VideoSpora.com
Welcome to VideoSpora! I haven't decided exactly what the extent of this site will be yet, but I am starting with topics related to Linux-based Home Media Centers running Kodi and/or MythTV. I also plan to cover just about anything else related to digital video.
KODI: MythTV PVR & Eminence 2.0 Skin - Channel Hack - 2/22/19
I use the Eminence 2.0 skin on Kodi 17.6, and the MythTV PVR Client add-on to connect to my MythTV Backend. One gripe I have with the default setup is the channels don't fully display. For example, if you're watching a LiveTV channel like [5.1], the guide and channel list would only show the first part of the number, "5", instead of the full number, [5.1].

To fix this, I had to change a handful of xml config files, which I have linked in a zip file below. These are for Eminence 2.0 on Kodi 17.6, but keep in mind, if there are updates to the skin in the future, the files I'm providing here may be missing updates, and may not work correctly. The safer way to make the changes is to edit these files yourself manually.
From the command line, you'll need to cd ~/.kodi/addons/skin.eminence.2/16x9
To find which files you need to edit: grep ChannelNumber *.xml, and for every file that is returned with a match, open the file with your favorite text editor, and change: $INFO[ListItem.ChannelNumber,,. ] to $INFO[ListItem.ChannelNumberLabel,,. ]
Once those files are all edited/saved, reboot your kodi machine. Now the channel numbers should all display correctly!

Changed XML files: eminence2-xml-changed.zip

I would highly recommend backing up your original xml files so you can roll them back, if needed. Also note, if the Eminence skin is set to auto-update, any the xml changes will likely be overwritten, and need to be changed again after the update. If you should happen to need them, here are the original unedited xml files: eminence2-xml-original.zip

KODI: Skipping the intro credits for Star Trek TNG - 2/20/19
UPDATE 2/25/19 - Ugg, just realized I also need to cut out the end credits of each show! So, I'll get around to updating the EDLs I've already done with those cuts before I move on to doing the last 3 seasons...

I purchased the complete "Star Trek: The Next Generation" series on blu-ray, and I have it backed up as mp4 files on my media server. I will often queue up the whole series and have it play random episodes while I nod off to sleep. The only problem is, the volume of the intro credits is a bit louder than the rest of the show, and when the intro music plays, it will sometimes jar me awake. So, I decided to try out some Kodi EDL/Edit Decision Lists to solve the issue, and it works perfectly! These may also work for the DVD version, but I don't own them, so I can't try it out.

It was a good bit of work to make the EDL files and log all the start and end times for the credits, so I decided someone else might find these EDL files useful! :-) I have only done seasons 1 through 4 so far, but I'll be adding the last 3 as I find time. The EDL files are all in a single zip file. Simply download the zip files for each season and unzip inside the folder where the corresponding season is stored. You also may need to rename the EDL files to match the names of your media files. The filenames before the .edl must match or it won't work. The EDL files are set to treat the cuts as commercial breaks with setting "3" (the last number in the file). If you would rather Kodi do a hard cut, change the last number in each file to "0", or "1" to only mute the audio but keep playing the video. Just keep in mind, using "0" is buggy in some verions of Kodi and may not work correctly.