mvpmc ReplayTV

John Honeycutt, honeycut@mvpmc.org

2006-09-06, v0.00.06

3. ReplayTV commandline options

1. Intro

mvpmc includes support for streaming from ReplayTV 4K and 5K series PVRs.
Support is also provided for DVArchive 3.2.
Functionality includes:

Automatic discovery of all RTV devices on the network.
Displaying information about the RTV devices including model numbers, harddrive capacity, and harddrive space used.
Retrieval and parsing of Replay Guides including show title, eposide title/description, actors, show length, time/date recorded, etc...
Ability to delete shows.
OnScreen display during video playback.
Extensive navigation during playback including: +28 second seek forward, -8 second seek back, absolute jump to any time, relative jump from current play position.
Manual commercial skip.

2. Screenshots

     mvpmc main menu                 device menu

         show menu                  show menu popup


       delete show                on screen display

3. ReplayTV Commandline Options

specifying the ReplayTV theme when starting mvpmc
mvpmc has a built in theme which provides a ReplayTV like color scheme.
The ReplayTV theme is specifyed with the "-t /usr/share/mvpmc/replaytv.xml" command line option.
Note: The ReplayTV theme can also be selected from the mvpmc main menu screen under [settings] [themes]

mvpmc Fonts
mvpmc offers three GUI OSD(On Screen Display) font sizes.

10 point Helvetica: (default)
14 point Helvetica: /etc/helvB14.pcf
18 point Helvetica: /etc/helvB18.pcf

The ReplayTV GUI is optimized for an 18 point font.
As of mvpmc 0.1.6, the replaytv code is themeble. The xml theme files (/usr/share/mvpmc/default.xml and /use/share/mvpmc/replaytv.xml) specifiy the 18 point font for replaytv widgets
If desired users can modify the gui fonts for any widget by creating a custom xml theme file and loading it with the mvpmc '-t' option.

mvpmc ReplayTV options
ReplayTV options are specified with the "-R" flag.
At a minimum you must specify either a static IP address list or tell mvpmc to run ReplayTV Discovery.
NOTE: DVArchive must be discovered to kick it in to ReplayTV 4K or 5K mode.
The format is:


   -R discover
   -R IPAddr1/IPAddr2/IPAddr3...
e.g: -R 192.168.1.10/192.168.1.11/192.168.1.12

Example for specifying ReplayTV discovery and the ReplayTV theme:
mvpmc -t /usr/share/mvpmc/replaytv.xml -R discover

Multiple ReplayTV options can be passed using the form: -R "< option list >"
The following options are supported:

ip=< address list or discover > (This parameter is required)
mode=4k (Force DVArchive into RTV 4K mode instead of 5K mode)
dtmo=< discovery timeout (seconds) > (Default is 6 seconds)
mrtv=< Maximum number of ReplayTV devices to discover >
The "dtmo" and "mrtv" options can be used to tune how mvpmc performs ReplayTV device discovery.
"dtmo" is used to specify how long to wait for ReplayTV devices to respond when performing discovery. If you have a slow computer running DVArchive you may need to specify a "dtmo" value larger than the default.
"mrtv" is used to specify how many ReplayTVs to discover before completing discovery and presenting the mvpmc GUI. "mrtv" can be used to speed up the discovery process if a user knows how many ReplayTV/DVArchive devices are on the network.
chunksz=< num >
The chunksz option allows modifying how much video stream data to read before passing it to the MVP hardware. This seems to help if the streaming RTV has a slow harddrive. This option should only be modified if you are having streaming problems such as a black screen when starting a new video or jumping in a video. The default is '3'.
Try chunksz=4 or chunksz=5 and see if the problem goes away.

debug=< trace mask >
Where trace types are:


   RTVLOG_INFO          0x00000001
   RTVLOG_DSCVR         0x00000002
   RTVLOG_GUIDE         0x00000004
   RTVLOG_HTTP          0x00000008
   RTVLOG_HTTP_VERB     0x00000010
   RTVLOG_NET           0x00000020
   RTVLOG_CMD           0x00000040
   RTVLOG_NETDUMP       0x10000000

logfile=< NFS or CIFS (Windows File Share) mounted logfile path >

examples:

