Re: [mythtv-users] Sports events, LiveTV or Watch Recording?
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 11:17 -0700, Chad wrote: I've got it currently setup to Record, and have it End Late by 60 minutes. Sports is most of what I watch on TV, and this is what I do. Because there are tons of ads during sporting events, I find it very useful to start watching the game late, and fast forward through all the ads and other breaks. Some sports, such as baseball and football, lend themselves to using the time stretch as well. With a time stretch of about 1.2 and fast forwarding through all the ads and halftime, I can watch a football game that takes about 3 1/2 hours live in less than 2 hours, without missing anything. Just don't try using time stretch to watch hockey; it's too fast already (but it's still useful to fast forward through ads and period breaks). Of course, the Super Bowl is a little different, because the pagentry of half time is part of what you watch for. This year, the Stones will be playing at half time (yes, I can already hear all the jokes about Mick Jagger needing a walker :-) Also, the ad agencies all tend to launch their new campaigns during the Super Bowl, so many of the ads are at least ones that I haven't seen before (I really don't mind commercials that much, I just get sick of them after I've seen the same ad for the 100th time, and some of them are *really* stupid). The trouble with LiveTV is that you have to be there at the console when the event starts to use that method. Much easier to just set it to record ahead of time. Myth makes that very easy to do; I can get practically all of the Avalanche hockey games by just telling it to record NHL Hockey on the Altitude channel any time it comes on. It's even smart enough to automatically ignore all the re-showings of games and just record the first one. Setting it to record NFL Football any time on any channel automatically caught all the football games for me, but I did have to manually resolve conflicts caused by my record 30 minutes late rule overlapping when there were consecutive games on the same channel. I'd love to be able to say, record 30 minutes late *unless* it conflicts with another recording on the same channel, but I haven't found any way to do that yet. Still, this is way better than my Comcast DVR (which is used only because my Myth system isn't HD-capable yet) which has only a very limited series recording feature. I pretty much have to set up every game individually there, but since I have Myth, I only bother to do that for games that are broadcast in HD. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Sports events, LiveTV or Watch Recording?
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 12:31 -0700, James C. Dastrup wrote: The time extensions are ignored if there is a conflict. I am using 0.18.1, and that isn't how mine works. On my system, if I set up to record NFL Football with a 30 minute time extension, and there is another game on the same channel, one of the two is marked as in conflict, and I have to manually resolve it by removing the time extension for the first game. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Sports events, LiveTV or Watch Recording?
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 14:54 -0500, Michael T. Dean wrote: if you have one capture card and want to record a show on channel 3 from 7:00 to 9:00 with a recording-rule specified extra 15 minutes on the end and a show on the same channel from 9:00 to 10:00, one will conflict with the other--you've said the 7:00 to 9:00 show is actually airing between 7:00 and 9:15. Therefore, you would need a second capture card to get the 9:00 to 9:15 show. OK, that explains it. I've got a PVR-500, with two tuners, and this type of conflict occurs when I am also recording another game on a different channel. Now for the overlap period I am trying to record three things with two tuners: the first game's extension, the second game on the same channel, and a third game on a different channel. It would be nice if it figured out that the first extension isn't needed because the second recording will be recording that channel anyway, but it isn't quite that smart yet, so I end up having to manually remove the extension for the first game to resolve the conflict. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Sports events, LiveTV or Watch Recording?
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 15:16 -0800, Bruce Markey wrote: For any sort of algorithm proposed to second guess a specific situation, there is an opposite example where that exceptional decision would do exactly the wrong thing. The only perfect solution would be a way to tell the scheduler exactly what you want, so it doesn't have to read minds. Such as, an option on extensions that says, allow other recordings to override time extensions. Or something in a record rule that says extend time only if it doesn't conflict with another recording on the same channel. My point was not to criticize the present incarnation of the scheduler, so I hope you didn't take it that way. Only to point out that there is currently no way to resolve the type of conflict I run into other than manually. --Greg If you had three cards, it could record all of them but with two, you have to decide what to do at the start of the second game. You might decide that one of the later games is boring and you don't want to sit through it anyway. You might want to start the second game on the same channel late so that the conclusion of the first game is in the same file. All it has to go on is that football games need to record extra time and there is no one right answer if they conflict. However, you know what the right answer for you is on this day in this situation. You just need to tell it what you prefer by adding an override. The other thing that always comes up is that idea that the extra time should be optional so the scheduler doesn't have to warn you about a conflict to let you know that you need to look and decide. In a case like this, that is a bad idea. You want to require the extra time because if the show that followed on another channel is recorded and no conflict is reported, The game could be truncated during the final dramatic drive with no forewarning. If it tells you there is a conflict then you can decide how you feel about the game and the show on another channel that follows. The silicon gates can't know how you feel, they can only know the numbers that were entered into the equation. -- bjm ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Looking for high WAF in-wall speakers!!
