Automatic DVD Burning from MythTV

** Updated: 2006-03-08 **

This should now work in v0.18 as well as v0.19 (I have tested both)
Download (v0.4)

A special thanks to Guillaume Tamboise (homepage) for his suggestions and debugging help!

For those of you who have used MythTV, you know how awesome it is. I really love the interface and the functionality, but the one thing that I found missing was the ability to automagically burn DVDs.

The built-in video editing interface is pretty acceptable, so I decided to whip together a little script which automated a lot of the task of burning a basic DVD. There are some caveats and some pre-requisites, but I have had great success with these scripts.

These scripts will use the MythTV cut-list (setup in the recording GUI) to chop-up the mythtv recording into a DVD-PS and then either burn it onto a DVD, or copy the MPEG file into a specified directory. There is one major caveat of the system.

Caveat:

• All MythTV cut-points must be on keyframes (use the keyframe distance in the Edit Recording GUI)
• If the cut points do not fall on keyframes there is a high probability that the audio will get severely out of sync.
• (This has not been extensively tested)

General Installation instructions

1. Download the buzz-ball, unpack it (tar xjvf mythDVDBurning-0.4.tar.bz2) and move the mythDVDBurning directory into an install location of your choice
   (I use /opt/mythDVDBurning)
2. Change the PREFIX variable at the top of all the scripts to the path where you just moved the mythDVDBurning folder
3. Modify the handful of variables at the top of each script (temp directory, etc.)
4. In the next release I will make a single file which each of the scripts source...

Create DVD

createDVDFromMythRecording.sh

Use the MythTV cut-list to burn a DVD!

Pre-Requisites

• mysql
• mplex
• avidemux2
• dvdauthor
• growisofs
• ffmpeg (if you want AC3 audio)

1. Tell MythTV about the script (create a new User-Job):
   (You can do this from the inital setup program, but here is the brute-force MySQL way)
   1. Open the MythTV mysql database (the command will probably look like this: mysql -p -u mythtv mythconverg)
   2. Update the settings table in the following way: (feel free to cut and paste this SQL)
      UPDATE settings SET data='/path/to/createDVDFromMythRecording.sh %DIR%/%FILE% %CHANID% %STARTTIME%' WHERE value='UserJob1';
      UPDATE settings SET data='Burn DVD' WHERE value='UserJobDesc1';
      UPDATE settings SET data='1' WHERE value='JobAllowUserJob1';
      
2. Try it out from MythTV:
   1. Press the right arrow key (assuming "Use Arrow-Key Accelerators" is turned on) after selecting a recording you want to burn to DVD
   2. Select "Job Options"
   3. Select the menu item which should read something like "Begin Burn DVD"
   4. Let me know how it works!

Create Menu-based DVD (New in v0.4!)

createMenuDVDFromMythRecording.sh

Use the MythTV cut-list to create a DVD with a menu!

Pre-Requisites

• mysql
• mplex
• avidemux2
• jpeg2yuv
• arecord
• spumux
• mpeg2enc
• mp2enc
• convert (from ImageMagick)
• dvdauthor
• growisofs
• ffmpeg (if you want AC3 audio)

1. Tell MythTV about the script (create a new User-Job):
   (You can do this from the inital setup program, but here is the brute-force MySQL way)
   1. Open the MythTV mysql database (the command will probably look like this: mysql -p -u mythtv mythconverg)
   2. Update the settings table in the following way: (feel free to cut and paste this SQL)
      UPDATE settings SET data='/path/to/createMenuDVDFromMythRecording.sh %DIR%/%FILE% %CHANID% %STARTTIME%' WHERE value='UserJob2';
      UPDATE settings SET data='Burn Menu DVD!' WHERE value='UserJobDesc2';
      UPDATE settings SET data='1' WHERE value='JobAllowUserJob2';
      
2. Try it out from MythTV:
   1. Press the right arrow key (assuming "Use Arrow-Key Accelerators" is turned on) after selecting a recording you want to burn to DVD
   2. Select "Job Options"
   3. Select the menu item which should read something like "Begin Burn Menu DVD!"
   4. Let me know how it works!

Create MPEG

Use the MythTV cut-list to create an MPEG file (suitable for burning onto a DVD)

** This file has been obsoleted when used with MythTV v0.19 and higher (because of the built-in lossless MPEG transcoder!)

Pre-Requisites

• mysql
• mplex
• avidemux2
• ffmpeg (if you want AC3 audio)

1. Tell MythTV about the script (create a new User-Job):
   (You can do this from the inital setup program, but here is the brute-force MySQL way)
   1. Open the MythTV mysql database (the command will probably look like this: mysql -p -u mythtv mythconverg)
   2. Update the settings table in the following way: (feel free to cut and paste this SQL)
      UPDATE settings SET data='/path/to/createMPEGFromMythRecording.sh %DIR%/%FILE% %CHANID% %STARTTIME%' WHERE value='UserJob3';
      UPDATE settings SET data='Create MPEG' WHERE value='UserJobDesc3';
      UPDATE settings SET data='1' WHERE value='JobAllowUserJob3';
      
2. Try it out from MythTV:
   1. Press the right arrow key (assuming "Use Arrow-Key Accelerators" is turned on) after selecting a recording you want to turn into an MPEG file
   2. Select "Job Options"
   3. Select the menu item which should read something like "Begin Create MPEG"
   4. Let me know how it works!