• Ubuntu Users
• Downloading OSTV
• The OSTV Install
• Installing MPlayer with the Menu option
• Installing OSTV
• The recordings directory
• Getting your Remote Control to work
• OSTV Plugins

Ubuntu Users

OSTV can be downloaded and installed from Synaptic. All you need to do is add the OSTV Package Archive to your sources list. Go to the OSTV Launchpad page and click "Technical details about this PPA", then click "Read About Installing". In Karmic there is a new add-apt-repository command. To add the OSTV Package Archive is as simple as this:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:manzanitalaceration

After you have added the repository you can open Synaptic and search for "OSTV", mark for installation and apply changes

or.... do it from the command line:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ostv

Because MPlayer is a dependency of OSTV, it will be installed too if you do not already have it. You can then skip most of this page and go to The recordings directory

Downloading OSTV

OSTV version 0.6 has a version with and without video. The one without video is pretty much just to demonstrate how small a program OSTV is or for those who are upgrading. A video is necessary to maintain the interface, make it easy on yourself and start with the video download. Later on you can learn how to dial in the look of OSTV to your liking by visiting the backgroundVideo page.

Make a directory named .ostv in your home directory

$ mkdir ~/.ostv 

Save ostv.0.6_withvid.tar.gz there.

The OSTV Install

OSTV requires a version of MPlayer with its OSD Menu interface. Very few people are using this feature and OSTV, as far as I know, is the first application to utilize it. Though MPlayer is setup to install this only as an option at configure in the compiling process, some packages, in Ubuntu for instance, have included this feature. To test if you have a version of MPlayer with the Menu option, at a command line prompt:

$ mplayer -list-options | grep menu

If this returns something, you have got it made and can skip to the Installing OSTV section. Otherwise, you will need to compile MPlayer with the --enable-menu option.

Installing MPlayer with the Menu option

• Install MPlayer before OSTV

Compiling Programs Many users are intimidated by the idea of compiling programs and others just do not want to hassle with it. OSTV strives to be easy to use, easy on your on your computers resources and easy to install. We offer these step by step instructions that hopefully any Linux noob can follow succesfully. The instructions are Ubuntu/Debian specific, I'm sure users of other distributions can improvise!

Step 1

Install the tools to compile programs

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall

checkinstall is optional and for Debian/Ubuntu, Slackware or RPM packaging, see Step 6 below

Step 2

Remove any previous installs of MPlayer

$ sudo apt-get remove mplayer

or you can do this in Synaptic. If you have any special MPlayer config files, they will be left alone.

Step 3

Download the MPlayer source. You should be in your Home folder.

$ apt-get source mplayer

The MPlayer Source will be in a sub-directory of your Home folder, named something like "mplayer-1.0~rc2"

Step 4

go into that directory

$ cd mplayer-1.0~rc2

Step 5

If you have never installed MPlayer previously you will want to make sure you install any software dependencies MPlayer has. Fortunately this is easily done by:

$  sudo apt-get build-dep mplayer

Step 6

Configure and compile MPlayer

$ sudo ./configure --enable-menu

$ sudo make

This can take a few minutes, especially if you do not have a fast cpu.

Traditionally the next step is $ make install

but there is a better way to do it

$ sudo checkinstall

checkinstall does make install, then creates a Slackware, RPM, or Debian package with those files, and adds it to the installed packages database, allowing for easy package removal or distribution.

Checkinstall will ask if you want to create a default set of package docs. Unless you know why yes or no would make a difference, it will not. Checkinstall will ask for a description, you can put "MPlayer with Menu option" and will allow for other info to be added. You can add or change something but this is not important in how MPlayer will run.

Step 7

The final step!

A deb(or rpm or slackware package) file will be created in the same folder as the mplayer source. Double click on it and it will install after a prompt or 2. If you ever have to, you can then uninstall this from synaptic or other package managers just like any other standard software package.

There are other MPlayer steps for fonts for the OSD and conf files, the OSTV setup will take care of those.

