How to configure Sickbeard

Sickbeard

Sickbeard is advertised as "The ultimate PVR application that searches for and manages your TV shows - Automatically finds new and old episodes for you and it works with your current download client!" This is exactly the type of thing that computers were designed for! Tivo and the cable companies have offered pay upgradable DVR receivers for many years now, it seemed crazy that the internet didn't have a similar feature to offer all of you perfectly legal file sharing types...

Before we get into the installation and configuration portion of Sickbeard let me talk for a brief moment about the pitfalls you may encounter.

When I began using Sickbeard I already had a robust library of episodes. Not the type of library that was easily repaired or replaced after making a mistake with a program that would automatically rename and sort my files...

Trust me when I say, "It sucks when you accidentally destroy and entire show's worth of data just by scrambling all of the filenames. It sucks so, so much."

Okay, there are a few keys to making Sickbeard work well. The first is understanding what each post processing option does, and the other is strict German-esq folder organization.

RasPi Server [2of2] - Installing mySQL

After a little searching I used the instructions found on this blog  to install the mySQL server to my Raspberry Pi.

Right now it looks like his blog is down so I can't finish this writeup!

The process is pretty easy though. Since mySQL is already listed in normal debian repositories, you can just run a few generic commands and fix any dependencies as you go!

SSH into your pi [windows users use putty]

ssh root@ip.address.here

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

mysqladmin -u root -h localhost password 'your root password here'

mysqladmin -u root -h 'your hostname here' password 'your root password here'

mysql -u root -p

This should ask you for the password you just set up and the mySQL terminal interface will appear.

You now have mySQL running on your Pi!!!

Further Configureation

I don't think I have the mySQL skills yet to write up an effective guide for configuring a new database from scratch on the command line. However, you should be able to do it pretty easily. You are already 99% of the way there. The only remaining steps to synchronize your XBMC installations are creation of a new database, uploading a config.xml to each XBMC box, and populating the database by scanning in a new library. Check out the XBMC wiki on the subject.

RasPi Server [1of2]- Installing Raspbian to your Raspberry Pi

After toying around with Raspbmc, the XBMC distribution for RasPi, I decided that I would try turning my Pi into a mySQL server for syncing jailbroken apple tv 2's running XBMC throughout my house.

Why? Because my server currently runs freeNAS 7.2 which uses sqlite rather than mySQL. I have not been able to get a solid mySQL server running in freeNAS 7.2, and I want one. Rather than installing to one of my windows/linux terminals, I wanted to utilize a low power always on device... thus the Raspberry Pi mySQL server.

Using Raspberry Pi with XBMC

Since I finally found the time to try out my new Raspberry Pi, I gave the specialized Raspbmc image a try.

My original goal was to use my new Ras Pi as a replacement for the somewhat less than stable Apple TV 2 running XBMC in my living room.

In it's current iteration I found Raspbmc to be a bit too laggy and a buggy for immediate implementation. The menu system is a tad laggy compared to the ATV2 xbmc port and the ARM processor cannot process DTS sound without lagging the video and audio every few seconds. The Pi seems capable of decoding full 1080p H.264 video in mkv, but too many of my files are in dts for audio.

This is a known issue and is being worked on by the developer.

If you do not have a large dts library and would like to try installing the image to your own Pi then lets get started below!

What to do after jailbreaking your atv2

To install new applications on your jailbroken atv2 you will need to use the command line. If you immediately ran away from your computer screaming, please settle down... that sort of behavior is undignified!

To communicate with the atv2 you will need to SSH into the device. This is far easier than it seems. Whenever you read that you need to ssh into a device it just means that we need to use the ssh protocol to talk to the device. This allows us to remotely access the command line which is native to the apple tv.

We will use a few simple commands to automatically install the programs you so keenly desire.

Jailbreak the Apple TV 2 with seas0npass

Many of you are probably familiar with the concept of jailbreaking a smartphone. Using third party software to open up the phone's root file system and allowing the user to install custom themes and applications.

Apple TV 2nd Generation

Many people, it seems, are unaware that they can also jailbreak the Apple TV to get some great new features!

There is no reason not to try it out. Even if the jailbreak is a failure you can always restore the device in iTunes and have a factory fresh feel in no time. There is no risk!