Specify ReplayTV theme, discover RTV's, set debug level 0x58:
   mvpmc -t /usr/share/mvpmc/replaytv.xml -R "ip=discover debug=58"

Discover RTV's and make DVArchive believe the MVP is a RTV 4K instead of RTV 5K device.
   mvpmc -R "ip=discover mode=4k"

4. Using the Remote Control

Show Menu
OK:     Brings up show menu popup
PLAY:   Plays show
RED:    Up one page
YELLOW: Down one page 

Video Playback
BLANK:  Brings up OSD
PLAY:   Plays show
FFWD:   2X FastForward
REW:    Jump back one second
SKIP:   Jump forward 28 seconds
REPLAY: Jump back 8 seconds
[0..9]: Enter Jump Time: Then GO or GREEN to Jump to entered time
[0..9]: Enter Jump Time: Then SKIP to Jump forward number of minutes from current play position.
[0..9]: Enter Jump Time: Then REPLAY to Jump back number of minutes from current play position.
[0..9]: Enter Jump Time: Then REW to Jump back number of seconds from current play position.
BLUE: Commercial Skip Forward (Jump to end of next commercial break)
YELLOW: Commercial Skip Back (If last key press was not
'Commercial Skip Fwd' then jump to end of last commercial break. If
last key press was 'Commercial Skip Fwd' then jump to previous time
when 'Commercial Skip Fwd' was pressed.)

Seek: On Screen Display (OSD)
SKIP (End of commercial break NOT encountered): +28 >>
SKIP (End of commercial break encountered): +ss >>[CB]
REPLAY: -08 <<
Jump to Time: h:mm JUMP
Commercial Skip Forward: +m:ss >>[CS]
Commercial Skip Back (last key press not 'CS Fwd'): -m:ss <<[CS]
Commercial Skip Back (last key press was 'CS Fwd'): << PREV

5. rtv_shell

rtv_shell is a command line utility for executing libreplaytv functionality.
It provides access the ReplayTV's http filesystem, guide, etc... Following is the help menu:


rtv_sh>help
SHELL COMMANDS:
   sendlogs   :    send logs to a file
   sdm        :    set the debug trace mask
   discover   :    discover RTV devices
   di         :    get RTV device information
   devlist    :    print device list summary
   guide      :    get RTV guide
   delshow    :    delete a show
   playpos    :    get shows current play position
   free       :    free rtv data struct
   fsvi       :    http filesystem: get volume info
   fsstat     :    http filesystem: get file status
   fsls       :    http filesystem: list directory
   fsget      :    http filesystem: get file
   crypttest  :    Test encryption routines
   clitestfxn :    test parameter parsing
   help       :    display this help
   help <command> provides detailed help for the command.

Link to rtv_shell session

rtv_shell for PPC can be executed from the MVP by copying the rtv_shell executable from the mvpmc build tree to a NFS or Windows share that is mounted by the MVP.
rtv_shell builds and runs for linux x86. To build for x86 cd in your build tree to host/mvplib/libreplaytv and do a make.

6. Debugging Problems

Problems should be reported to the mvpmc-devel mailing list.
There are lots of Error print statements in the mvpmc and ReplayTV code.
To be able to see them you need to start mvpmc from a telnet session instead of starting it from the config script.
Hopefully the problem can be reproduced easily and Error logs will occur when it happens.

If mvpmc is trapping and exiting when the problem occurs you can get a core file to debug by doing the following:

Mount a NFS or Windows share in Read/Write mode on the MVP.
telnet to the MVP.
Enter: "ulimit -c 2000" to enable coredumps.
cd to the NFS or Windows share directory.
start mvpmc and reproduce the problem.

This should cause a core file to be dumped to to the NFS/Windows share. If you have a mvpmc development environment setup then run gdb on the core file. Otherwise, post the problem to the mvpmc-devel mailing list.
Myself or someone else will ask you to email the core file so we can analyze it.