On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 17:20 -0500, Steve Adeff wrote: rantand why is it that people always point to Consumer Reports? Because they publish useful information. But you have to consider their target audience. I don't think I've ever read a review in there for any product covered by specialist magazines that ever agreed with the opinion of the specialist magazines. That's because they write for different audiences. Consumer Reports aims at the average consumer. Someone who just wants to get a reasonable deal, get a good product that won't break the moment they get it home from the store, and that will do what they want it to do. They don't always evaluate specialized brands, they evaluate the brands that most people buy. Yes, they evaluate what is sold at Best Buy, not what you will find at a specialty audio store. If you're an audiophile, it would be silly to look to Consumer Reports for advice on audio gear. You don't need them, you already know what is good by your standards. But for someone like me, who can figure out how to hook up a surround sound system but knows almost nothing else about how it works, CR provides useful information. Similarly, most of us on this list are Linux users, and we would never look to CR for information about computers. They only report on Windows and Mac, as if that is all there is. But you know what? For 99% of the people out there, that *is* all there is. But if you're a member of that other 1%, then you don't look to CR for information to help you choose your next computer. I certainly don't. Their information on peripherals like printers is also useless to me, because it lacks the most crucial piece of information from my point of view: what is the state of Linux support for this device? But their car tests are of great use, and I've saved thousands of dollars by following their advice on how to negotiate for a new car. Take what you want and leave the rest... My dad even bought their choice for washer and dryer like 10 years ago, tops in quality and reliability according to them, they've been nothing but trouble the minute the 3yr warranty was up. Even CR never claims that their reliability data guarantees anything. Their data is based only on information gathered from people who had those products and who responded to their survey. The most reliable product they rate still has some people who reported problems with it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Looking for high WAF in-wall speakers!!
On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 15:28 -0500, Richard Bronosky wrote: Why is it that Bose can use those tiny little cube speakers for there flag ship product, but their in-wall speakers have to have a 8 3/4 by 6 face plate? The sub-woofer provided with the surround sound system makes it possible to use small speakers for everything else. My understanding is that for the low wavelength sounds in the bass range, the ear cannot really detect their origin, so there is little point in surround-sounding those frequencies (at least, that's what the manual that came with my system says). Thus the surround sound for only high frequencies that can be adequately reproduced with the cube speakers. Seems to work as the surround sound effect works pretty well. For stereo you could also use a sub-woofer I suppose and have cube speakers for the separated speakers, but that's usually considered overkill because it would require three speakers instead of two. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-500: problems with sound
On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 21:32 +0100, Stef Coene wrote: On Tuesday 17 January 2006 17:03, Allan Wilson wrote: I am experiencing a problem similar to yours with a PVR-500 that I loose sound on one of the tuners when I come backup on after I do a reboot I've got the same problem, and I always have to execute an ivtvctl -q command to recover it. It gets associated with the wrong audio input. I still have ivtv-0.3.7a, and my understanding is that this particular problem is fixed in later versions of the driver, but I haven't had time to try upgrading yet. It hurts the WAF though when her favorite sci-fi shows are missed due to lack of sound in the recording )-: so I will probably get around to upgrading eventually. I used to have a command ivtvctl -d /dev/video1 -q 1 in my rc.local script, and for a while that worked, but now every time the system is rebooted, one of the tuners comes up without sound, and I have to poke around with ivtvctl commands manually to restore it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Barebones Systems - Opinions on the Pundit
On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 09:26 -0500, Philip Isaacs wrote: I have my eye on the ASUS Pundit-R350. I've got one of those. It works great as a frontend and occasional slave backend (it's got a PVR-150 in it which is mainly only used for watching live TV and for the rare occasions when I record three shows at once, and the IR receiver also works well with mythfrontend). I use a 2.4Ghz Celeron (cheap, less than $80). This all works quite well as a non-HD frontend. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Barebones Systems - Opinions on the Pundit
On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 12:31 -0500, Philip Isaacs wrote: Did you have any trouble setting up the ATI video card under Linux? None at all. You have to download the driver from the ATI web site and run their configuration program. I'm just curious because I heard mix reviews. Most of the bad comments I've heard from people about ATI cards were from those trying to do HD. The ATI drivers really have no support for some of the hardware features of their card under Linux, which is why you often hear people say you should use Nvidia instead of ATI for Linux. But that's only true if you need top performance, as you would if you wanted to display HD content. The ATI built-in on my ASUS Pundit-R works fine for standard definition TV, I have never had any problems with it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR 150 Remote
On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 19:49 -0500, dave sailer wrote: Yea, for me, the /dev/lirc/0 char device file just dissappears. I presume you did at least check to make sure lircd was running? If so, try running something like lsof -c lircd to see what device files it has open. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Good tuner card?
Could you post your init script please? I could, but not without a few disclaimers. I don't claim that using this script is the cleanest or best way to do things. Not all the commands in the script may really be needed. And most of all, the commands here may not work on your system because it will depend on kernel version, ivtv driver version, how you've installed the ivtv drivers, how you've configured the capture card in Myth, etc. All I can say is, this works on *my* system, which is built around a PVR-500 as the capture card, runs on FC3 (installed mostly according to Jarod's guide), uses a 2.6.10 kernel with version 0.3.7a of the ivtv drivers. My PVR-500 works well. Both tuners work, both audio and video. I have no problem using both of them at the same time (otherwise why would you need two?). My system is the way it is because I also use it as my primary desktop, so it's important that things like 3-D graphics work (I like tuxracer and torcs :-) and I have (unfortunately) some proprietary drivers that make it a pain to change kernel versions (Winmodem, ATI Radeon 9800). I also have a not-always-on slave backend with a PVR-150 in it, and at least once I managed to record three shows at the same time. All that said, here it is: #! /bin/bash # # chkconfig: 2345 9 85 # description: start and stop IVTV services # case $1 in start) modprobe ivtv modprobe tveeprom modprobe tuner modprobe msp3400 /usr/local/bin/ivtvctl -d /dev/video1 -q 1 ;; *) ;; esac exit 0 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Good tuner card?
