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Tonight, while pondering my IR receiver, I decided to take it easy a bit and play around with MythTv Player on my laptop.  This has led me to another shortfall of my current setup in that I still need to get Mythweb running.  Mythweb is very handy for use with MythTv Player because the player doesn't have the ability to schedule recordings.  So instead I can do that from a web browser and Mythweb.  I  guess that's another thing I'll need to add to my list once I get the basic functionality worked out.  I'll try to do a guide for that as well.

WAF--

Today I spent a while poking at the frontend again.  If you will remember from yesterday the changeover didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped for.  When I turned on the frontend I was greeted with a black screen.  Eventually I was able to get to a command line but didn't get any further before going to bed.  After looking at a couple of things and trying to start X Windows manually I realized that I had forgotten to install the AMD graphics driver.  Once that was done I could get the system to boot into X Windows normally.  Mythfrontend started up just like it was supposed to and this quickly brought to light the next thing that I forgot to do - setup the remote control!  

Tomorrow I will begin looking at the remote control receiver and see if I can get that running.   Hopefully that will be as simple to get running also.  It's always gone fairly smoothly in the past but it's been a couple of years since I last did it so I may be a little bit rusty.  We'll see.  Until next time...

I am happy to say that after a couple of hours of Googling and poking at my MythTV server, I've fixed my issues causing my Windows MythTV install to not connect to my backend.  It turns out that it was a firewall issue no the backend after all.  When I configured the backend originally I had opened up the firewall to allow access to the MythTV specific ports (6543 and 6544) but it turns out that MySQL uses its own port (3306).  Once I opened that one up I was able to connect to my backend.  This wasn't an issue for me in the past because all of the installation instructions for MythTV said that to simplify setup you should disable the firewall and SELinux.  Current OSes do not have that option anymore during install so when I did the backend this time I tried for higher security by leaving the firewall and SELinux enabled.  Obviously it caused me some small problems but I feel better knowing that I have this protection while my server is hooked up to the network.  Expect a short guide on necessary firewall ports once this update process is finished.

In other news, I was also able to take the Windows installer for MythTV that was created as part of my build process and install it on my wife's laptop.  Her system is also able to access the backend after a quick test.  Things are now back on track.  For now I have set the server back to 0.21 so that we can use it today and tomorrow but I think I'm ready to do a full system changeover tomorrow night.  That'll be the moment of truth.  We'll see how much I've missed at that point.  I'm sure there's something.

I'm in the beginning stages of rebuilding my Windows Home Server box.  Feel free to check out my original blog for the current setup.  (Note that the blog hasn't been entirely reformatted for the new site.)  There, I stated that my intentions were for my first media server to last a minimum of 5 years.  The fact that I'm writing this just around 2.5 years after the original server went live may seem like I failed in epic fashion.  The truth of the matter, however, is that the server is still running fine and I firmly believe it would continue to meet my needs for at least another 2.5 years.  To quote Mythbusters, I'm calling this one "confirmed" (so far).

The reason I say that is because this won't be a complete rebuild of the server hardware itself.  In fact, my actual, original words were, "Meet current and unknown future needs over the next 5 years (minimum)" and it would appear that the hardware is succeeding in that regard... thus far.  But, it will still include some major changes.  First of all, in a fairly significant change of heart, I've decided to upgrade to Windows Home Server 2011 (more on that in a bit).  Second, I'll be moving to a virtualized environment on the server, with multiple client OS's running, consolidating at least one other computer into the server.  This may be a fairly big undertaking in the amount of underlying changes, but the technology I'm using has been around for quite some time, so I'm extremely optimistic this will be a productive change.

Here are my plans...

I think that the next most important system for me to get up and running is going to be the main frontend.  Again I've decided to load CentOS 6 onto a separate hard drive that I've got sitting around. Where did I get all of these extra drives, anyway?  Again, installation was fairly straight forward following the same Mythtv installation guide for Fedora.  This time through I skipped the steps related to configuring the backend since I will only be using this system as a frontend.  Since my backend is currently running MythTV 0.21 until I'm ready to do the final changeover I did not have a chance to do the final configurations that happen during the first time you run MythTV.  Specifically, I'm referring to designating the IP address or name of the backend.  By default the frontend will point to localhost (itself) as the backend to use.  So that is something that I will have to do later.

