Setup General
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This page is up-to-date as of MythTV version 36, the current release is 36.0
The General settings is where you will set up the core settings of your backend. Most users, particularly for an initial configuration after installation, will only need to visit the Host Address Backend Setup and Locale Settings sections.
Host Address Backend Setup
| This description applies to version 0.28 of MythTV and prior versions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This description applies to versions 29 and higher of MythTV.
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Port | 6543 | Unless you have got a good reason to, do not change this. | As noted here you do not need to change this. |
| Status port | 6544 | Port on which the server will listen for HTTP requests, including backend status and MythXML requests. | As above, do not change. Used by the Services API. Users include the web app and 3rd party clients (Android/IOS/Kodi...) |
| Security Pin (Required) | blank | PIN code required for a frontend to connect to the backend. Blank prevents all connections; 0000 allows any client to connect. | When using a remote frontend MythTV will auto discover your backend. For security you must enter this PIN into the frontend to gain access. This feature removes the need for manually configuring the $HOME/.mythtv/config.xml. Use four zero's (0) to allow any client to connect and request database credentials. Leave the setting blank to forbid any client from receiving database credentials. If you set this other than 0000 you will be prompted for it in the frontend startup, or you can manually setup config.xml on your remote frontend machines. |
| Allow Connections from all Subnets | Unchecked | Allow this backend to receive connections from any IP address on the internet. NOT recommended for most users. Use this only if you have secure IPV4 and IPV6 firewalls. | Most users should leave this unchecked. Otherwise your MythTV system may be accessible from the internet. If you do want it accessible from other subnets, you should set up firewalls to protect yourself. |
| Listen on All IP Addresses | Checked | Allow this backend to receive connections on any IP Address assigned to it. Recommended for most users for ease and reliability. | Most users should leave this checked. This avoids you having to select specific listen addresses and also allows communication to proceed even if the backend starts before your IO addresses are initialized. |
| IP Addresses (Only accessible if Listen on All IP Addresses is unchecked) | |||
| IPv4 address | 127.0.0.1 | Enter the IP address of this machine. Use an externally accessible address (i.e., not 127.0.0.1) if you are going to be running a frontend on a different machine than this one. Note, in IPv6 setups, this is still required for certain extras such as UPnP. | If you choose not to listen on all IP addresses, you will have to select one here. If you have remote frontends you will have to use a value other than the default. |
| Listen on IPv6 address | ::1 | Select an IPv6 address for listening. Use an externally accessible address (i.e., not ::1) if you are going to be running a frontend on a different machine than this one. | Only change this if you plan to use IPv6. For more information on IPv6 see Enable IPv6. |
| Listen on Link-Local addresses | Checked | Enable servers on this machine to listen on link-local addresses. These are auto-configured addresses and not accessible outside the local network. This must be enabled for anything requiring Bonjour to work. | You should normally leave this enabled. |
| Host Address Backend Setup continued | |||
| Primary IP address / DNS name | The Primary IP address of this backend server. You can select an IP address from the list or type a DNS name or host name. Other systems will contact this server using this address. If you use a host name make sure it is assigned an IP address other than 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file. | Select from the list an IP address that you want other systems to use to contact this backend. You can also type a host name or DNS name. | |
| This server is the Master Backend | Checked | Enable this if this is the only backend or is the master backend server. If enabled, all frontend and non-master backend machines will connect to this server. To change to a new master backend, run setup on that server and select it as master backend. | Enable this on your master backend |
| Master Backend Name | Host name of Master Backend. This is set by selecting "This server is the Master Backend" on that server | You cannot update this directly. It is set when you select the prior check box. | |
Press the Save button if you have made any changes (for initial install, you should have set the Primary IP address / DNS name at least).
