Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

There’s a Python script called Periscope that will search for subtitles for a video. It doesn’t always find them, however the web page lists the URLs for the subtitle providers. If Periscope fails, you can go to the sites directly and find the subtitles.

Note subtitles (.srt files) will be found by XMBC and displayed (if toggled on in XBMC) if they have the same name as the video file. However, if you are playing the file through a uPnP source, it won’t work. So mount the NAS’s video directory on the XBMC box instead.

*edit 31Mar2012* XBMC has a plug-in that will download subtitles.  In XBMC, select System -> Settings -> Add-Ons and search for “subtitles.”  The plug-in is called “XBMC Subtitles.”  Here’s how to use XBMC Subtitles.  One caveat with this:  although the integration with XBMC is great, there’s no guarantee the subtitle was created from the video you have.  For instance, if the creator of the video cut out the previous episode review, but the subtitler used a video that had it, the subtitles will be out of sync with the video by a minute or so.  If you can’t find a subtitle that matches, you can fix the offset with SubRip File Offset.  Upload the .SRT file to that site, enter the offset and replace the original .SRT with the fixed file.

In Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions I’ve used, the main menu can be raised with the keyboard shortcut Alt+F1. This didn’t work in Mythbuntu and was a constant irritation. Under Applications -> Settings -> Keyboard, choose the Application Shortcuts tab. There will be an entry for xfce4-popup-menu attached to the shortcut Ctrl+Esc. This doesn’t do anything. It seems that the name of the command to bring up the applications menu changed. It’s now xfce4-popup-applicationsmenu. If you bind this to Alt+F1, all with be right with the world.

The new HTPC is working fine except there’s no audio from the TV over the HDMI connection. Yes, this is a significant problem for a HTPC.

Sound does work with headphones plugged in to the jack on the front of the case.

*Edit* Upgrading to Ubuntu 11.10 fixes this. Under Sound -> Hardware set the output to One of the HDMI selections.

Sick Beard is a PVR application. It will fetch TV shows via Usenet. It’s available for the Synology which integrates with XBMC.

Sickbeard installation guides: I used the Synology directions for installing and the Ubuntu directions for configuring Sick Beard.

Installed Merty packages for SABnzbd on NAS.
Downloaded Sickbeard via Git to NAS /volume1/opt/share/sickbeard
To start, I needed this fix on the NAS (mentioned in the Synology directions):
ipkg install python25 py25-cheetah py25-cherrpy

Sick Beard was finding the shows, but not downloading them. I changed two things: First, I activated the Sick Beard Index in Config -> Search Providers. Second, Under Home, then clicking on the show, I clicked the search icon on the right side of a row with a status of Wanted.

While running mythBuntu on the HTPC, I got a pop-up box asking if I wanted to upgrade to 11.10. Since I was having trouble getting the sound to output through HDMI to the TV, I gave it a shot. This hosed everything. Wouldn’t even boot. Mythbuntu (or what was left of it) was stuck in a boot loop, with the screen slowing flashing.

Rather than put back Mythbunu, I decided to reload Ubuntu 11.10. Initially, the sound was also broken–that is, sound was output from the sound card to the analog jacks but not HDMI. Under System Settings -> Sound on the Hardware tab, under Settings for the selected device, there was a profile dropdown box with 20 different options. Setting this to Digital Stereo (HDMI) nr2 Output got sound coming through the TV.

With a screen this big (HD resolution) being viewed from across a room, the fonts are too small. The system settings don’t let you change this as they did in Mythbuntu. A little Googling turned up a recommendation to install gnome-tweak-tool. Under Fonts, changing the Text Scaling factor from 1.0 to 2.0 helped a lot.

I reinstalled XMBC. Note the repository they list doesn’t have 11.10 in it. Use the one for 11.10 in the XBMC-Repository-Overview link: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:alexandr-surkov/dharma-pvr

If your German isn’t so good and you add the wrong repository the first time (like I did), you can remove it by deleting the file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d.

CCExtractor

Creates a subtitle file (.SRT) from the closed captions embedded in an mpeg or TiVo file.

I extracted captions to SRT file. When played with MPlayer, the subtitles show up. When played with XMBC, they don’t. XBMC can see the file and will load it if told to, but the subtitles don’t show up.

To pull files from a TiVo, I first tried Galleon, a Java-based program.

The installation instructions have a link to the zipped installation package. Once downloaded and unzipped, run make as root. This will install Galleon in /usr/share/galleon.

I used the default java that came with Ubuntu and I didn’t disable IPv6.

Galleon is run as a service:
# service galleon start

Follow the configuration instructions using /usr/share/galleon/gui.sh. It seems the first time the GUI is run it doesn’t connect to the server, but it’s fine after that.

To download a recording, on the Galleon GUI menu, select File/To Go. With the TiVo select in the list below, choose the Recorded tab. Put a check next to the recordings you want saved and the server will download them as .tivo files to the Recording Path you gave it in File/Properties.

pyTivo is a Python-based program for transferring videos to your TiVo. It can run on a Synology NAS.

The easiest way to get Python on the DiskStation is to use a package manager. To enable package management, you need to install a bootstrap. The DS411+II has a 64-bit Atom processor, so I used the syno-i686-bootstrap_1.2-7_i686 file listed for the Atom D410. Note, when SSHing into the DS, you need to be root, but the root password is the same as the admin password.
Next, I did:
$ ipkg update
$ ipkg upgrade
but nothing needed to be upgraded. To see the list of packages that can be installed with ipkg install, use ipkg list.

To install pyTivo, I followed instructions from the pyTivo Sourceforge forum.
Python is required for pyTivo, but not installed by default:
$ ipkg install python

There are a few forks of pyTivo. I took the mainstream wmcbrine fork. On the NAS:
$ ipkg install git
$ mkdir -p /usr/local/src/pytivo
$ cd /usr/local/src/pytivo
$ git clone git://repo.or.cz/pyTivo/wmcbrine.git
$ cd /usr/local
$ ln -s src/pytivo/wmcbrine pyTivo
$ cd pyTivo
$ cp pyTivo.conf.dist pyTivo.conf

Edit pyTivo.conf and set the path to ffmpeg, which according to the post above is /usr/syno/bin/ffmpeg.
Create the start.sh and pyTivo.sh files as listed.
Restart the NAS and, after a minute, pyTivo should have a web page at http://your_NAS:9032
Under the web configuration, in the My Movies section, I changed the path from /home/armooo/Videos to /volume1/video.
Any videos on /volume1/video on the NAS will be available to any TiVos on the network under “Now Playing”, “MyMovies”.

Read the Cyanogen Mod FAQ.
Load Titanium Backup from App Market. Run and back up apps (not system apps).
Using ROM Manager, do a Nandroid backup, which is a copy of your currently working system.
Using ROM Manager, Download Cyanogen Mod 7.1. Check “Google Apps” in the ROM Addons box. Wipe Dalvik cache, but nothing else.
Don’t have to do anything else. All the apps were still there after the reboot.
My phone is noticeably faster, but the proof will be in the usability over the next few days.