MythTV questions

Sat Nov 25 13:45:51 EST 2006

I'm attempting to set up MythTV.  I have a AOpen i915Ga-HFS
motherboard and a Hauppage PVR-500 tuner card:
  $ ivtvctl -m
  ioctl VIDIOC_QUERYCAP ok
  	Driver name   : ivtv
  	Card type     : WinTV PVR 500 (unit #1)
  	Bus info      : 0000:04:08.0
  	Driver version: 1792
  	Capabilities  : 0x01070051

I'm planning to host both frontend and backend on this system.

So far, I've been able install from the KnoppMyth R5D1 disk (kernel
2.6.17, myth version 0.19.0-10_km_i586, ivtv version 0.7.0), configure
MythTV for the Nashua Comcast cable, download the schedule
information, and watch TV on the computer monitor.

There are a few things I would like some help with:

1. Channel up/down keyboard commands.  When I first started watching
TV on the monitor, cursor up or down would change the channel and a
blue overlay would pop up with the new channel number and a thumbnail
description.  Now, the overlay comes up but has only the current time
- no channel number and no description.  And the channel doesn't
change.  I can still type in two digits and go to a new channel.  The
overlay then shows the description, but still no channel number.  How
do I get the original action back?  I tried:

  /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend stop
  mythtv-setup
    <full channel scan>
  mythfilldatabase
  /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start

...but nothing changed.

2. Output to a regular TV.  The PVR-500 doesn't have any video output.
However, the AOpen motherboard has four kinds of video output: D-sub,
DVI, YPbPr, and S-Video.  I have my LCD monitor connected to the DVI
jack.  My TV accepts S-Video, but that jack seems to have no signal.
The User Guide suggests I can get any combination of outputs under
"Extended Mode" with Intel VGA Driver 14.11.00.4277 or later.  Of
course, that's under Windows.  How do I use the S-Video output under
MythTV?  My LCD monitor is 1280x1024.  Do I have to configure the X
server for an NTSC compatible resolution before the S-Video output
will be usable with a normal TV?  I found the Ubunto wiki for
configuring /etc/X11/XFConfigure-4 for a second display using the
"nvidia" driver.  Will that also work for the "vesa" driver that
KnoppMyth uses?

(Maybe I should get a PVR-350 card, which has a hardware decoder.)

3. Noisy picture.  The TV picture on the LCD monitor is pretty poor -
much noiser than on a TV directly connected to the cable.  There's a
sample of a few seconds at http://jrv.oddones.org/sample10.mpg,
captured with "cat /dev/video1 >sample10.mpg".

I thought about low signal strength.  I have a splitter on the cable
input, with one cable to the PVR-500, and the other to the VCR, which
in turn drives the TV.  I tried taking out the splitter and connecting
the PVR-500 directly to the cable input, with no improvement.  I also
tried doubling the bit rate with "ivtvctl -c bitrate=900000
bitrate_peak=12000000", with no improvement.  I tried viewing the
above sample file in another system with "mplayer sample10.mpg", but
it still looked grainy.

Maybe my CPU isn't fast enough to support software decoding?  Here is
the kernel's report on the processor:

  jrv at gimli:/etc/init.d$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
  processor       : 0
  vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
  cpu family      : 6
  model           : 13
  model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
  stepping        : 8
  cpu MHz         : 1590.563
  cache size      : 2048 KB
  fdiv_bug        : no
  hlt_bug         : no
  f00f_bug        : no
  coma_bug        : no
  fpu             : yes
  fpu_exception   : yes
  cpuid level     : 2
  wp              : yes
  flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up est tm2
  bogomips        : 3183.10

"top" reports that mythfrontend is using 92% of the time during
playback.  (I guess that's another argument for getting a PVR-350.)

