vdr July 2022

vdr@linuxtv.org

6 participants
5 discussions

Making VDR run under Systemd
by Marko Mäkelä 28 Nov '22

28 Nov '22

Hi all, I was an active VDR user from about 2004 to 2010 when my children were younger and there was a need to record TV programs for them. The old setup was more or less abandoned when I got a smart TV and the family started to use video streaming services. Some years ago, I got a Raspberry Pi 2 B and an Astrometa DVB-T2 USB stick that also includes an infrared receiver. Because its bundled remote control unit (RCU) has much fewer buttons than the one that I got with the Hauppauge Nova-T PCI 90002 years ago, I configured lircd to translate the RC5 codes from the old RCU. For output, I am using rpihddevice. Yesterday, I upgraded to VDR 2.5.6 and rpihddevice 1.0.4 from git://projects.vdr-developer.org/vdr-plugin-rpihddevice.git while keeping the rest of the Raspbian 9.13 mostly intact. I installed the self-built software simply by replacing the original /usr/bin/vdr that was part of the distribution's vdr 2.2.0 package, and copying the plugin to /usr/lib/vdr/plugins/. It might not be the cleanest solution, but it worked for me. I had some trouble with Systemd, which I resolved by creating a configuration file: # cat > /etc/systemd/system/vdr.service << EOF [Service] Restart=on-failure RestartSec=1s ExecStart=/usr/bin/vdr TimeoutStartSec=infinity EOF # systemctl daemon-reload # service lightdm stop # service vdr start I did not double-check it, but I understood that this could entirely bypass the /etc/init.d/vdr script, which would invoke the runvdr script (which normally runs vdr in a loop). If I choose Restart from the VDR menu, systemd will restart it nicely. I did not configure the Power button yet. Currently, VDR complains that no -s parameter is given when I press the Power button on the RCU. Ideally, I think that VDR should suspend the live video output and somehow inform Systemd that the entire system may be suspended, as far as VDR is concerned. (Of course, only if there are no recordings or remote connections active to VDR.) Then, if nothing else prevents the system from being shut down or suspended, Systemd would do it based on its configuration. Years ago, I developed some patches and configuration at https://iki.fi/msmakela/software/vdr/ to achieve something like this on my old system, and I would now like to revive this somehow. Ideally, the Power button would shut down the DVB receiver and display some indication on the OSD or the video frame buffer that the output has been suspended. If my Raspberry Pi were not an "always-on server" that runs some other services as well, I might want to reimplement the "wake-on-RCU" hardware that is generating a wake-on-LAN signal via the Nova-T PCI card, possibly by extending https://spellfoundry.com/product/sleepy-pi-2-usb-c/ or a similar product that would implement a wake-on-timer for the Raspberry Pi. Then, the system would power up nicely either by RCU or by a recording timer. Integrating the wake-on-timer logic with Systemd could be another challenge. I might try this on PC hardware, which already supports wake-on-timer out of the box. A quick search turned up a promising starting point: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.timer.html The motivation of this exercise is to have a stand-alone VDR front/back end installation that plays nicely with Systemd, without reinventing any logic around scheduling, startup, and shutdown. Maybe one day, once some more progress has been made with Wayland and when using a Raspberry Pi model with more GPU memory, one could press the Power button on the RCU and have the live TV pop up either fullscreen or in a window, on top of the graphical desktop (which would be available for generic use). Best regards, Marko

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Re: [vdr] EPG table 0
by Richard F 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

> On 16.07.22 14:07, Richard F wrote: > >/I've just updated to VDR V2.61 after a long time on V2.2, using the > same config and the epgtableid0 (2.4.0) plug-in. />//>/The issue I'm seeing is that when VDR is restarted, it doesn't seem > to be reading/respecting the epg.data file. />/... / > Is this the only EPG handler you have installed, or are there others? > If so, make sure this one is installed FIRST. > > Klaus Actually after more testing it seems the table 0 EPG entries are always being overwritten after EPG scans, not just at startup. The only EPG handler I have is XMLTV using SVDRP: once a day a script clears the existing EPG then inserts new entries in table 0 The correct table 0 entries can be seen in VDR for a while, then get overwritten after automatic scans. I do need both types, as some channels / programmes don't have current data in XMLTV, only DVB. My command line is: /usr/bin/vdr -c /etc/vdr -E /mnt/lvm0/TV/epg.data -l 2 --no-kbd -P streamdev-server -P epgsearch -v 1 -l /var/log/epgsearch.log -m /usr/local/bin/sendEmail.pl -P epgtableid0 -P vnsiserver -P vdrmanager -P dummydevice -r /usr/local/bin/vdr-auto -u vdr --vfat -v /mnt/lvm0/TV (same as V2.20) Thx/Richard

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How to use /dev/lirc0 in VDR?
by Marko Mäkelä 06 Nov '22

