to match the Rythmbox directory structure. This requires configuring in mythfronend under "Utilities/Setup-Setup-Media Settings-Music Settings- General Settings" and removing the GENRE from the Filename Format. After this I simply used the Nautilus explorer to drag and drop the music files into the mythtv computer music directory.

Under the Images Settings, I selected the option for "Recurse into directories".

MythWeb

The Mythweb plugin allows setting recordings, getting music and weather remotely. Simply enter "http://ipaddress/mythweb" into a web browser. The IP address is the address of the mythtv computer. I had a problem that mentioned something about htaccess. The solution is to edit the /var/www/mythweb/.htaccess file on the mythtv computer and set the DBPassword to match the one used by mythtv.

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