Hi fellow Aussies,

I've written a couple of helper scripts into R5F1 for Aussies. They help set up your EPG and channel information, set ABC as a non-commercial channel, change channel 1 from "TEN Digital" to "10 Digital" (fixes duplicate name and therefore duplicate recording problem) insert the xmltvids and set up the database for AU. If you want to install using these scripts, type "ausdragon2" at the install prompt.
Update: you can activate the scripts by appending "country=au" to the end of your chosen install option. This way it doesn't activate the intel m/b workaround.

If you don't have a Dragon (2 Airstar2 cards), you'll have to perform the additional step of deleting and setting up all capture cards before channel scanning in setup. I'm re-jigging them so this isn't necessary in future.

If you have 2 Airstar2 cards, it takes under 17 minutes for a full install with fast hardware. It also works with Twinhan cards, apparently.

The Australian Dragon and its specifications are available at www.better-access.com. The machine is almost silent and very fast. Thanks go to mythic.tv for designing an amazing machine.

One more thing: Please let me know your experiences with this. I want it to be perfect, and I know it isn't quite yet for anything other than my Dragon (now KRP certified).

Let me know anyway so I can fix it for the next version.

Mike Williams

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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Hi Mike, to let you know that I have 2 Twinhan DVB cards and I did not have to delete the cards, I simply scans for channels and all was good.

I have only watched TV for a few hours since I set it up and everything appears fine.

As to the TV guide, I found I scheduled a program to record on channel 10 (through MythWeb) and when I checked up coming recordings it was scheduled on channel 1. I went back to the listing screen and found it selected on both channels. I have since deleted Channel 1 as I feel it is a duplicate and out of place.

Thanks again for all your work that you have done on this and look forward to working with you further if you need any assistance testing stuff and what have you.

Cheers

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Girkers

Thanks for that! I did write SQL to change the name of channel 1 but it obviously hasn't worked. I'll have a look at it and update.

Cheers

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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Hi Mike,

As one not lucky enough to have the dragon hardware, is there a way to look at the scripts that are run during the install if using the ausdragon2 install sequence?

I have managed to upgrade to R5F1 but I can't help feeling there may be something more, given that the changelog, http://mysettopbox.tv/CHANGELOG.txt, mentions "our friends down under".

Thanks in advance.

any of you guys tried upgrading to R5F1?

I am currently running R5D1 and its working great. I am a bit scared to upgrade!

I might stick a spare HDD in and trial it first i think. sounds like this script makes it all nice and easy

any of you guys tried upgrading to R5F1?

I am currently running R5D1 and its working great. I am a bit scared to upgrade!

I might stick a spare HDD in and trial it first i think. sounds like this script makes it all nice and easy

edit: girkers - since your in brisbane, did you find this script sets up the channels correctly for brisbane?

Mythingpersons,

I don't have an Ausdragon, but I still ran the setup and it went fine. From my understanding the only hardware specific stuff is for the tv cards. I left the installed settings with my DVB cards and it is working fine.

manicmike please correct me if I am wrong.

Soundoff,
From what I read in the testing forums the best bet is to updgrade to R5E50 and then to R5F1.

Cheers

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Girkers

i believe grikers is correct...so now manicmike may need to correct me as well. .. and analog tuner cards wont work - at least mine didn't. i deleted all the automatically added capture cards, and added the analog one, but scanning for channels failed to find anything. when i installed with the default script, the channel scan worked fine... but of course i didn't get the benefits of an australian specific install.

You're nearly 100% right. The ausdragon2 install option also assumes you have an Intel 965 m/b. I'm not sure what the Intelfix option does, but it probably has an effect. I installed on a non-dragon, and it worked (kind of) but had a few inconsistencies. These went away if I installed with "tv country=au". The last bit is what flags the Aus-specific scripts. I installed on a friend's machine earlier this evening (one card was a twinhan, one a Technisat) with "tv country=au" and the install was perfect. Only thing was that I made two small errors with the SQL tweaking. I think Cecil has included my fixes in the patches retrieved during setup.