Locale Settings
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| TV format | NTSC | The standard to use for viewing TV. | Other choices include: NTSC-JP, PAL, PAL-60, PAL-BG, PAL-DK, PAL-D, PAL-I, PAL-M, PAL-N, PAL-NC, SECAM, SECAM-D, SECAM-DK. Be sure to set to the proper format for your region (ATSC users choose: NTSC.) |
| VBI format | None | VBI stands for vertical blanking interval, the time between tracing the last line on the display and returning to the first, when the CRT's electron beam is turned off (blanked). The VBI is used to carry Teletext and Closed Captioning data. | In TV broadcasting not all of the available lines in each frame of the picture are used. For example in CCIR systems (PAL and SECAM)25 lines per field (50 per frame) are specified for other uses. The remaining lines can be used for data broadcasting, and are typically used for closed caption or teletext. You may sometimes notice a squiggly black and white line or cube right at the top of the screen in a transmission; this is data being transmitted. In some countries, specific data broadcasting companies have exclusive rights on the use of the VBI lines. Options are None, PAL Teletext, NTSC closed caption |
| Channel frequency table | us-bcast | Select the appropriate frequency table for your system. If you have an antenna, use a “-bcast” frequency. | Other choices include: us-bcast, us-cable, us-cable-hrc, us-cable-irc, japan-bcast, japan-cable, europe-west, europe-east, italy, newzealand, australia, ireland, france, china-bcast, southafrica, argentina, australia-optus, singapore, malaysia, israel-hot-matav, try-all. |
Miscellaneous Settings
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| File Management Settings | |||
| Master Backend Override | Not Checked | If enabled, the master backend will stream and delete files if it finds them in the video directory. Useful if you are using a central storage location, like a NFS share, and your slave backend isn’t running. | For a single backend setup, leave this checked. This means that all files will stream from the master backend. It also means all files must be available on the master backend. If you have slave backends either uncheck this or if you check it make sure that all storage directories are mounted on the master backend. |
| Follow Symbolic links when deleting files | Not Checked | This will cause Myth to follow symlinks when recordings and related files are deleted, instead of deleting the symlink and leaving the actual file. | In a normal recording setup mythtv does not use symbolic links so this will have no effect. Normally you should leave this unchecked unless you have your own file manipulation going on outside of MythTV. |
| Delete Files Slowly | Not Checked | Some filesystems use a lot of resource when deleting large recording files. This option makes Myth delete the file slowly on this backend to lessen the impact. | Select this if using ext3 file system for recordings. It is not needed with ext4. |
| HD Ringbuffer size (kb) | 9400 | The HD device ring buffer allows the backend to weather moments of stress. The larger the ring buffer, the longer the moments of stress can be. However, setting this too large can cause swapping, which is detrimental. | The default setting should be used in normal conditions. Modern machines have gigabytes of memory so this can safely be increased if you are experiencing pauses during playback. |
| Storage Group disk scheduler | Balanced free space | This setting controls how the Storage Group scheduling code will balance new recordings across directories. 'Balanced Free Space' is the recommended method for most users. | See Setup Storage Directories#Storage Group Disk Scheduler for full details. |
| UPnP Server Settings | |||
| Video Content to show a WMP Client | Recordings | Which tree to show a Windows Media Player client when it requests a list of videos. | MythTV supports watching of recordings or Videos with Windows Media Player and other applications. This determines whether they can see recordings or Videos. |
| Other Settings | |||
| Miscellaneous Status Application | blank | External application or script that outputs extra information for inclusion in the backend status page. See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Status_Information | See Miscellaneous Status Information |
| Disable Automatic Database Backup | Not Checked | If enabled, MythTV will not backup the database before upgrades. You should therefore have your own database backup strategy in place. | It is recommended to leave this unchecked. |
| Disable Firewire Reset | Not Checked | By default MythTV will reset the firewire bus when a firewire recorder stops responding to commands. But if this causes problems you can disable this here for Linux firewire recorders. | Unfortunately Firewire recording is somewhat unreliable, whether this option is selected or not. |
EIT Scanner Options
