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.