Hardware for Remote use

Do you want advice about what hardware to buy for use with MythTV? Ask here.

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gcook12
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Hardware for Remote use

Post by gcook12 »

I set MythTV up on a laptop with the intent of using it to record over the air programing and then cart it to a weekend property that we own that does not have much TV coverage. It works OK but it is kind of a pain lugging the hardware to our property and also the family is not all that crazy about using a keyboard to call up shows. Budget is a consideration but it would seem that there is a better way to do this and I would like any thoughts on the matter.

My gut is the best way to do this is to set up two Rasperberry Pis, one at home and one at our property and use the laptop as a backend at our home and buy a a couple of 1tb small profile external hard drives to swap out when we go to our property. I think there is a IR sensor that can be purchased to use the RPs without a keyboard.

I have a second old laptop that I could use but it does not have an HDMI interface and it looks like the USB to HDMI converters are expensive

Thoughts?
luc5588
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by luc5588 »

Unless you are time-rich, I'd avoid the Pi and all the disk swapping, syncing, etc.

If your main concern is using the keyboard on your laptop then you can just buy a usb remote control for it. This is the cheapest option.

Search "2.4G remote" or "air mouse" on a popular shopping site. For around $13 you can buy a remote with an adapter.

Basically just plug in the usb adapter, then add the batteries to the remote and that's it. It pretends to be a keyboard and has zero configuration to be recognised. The remote uses wireless (similar to bluetooth) so doesn't need line-of-sight unlike an IR remote such as on your tv.

The remote has a variety of buttons, can also be used as a mouse, and has a full keyboard on the back for text entry.

If the buttons don't do exactly what you want then you go to setup and alter key mappings in mythfrontend.

There are other remotes such as infra-red (often called RC6 on searches) that you can purchase for your laptop.

Note: some keys on all remotes tend not to work, such as the microphone button or the email button.

I have the impression when I researched it that a USB HDMI adapter does not work for most laptops since they need a dedicated chipset.

I think money saved on buying two Pis and spending days getting it to work could maybe be spent buying a used laptop that is lighter/smaller if your existing laptop is heavy to lug to your other property.

Alternatively if you really want to sync then perhaps look in to mythexport.
gcook12
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by gcook12 »

Thanks for your insight. I was really hoping to get another perspective so thank you for taking the time.

I think you are right, a couple of Pi s accomplishes nothing. I still will need to haul a laptop back and forth or put a laptop at both locations to serve as the backend and if have to I do that there is no reason that it cannot serve as the frontend as well.

I am finding that I wind up storing far more shows than I can watch so actually syncing the harddrives is not really necessary since it really does not matter if one has recordings set a and one has recordings set b. I think the most efficient way to do this would be to get a laptop and remote at each location and just haul a small harddrive back and forth or get two and swap them out each visit.

Not sure if the wifi remote will work since I do not have internet at the property so I may need to get an IR adapter. I tried some wireless devices before with a router not connected to the internet thinking I would have a local wireless network but I never could get it to work.
MikeB2013
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by MikeB2013 »

The wifi remotes are just an alternative to conventional IR remotes. They come with a small usb wifi receiver which just plugs into the laptop usb port, you don't need Internet or a wifi enabled router.
luc5588
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by luc5588 »

When I mentioned wireless remote I meant that it uses its own radio (a bit like bluetooth but not compatible with bluetooth) and so it doesn't need wi-fi either.

If you're looking for IR then I used to use the Ortek remote which is around $14. It lasted a couple of years before some keys failed. The sensor on it was fantastic and picked up the remote even if you point it at the opposite wall.

Moving a portable drive isn't the only thing you'd need to do since you also need to sync the database which contains details of your recordings such as title and description. This is where I think it gets tricky.

It's relatively complicated/error prone because mythtv was not designed to handle a disconnected backend.

Say you have two backends, Home and Weekend. Then you would need to stop database on Home then sync the database to the portable drive.

Then take the portable drive to Weekend, sync the database from portable to the server there. Start the database server. Then repeat the procedure in reverse when you go Home so that it can know which recordings you watched and deleted.

In my experience, if you try to keep the database always on the portable drive (rather than sync to internal drive) then this made mythtv very slow, but perhaps that has changed with the newer faster external drives.