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| EIT transport timeout (mins) | 5 | Maximum time to spend waiting (in minutes) for listings data on one digital TV channel before checking for new listings data on the next channel. | For information on using EIT to obtain program listings see EIT. |
| Backend idle before EIT crawl (secs) | 60 | The minimum number of seconds after a recorder becomes idle to wait before MythTV begins collecting EIT listings data. | For information on using EIT to obtain program listings see EIT. |
| EIT scan period (mins) | 15 | Time to do EIT scanning on one capture card before moving to the next capture card in the same input group that is configured for EIT scanning. Such an input group is created when multiple satellite LNBs are connected via a DiSEqC switch. The switch is connected to one physical capture card; that capture card has to be created and confgured once for each LNB and it can use only one satellite at a time. | For information on using EIT to obtain program listings see EIT. |
Shutdown/Wakeup Options
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Startup command | blank | This command is executed right after starting the backend. As a parameter '$status' is replaced by either 'auto' if the machine was started or 'user' if a user switched it on. | You may want to have post-startup tasks execute autonomously once the backend server has fully initialized. Use this parameter to specify a script that will get executed along with the backend server startup routines. |
| Block shutdown before client connected | Checked | If set, the automatic shutdown routine will be disabled until a client connects. | If you have shutdown wakeup enabled, the backend will normally check to see if its busy before it shuts down. Of course if you have just turned your machine on manually then you don't want it to shut down before you have had a chance to start the frontend. Once the frontend has been started then the shutdown command will take effect as soon as the frontend closes down. This means that you only need to exit the frontend and the machine will go down. |
| Idle timeout (secs) | 0 | The number of seconds the master backend idles before it shuts down all other backends. Set to 0 to disable automatic shutdown. | If you want the master backend (NB not slaves) to shut down when idle you must set this value as non zero. |
| Max. wait for recording (min) | 0 | The amount of time the master backend waits for a recording. If it is idle but a recording starts within this time period, the backends will not shut down. | You do not want the machine to think it is idle only to find that by the time it has shut down it has to start again to record the next schedule. This parameter tells the system to wait a period of time just in case a recording is due. |
| Startup before recording (secs) | 120 | The number of seconds the master backend will be woken up before a recording starts. | this is the amount of time you are allowing for the backends to boot up and be ready for recording. 120 seconds is cutting it a bit fine. 300 seconds would be a good choice, and maybe more if you have slave backends that also do recording. |
| Wakeup time format | hh:mm yyyy-MM-dd | The format of the time string passed to the 'Command to set wakeup time' as $time. See QT::QDateTime.toString() for details. Set to 'time_t' for seconds since epoch. | Set this parameter to be the same as that expected by the Command to set Wakeup Time below. |
| Command to set Wakeup Time | blank | The command used to set the wakeup time (passed as $time) for the Master Backend | If you have set an idle timeout, the backend will shut down. You must set up a script to set a wakeup time and give the script name here. See ACPI Wakeup for details on setting a wakeup command. |
| Server halt command | sudo /sbin/halt -p | The command used to halt the backends. | This command needs to call an external script. If you are using sudo here you will need to set up permission for the backend to run the command without a password. |
| Pre-shutdown-check command | Blank | A command executed before the backends would shutdown. The return value determines if the backends can shutdown. 0 - yes, 1 - restart idling, 2 - reset the backends to wait for a frontend. | Your machines may be doing other things such as Samba file sharing or streaming music that are not MythTV related. In this case you will want to have a script here that checks stuff before it shuts down. Also if you are logged into the machine doing some work you do not want it to shut down. |
Backend Wakeup settings
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Master Backend
These settings are only used when your database is running but your master backend is not. If the master backend and database automatically start with the backend machine, then configure the database wakeup in the frontend settings and leave this out. If the master database is on a separate server, configure the wakeup settings for the database in the frontend and configure the master backend wakeup settings here. | |||
