MythTV + DVB-s and Astra

In my spare time, I’ve been playing around with MythTV, a PVR project based on Linux. A very nice feature is the use of program guides which enables the user to record programs easily. Basically, there are two ways to feed MythTV with program data. First, the use of XMLTV grabbers which download data from certain websites. Second, it is possible to get program information directly via EPG from the broadcast signal.

Unfortunately, the first alternative didn’t work out very well because of some grabber errors due to changes on certain websites… so I went for the second alternative.

Using version 0.19, EPG didn’t work out of the box when using Astra satellites. After searching the web for a solution, I’ve found this here useful (in siparser.cpp):

[cpp]

//The following was found to break EIT guide for
// Kristian Kalweit
if (n.LinkageType == 4)
{
PrivateTypes.GuideOnSingleTransport = true;
PrivateTypes.GuideTransportID = n.LinkageTransportID;
}
[/cpp]

I’ve removed these lines and voilà, works like a charm ;)

MythTV also features a bunch of plugins – my favorite one is MythWeb, which allows to control MythTV via a website. Here is a screenshot of it:

Recording TV programs is now officially considered as addictive.