maestro

maestro is the orchestrating component the Mythical MythTV Roku channel connects to.

Setting up maestro

Download the suitable binary from the bin folder and launch the service.

Dependency

ffmpeg must be available in your PATH.

Running maestro

/etc/crontab:

# Launch maestro
*/4  *  * * *   mythtv  /usr/local/bin/maestro -port 8118 

Or, run manually on the terminal as:

$ ./maestro -debug
Listening on:
  1  http://127.0.0.1:8080/
  2  http://192.168.1.35:8080/

Usage

$ ./maestro -help
Usage :
  -debug
    	enable debug mode
  -disableOnTheFly
    	Disables on-the-fly encoding. If set, you must pre-process your video files. 
    	See https://github.com/evuraan/MythicalMythTV/tree/main/maestro#video-processing
  -help
    	Show this help message
  -ignoreDelete
    	ignore delete requests
  -maestroBaseURL string
    	(Optional) maestro base url
  -mimeType string
    	(Optional) Set custom MIME type for video files, example: "video/mp2t"
  -minSize int
    	minimum recording size in bytes (default 10000)
  -mtime duration
    	recording file must be at least this old before it is accepted for playback (default 1h0m0s)
  -mythBE string
    	MythTV Backend and Port (default "127.0.0.1:6544")
  -pickupFolder string
    	(Optional) Folder containing playable video files and thumbnails (or symlinks to..) (default "/var/lib/mythtv/recordings/")
  -port int
    	server port (default 8080)
  -version
    	Show version information

Connectivity to maestro

It is essential that the Roku device is able to connect to your maestroBaseURL.

You will get prompted for input if this value is not set before:

Enter your hostname or ip address:

Video Processing

Roku has specific format requirements for playback. Further, there are generational differences between Roku devices as well.

Factors like your Roku device capability and your MythTV recording formats will determine if your recordings are natively playable by your Roku device.

On the fly encoding

This is now the default mode, it will try ffmpeg to transcode your videos to a playable format. ffmpeg must be available in your PATH.

Use the -disableOnTheFly option to disable on the fly encoding, you will need to pre-process/pre-cook your videos ready for pickup:

Pre-processing your videos

Default pickup folder

The utils folder contains a script example - transcodes and overwrites the original recording file (eg: /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/13301_20230806004300.ts) - feel free to tweak and use according to your setup.

Custom pickup folder

You can write your processed (roku-playable) files into /anotherFolder, and use this folder as the -pickupFolder argument:

$ mkdir /anotherFolder

ffmpeg -err_detect ignore_err  -i  /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/13301_20230806004300.ts -video_track_timescale 30000 -c copy -fflags +genpts /anotherFolder/13301_20230806004300.ts
ffmpeg -i  /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/13301_20230806004300.ts  -vframes 1  /anotherFolder/13301_20230806004300.ts.png

Or, for an older Roku device, we had to specify the mp3 audio codec for the output file:

ffmpeg -err_detect ignore_err  -i  /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/13301_20230806004300.ts  -video_track_timescale 30000  -vcodec copy -acodec mp3 -fflags +genpts /anotherFolder/13301_20230806004300.ts
ffmpeg -i  /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/13301_20230806004300.ts  -vframes 1  /anotherFolder/13301_20230806004300.ts.png

You will need to ask maestro to pickup from this folder using the -pickupFolder option:

$ ./maestro -pickupFolder  /anotherFolder -debug
...

Thumbnails

maestro expects to find .png files to use as thumbnails in the same folder as the video file.

If your video basename is 13301_20230806004300.ts, maestro will be looking for 13301_20230806004300.ts.png file.

If you have to generate thumbnails, here's an example:

ffmpeg -i 13301_20230806004300.ts -ss 00:00:05 -vframes 1 13301_20230806004300.ts.png

Frequently Asked Questions

See FAQ.

Security and Privacy

• maestro does not read your traffic.
• maestro does not share your traffic.
• maestro does not generate any internet bound network traffic.
• maestro does not have any backdoors.
• maestro does not need write permissions to your filesystem.
• maestro does not need any access to your database.