| Delay between wake attempts (secs) | 0 | Length of time the frontend waits between tries to wake up the master backend. This should be the time your master backend needs to startup. Set to 0 to disable. | Set a value to enable the wake up, and allow enough time for the backend to start. |
| Wake Attempts | 5 | Number of times the frontend will try to wake up the master backend. | Normally only 1 attempt would be required. In case you happen to invoke a remote frontend while the backend is in the process of shutting down, it may not work and you may need more than 1 attempt. |
| Wake Command | blank | The command used to wake up your master backend server (e.g. sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend restart). | The example command may be misleading. This is a command that will be run on a frontend to wake a master backend. It should normally invoke a wake-on-lan command. |
| Slave Backends | |||
| Sleep Command | blank | The command used to put this slave to sleep. If set, the master backend will use this command to put this slave to sleep when it is not needed for recording. | Set this while running setup on the slave backend machine. |
| Wake Command | blank | The command used to wake up this slave from sleep. This setting is not used on the master backend. | Set this while running setup on the slave backend machine. |
Backend Control
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Backend Control
Settings here are run on each backend, master or slave. | |||
| Backend stop command | killall mythbackend | The command used to stop the backend when running on the master backend server (e.g. sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend stop) | This command is used to stop the backend when setup is run and you choose to close the backend. Note: when you use the Ubuntu or Mythbuntu package there is a script that invokes backend setup and it does not use this setting for stopping the backend.
This command is not used when using "Restart Backend" in web setup. "Restart Backend" causes the backend to restart itself via code. |
| Backend start command | mythbackend | The command used to start the backend when running on the master backend server (e.g. sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start). | This command is used to restart the backend when setup is closed and you had selected for setup to close the backend. Note: Like the stop command above this is not used when you installed the Mythbuntu or Ubuntu package.
This command is not used when using "Restart Backend" in web setup. "Restart Backend" causes the backend to restart itself via code. |
Job Queue (Backend-Specific)
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Settings here are run on each backend, master or slave. | |||
| Maximum Simultaneous Jobs on this Backend | 1 | The Job Queue will be limited to running this many simultaneous jobs on this backend. | Adjust this according to the power of this backend machine. |
| Job Queue Check Frequency (secs) | 60 | When looking for new jobs to process, the Job Queue will wait this many seconds between checks. | There is probably no reason to change this. |
| Job Queue Start Time | 0:00 | This setting controls the start of the Job Queue time window, which determines when new jobs will be started. | You can limit the time periods when jobs will be started. |
| Job Queue End Time | 23:59 | This setting controls the end of the Job Queue time window, which determines when new jobs will be started. | You can limit the time periods when jobs will be started. |
| CPU Usage | Low | This setting controls approximately how much CPU jobs in the queue may consume. On 'High', all available CPU time may be used, which could cause problems on slower systems. | You can limit the CPU usage by jobs. |
| Allow Metadata Lookup Jobs | Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | |
| Allow Commercial Detection Jobs | Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | |
| Allow Transcoding Jobs | Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | |
| User Job #1 | Not Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | User jobs are configured on the next page. You can create up to 4 jobs to run any command you want upon completion of the system making a recording. |
| User Job #2 | Not Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | User jobs are configured on the next page. You can create up to 4 jobs to run any command you want upon completion of the system making a recording. |
| User Job #3 | Not Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | User jobs are configured on the next page. You can create up to 4 jobs to run any command you want upon completion of the system making a recording. |
| User Job #4 | Not Checked | If enabled, allow jobs of this type to run on this backend. | User jobs are configured on the next page. You can create up to 4 jobs to run any command you want upon completion of the system making a recording. |