Alternatively with two portable drives then you could probably stop then sync the database to the portable drive, then swap drive A for drive B, take drive A with you but be careful not to delete any recordings off it. Then when you get Home re-attach A and don't sync database from the drive but then manually delete the recordings you have watched at Weekend.

A third way could be to use "mythtvfs" which gives you human readable filenames for the recordings. You could then sync all your recordings every week to your portable drive, don't sync database. Then take the drive and watch them with kodi at Weekend. When you get Home you only need to manually delete recordings on Home machine and don't need to do any other synching.

The third option is possibly the way I'd go. Though you lose the description of your recordings so you get only the filenames such as "CSI/Kitty S14E21.mpg".

The tool for synching is "rsync", probably with the options "--progress --delete -a -v --modify-window 1".

Your old laptop doesn't have HDMI but your laptop and tv probably have a "d-sub" connector also known as vga. This carries video only, no audio. Costs around $5 for a 10ft cable. Audio could go via headphones out to tv's audio input. Many tvs have this.

I used to run like this and quality is decent. I could tell no difference when I "upgraded" to HDMI.

However, a laptop that doesn't have HDMI is likely to be over four years old and may not have HD acceleration to play HD smoothly during action scenes.

Most routers should work without an Internet connection since you sometimes need to login to the router to alter settings. Perhaps your laptop was confused due to no external Internet but would still be able to communicate internally. An "ifconfig" or "ipconfig" (depending on your system) would tell you if it has correctly received an IP address (such as 192.168.x.y).

But, if you can't get it to work then there are "portable/travel/hotspot routers" you can buy to generate a local network that also take an sd card or drive for sharing content for around $20.
gcook12
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by gcook12 »

I would like to thank you folks for taking the time to let me know what would be best. I looked at the remotes and was very impressed. Some have keyboards on the back and IR functionality in addition to RF so It looks like it would be relatively simple to combine two remotes into one which is what I was trying to do. Seems like a lot of capability for $15 bucks and the reviews seem to be mostly favorable.

The syncing scheme I was thinking about doing is rather neanderthal compared to what you are suggesting. I use an old 1 TB external drive for all of my database and I was just thinking about getting a second one to swap out. Most of the shows I am recording are old tv series and documentaries so it really did not matter if I have seen them or if the two drives are in sync. I was just going to plug one of the drives into the home pc and let it record for a couple of months and then put the other one in and just alternate them every month or two not really paying any attention to how much they sync up.

I have noticed using just an external drive that a recording will get "pixally" for a frame or two every now and then but I had assumed it was the signal strength from the station since it does not do it on all stations.

I like the VGA idea but I think I may opt for one of those adapters that has vga and earphone jack on one end and hdmi on the other instead of two separate cables. It would seem if I do that, I don't have to disconnect it is we wanted to watch local programming (always nice to know who won the quilt show :)).

Again, thanks for your help. I was really on the wrong path to implement this.
gcook12
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by gcook12 »

I forgot to mention this. I think I understand why I could not get a wireless device to work router only. I was trying to use a Chromecast sot that all I had to do was bring the laptop to the weekend place and voila, TV. Apparently Chromecast does not draw all of its content from the laptop but augments what is being cast with content downloaded from the internet. Or at least that is what I think the problem was.
luc5588
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Re: Hardware for Remote use

Post by luc5588 »

You're welcome.

I understand your drive swapping. So your database and media are currently all on your 1TB drive. You'll purchase a new drive and then every few months power off the machine, swap the drive, and take the old drive to Weekend and leave it there. Then after a few months swap back.

That should work. The only minor problem I see is that the recording rules for what to record are stored in the database.

So, you set a rule to record "Quilt Wars", after a few weeks you swap the drive to take to Weekend. But the drive your brought from Weekend doesn't have the rule to record the show so you miss the finale.

But, as you say, for just recording old series it probably won't take too long to set up the same rules on both drives so should be easy.

Those VGA to HDMI adapters look good and are far cheaper than they used to be, so looks a good find to me. If you don't know about it, may I also recommend you take a look at mythweb. https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythWeb

This allows you to connect from your browser and easily search for shows and schedule them, view and delete your recordings. I find it easier for scheduling than the frontend.

Sounds like you're right about Chromecast.

Good luck.
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