On Thu, 2005-11-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dewey Smolka wrote: There are an awful lot of postings on the list, mostly from new users, about live TV. The fact is that Myth can do live TV, but it is not really what Myth is for, and once you begin to use it, you'll find live TV less and less relevant -- it's useful to ensure that the card works, but you don't actually watch TV with it. I can find one reason to watch live TV with it: PIP. Not many shows will lend themselves to watching more than one thing at a time, but one thing does: sporting events. People are likely to think I'm slightly insane for this, but last Saturday I actually had four football games on at the same time; one on a frontend-only laptop, one in the TV's PIP screen, one in Myth's PIP screen, and one on the main screen. While it is indeed impossible to really follow all the details of what is happening in all four games at once, it is possible to keep track of the basic flow of all the games, and pay attention to a particular one when there's a key play. PIP does not seem to work while watching a recording, it only works in Live TV mode, so that's one use for Live TV mode. There are quite a number of 500 users, but it seems like there's a lot of postings about problems getting both tuners to work simultaneously. It's a bit tricky to do the initial install. I ended up creating an ivtv startup script that I could put in /etc/rc.d/init.d (FC3) just to get the proper ivtvctl commands run automatically at every reboot. I think this is mostly because the ivtv drivers are still under development and are not fully mature. getting the PVR 500 to work on both tuners begs the question of how much you know about Linux, and how much effort you're willing to put into getting the card to work. That's a fair statement. From what I understand, the PVR 500 works well with the new ivtv drivers, but the card will show up as two separate PVR 150s -- /dev/video0 and /dev/video1. Inside mythtv-setup, you need to specify the capture sources as tuner0 on each rather than tuner0 and tuner1 on /dev/video0. Even though this has been covered here many times, it continues to confuse Myth newbies. And that's understandable; why would it show two tuners on two cards, when there is really one card with two tuners? Goes back to the under development ivtv drivers. But those immature drivers do work quite well once you get them set up properly. I also understaqnd that there are issues getting audio to work on both tuners. Same thing again. My ivtv startup script runs the necessary ivtvctl commands to make this work. In my case, the 500 was a godsend, because my computer room is at the end of a long coax run from the cable outlet in the living room, and I could never get a splitter in the computer room to work; it always degraded the signal to intolerable levels. The 500 was the only way I could get more than one tuner in my master backend. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: LVM *was* Re: [mythtv-users] Highest number of simultaneous streams recorded?
On Fri, 2005-10-14 at 14:13 -0600, Brandon Beattie wrote: ng and writing 100+ gig files) plus the 5yr warranty comes in nice, since of 9 drives I've had in the last 3 years, half the Maxtor 200GB drives have gone bad. I just want to second this. I have had two 160GB Maxtor drives die within a month of purchase. Maxtor used to be a reliable brand when disks were smaller, but my experiences with their larger drives have been bad and I won't ever buy another one. Got shafted on a rebate to boot )-: --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] running backend as debian runlevel service?
On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 13:15 -0400, Steve Adeff wrote: I tried setting up mythbackend to run as a debian service in init.d/ but when I do so I get errors that don't allow it to record If the errors you see have anything to do with connecting to the database, you might want to go look at some previous threads on mysql.txt files. Starting a service at boot time changes its idea of where the home directory is. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] remoting forntend and backend from satellite receiver, TV and A/V receiver
On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 11:53 -0500, Joe Harvell wrote: I don't have the room or cooling capacity to build another machine as a dedicated backend. In that case, if I were you I'd just pay the $5/month for a second DISH receiver. Either that or put up with the occasional down time. I would definitely not try to make 100 foot video cable runs. You lose a lot of signal. Whether or not that is really a problem depends on the particulars of your setup, but even a 25 foot run caused a fair amount of signal degradation in my house, even using a signal amplifier. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] WinTV PVR 150 vs WinTV PVR 350
On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 05:55 -0500, Robert Denier wrote: I see no advantage for the 500 over a couple 150's, other than saving a pci card slot. The 500 is likely to be cheaper than two 150's, and you don't have to split the signal. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Mythtv - database; MySQL good - Myth Lost -
On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 15:19 +, Jeremy Thompson wrote: Here is my.cnf: [quote] [mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql/mythconverg Generally, you want datadir=/dev/lib/mysql, assuming that mythconverg is a subdirectory that contains .MYI and .MYD files. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Mythtv - database; MySQL good - Myth Lost -
On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 15:39 +, Jeremy Thompson wrote: Just check in var/lib/mysql/mythconverg and it's full of .MYID files. should I change the cnf to datadir=/var/lib/mysql/ Yes (without the trailing slash). That's what mine has. MySQL can handle multiple databases, so datadir is set to where all the databases are. Each database (like mythconverg) then has its own subdirectory under that. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Mythtv - database; MySQL good - Myth Lost -
Sounds like you have not yet set up MySQL according to the installation directions. See http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-6.html ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] WinTV PVR 150 vs WinTV PVR 350
On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 14:13 -0600, Mark Gardner wrote: What about configureation. Is it easier to get a couple of 150s working or the 500? Since the ivtv drivers see the 500 as two 150's, it should be exactly the same. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Where is the CHEAPEST PVR-500 out there
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 00:24 -0700, Mike wrote: Folashade Adeyosoye wrote: I think am going to get a PVR-500 along with my HD-3000, where is the cheapest PVR-500 on the net or store.. Right now I think your going to find that you can't get those working together This has been covered on the list recently. It depends on what you are using for input to the HD-3000. If you are using analog cable, then the V4L drivers will work with this card (probably depending on kernel version, your mileage may vary) in which case there is no conflict with the PVR-500. I did have both working in my machine at one point. It is likely, however, that if you have any kind of digital input to the HD-3000, the V4L drivers won't work, but I have not personally verified that. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR 500 defective?
