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11. Using MythTV.

The keys.txt file describes what the various keyboard commands are.

NOTE to Red Hat users:Red Hat Linux 9/8.0 ships with Gnome as the default desktop environment. However, Gnome seems to have issues with window focus and window switching which sometimes cause mythfrontend to obscure the video. KDE does not seem to have any such issues. Therefore you will need to switch to KDE by selecting RedHatMenu>Extras>System Settings>Desktop Switching Tool and choose "KDE".

11.1 Using themes with MythTV.

MythTV is "themeable", meaning that the visual appearance of the program can be modified by the user without re-compiling or altering the program functionality. The MythTV website has a Themes section; pick a theme you'd like to use and download it to your system.

Once it's on your machine, you must move the file and untar it:

$ su
# cp funhouse.tar.gz /usr/local/share/mythtv/themes
# cd /usr/local/share/mythtv/themes
# tar -xzf funhouse.tar.gz
# exit

The theme will now be available in the mythfrontend Appearance section.

NOTE: if the theme file you downloaded is a bz2 file, use tar -xjf rather than tar -xzf.

11.2 Adding DirecTV information to the database.

A script for adding DirecTV information into the database has been written by tarek Lubani mailto:tarek@tarek.2y.net and is available at http://tarek.2y.net/myth/ppv.pl. This is currently an external user-supplied program, so if you have issues with the script, please contact the author.

11.3 Adding support for an external tuner.

MythTV supports changing the channel on an external tuner. If you have an external tuner, such as a DirecTV or digital cable set top box, you should add /usr/local/bin/changechannel to your Input Connections in the mythbackend configuration GUI.

The changechannel program is not supplied with MythTV, so this is going to be dependent on what sort of external tuner you have. Example scripts for Sony and RCA receivers can be obtained from http://tarek.2y.net/myth/. This is currently an external user-supplied program, so if you have issues with the script, please contact the author.

Feel free to browse some of what sort of hardware is available at http://shop.store.yahoo.com/snapstreammedia/cablepacks.html, or if you wish to assemble your own, rather than purchase, the following may be helpful: http://www.snapstream.com/products/irblaster/sonydss.htm for cable pinouts for RCA DSS receivers.


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