Installing OSTV

Note: This only concerns advanced users of MPlayer with special configurations. OSTV installs its own MPlayer configuration files. If you have MPlayer configuration files from a previous install, they will be renamed and saved. If you need to, you can incorporate them into the files OSTV installs or MPlayer can be started with specified configuration files. Consult the MPlayer documentation.

extract ostv.0.6_withvid.tar.gz

you can use an archive manager or at the command line prompt:

cd ~/.ostv
$ tar -zxvf ostv.0.6_withvid.tar.gz

At a command line prompt(still the .ostv folder):

$ ./setup_ostv

OSTV uses a small program called wmctrl.

The setup procedure gives you the option of installing it, but this will only work for Ubuntu and Debian systems. Be sure to install wmctrl before running OSTV.

The recordings directory

During setup a directory "recordings" is created in your home directory. When OSTV records something it will record to this directory. Though you can access any directory on your computer through the menu to play video files, to save excessive menu traversing through your directory tree, it is a good idea to keep all your video files there. To do this you need not go through the laborious moving and copying your large video files. Simply make symbolic links of your directories and place those links in the recordings directory.

Making Symbolic Links Right click and select make link. or from a command line prompt: $ ln -s linkobject linkdestination/linkname You can the move, copy, paste or rename the link. Opening, executing or editing from the link is the same thing as doing it to the original file

Getting your Remote Control to work

prerequisite: A functioning remote control with the Linux remote control program(LIRC) installed

The MPlayer lirc configuration file for use with OSTV is ~/.ostv/config/mplayer.

This file, or a symbolic link of the same name, needs to be placed in ~/.lirc

It's a good idea to keep all the config files in one place (~/.ostv/config/) and use symbolic links.

this statement:

include ~/.lirc/mplayer

needs to be at the top of your .lircrc file in your home directory

While you are editing .lircrc you can add this to it, which turns OSTV on and off. I have it set to the big green or home button:

begin
    remote = mceusb
    prog = irexec
    button = Home
    config = ostv
    repeat = 0
    delay = 0
end

The mplayer file is for a Windows Media Center remote.

You may have to change the remote and button values, as in the above example, to the specific ones for your remote

To know what values you need, at a command line prompt:

$ irw

when you press a remote button something like this will show up:

$ 000000037ff07bdd 00 OK mceusb

control + c will exit the irw program.

the last value is your remote and the one prior is the button that you pushed. Edit the mplayer file accordingly. The mplayer file has buttons setup for the ota and schedule plugins which you may not need.

whenever you edit your .lircrc you need to restart irexec for the changes to take effect. Here is how at a command line prompt: $ killall irexec;irexec -d

OSTV Plugins

OSTV gets most of its functionality from plugins. The setup procedure installs 2 plugins or classes:

playall, plays the contents of a directory as a playlist

sleeptimer, shuts down OSTV after a menu selected time

see the UsingOSTV page for more info

There are 5 other non-installed plugins. These plugins require extra hardware, configuration or software installed, so they are not installed by default

Additional Plugins Summary

ota For Over the Air, tunes OTA and/or QAM Cable Television, this has its own page InstallingOSTV part 2 OTA Plugin

webvideo For watching video over the internet including vodcasts and Youtube videos.

bittorrent Downloads TV programs by bittorrent

schedule A DVR for the ota plugin, automatically updates menus with the latest programs for the webvideo plugin and automatically downloads programs by bittorrent at a scheduled time.

webstreams for streaming video from the internet.

Instructions for installing these plugins are at:

InstallingOSTV part 3 More Plugins

Installing a Plugin

Plugins that are available to install are in ~/.ostv/class_archives

Plugins that are already installed are in ~/.ostv/class

When I wrote OSTV, I called them classes, in this wiki I am calling them plugins, for OSTV they are the same thing!

to install a plugin, at a command line prompt:

$ ostv install_class classname

just the classname, classname.tar.gz would be wrong!



By the way, this is how you remove a class:

$ ostv remove_class classname

continue installing OSTV at:

InstallingOSTV part 2 OTA Plugin

InstallingOSTV part 3 More Plugins