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 10:09 -0500, Dave Sherohman wrote: I have a problem with mine where the first tuner works fine and the second tuner returns nothing Just a thought: the ivtv drivers detect a PVR-500 as two PVR-150's. You should be able to see this in the output from 'dmesg'. What that means, though, is that the first tuner is /dev/video0 Tuner 0 and the second tuner is /dev/video1 Tuner 0. Not Tuner 1. I was bitten by this when I first got my PVR-500 set up. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] Where is the CHEAPEST PVR-500 out there
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 11:06 -0400, Folashade Adeyosoye wrote: * Am able to bring up liveTV, BUT (the other 5%) is its coming up as snow, not totally black and white snow, but colored. Are you splitting the cable signal at any point? Even outside the house? If so, you might want to check for signal strength issues by removing (at least temporarily) any splitters from the line. If that improves things, you probably have a signal strength issue, in which case a signal amplifier might help. There are also other threads on signal strength issues involving how to use crimped connections instead of screw-on to improve signal strength; if you are handy with tools (I'm not), this could also help. If you use a signal amp, put it as far upstream as possible, before any splitters, although it's not realistic to have one outside, so you may not be able to have it before EVERY splitter. I've got a three-way splitter outside the house, and inside, my computer is at the end of a 25-ft cable run (I have no cable outlet in the computer room so I had to run a cable through the wall from the living room). A signal amplifier helped get my PVR-500 to work well, but I was never able to put a splitter at the end of that 25-ft run without serious signal degradation. The HD-3000 with V4L drivers was much more sensitive to this than the PVR-500 was, which is why I suggest this as a possibility. In particular in my case, the low numbered channels looked much worse than higher numbered channels. But both cards worked reasonably well with the signal amplifier when I removed the splitter and connected only one of them, but without the splitter, I couldn't use both cards, so I too have removed my HD-3000 to use another day for OTA HD when I actually have an HD capable TV. I too bought mine because I feared they would soon be banned. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Anyone successful with HD3000 DVB andPVR-150/500's?
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 15:23 -0400, Joseph A. Caputo wrote: The HD-3000 really only makes sense if you're capturing a digital signal. I now know this. Wish I'd known that when I spent money on the card :-) Oh well, perhaps I will eventually have a legitimate use for it. You don't need to upgrade to digital cable to get that; you could hook up an antenna and tune in free OTA local broadcasts. True, but most HD content that I have access to is only on cable or satellite, including some of the most important (to me) things (e.g. ESPN HD which will soon have Monday Night Football). The problem, as has been gone over in other threads, is that cable companies often don't make the digital content available unencrypted and it is difficult to find out what's available unencrypted without actually signing up for digital cable (or getting access to a system at someone's house who has). And if you have digital cable, you're most likely only going to get the content to your computer over FireWire, which doesn't even need a capture card (the signal is already MPEG-encoded). I don't know about satellite, but if you're a cable customer, the only real use for the HD-3000 is OTA. (Your mileage may vary; I have heard that *some* cable companies make the digital signal available over coax or S-video unencrypted). If you have no intention of tuning digital broadcasts or digital cable, then you're better off with a PVR-xxx (150,250,350,500). That matches my experience. I'm using a PVR-500 and a PVR-150 now. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Converting master to slave
On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 18:42 -0400, Tom Lichti wrote: Well, that didn't fix anything. I still only have access to the two local tuners. Do you have to change anything on the master to enable slaves? This still sounds like a database problem. I say that because I spent quite a bit of time tearing my hair out over a similar problem and that's what it turned out to be in my case. Have you tried looking directly at the capturecard table in the database to make sure all your tuners are really in there? Try something like this (on the master backend): $ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg ... mysql select * from capturecard; Does this show all the tuners from both master and slave? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] REALLY NEED HELP : Channel Scanning
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 18:49 +1000, Phill Edwards wrote: But if you've got analogue cable, how's that ever going to work with a DVB card which is expecting a digital signal? I have used the pcHDTV-3000 card successfully, with analog cable, using the V4L drivers. I'm not saying that's necessarily the best; I too am fairly confused about all the different drivers vs. signal types vs. kernel versions. All I can say is that this worked for me. I ended up switching to a PVR-500 so I could get two tuners and hardware encoding; I'll save the 3000 card in case I ever get an HD-capable TV. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] list FAQ
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 14:28 +0100, Chris Martin wrote: I'm thinking of putting together some sort of FAQ to answer those questions that come up on the mailing list on a regular basis. If you do it, start out with the mysql.txt stuff. I think I've seen questions that turned out to be related to that a half dozen times in just the last week. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Source for drives
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 12:54 -0400, John P. Hoke wrote: I have had good luck with outpost.com lately, seagate 400gb drives with rebates ... This is way OT, but a word of warning: watch out for rebates. It is very easy for them to just deny paying the rebate, and unless you very carefully documented every rebate offer you sent in, making copies of everything and keeping careful track of which receipts went with which rebate, you're kind of screwed. And doing all that administrative work is more hassle than a $10 rebate is worth (at least to me it is). Even then they can deny an appeal. I had one rebate denied (on a Seagate disk drive, which makes it relevant to this thread) because they claimed that the original sales receipt was required. Since I already sent them the original, my appeal was also denied because the receipt I sent on appeal wasn't the original. The companies that administer the rebates for them make a lot more money the fewer rebates they actually pay out, so there is a strong motivation for them to pull this kind of crap. And now, of course, there is no way for me to prove that I already did send them the original, and since I no longer have it, I can't send it to them now. Classic. I hate rebates and avoid them like the plague. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Anyone successful with HD3000 DVB and PVR-150/500's?
