mvpmc FAQ

January 30, 2010

What is the goal of this project?

The goal is to build a media player that runs on the MediaMVP itself, and fetches media files off standard, external servers. Currently, it supports using remote filesystems (NFS and CIFS), digital video recorders (MythTV and ReplayTV), SlimServer, HTTP, the Hauppauge MediaMVP server, GBPVR, VLC, Yahoo! Weather, and more.

What is the state of mvpmc?

mvpmc is beta software. You may that features that you want are either broken or missing. Please report any bugs or feature requests to the mailing lists.

What do I need to get started?

The easiest thing is to download one of the pre-built dongle.bin files here. Then read through the Wiki.

How do I build mvpmc myself?

In order to build mvpmc from source, you will need a Linux system on which you can install a cross compilation environment. You can get the source either from one of the releases, or from the git repository.

How do I build a cross compilation environment?

If you do a build on a system without the cross compiler, it will be built for you as part of the build.

How do I build a new dongle.bin file?

If you download the source release, follow the instructions in the README file.

NFS is hanging. How do I fix this?

Make sure you use the rsize=4096,wsize=4096 options when mounting the NFS fileystem. There is a file /etc/nfsmount.sh on the ramdisk that may make this easier.

Why is it trying to tftp a config file?

mvpmc allows you to have a config file on your tftp server so that you can customize your use of mvpmc to suit your needs. If the config file does not exist, mvpmc will start with default options. This config file is the name of your dongle.bin bootfile, with .config appended to it (ie, dongle.bin.config).

This config file is a shell script that will be executed as the last step of booting the MediaMVP. You should add things here to do whatever setup you need for your environment. For example, you might want to set the date, mount an NFS filesystem, and start mvpmc with whatever options you need.

An example config file might look like:

rdate -s $SERVER
mkdir /video
/etc/nfsmount.sh ${SERVER}:/video /video
mvpmc -s 192.168.1.1 -R discover -c 192.168.1.2 &

How do I automatically set the date and time on the MediaMVP?

You will need to ensure that the date and time are set correctly for some features to work. Specifically, ReplayTV and live TV with MythTV will not work if the time is set wrong.

You can either use NTP or rdate to set the time. If you enable your DHCP server to provide an NTP address, it will be used. Otherwise, you can use either rdate or NTP in your config file like:

rdate -s 192.168.1.1
/bin/ntpclient -d -l -h 192.168.1.1

What audio file types are supported?

mvpmc is capable of playing mp3, ogg vorbis, ac3, flac, and uncompressed WAV files. It is also capable of playing m3u playlists.

What video file types are supported?

mvpmc is capable of playing mpeg1/mpeg2 videos with mpeg or AC3 audio streams. In addition, the user can choose the audio stream to play if there is more than one (ie, a DVD VOB file with multiple language tracks).

For other video types, you can use VLC to transcode to mpeg1/mpeg2.

What image file types are supported?

mvpmc is capable of displaying bmp, gif, png, and jpeg images.

Can I play a DVD movie?

You should be able to play individual VOB files from a DVD, but there is no support for DVD menus at this time. However, you will probably run into audio synchronization problems with Dolby Digital audio.

What is wrong with the DVD subtitles?

The current DVD subtitle support allows the subtitles to be displayed, but neither at the correct time nor for the correct duration.

How do I select my preferred language track in an MPEG?

Currently, the audio, video, and subtitle streams are referred to by their hex stream ID. For DVD .VOB files, the information about which track goes with which language is not in the MPEG itself, so mvpmc is unable to give useful names to each stream.

Why do I not hear any audio when I start playing a video?

This is often caused by a mvpmc choosing to play a silent audio track over one with sound. Try using the MENU key and changing the audio stream in the audio stream menu.

How do I connect to a MythTV server?

Use mvpmc with the -s flag to specify the IP address of the MythTV server. If you also use the -r flag to specify the NFS mount point of the MythTV recordings directory, then you will play your MythTV recordings via NFS (If you have multiple backends, use -r with a colon-seperated list for each directory in which to look for recordings). If not, you will play them via the Myth protocol.

What version of MythTV does mvpmc support?

mvpmc 0.3.4 supports MythTV 0.14 through 0.20 (plus SVN versions beyond 0.20).

Why is MythTV complaining "Client speaks protocol version 8 but we speak 15!"?

This is because MythTV itself only ever supports one protocol version at a time, while mvpmc tries to be compatible with all versions of MythTV. So mvpmc starts with protocol 8, and MythTV will tell it what protocol version it should be speaking, and mvpmc will then switch to the correct version.

How well does mvpmc work as a MythTV frontend?

mvpmc is not a complete replacement for the MythTV frontend that comes with MythTV. However, it is capable of doing most of the things that a typical user will do on a day-to-day basis.

