Converting DVD's to view on mobile devices.

Want to watch that new DVD on your mobile device? Here is a list of software/encoders to make it happen.

I use anydvd to remove the encryption from the DVD. It's not free but IMHO it's the best and easiest available. They have a free trial too. It just sits in the background and lets all the other DVD software think the inserted disk is not encrypted. I give it five stars.

If all you want is a back up copy of the disk in an easy to burn back to DVD format then use DVD Shrink along with anydvd. Here are a list of download locations. It also gets five stars.

If you want to create an .mp4 or .avi of the movie then Handbrake is the way to go. It has various presets that will encode the main movie direct to ipod/iphone/iTouch format. You can also tweak the format to encode to more generic formats. It gets 4 stars because it's a bi*** to get the formats correct if you don't have an ipod.

Apple folks are good to go at this point. The Handbrake conversion is all ready to be played on the device. If you have the HTC phone your not out of luck though. I've recently discovered Kinoma. It's an all in one media player/facebook/twitter/youtube/podcast/streaming radio/etc. player. Quite cool with a constantly updated library. They have a free version that's mostly the same as the paid version. Five stars too.

When all done the movies are about 400 MB in size so several will fit on your device.

Linux sendemail script

Homepage

Install

mkdir /myth/bin
cd /myth/bin
tar -zxvf sendEmail-Vx.xx.tar.gz
ln -s /myth/bin/sendEmail-Vx.xx/sendEmail /usr/local/bin/sendemail

Command line

sendemail -f mythtv@mythtv -t toaddress -u "Subject Line" -m "Body of the message" -a FileNameToAttach

From a knoppmyth forum post:

I've got my Myth box setup to send me a daily email listing of each days shows that it has recorded. I'm leveraging 'sendEmail.pl” which is available here http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/

Here is my shell script that pulls the data from Mysql and pushes the email. It doesn't require a local SMTP server or any other whacky dodads. I just sends the mail to my ISP mailbox. Easy as pie.

#! /bin/bash
echo "" > /usr/src/sendemail/today.txt
mysql -H mythconverg < /usr/src/sendemail/dumptoday.sql >> /usr/src/sendemail/today.txt
echo "

See the full listing of recorded programs" >> /usr/src/sendemail/today.txt
echo "" >> /usr/src/sendemail/today.txt
perl /usr/src/sendemail/sendEmail.pl -f "Our DVR " -t insertTOemailaddresshere -u "Today's Shows" -s insertISPserveraddresshere -xu insertISPauthcredentialshere(opt) -xp insertISPpasswordhere(opt) -o message-file=/usr/src/sendemail/today.txt

The dumptoday.sql looks like this:

select title,starttime,description from recordedprogram where date_sub(curdate(),interval 0 day) <= starttime;

It's a quick and dirty solution so if anyone can improve on it I'd be very happy to reap the benefits.

Linux USB DVD drive

This works for an autodetected external usb dvd player.

Create mount point for the dvd.

mkdir /dvd

Add symbolic link to /dev/sr0

ln -sf /dev/sr0 /dev/dvd

Now mount the dvd.

mount -t iso9660 /dev/dvd /dvd

Edit /etc/fstab to enable automounting.

/dev/sr0 /dvd auto user,noauto 0 0

Linux mplayer

bash command to generate a valid playlist file

find /myth/music/direcoryname -name "*.mp3" -print > my.playlist

Now add this to your ~/.lircrc file

begin
remote = grayHauppauge
prog = irexec
button = green
repeat = 3
config = killall mplayer; mplayer -shuffle -quiet -playlist /myth/music/favorite.playlist
config = killall mplayer; mplayer -shuffle -quiet -playlist /myth/music/all.playlist
end

Every time the green button is pressed lirc runs the “config”ed command. This ineffect switches the playlists.

The playlist and gallery respond to the same button presses, i.e. next, prev, stop, etc. controlling one but not the other is troublesome. Maybe defining the number keys to do next/prev song would work.

Note that for the irexec to connect to lirc it must be running. The knoppmyth (and maybe other) start script is

/usr/local/bin/launch_irx.sh

mplayer switches

* -playlist * -shuffle * -quiet

Sound issues

Forum Post for info on setting the mplayer command line to mplayer -fs -zoom -ao alsa -quiet -vo xv $s

Adding the -ao alsa line significantly boosted the volume.