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:33 -0700, ToadMazter wrote: I agree. I would be happier with the PVR-500. But, only if it works with the HD-3000's. Any other suggestions? Would the older drivers (non-DVB) for the HD3000 work? That depends on what you have connected to it. Is it analog cable, digital cable, or an antenna? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] Anyone successful with HD3000 DVB andPVR-150/500's?
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 14:59 -0400, Folashade Adeyosoye wrote: I am beginning to think I might have chosen the wrong card, I am not looking on upgrading my Comcast cable anytime soon to digital. In that case, if you have analog cable connected to your HD-3000 card, then just use the V4L drivers. Worked for me, avoids the conflict with IVTV drivers. I wonder what the ratio of HD-3000 is to the PVR-500 out there, and which one would one consider the better card. Well, I started my whole trip into MythTV land by buying an HD-3000 card because I was worried about the broadcast flag stuff. I was afraid that if I didn't buy one before July 1, those cards would become illegal in the US unless they had a lot of onerous DRM stuff. Turns out the US Supreme Court postponed implementation of the broadcast flag rule, but I already had my HD-3000 so I set about using it. It worked OK, but the more I learned about all of this stuff, the more I realized it really isn't the right card for analog cable. If you aren't actually receiving HD signals, then the PVR-500 is far superior. The PVR cards have hardware encoding. With the HD-3000, your CPU has to do all the work. The PVR-500 also has TWO tuners, a big win on a MythTV box. So I ended up switching to the PVR-500 on my master backend, and I have a slave backend that has a PVR-150. I don't even use the HD-3000 any more, I will maybe try to use it one of these days for getting OTA HD channels, but we only have a small handful of those in our area and I don't have an HD-capable TV yet anyway. I think, if you are just using analog cable, that you are way better off with a PVR card than an HD-3000. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Converting master to slave
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 19:54 -0400, Tom Lichti wrote: I recently setup a second backend, and in testing I made it a master server. In that case, when you set up the tuner cards, they were never put into the database on your real master. That is most likely the reason why the real master doesn't see them. While the master is up, try clearing and re-creating the capture cards on the slave. After you do that, you will have to restart the backend on the master for it to see the new tuners. Also make sure that your mysql.txt files on the slave properly point to the database on the master. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Anyone successful with HD3000 DVB andPVR-150/500's?
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 20:23 -0700, ToadMazter wrote: Most likely I'll use the HD3000's for OTA HD and the PVR-500 for OTA and/or Comcast cable. In this scenario, are the vl4 drivers for the HD3000 co-resident with the 0.3.x ivtv drivers for the PVR-500 a workable solution? Unfortunately, I don't really know (although I will eventually have to find out). I only know that the V4L drivers work with analog cable. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Re: slave/master interaction
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 22:03 -0600, Alan Anderson wrote: On the Slave Back End make sure all of the mysql.txt has the IP address of the Master Back End. I've been bitten by the mysql.txt problem before. The very first thing I did was check this, and yes, my system does have multiple mysql.txt files so I always make sure they are all identical and correct. There should be a mysql.txt in the users .mythtv directory and probably one in /.mythtv. ...and one in /root/.mythtv (most distros don't use / for ~root any more). What I think happens here is, when mythbackend starts at boot time, you don't have a full environment, so $HOME is not set and it defaults to /. Thus at that time it is going to look in /.mythtv. Once you are logged in, the environment is set and $HOME for root will be set to /root, so if you manually start mythbackend as root after the system is fully up, it will be looking in /root/.mythtv . And, when you run mythfrontend as another user, it will be looking in ~/.mythtv for that user. In retrospect it would probably have been better to create an explicit common location for this file rather than depending on an environment variable (e.g. /etc/mythtv/mythtv.conf), but it is easy to have 20/20 hindsight. In any case, my problem was never due to multiple mysql.txt files; I am well aware of that issue and checked for it. Somehow I got some serious database corruption. mythfilldatabase would say there was already data for a certain day, but the on-screen guide and MythWeb would show NO DATA. I don't understand enough about the internal database structure used here to fix that manually, so I resorted to a complete rebuild of the database. It was after that when I couldn't get things to work quite right for most of the weekend. I'm glad I got it fixed now because I don't want to miss the big Broncos/Chiefs game tonight but won't be able to start watching until an hour or so after the game has started, so I'm counting on my Myth system to catch it for me. I'll probably catch up to real time by the 3rd quarter or so. I am beginning to understand what people mean when they say I never watch live TV any more. I think my major problem turned out to be not restarting the mythbackend processes at the proper time and in the correct order. Setting up a slave backend is a little bit tricky in that things really have to be done in exactly the right order or it screws up the database. I had a problem where as soon as I added the slave's tuner card, I could no longer change channels on the master backend's cards. This was (I think) because I needed to restart the master backend process. Then I couldn't get the slave to use its own tuner, because I needed to *first* restart the master backend, *then* restart the slave backend. If these steps are not done in exactly the right order, things don't work right. Did you read this? It covers the process pretty well for setting up a SBE. http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/tips.php Where in there does it cover setting up an SBE? I see some tips for configuring a frontend-only system, but nothing about SBE's. Good thing I looked at that document though. I'd really like to be able to use my Sony Vaio laptop as a portable TV, but the playback is really choppy. Jarod has some tips in there I might try to maybe improve things (it's using 802.11g wireless with an Atheros built-in chip). Of course it may turn out that the CPU and onboard ATI Mobility M6 video chip just aren't up to it, but at least there are some fine tuning tricks I can try before I give up on it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] trouble with mythbackend service on non-master
