MythTV User Guide
The purpose of this guide is to inform MythTV users in how to operate their MythTV system, including plug-ins such as MythVideo, MythWeb, etc. The following assumptions have been made in this user guide:
There are some things that you need to know that pertains to every area of MythTV. To change between available options on the screen you use the arrow keys and then to select the option that is highlighted you can use either the Enter or Space keys. ESC exits the current screen or mode of operation and returns you to the previous menu.
Table of Contents
The main screen for MythTV shows the MythTV button, the Setup button and buttons for any plug-ins that you have installed, such as MythVideo or MythMusic. You can select the button you want by using the arrow keys and then either the Enter or Space keys. You can exit MythTV by pressing the key that was set in Setupà MythTV à General. You will be given the choice of canceling, exiting MythTV or shutting down the system. Exiting MythTV will drop you down to the system desktop. The ESC key will return you to the Main Screen.
Selecting the TV button will bring you to a screen with the following options:
ESC will take you back to the Main Screen.
This allows you to watch “Live-TV”. The TV signal is recorded to the hard drive and then displayed on your screen. This means that what you see is a couple seconds behind what is actually on TV at that moment. This also explains why you see a black screen for a few seconds when you first enter the Watch TV mode. Having everything recorded to the hard drive allows you pause, rewind and fast forward through your TV show.
The function of the fast forward and rewind keys depends on the setting of the ‘stickykeys’ option in Settings à XXXXX à XXXXX
Here are the available commands while watching ‘Live-TV’:
- Up and down arrow keys change the channel
- Type the channel number to go directly to the channel
- P to pause / play
- ESC quits
- M brings up the electronic program guide (Grid) -- see the EPG section
- I brings up the Onscreen Display, which gives information on the current show
- Page Up to jump back the configured number of minutes. (default is 10)
- Page Down to jump ahead the configured number of minutes. (default is 10)
- U to increase the play speed
- J to decrease the play speed
- H Channel history
Without the stickykeys option selected:
- Left arrow to rewind the configured number of seconds. (default is 5)
- Right arrow to fast forward the configured number of seconds. (default is 30)
- < starts rewind mode as if stickykeys are selected
- > starts fast forward mode as if stickykeys are selected
With the stickykeys option selected:
- Right starts fast forward mode
- Left starts rewind mode
While in fast forward or rewind mode
- Left/Right increases the ff/rew speed
- 0 plays at normal speed, but leaves the time indicator on screen
- 1 or 2 plays back more slowly than normal ff/rew speed (1 is slowest)
- 3 plays back at normal ff/rew speed
- 4 - 9 plays back faster than normal ff/rew speed (9 is fastest)
- Space exits fast forward or rewind mode
With the video paused:
- Left arrow to rewind 1 frame
- < to rewind 1 second
- Right arrow to advance 1 frame
- > to advance 1 second
- O Turns on 'Browse' mode, allowing user to browse channels and program
info while watching current show FullScreen.
LiveTV Browse Mode:
- Left browse program prior to current listed program
- Right browse program following current listed program
- Up browse program on channel above current listed channel/program
- Down browse program on channel below current listed channel/program
- Enter/Space change channel to channel of current listed program
- R/r Toggle recording of current program (cycles through types)
- ESC Exit Browse mode
- T to toggle close caption support (PVR-250/350 does not support close caption)
- C to change inputs on TV Tuner card
- [ or F10 to decrease volume
- ] or F11 to increase volume
- | or F9 to toggle mute
- / to jump to the next "favorite" channel
- ? to mark/unmark the current channel as a "favorite"
- W to toggle between 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9
If you have two or more TV tuner cards you can view two channels at once using Picture-in-Picture (PIP):
- V toggle Picture-in-picture on or off
- B toggles the active window (lets you change channels on the PiP window)
- N swaps the two channels
Commercials are flagged both while recording, and more accurately, after the recording is completed. You can skip commercials in Live-TV, however it may be somewhat slow.
- Z to skip to next program marker (beginning/ending of commercial break)
- Q to skip back to previous program marker
You can adjust the picture using the function keys at the top of your keyboard. Please note that there will be a slight delay between pressing the keys and the effect on screen. The further behind ‘Live-TV’ that you are, the longer it will take to notice the effect. MythTV is actually changing the video capture settings for that TV channel so you will have to adjust each channel independently. The settings affect all TV tuner cards in the system. The commands to adjust the picture are:
- F1/F2 decrease/increase contrast
- F3/F4 decrease/increase brightness
- F5/F6 decrease/increase color
- F7/F8 decrease/increase hue
From here you can watch recordings you’ve made. The bottom half of the screen provides information for the currently selected recording and may have any of the following icons present in the lower left representing the status of the recording:
Dollar sign with slash = Commercials flagged
Scissors = Cutlist exists
Gravestone with "RIP" = Auto-expire set for this recording
Hammer = Show is being processed (commercial flagging or editing)
Open book = Bookmark exists on this recording
Note: These icons are only present on the blue theme (the default theme).