06 Nov '22

Hi all, TL;DR: How could I connect VDR to the kernel-provided /dev/lirc0 device? Is there a dummy lircd implementation that would simply open /dev/lirc0 in LIRC_MODE_SCANCODE and relay its contents over a socket? As far as I understand, LIRC was first implemented as a user-space daemon that would decode a bitstream (via various bit-banging interfaces) into scancodes that would then be relayed over a socket to the final application. At some point (before I started to use VDR in 2005 or 2006), support for remote control units was expanded in the Linux kernel, and also a translation into input events was implemented. In VDR, the input event interface can be used via the "remote" plugin (vdr -Premote). I think that this is what I always used with VDR, first using the cx88 driver (Hauppauge Nova-T PCI 90002) and now trying to use a USB stick (rtl82xxu, Astrometa DVB-T2) on a Raspberry Pi. The input event interface is mapping the stream of IR messages to "key-down", "key-up" and "key-repeat" events, which adds some inaccuracy. For the rtl82xxu, the repeat logic is broken: key-repeat or key-down events for long key presses are only being sent intermittently. The fix in https://patchwork.linuxtv.org/project/linux-media/list/?series=7322 improves it a lot. The USB interface for delivering IR events in a 128-byte buffer is prone to race conditions, and that cannot be fixed without changing the device firmware. There is also a kernel-based interface (such as /dev/lirc0) that can provide scan codes to end applications. Both the input event interface and this one would be polled by "ir-keytable -t". I would like to use the /dev/lirc0 interface with VDR, so that VDR has a chance to react to each and every IR message that is sent by the remote control unit. I think that this would minimize the disturbance caused by the broken USB protocol of the rtl82xxu. It is OK if one LIRC scancode of a long keypress (say, browsing a list of recordings) would be lost; another one would be sent in 113ms by the RC5 protocol. With the input event driver, a lost IR message would result in a bogus key-up event, a bogus key-down event, and a long delay before key-repeat events are generated again. My initial attempt at using /dev/lirc0 did not work: vdr -v /var/lib/vdr/video --no-kbd --lirc=/dev/lirc0 -Prpihddevice That is, pressing any buttons on the remote control unit did not have any effect, and VDR did not start in the "learning mode" either, even after I renamed the remote.conf that it is opening at startup. It appeared that a read() on "/dev/lirc0" would block indefinitely, but I did not check that. I noticed that VDR's lirc.c is explicitly opening a Unix domain socket to the LIRC device, while "ir-keytable -t" would invoke open(2) followed by ioctl(lircfd, LIRC_SET_REC_MODE, &mode): https://git.linuxtv.org/v4l-utils.git/tree/utils/keytable/keytable.c My goal would be to use the Hauppauge remote control with the Astrometa DVB-T2 stick and for it to be as responsive as it was back in 2006 with my patched cx88 driver. My implementation back then directly mapped IR messages to input events: (1) produced a key-down event for the first IR message (2) discard the first repeated IR message (to have an initial delay) (3) produced key-repeat events for subsequent IR messages (every 113ms) (4) if any key-up events were produced, that would be after a timeout that would be reset in (1),(2),(3). I think that it should be possible to implement this behaviour in a dummy lircd that translates /dev/lirc0 into a socket. Before I implement that from the scratch, I would like to know if something similar already exists. Related to this, I submitted a fix to the kernel to set the "repeat" flag in the LIRC scan codes when appropriate: https://patchwork.linuxtv.org/project/linux-media/list/?series=8338 Without this fix, it should still be possible to detect repeat key events (long key presses) by comparing successive scancodes. For protocols that do not include a toggle flag (like RC5 does), it might be possible to compare timestamps to distinguish long button presses from multiple short presses. Best regards, Marko

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projects.vdr-developer.org might come to an end
by Tobi 31 Jul '22

31 Jul '22

Hi! Over the last years, the projects.vdr-developer.org site was hosted on a server sponsored by Xeatre.tv. This server will now go offline on June, 7'th. Currently there are about 10 projects with activity in the last 12 months. I haven't made a final decision on how to proceed, but I'm leaning towards taking the site offline. In this case I will archive the git repositories on gitlab or github and possibly keep a read-only instance of Redmine on my private vServer for a while. Let me know, what you think. If there are many comments in favor of keeping the site online, I'm sure I can find a solution. BR, Tobias

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EPG table 0
by Richard F 17 Jul '22

17 Jul '22

I've just updated to VDR V2.61 after a long time on V2.2, using the same config and the epgtableid0 (2.4.0) plug-in. The issue I'm seeing is that when VDR is restarted, it doesn't seem to be reading/respecting the epg.data file. It's starting an EPG scan and seems to be overwriting table 0 entries from the OTA EPG. So for example this (via xmltv import) E 42885 1657987200 3600 0 FF T The Great British Bake Off S Biscuits and Traybakes D The remaining eight bakers offer Mary and Paul their twists on everything from bakewells to banoffees and brownies, as they face the biscuit and traybake challenges.|Director: Scott Tankard|Producers: Samantha Beddoes, Anna Beattie|Presenters: Mel Giedroyc, Sue Perkins|Category: Reality, Cooking|Episode: 3.4.|Episode: EP013163930033|Stereo: stereo|Subtitles: teletext|Repeat: No G A5 is becoming something like this from the OTA EPG (not same ID I know, just an example) E 18475 1657987200 3600 50 13 T The Great British Bake-Off D Almost halfway through, the remaining eight bakers are faced with biscuits- and the Signature Challenge requires them to produce their favourite traybake. S4/Ep5 G A0 X 2 03 eng X 1 03 und X 3 10 eng Is there something else I need to import into table 0, or some other issue ? Thanks

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vdr July 2022