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 22:53 -0700, Ben Norling wrote: 2005-09-25 22:45:17.584 Unable to connect to database! 2005-09-25 22:45:17.586 Driver error was [1/2002]: QMYSQL3: Unable to connect Database error was: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) This really ought to be an FAQ; I think this question has been asked half a dozen times in the last week alone. Make sure that you have mysql.txt files that are identical and correct, in /.mythtv, ~root/.mythtv, and ~user/.mythtv (where user is the user you run mythfrontend as). See the slave/master interaction thread for a more detailed explanation of this. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Does a second frontend need a second backend too?
On Mon, 2005-09-26 at 12:48 +0100, Neil Bird wrote: Do I really *need* to rnu a local backend on my main PC, or will it all work OK if I directly attach a frontend to my master? You only need a backend process on machines that have tuner cards in them. If you just want to watch recordings, or watch live TV via a tuner located in another backend machine, then you don't need a local backend process. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] help..mythbackend..failed to bind port
On Mon, 2005-09-26 at 08:51 -0700, Nada De nada wrote: I run the netstat -l -n | grep 6543 to see if something else was using the port and I got this message tcp 00 0.0.0.0:6543 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN Try running lsof | grep -w 6543 to find which process is listening on that port. I'll lay odds you already have a mythbackend process running. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Seeking Remote Control Advice for PVR-500
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 08:21 -0400, Larry K wrote: I have never seen anything but the MCE version of the 150/500. Please tell me more. I've not seen anything but the MCE version of the 500, but the PVR-150 is sold at CompUSA in the regular (non-MCE) version. As far as I can tell, the only real difference is that the non-MCE versions have the IR port and come with a remote (and, of course, they cost more). This remote works well with Myth and lirc. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] after database rebuild, cannot change channels
From the database gone south thread, we advance boldly into the future :-) I ended up having to completely redo the database. I never could figure out what was wrong with it. I dumped the current contents, then got into mysql and did the drop database mythconverg; source /usr/share/doc/mythtv-0.18.1/database/mc.sql to recreate empty tables (pretty much what is described in the MySQL chapter of Jarod's guide). Then I went through mythtv-setup on the master backend (MBE), manually restoring the capture card, video sources, and input settings. Then of course I was missing the information to connect the files in /video to what recorded programs they were, so I reloaded (from a database dump taken before this) the oldrecorded, recorded, recordedprogram, and videometadata tables. After doing all this, everything appears to be good (almost) on the MBE. I can watch TV (other than not being able to change channels), I can view the saved recordings, I can schedule recordings (apparently), mythweb works, the guide works. The problem is now I cannot change channels in mythfrontend. I *can* change channels with ptune.ui.pl script, and the OSD shows no data, so I'm pretty sure this is still some sort of database problem. I've just run to the end of the rope here, I cannot get my database back and I don't know what else to try. I have rerun mythfilldatabase and restarted mythbackend several times with no effect. The backend produces the following error when I try to change channels: 2005-09-25 13:59:37.866 Channel(/dev/video0): CheckChannel failed. Please verify channel 6 in the setup Channel Editor. I have searched the archives for this error message, but none of those threads appear to describe my problem. Is there any way to just recreate the database from scratch? Is it documented how to do this anywhere other than the brief description in Jarod's guide (which I already tried?) I seem to be out of options and my system is fairly useless until I can fix this problem. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Re: after database rebuild, cannot change channels
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 14:12 -0600, Greg Woods wrote: The problem is now I cannot change channels in mythfrontend. I *can* change channels with ptune.ui.pl script, and the OSD shows no data, so I'm pretty sure this is still some sort of database problem. Hate having to answer myself, but I decided to go through just ONE more iteration of deleting and redoing all the card and channel settings in mythtv-setup, rerun mythfilldatabase, and restart mythbackend. Now I am able to change channels. Still no idea what it was that was wrong before. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] slave/master interaction
How exactly do slave and master backends interact? Is it true that mythfrontend running on a slave backend still connects directly to the master backend? If that is so, does that mean that when the slave is using its own tuner, the traffic has to go from the slave backend to the master backend, then back across the net again to the frontend? If that is not so, then what is the process by which a slave will access it's own tuner? The problem I am having now is that I cannot get my slave backend set up correctly. Mythbackend is running, but it acts like it's not. I use netstat to see that, when mythfrontend is running, it is only connected to the master backend, and it can only see the tuners from the master backend. I have redone the whole mythtv-setup process on both the master and the slave probably a dozen times today, and I still cannot figure out how to get the slave backend to use its own tuner. The install instructions for configuring a slave backend lack the detail I need to fix this. I did check, and the ivtv drivers are loaded correctly and it recognizes the PVR-150. This also worked fine before I had to rebuild my database this morning. I'm sure there's some secret setting I need to make to get this to work, but I can't figure it out. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] slave/master interaction