The following commands are available while in the Watch Recordings screen:
- Enter or Space to play a recording
- D to delete a recording
- P to play a recording
- I to edit the auto-expire status
- ESC to go back to the TV menu
While watching a recording the following commands are available:
- P to pause / play.
- ESC quits
- I toggles between displaying the position and the show description info
- Page Up to jump back the configured number of minutes. (default is 10)
- Page Down to jump ahead the configured number of minutes. (default is 10)
- T to toggle close caption support
- [ or F10 to decrease volume
- ] or F11 to increase volume
- | or F9 to toggle mute
- Z to skip to next program marker (beginning/ending of commercial break)
- Q to skip back to previous program marker
- U to increase the play speed
- J to decrease the play speed
- W to toggle between 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9
Without the stickykeys option selected:
- Left arrow to rewind the configured number of seconds. (default is 5)
- Right arrow to fast forward the configured number of seconds. (default is 30)
- < starts rewind mods as if stickykeys are selected.
- > starts fast forward mode as if stickykeys are selected.
With the stickykeys option selected:
- Right starts fast forward mode.
- Left starts rewind mode.
While in fast forward or rewind mode.
- Left/Right increases the ff/rew speed.
- 0 plays at normal speed, but leaves the time indicator on screen.
- 1 or 2 plays back more slowly than normal ff/rew speed (1 is slowest).
- 3 plays back at normal ff/rew speed.
- 4 - 9 plays back faster than normal ff/rew speed (9 is fastest).
- Space exits fast forward or rewind mode.
With the video paused:
- Left arrow to rewind 1 frame
- < to rewind 1 second
- Right arrow to advance 1 frame
- > to advance 1 second
- SPACE or ENTER will set a bookmark at that point. Next time you start the
recording, you will automatically jump forward to this point and clear the
bookmark.
- E or M enters/exits edit mode.
- The left and right keys move forward and backward.
- The up and down arrow keys alter the amount of time you jump forward and
backward. Increments are: nearest cutpoint, nearest video keyframe,
1 frame, 0.5 seconds, 1 second, 20 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, and
10 minutes.
- The page up and down keys move forward and backward to the nearest cut
point.
- The < and > keys move forward or backward by 10 times the normal jump
amount.
- Space/Enter allows you to set or delete a cut point.
- 'Z' loads the commercial skip list (if one exists) into the cutlist.
- 'C' clears all cut points in the cutlist.
- X queues the current recording for transcoding.
The Electronic Program Guide (EPG) allows you to view TV listings for all of the available channels through the next week. The following commands are available:
- Arrow keys are used to move the highlighted program point around.
- The keys A, D, S, W perform the same as left, right, down and up.
- PageUp and PageDown move the channel list up or down a page.
- Home and End move the highlight left or right by one day.
- Control-Left and Control Right move the highlight left or right by one page.
- The keys 9, 3, 7 and 1 (like a numeric keypad) perform the same as PageUp,
PageDown, Home and End.
- I or Space or Enter will bring up more information about a show, and allow
you to schedule a recording.
- If you select "Record this showing" while watching Live TV you can
"Instant Record" a program.
- Pressing M when on a channel will change to that channel.
- Pressing ESC or C exits without changing the channel.
- Pressing R will change the current item from Recording/Not-Recording.
Successive keypresses cycle through the scheduled recording type list.
- Pressing X will change the channel to the currently selected channel without
leaving the EPG (Most useful in the alternate EPG)
- Pressing '/' will mark/unmark the current channel as a "favorite"
- Pressing 4 will toggle the guide listing between all channels and filtered
"favorites"
- Pressing 6 will bring up the program finder
- While in the finder, pressing 4 will bring you back to the guide
This screen is very similar to the Watch Recordings screen. The main differences are the inclusion of file sizes for the recordings and the total space used and available on the hard drive. The following commands are available:
- Enter or Space to play a recording
- D to delete a recording
- P to play a recording
- I to edit the auto-expire status
- ESC to go back to the TV menu