Development blog

dit is een test

I recently came across a blog post of Marc Castles where you could download a MythTV theme with a very clean look (http://castlesblog.com/2010/august/30/mythtv-minimal-osd). Too bad that theme was made for a 16:10 screen.

So I made my first steps into the world of MythTV themeing and you can find the result attached to this post.

Please note that this theme is made for 16:9 screens and MythTV 0.23.

My server is ready for installation.

Installation of the base system

My MythTV backend is an Ubuntu 10.04 Server (32-bit). The system is already quite low on resources (Hard disk, RAM, CPU, ...), so I don't want a graphical user interface or other eyecandy. Instead, I'll be using SSH to log into the server.

During the installation some things were asked:

• File system: 19GB ext2 filesystem + <1GB swap
• Hostname: basement
• Additional packages to install: LAMP Server & OpenSSH Server

My next step is determining what I want to do with my hardware and what the requirements are.

Frontend

I will assemble two frontends at this moment (one in the living room and one in the bed room). These frontends must be as cheap and silent as possible.

• Watch television (non-HD quality)
• Network connectivity
• Play simple games
• Remote controlled

Backend

• Simultaneously recording of television shows and watching at the same time (max of 3 recordings and 1 live at the same time)

DVB is short for Digital Video Broadcasting and is an open standard for digital television. There are different flavors, the better known ones are:

• DVB-S for satellite
• DVB-C for cable
• DVB-T for terrestrial

I am in need of DVB-S support and since I will use MythTV, Linux compatibility is a must. Furthermore, I will need a CI so I can use my TV Vlaanderen card to view the encrypted channels.

Some possibilities are:

GoogleTV was announced during the Google I/O Conference in May 2010. And because it will not get released in the near future over here in Belgium, I've been looking for some alternatives.

I use a satellite dish, which is pointed to Astra 1L at 19.2°E, and a receiver from TV Vlaanderen at this moment. As you can guess, DVB-S compatibility is a requirement for my HTPC. To make a long story short... I've made my choice: MythTV.

Drupal allows you to retrieve the current user by placing following line of code in your module or theme:

global $user;


From then on, you'll have a complete user object that you can use as you please!
If the user is not logged in, you'll also get an user object (uid=0).

One of the datetime formats you can use in PHP is 00-00-00T00:00:00. This date is stored in the database as a string and is (for example) used in some Drupal modules.