There were a couple of things that I did do though such as configuring automatic login (this is a dedicated MythTV system and I don't want to have to pull out a keyboard every time I want to watch TV) and automatically launching MythTV once logged in.  

That is about it for this system right now.  I've got it running a system update over night to pull in all of the latest packages and once that's done I may setup a VNC server on it so that I can do remote administration on it in the future as necessary.  First thing in the morning though, once the update is done, I'm going to put in the old hard drive so that the frontend can be used with the old backend while the rest of the systems get overhauled.  So far so good.  Two systems updated and nothing has been affected by it.  WAF still high.

Earlier this summer my MythTV server died.  After spending a bit of time getting the basics back up and running I've decided that it was time to also get things up to date again.  Thus far my plans have been limited to only software upgrades but I may do some hardware upgrading along the way as well.  With this in mind, I have decided to do a series of blogs detailing my plans for the upgrade as well as progress made and bumps that I've hit along the way.

This first entry will describe my current setup as well as my migration plan.  Some of this has already been accomplished but I want to get it all written down.  So here goes.

I recently had the opportunity to utilize my extensive (though, not bullet proof) backup regimen and it managed to save my bacon in a fairly substantial way.  While this certainly is not isolated to HTPCs, I thought it might be a good idea to remind people of the importance of regular, reliable backups.

As everyone surely knows by now, SageTV was purchased by Google.  Those who are running it have been guaranteed a year of guide data and alternatives have already been developed to continue receiving guide data beyond that.  However, there is no way to purchase additional hardware (i.e.  HD300s) or licenses.

Can you see where this is going?  Click the "Read more" link to come along for the ride...

The fall season of 2011 has begun and we already have the first casualty in Playboy Club.  This is the first time I decided against recording any new shows that simply sounded interesting.  Normally, I queue them up and watch them at some point later on, often after the first season is over or the show has even been cancelled.  This time, I decided I already have enough backlogged TV to watch.  So, I'm waiting to see which shows get renewed for a second season and people are still talking positively about towards the end of their first season.

Here's what interested me, but I'm also curious what everyone else is watching...

If you’ve been reading my previous postings here and here, you’ll know that I am in the midst of turning an unfinished room (~600 sq ft.) into a family room. This project has a limited budget so improvements like a projector didn’t make the cut. But I have bought items that will allow me clear up a lot of clutter and improve performance, particularly as it relates to my network. Before I share my list of purchases, let me list the items that I had already.
 
TV: Samsung 40” LCD 60Hz
Receivers: Onkyo TX-SR607 (hooked to the TV), Onkyo HT-SR800 (will go behind the bar)
Speakers: the ones that came with Onkyo HT-SR800 (2 front, 1 center, 4 rear, subwoofer)
Networking: Linksys WRT610N wireless router
Other: PS3, Wii, HTPC, Apple Airport Express
Remote: Logitech Harmony One
 
If you look at this post, you can see a rough sketch of how I intend to set everything up. Once I get the paint and the flooring put in, I’ll give you guys plenty of pictures of everything as I install it.
 
Here is a list of the things I bought for this project. I’ll put notes next to each item explaining why I bought it.
 

Poor Thor, if it was most any other week you would have been the easy pick, but alas not this one. For those not in the comic book "know," Thor is a movie based on the same-titled comic book about a guy who's a god in his world but gets shipped off to Earth as punishment (is it that bad?!) where he gets to date Natalie Portman, poor guy. Then battles ensue--it was a fun movie and will look awesome on BD. Then the other notable one is Spartacus--Gods of the Arena, the prequel to the Spartacus TV series which was just awesome.

MissingRemote's Pick of the Week

Star Wars: The Complete Saga Probably the easiest pick in the history of these weekly blogs. If i have to tell you what Star Wars is...then you probably are between the ages of 0-2, or just came from a rock. While I don't agree with all the changes Mr. Lucas has made to the originals, and I wasn't a huge fan of the new ones, it's hard to argue that this isn't a must have in anyone's Blu-ray collection. I mean, it's Luke "friggin" Skywalker people!