More mythjunk part 3

Playback was starting to show skips I knew weren't in the recordings -- because those skips were also during live TV and DVD playback. IRC chatting with Myth experts indicated that it was probably interference from commercial flagging jobs on previous recordings. They suggested telling Myth not to run flagging jobs immediately after recordings, and to use mythtv-setup to set a specific time (e.g. 3 AM) to run those.

They were also kind enough to tell me that my two suggestions were already in development:

• Frontend utility for selecting a DVD's worth of recordings and exporting a DVDstyler/DVDauthor XML project file
• VLC-based streaming to web interface to make mythfrontend not 100% necessary

More mythjunk

Playback was starting to show skips I knew weren't in the recordings -- because those skips were also during live TV and DVD playback. IRC chatting with Myth experts indicated that it was probably interference from commercial flagging jobs on previous recordings. They suggested telling Myth not to run flagging jobs immediately after recordings, and to use mythtv-setup to set a specific time (e.g. 3 AM) to run those.

They were also kind enough to tell me that my two suggestions were already in development:

• Frontend utility for selecting a DVD's worth of recordings and exporting a DVDstyler/DVDauthor XML project file
• VLC-based streaming to web interface to make mythfrontend not 100% necessary

Even more mythjunk

This is threatening to turn into a MythTV blog. So be it. DVDstyler's a decent substitute for iDVD, and if you're running XP you can play with the windows port. It's not part of the Ubuntu repositories; QDVDauthor is, however.

Where I'm sucking terribly is simple video editing to nip out the commercials. Low-end utilities like avidemux2 can cut out the commercials, but take a long time to export back to DVD-friendly MPEG2. Cinelerra's awesome if you're looking for Final Cut level editing, which I'm not.

Also, I've noticed the screen resolution's been frozen to 640x480, a common problem with Ubuntu 6. Since xorg.conf has all the right video modes, I'm wondering if the system is detecting the NTSC converter and assuming the worst.

The process goes like this: DVDstyler asks you to set a default background image. Then you drop MPEG clips into an area like iMovie's. Drop buttons from the button palette (just like iDVD's) onto the background and right-click them to determine their attributes/actions. I hate to admit it but it's easier to use than iDVD 6.

When you're satisfied, save the project (a tiny XML file) and click the burn button. Whereas iDVD shows you a faked preview of the DVD first before you're ready to burn, DVDstyler masters the DVD's ISO first and then dumps the ISO into xine for real-world testing before burning. Less immediate gratification, but no room for misguessing the real DVD later.

Part of the reason I want to fix the screen resolution is because fewer and fewer desktop applications for any platform comfortably fit that size. Dialogs either compress their contents uncomfortably or fall off the borders altogether. It's unpleasant. It also suggests that some interface guidelines should be followed more stringently.

Ultimately, what I'm aiming for is a new plugin for Myth which will automate creating the DVDstyler XML project files. They're appallingly small and simple, so it seems like a no-brainer to have an interface for creating simple project files to open, tweak and set for burning.

OK, the first one burned OK after some tweaking. The second one, I tried with QDVDauthor, but was displeased with the number of unimplemented functions and cryptic errors.

Frying pan not hot enough; reinstalling Myth under Dapper

It seems inane to reinstall Breezy just so I can download six months' worth of updates and bolt on the support that Myth needs, when much of it has been put into Dapper.

So,,,, here goes nothing.

Lacking the official 6.06 LTS release CD, I attempted to install from the Flight 6 CD and discovered that Espresso couldn't deal with the partitioning scheme I intended (20Gb ext3 for /, 1 Gb swap for swap, and remaining XFS for /home). It screwed up partitioning and the choice of filesystem for the ones it got.

FYI: if you have a Breezy install CD and you want to get to Dapper, don't use apt-get dist-upgrade like you would with Debian proper. Install Breezy, then go to a terminal and do the following:

sudo apt-get install update-manager

Breezy's default Update Manager (off the System -- Administration submenu) doesn't have a one-step button for updating between major releases, but the update in the repositories does. As soon as you've done this, go to the Update Manager and click the button for doing the full upgrade.

And expect it to take 5 hours or so to get all 1000 files on a 256K DSL connection.