How do I delete a MythTV recording?

Use the MENU key when the recording is highlighted to bring up the episode menu. From there you can either delete the recording, or delete it while allowing future recordings.

How come I get a blank screen when I attempt to play my MythTV recordings?

You are probably transcoding your recordings to a format that the MediaMVP is not capable of playing. Your recordings need to be in mpeg1/mpeg2 format. If your recordings are in some other video format, you can set up VLC to transcode them to mpeg1/mpeg2 on the fly for mvpmc.

How do I watch live TV off a MythTV server?

Live TV changed quite drastically in MythTV 0.19. However, mvpmc is capable of playing live TV from both older and newer backends.

You can watch live TV either via the filesystem or the myth protocol. If you use the -b option to mvpmc, you can tell mvpmc which directory contains the ringbuffer. If you do not use the -b option, then live tv will be played via the myth protocol.

When you select live TV, you will be given a menu containing all of the programs currently being broadcast. If you choose one of the programs, it will attempt to start playing it on any of the tuners where that program is available. If you use the MENU button, you will get a menu that will allow you to choose which tuner you want to watch the program on.

Why do I only get a single, empty live TV program listing with MythTV?

This is probably because you have not set the date properly on the mvp.

How do I connect to a ReplayTV/DVArchive?

You need to specify either the IP address of your ReplayTV/DVArchive server or tell mvpmc to run replaytv discovery via the -R option. The -R option accepts a parameter string as follows:

A single IP address can be specified or discovery enabled as follows:
   mvpmc -R 192.168.1.10
   mvpmc -R discover
 
Multiple options can be specified by passing in a quoted string.
 
The following options are supported:
   ip=ipaddress1/ipaddress2/ipaddress3/...
   ip=discover
   debug=tracemask
   logfile=nfsmount-logfile-path
 
examples:
   mvpmc -R "ip=192.168.1.10"
   mvpmc -R "ip=192.168.1.10/192.168.1.11"
   mvpmc -R "ip=discover debug=05"
   mvpmc -R "ip=192.168.1.10 debug=0ff logfile=/nfs/mvplogs"

How does the music client work?

The music client connects to SlimServer, which is an audio server that is capable of playing audio files off a server, or connecting to Internet radio sites. Run mvpmc using the -c option with the IP address of your server.

What keys do what on the remote control?

When in the menus, up and down move the hilite up and down, and the red and yellow buttons are page up and page down, respectively. Also, the OK button will select the hilited item, and the BACK/EXIT button will return you to the previous screen.

While playing a video, the MUTE button will mute the audio. The FULL button will zoom the image. The PAUSE button will pause playback. The STOP button will return you to the file/MythTV/ReplayTV menu. The MENU button will display the video popup menu. The REPLAY and SKIP buttons will perform 30 second skip backwards and forwards, respectively. The number buttons will jump to a percentage offset into the file (ie, 6 is 60% into the file). And finally, the unlabled button next to MUTE will bring up the On Screen Display.

How can I change the interface colors?

You will find a few XML files in /usr/share/mvpmc when you boot the mvp. If you use the -t option to mvpmc to point to one of these files, you will get a different interface. You can also easily modify these files to suit your tastes. You can change the fonts, the colors, and some simple widget decorations for most of the widgets.

Can I override the fonts in one of the default themes?

Yes. Add something like the following to your config file:

cat <<EOF > /tmp/font_override.xml
<mvpmctheme version="0" name="font override">
	<font name="standard">/etc/helvB18.pcf</font>
	<font name="large">/etc/helvB18.pcf</font>
</mvpmctheme>
EOF

Can I override widget settings in one of the default themes?

Yes. Add your settings to the file /tmp/user_override.xml.

How do I add my own themes?

Any xml theme file added to /tmp/themes will be picked up by mvpmc and added to the theme menu. If you use the -t option to mvpmc, it will start with that theme. Otherwise, it will start with the default theme, and you will be able to change the theme from the theme menu.

I found a bug. What should I do?

Please report it to one of the mailing lists or file a bug on the project bug tracker.

I need help using mvpmc?

Either send an email to one of the mailing lists, or post on one of the forums.

What features are missing?

In no particular order:

seek in an audio file
Tivo support
video rewind
internationalization for the menus/OSD
real DVD subtitle support
DVD menu and navigation
build tools for use under windows
user and developer documentation

How can I get involved?

Send an email to one of the mailing lists and participate in the discussions. Feel free to volunteer to work on any piece of the project, and feel free to submit patches via email either to the development mailing list or to gettler@mvpmc.org. Or just use it and report back your ideas on how to make it better.

cmyth

FAQ