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 22:18 -0400, Scot L. Harris wrote: Make sure you restart mythbackend on each system after you make changes using mythtv-setup. I found that if you don't restart mythbackend on both system that new tuners are not seen until that is done I'm not sure, but I *think* that this was my problem. I could have sword that did this at point, but it would appear that the order in which things are done is critical. So for the benefit of anyone else in the same position, here is what you have to do to rebuild the database when you have a slave backend involved: 1) Clear the database (or do whatever it is you have to do to it) 2) Run mythtv-setup on the master backend, and set up your capture card(s) and video source(s). 3) Run mythtv-setup on the slave. Do not declare any video sources. All you do is set up the capture cards and associate a video source with them. 4) Restart mythbackend on the master 5) Restart mythbackend on the slave. This is what finally worked for me. After two days of screwing around, I finally have my system back to full functionality. The original problem was that the guide had no data left in it, and mythfilldatabase appeared to be refreshing it but was not. Almost surely caused by some sort of database corruption, but I never did figure out what caused that to begin with. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Can not get my HD-3000 to work
The only way I could get my HD-3000 to work with ANALOG cable input was to use the V4L drivers. I'm not saying that's a definitive answer, it was just my experience. But Marc is right that it does depend on what kernel version you are using. I tried to use the DVB drivers that I downloaded from pchdtv.com with a 2.6.10 kernel and never could make that work. I still don't really know if the DVB drivers are *supposed* to work with analog cable input. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] database gone south
Something is strange with the database, at least, the part that controls the Guide and is populated by mythfilldatabase. Neither MythWeb nor mythfrontend can see any scheduling data beyond today. Everything else (at least, watch TV and watch recordings) works. If I run mythfilldatabase, the output looks normal, including noting that there is already data for each day. But still no scheduling data. Anybody have a clue what might be wrong and how I would go about fixing it? The WAF was starting to go up pretty high until this happened. I did check, and while the system has multiple mysql.txt files on it, they are identical. I have tried running mythfilldatabase both as root and as the user I run mythfrontend as, but to no avail. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] database gone south
On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 12:20 +1000, ffrr wrote: You can check the database with mysqlcheck -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg and can also repair it with mysqlcheck -r -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg After which (might need to run mythfilldatabase again) you should have the guide back. Thank you for the tip, but it didn't work. Still no data after 10pm today (which is only about an hour from now). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] database gone south
On Sat, 2005-09-24 at 20:44 -0600, Greg Woods wrote: Thank you for the tip, but it didn't work. Still no data after 10pm today (which is only about an hour from now). I got the guide back. What worked was to go into mythtv-setup and delete all the channel data and redownload it. Then running mythfilldatabase worked. Now the tuner card on my frontend system won't change channels, but the two cards in the backend system do. Weird. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] database gone south
On Sat, 2005-09-24 at 21:18 -0600, Greg Woods wrote: Now the tuner card on my frontend system won't change channels, but the two cards in the backend system do. Weird. Appears to be related to the database problem, as the mythbackend logs on the FE/BE system report problems accessing the channel database (can't tune to channel '' and other things pointing to errors in the database). I tried going in to mythtv-setup on the front end and completely redoing everything: no joy (but I do know not to run mythfilldatabase on the FE). I did set the initial channel for the card to a valid one, still gives the error about can't tune to channel ''. Still can't change channels on the local card. If I hit 'Y' to switch to one of the cards in the Master BE system, it works fine. So it's the backend process on the FE/BE system that is having trouble. I'll work on this more in the morning. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] database gone south
On Sat, 2005-09-24 at 21:56 -0600, Greg Woods wrote: it's the backend process on the FE/BE system that is having trouble. I'll work on this more in the morning. Just checked: the MBE system is now hosed too; it won't change channels either. I suspect my database is just completely corrupted and I will probably have to go back to square one. Too tired to start that project now. --Greg 2005-09-24 21:57:09.073 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV Channel: '4' was not found in the database. Most likely, the default channel set for this input (1 Tuner 0 ) in setup is wrong Couldn't find any channels in the database, please make sure your inputs are associated properly with your cards. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] ACPI sleep problems
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 12:27 +0100, Steve Hill wrote: /proc/acpi/sleep seems to be the old 2.4 kernel interface, whereas /sys/power/state is the 2.6 kernel interface. I tried doing the echo -n mem /sys/power/state on my laptop. It does go to sleep; the blinking lights show it is in a suspend-to-RAM state. But when I try to wake it up, it hangs. This is pretty much the same as echo 3 /proc/acpi/sleep; I have to power it off and reboot to get it back. It looks like maybe this could be made to work; I have FC4 with a 2.6 kernel. Maybe that hibernate script is what I need; I'll try it out. Thanks to everyone for the pointers on this. Lack of suspend has been by far the largest pain in the butt to running Linux on a laptop; it's the one thing that Windows XP does that I wish Linux could do. This is wandering a bit off topic for Myth, getting suspend to work on a laptop, but more to the point is that if I can make it work on my laptop, perhaps I could make it work on my slave backend/frontend which would be directly useful to my Myth setup. Whilest suspending using ACPI seems to just power my machine off completely, if I disable ACPI and use APM instead it sends the machine to sleep but won't wake up again. My machine only supports ACPI. Most new hardware will be ACPI-only. I think the IBM Thinkpads may be one of the few exceptions left on the market. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Setting up slave backend system