4. Playback command setup.  I eventually found by navigating
mythfrontend | utilities/setup | Setup | Media Settings | Video
Settings | Player Settings there was a default display command
"mplayer -quiet -fs -zoom -vo xv %s".  However, removing "-fs -zoom"
didn't change anything.  The help for that field is "This is the
command used for any file that [sic] the extension is not explicitly
defined".  Where are other commands "explicitly defined"?

I'm appending the relevant part of the boot messages, in case they are
of interest.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

          - Jim Van Zandt 

ivtv:  ==================== START INIT IVTV ====================
ivtv:  version 0.7.0 (tagged release) loading
ivtv:  Linux version: 2.6.17-chw-8 SMP preempt mod_unload 586 gcc-3.4
ivtv:  In case of problems please include the debug info between
ivtv:  the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines, along with
ivtv:  any module options, when mailing the ivtv-users mailinglist.
ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card (cx23416 based)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:04:08.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 12 (level, low) -> IRQ 12
ivtv0: Unreasonably low latency timer, setting to 64 (was 32)
tuner 1-0060: TEA5767 detected.
tuner 1-0060: chip found @ 0xc0 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tuner 1-0060: type set to 62 (Philips TEA5767HN FM Radio)
tuner 1-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
cx25840 1-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
cx25840 1-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
wm8775 1-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tveeprom 1-0050: Hauppauge model 23552, rev E587, serial# 9865756
tveeprom 1-0050: tuner model is Samsung TCPN 2121P30A (idx 87, type 70)
tveeprom 1-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) (eeprom 0x08)
tveeprom 1-0050: second tuner model is Philips TEA5768HL FM Radio (idx 101, type 62)
tveeprom 1-0050: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
tveeprom 1-0050: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
tveeprom 1-0050: has radio, has no IR remote
ivtv0: This is the first unit of a PVR500
ivtv0: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (262144 bytes)
ivtv0: Encoder revision: 0x02050032
ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder MPEG stream: 128 x 32768 buffers (4096KB total)
ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder YUV stream: 194 x 10800 buffers (2048KB total)
ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder VBI stream: 120 x 17472 buffers (2048KB total)
ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder PCM audio stream: 455 x 4608 buffers (2048KB total)
ivtv0: Create encoder radio stream
tuner 1-0061: type set to 70 (Samsung TCPN 2121P30A)
ivtv0: Initialized WinTV PVR 500 (unit #1), card #0
ivtv:  ======================  NEXT CARD  ======================
ivtv1: Autodetected Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card (cx23416 based)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:04:09.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
ivtv1: Unreasonably low latency timer, setting to 64 (was 32)
tuner 2-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
cx25840 2-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
cx25840 2-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
wm8775 2-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #1)
tveeprom 2-0050: Hauppauge model 23552, rev E587, serial# 9865756
tveeprom 2-0050: tuner model is Samsung TCPN 2121P30A (idx 87, type 70)
tveeprom 2-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) (eeprom 0x08)
tveeprom 2-0050: second tuner model is Philips TEA5768HL FM Radio (idx 101, type 62)
tveeprom 2-0050: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
tveeprom 2-0050: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
tveeprom 2-0050: has radio, has no IR remote
ivtv1: This is the second unit of a PVR500
ivtv1: Correcting tveeprom data: no radio present on second unit
ivtv1: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (262144 bytes)
ivtv1: Encoder revision: 0x02050032
ivtv1: Allocate DMA encoder MPEG stream: 128 x 32768 buffers (4096KB total)
ivtv1: Allocate DMA encoder YUV stream: 194 x 10800 buffers (2048KB total)
ivtv1: Allocate DMA encoder VBI stream: 120 x 17472 buffers (2048KB total)
ivtv1: Allocate DMA encoder PCM audio stream: 455 x 4608 buffers (2048KB total)
tuner 2-0061: type set to 70 (Samsung TCPN 2121P30A)
ivtv1: Initialized WinTV PVR 500 (unit #2), card #1
ivtv:  ====================  END INIT IVTV  ====================
cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.5 loaded