Job Queue (Global)
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Run Jobs Only on Original Recording Backend | Not Checked | If enabled, jobs in the queue will be required to run on the backend that made the original recording. | If you leave this unchecked, you have to make sure that all recording directories are available on all backends, via NFS or another mechanism. |
| Start Auto Commercial Detection Jobs when the Recording Starts | Not Checked | If enabled, and Auto Commercial Detection is ON for a recording, the flagging job will be started as soon as the recording starts. NOT recommended on underpowered systems. | |
| Commercial Detection Command | mythcommflag | The program used to detect commercials in a recording. The default is 'mythcommflag' if this setting is empty. | See User Jobs for arguments that can be used. Equivalent default command: mythcommflag -j %JOBID% -V %VERBOSELEVEL% |
| Transcoder Command | mythtranscode | The program used to transcode recordings. The Defaults is 'mythtranscode' if this setting is empty. | See User Jobs for arguments that can be used. Equivalent default command: mythtranscode -j %JOBID% -V %VERBOSELEVEL% -p %TRANSPROFILE% [-l] |
| Run Transcode Jobs Before Auto Commercial Detection | If enabled, and if both auto-transcode and commercial detection are turned ON for a recording, transcoding will run first; otherwise, commercial detection runs first. | ||
| Save Original Files After Transcoding (Globally) | Not Checked | If enabled and the transcoder is active, the original files will be renamed to .old once the transcoding is complete. |
Job Queue (Job Commands)
See also User Jobs.
Note that when configuring User Jobs it will also almost certainly be necessary to enable them on at least backend in Setup General > Job Queue (Backend-Specific)
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| User Job #1 description | User Job #1 | The description for this User Job. | If you create a user job, change this to a name for the user job. This name is shown in the frontend and other places when referring to the job. |
| User Job #1 command | blank | The command to run whenever this User Job number is scheduled. | This is typically a script you have created to do some task after a recording is complete. |
| User Job #n description | User Job #n | The description for this User Job. | There are prompts for 4 user jobs, 1 - 4. |
| User Job #n command | blank | The command to run whenever this User Job number is scheduled. | There are prompts for 4 user jobs, 1 - 4. |
Program Schedule Downloading Options
| Setting | Default Value | Settings Page's Description | Additional Comments |
| Automatically update program listings | Checked | If enabled, the guide data program will be run automatically. | If you want the backend to invoke the guide data program once a day, enable this. Many people use a cron script or other method of running it, in which case this should be unchecked. |
| Guide data program | mythfilldatabase | Use 'mythfilldatabase' or the name of a custom script that will populate the program guide info for all your video sources. | This program will run under the same user id as the backend. If you are using xmltv for your guide data you will have to make sure that the data in the home directory that set up xmltv is available to mythfilldatabase. |
| Guide data arguments | blank | Any arguments you want passed to the guide data program. | See mythfilldatabase or run "mythfilldatabase -h" for details of valid arguments for mythfilldatabase. |
| Guide data program execution start | 0 | This setting and the following one define a time period when the guide data program is allowed to run. For example, setting start to 11 and end to 13 would mean that the program would only run between 11:00 AM and 1:59 PM. | |
| Guide data program execution end | 23 | This setting and the preceding one define a time period when the guide data program is allowed to run. For example, setting start to 11 and end to 13 would mean that the program would only run between 11:00 AM and 1:59 PM. | The figure entered is the hour part of the time. In fact it sets the maximum mythfilldatabase start time to that hour and 30 minutes, to allow 30 minutes to end the job. Specifying 13 for the end time means the job will start before 1:30 PM. It will not kill the job if it runs past 1:59 PM. |
| Run guide data program at time suggested by the grabber. | Checked | If enabled, allow guide data provider to specify the next download time in order to distribute load on their servers. Guide data program execution start/end times are ignored. | This will set a wake-up time for the recommended time, so that mythfilldatabase can be run if the system is not up at that time.
If this is unchecked, no wake-up time will be set, and if you do not start the system and there are no scheduled programs that will cause it to start, no guide data will be downloaded. |
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