Found a nice little project called Myth2iPod that transcodes MythTV .nuv files to iPod video and provides them as a subscribable podcast feed.
Unfortunately it relies on the xvid support in the latest version of ffmpeg (only available through CVS), that doesn't want to compile on my FC3 machine. Will post if and when I get it working.
Friday 13 January 2006
Myth2iPod
Monday 9 January 2006
Upgraded to Rails v1.0
Managed the upgrade to version 1 without any major hitches. Just two notable differences...
- The AJAX stuff is fixed (which stopped us from upgrading to the last release).
- ActiveRecord has slightly stricter constraints on creation of new objects with has_and_belongs_to_many relationships.
The ActiveRecord change means that you can't create a new object and it's join table based relationships without first saving the main object. If object has_and_belongs_to_many relations, then...
It makes some sense, since the identity of object has not yet been created, but it's a bit of a shame that the ORM layer can't hide these issues from you.
Monday 2 January 2006
Make your own Linux iTunes Server
Make your own Linux iTunes Server
This walkthrough is based on Fedora Core 3 which I'm running on my MythTV Server. If you find any innaccuracies, please let me know and I'll fix 'em.
Install daapd using APT
Make sure you have Dag's repository set up for apt (you might wish to set up a Yum repo instead as Yum is included by default with Fedora).
My repo file looks like this...
# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dries.list rpm http://apt.sw.be dries/fedora/fc3/i386 dries rpm-src http://apt.sw.be dries/fedora/fc3/i386 dries
Make sure you are up to date then get the daapd package, the howl package (needed for mDNSRepsonder) and their depencencies...
# apt-get update # apt-get dist-upgrade # apt-get install daapd # apt-get install howl
Configuration
Create a config file like this one
# cat /etc/daapd.conf Port 3689 ServerName MythMusic DBName daapd music Password Root /av/audio Cache /var/spool/daapd/cache Timescan 2 Rescan 0
Change /av/audio to the location of your music collection, and create the folder /var/spool/daapd/cache as root (if you don't do this, the files will be rescanned by the server each time you run daapd). If you want to secure your audio files, put a password in the obvious gap.
Start daapd as a Service
Create a file called /etc/rc.d/init.d/daapd with the following contents
# cat /etc/init.d/daapd #!/bin/sh # # A startup script for the daapd DAAP server # # chkconfig: 345 98 2 # description: This script is used to start the daapd \ # server as a background process.\ # # Usage /etc/init.d/daapd start|stop|reload|restart|status # Source function library. . /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions DAAP_CONF=/etc/daapd.conf DAAP_LOG=/var/log/daapd/access_log prog=DAAP exe=/usr/bin/daapd start() { echo -n "Starting $prog: " if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/daapd ] ; then echo_failure echo exit 1; fi daemon $exe -c $DAAP_CONF >> $DAAP_LOG & RETVAL=$? [ $RETVAL = 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/daapd && echo_success echo return $RETVAL } stop() { echo -n "Stopping $prog: " killproc $exe RETVAL=$? echo [ $RETVAL = 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/daapd /var/run/daapd.pid } reload() { echo -n $"Reloading $prog:" killproc $exe -HUP RETVAL=$? echo } case "$1" in start) start ;; stop) stop ;; reload) reload ;; restart) stop start ;; status) status $exe RETVAL=$? ;; *) echo "Usage: daapd {start|stop|reload|restart|status}" exit 1 esac
Create the log folder so that the service can write a log file.
# mkdir -p /var/log/daapd
Now you should be able to start daapd as a service...
# service daapd start Starting DAAP: [ OK ]
It may be some time before you can access this service if you have a large collection, as it will not respond until it has indexed the files.
mDNSResponder Configuration
In order for iTunes to detect the new playlists, you need to setup mDNSResponder to broadcast the presence of the service. Add the following line to the end of the mDNSResponser config file.
# tail -1 /etc/howl/mDNSResponder.conf MythMusic _daap._tcp. local. 3689
Start mDNSResponder
# service mDNSResponder start Starting mDNSResponder... [ OK ]
Any copies of iTunes residing on your local network should now have a shared music folder containing your entire music collection, including any playlists found in the same folder.
Merry Christmas
...and a happy new year to you all.
Penny gave me an 60GB iPod Video for Christmas, which I have been playing with constantly.
So far, I've got my main MythTV server running an iTunes server (DAAP), so that anyone using iTunes on my LAN can browse my MP3 collection. It was pretty easy using Dag's APT repo.
My next little project will be to get MythTV automatically converting certain TV programs to iPod compatible MP4 video files.