I'm now working on some h/w detection to eliminate the need for you to have to do this. I'm aiming for you typing "aus" and it "just works".

Cheers

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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after waiting impatiently all morning, my new digital tuner card arrived in the mail. i decided to go with manicmikes tuner on his recommendation that it just works and is the basis of the ausdragon2.

thanks mike.. everythng arrived in perfect order... though that remote was way too difficult to get out of the packaging!!!

i also have the same motherboard, cpu, video card - but for what its worth, different ram and hdd. im using the onboard sound currently.
my hdd is small, so for consistently, ill get the one quoted in the ausdragon specs when i upgrade. if nothing else to help confirm the system as a reference platform.

happily the ausdragon2 script worked nicely - with the same issue grikers noted. the tuner and streamzap remote seem to run flawlessly... which is a nice feeling and something that has never happened to me before!!. i finally agree with tjc - getting hardware that just works is so worth it rather than wasting countless hours on something that may never behave perfectly.

just to waste time, i stuck Technisat Airstar 2 card into my P3 650. Perviously id used this computer with an pinnacle analog tuner - but never really successfully. to my horror - the p3 handles the standard def digital very well. its able to watch live tv at the default quality settings with great picture quality - no stuttering. really perfectly actually. im suddenly thinking there was no need to spend $800 new gear (not really - it was so worth it ). i was also able to get sound through the p3's very old isa SB16 soundcard for the first time - i never got it to work with the analog tuner. (sound quality is poor tho, but im suddenly interest so ill try to solve that in another post).

so.. yeah. mike your tuner and script works great with both my "psudo ausdragon2" and also the old p3 testing box.

Fabulous news! Yes, the streamzap is packed waaay too well packaged for my liking as well. Best to use kitchen shears on it (really).

Glad you got good mileage out of it. The analog sound on that m/b is fantastic, but I'll be trying out S/PDIF anyway. The alsa settings need a tweak for 5.1 etc. If you need the commands, I'll list them.

Cheers

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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I am keen to try the local enhancements, they seemed to work for Girkers and stevetv, I will try out first on a spare hd just in case.

I have one twinhan card and one x dvico plus card, any obvious problems with the country=au scripts there?

One thing that tjc mentioned once was that his database was generations older than his hardware. This sounds desirable, you can have the machine tell you if you have watched something before.

I was thinking the easiest thing to do might be to:
1. make a backup
2. copy mythconverg.sql.gz to another machine
2a. copy /myth/tv and /myth/video to another machine
3. do a clean install with the country=au switch including the channel scanning, mythfilldatabase, etc.
4. edit a copy of mythconverg.sql, leaving the table definitions and data from the following tables

oldprogram
oldrecorded
recorded
recordedcredits
recordedmarkup
recordedprogram
recordedseek
recordmatch

5. read the truncated mythconverg.sql back into mythconverg.
6. copy back /myth/tv and /myth/video

I think this will enable the machine to remember all the Simpsons episodes I have recorded and remember those Tellie tubbies episodes we do not want to record again.

If you think this is the wrong way to go about it, or if you can see any pitfalls, sing out. All I need now is a night when the myth box is not busy recording/playing something.

Cheers.

You're probably going about it the right way. I have had a few problems in the past, though. Make sure the above tables have the same number of fields (preferably same definitions, too) before you over-write the data. Differing numbers or names of fields could easily be a show stopper.

The cards you're using should be perfect: I've tried the dvico and Twinhan and both work.

Good luck

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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If i was to install 3 airstar2 cards in my system, would your script work? Or would manual configuration still be required.

thanks

You may have to add the third one manually, but that should be it.

The script should detect two and kick off the 2 x airstar2 setup. When you go in for the channel scan, add the third card and you should be OK. I've certainly had KM running with three cards before.

Tell me how you go.

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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