backend for Windows

For discussion of topics specific to MythTV on windows
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falsus nomen
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backend for Windows

Post by falsus nomen »

I am an internet TV user, Sling TV specifically. I use Roku as my media player, and PLEX for my home media server. But I think MythTV can serve my back end needs. I also write python, C, and C++. So I would like to contribute to the project.
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pvr4me
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by pvr4me »

Welcome!!

Hopefully someone with direct knowledge will jump in, but..

There is ongoing work on a Windows port. The wiki (possibly a bit out of date) has quite a bit of info:

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Windows_Port

Perhaps more importantly, there is a Windows buildbot that checks that Myth can be built successfully under that OS:

https://code.mythtv.org/buildbot/builds ... msvc-64bit

The main web site has a page summarizing info for potential contributors:

https://code.mythtv.org/trac/

HTH,

Craig
Formerly the MacPorts guy.
perkins1724
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by perkins1724 »

I tried very,very hard to get 0.28 working on windows last Christmas but couldn't do it.

I think the linked pages are out of date now. Unfortunately I am not aware of anyone who has 0.28 (frontend or backend) working on windows at this time although there are a number of interested people (as I understand it).
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pvr4me
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by pvr4me »

@Perkins1724, what were the key stumbling blocks?

I don't have personal experience, but I know that the frontend has worked on Windows in the past. Did you set up a backend on Linux and try to access it from the frontend on Windows? To me, that is the obvious starting point.

The backend on Windows is going to be more of a challenge. Most tuners on Linux are supported via V4L ("Video for Linux") which, AFAIK, has not been ported to Windows. However, like OS X, there are a couple of tuner types that don't go through V4L--the HDHomerun devices from SiliconDust being the common and useful. If one can get the frontend working, one of these would be the most likely route towards a working backend on Windows.

Perhaps others with more direct knowledge can jump in.

Craig
Formerly the MacPorts guy.
perkins1724
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by perkins1724 »

The change to QT5 was what finally stopped me.

In short I was attempting to cross-compile but failed. I just seemed to hit a never ending chain of bugs and dependency / version incompatibilities. Taglib was a big one early on IIRC, I got around it by sticking with an earlier version that would have disabled some of the mythmusic changes but figured some progress was better than none. I seemed to be able to get past each one slowly (so slowly) in turn but eventually hit QT5 and it just got so frustrating. I think it was the removal of QTwebkit that finally stopped me. QT5.5 had a known bug that was fixed in 5.6 but 5.6 dropped QTwebkit. I couldn't get qtwebkit to work on its own and by that stage I had just had enough.

I will probably have another crack at it in the future, but probably not this year, just not enough time.

I believe there are a couple of people trying with videostudio on windows but they are also having issues with the change to QT5.
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by pvr4me »

To me, the Visual Studio approach looks more promising. See the project definition at:

https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/blob/m ... figure.ps1

I believe this is used by the Windows buildbot:

https://code.mythtv.org/buildbot/builds ... msvc-64bit

Example build:

https://code.mythtv.org/buildbot/builde ... logs/stdio

Craig
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perkins1724
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Re: backend for Windows

Post by perkins1724 »

To me, the Visual Studio approach looks more promising.
I agree. I have no experience with visual studio so I am hoping someone else cracks it before I get back to it.

I dual boot a lot now so it's no longer a big deal for me.
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