On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 20:02 -0400, Scot L. Harris wrote: I expected to see the SBE capture cards defined in the MBE system in the status page or in the setup on the MBE. You don't see them in mythtv-setup, as that only defines locally-connected capture cards. You SHOULD see them in MythWeb. I found MythWeb very easy to set up, and it shows you things (like this) that are difficult or impossible to find any other way. It's worth having. MythWeb also increases the WAF since she can now schedule recordings from her Mac. This means you have to run mythtv-setup on the machine that has the card to set up capture cards. I found this very confusing too but I finally figured this out. My slave backend now works fine. mythtv-setup on the SBE only shows the one card that is on that machine, yet I can use all three cards including the two in the MBE just fine. Going into MythWeb will show all three cards, and properly indicate when the SBE is down (not currently connected). The reason this is confusing, I think, is that clearly mythtv-setup is manipulating some information that is stored only on the local host, and some that is stored in the database, and nowhere is it documented when this line is crossed, I just had to figure it out by trial and error. Video sources are defined in the database, do not try to set those up separately on the SBE. But capture cards are defined locally, you must set those up with mythtv-setup on each machine that has one or more cards. If you have a machine that is ONLY a frontend (no capture cards), then all you really need is the mysql.txt file so that it can find the MBE, and you may never need to run mythtv-setup at all (correct or not?). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Setting up slave backend system
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 11:04 -0500, Kevin Kuphal wrote: Greg Woods wrote: I expected to see the SBE capture cards defined in the MBE system in the status page or in the setup on the MBE. This means you have to run mythtv-setup on the machine that has the card to set up capture cards. Why is this confusing? I too expected to see all the available capture cards in mythtv-setup no matter which host I ran it on. Now that I understand more about how it works (that is, some things are stored in the central database and some are stored locally), it's not so confusing any more. But when I was first trying to set up an SBE that had previously been a tuner-less front-end-only system, it was confusing. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] ACPI sleep problems
On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 14:52 -0500, Paul V. Gratz wrote: In any event, I'd strongly recommend getting the hibernate script that the ACPI team puts out. Tried it, it still doesn't work on my laptop. Exact same symptoms as before: it suspends fine, but on awakening, I see a garbled X display and the keyboard and mouse are unresponsive. Sounds like this will be like getting MythTV to work: I will have to learn a whole lot about how this actually works under the surface in order to make it work on my system. On the other hand, others have reported that ACPI suspend works fine for them, so I stand by my original statement: it may or may not work depending on what hardware and kernel version you have. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] ACPI sleep problems
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 18:43 +0100, Steve Hill wrote: nsive. Something I read suggested putting acpi_sleep=s3_bios on the kernel commandline (i.e. in grub or lilo) to fix graphics problems on resume (it aparantly makes the BIOS re-POST the video card on resume). Fascinating. I tried this, and it makes things even worse. Now the laptop wakes up and hangs instantly; even the power button doesn't do a controlled shutdown as it did without this option, and not even the partial X screen is redrawn. I guess this tells me the problem is associated with my graphics card. Maybe that will be of some help when I learn more about how this works. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] xorg conf file for the pundit-r?
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 11:38 -0700, Reza Naima wrote: My x11 performance on the pundit-r isn't very good Have you run the fglrxconfig script? (I may have to check on the exact name of this). This creates an xorg.conf file that works well for me. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] ACPI sleep problems
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 18:43 +0100, Steve Hill wrote: Well I know that there are a lot of broken ACPI implementations out there but I thought more recent stuff was ok Interestingly enough, the people at EmperorLinux (a Linux laptop vendor from whom I purchased my laptop) say just the opposite: it is more recent video cards that don't work. They just released a new kernel; below is a quote from their annoucement. I pass it on without comment. It does make me want to go to ATI's web site and try a more recent driver though; I'll let the list know if that helped. I have confirmed that my problem is related to X and the video card. If I switch to a text console, the hibernate script works fine, and resuming gives me my command line shell back. But as soon as I hit CTRL-ALT-F7 to switch to the X console, the system hangs. --Greg = o) New merges of nVidia and ATI drivers. If you had any troubles with these devices before, notably problems with suspend/hibernate, try them again! However, please keep in mind that many of the more recent cards (ATI X300, X600, etc. and anything newer than a GeForce 5600) still suffer from a lack of power management support, and will not suspend or hibernate. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] ACPI sleep problems
On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 20:28 +0100, Steve Hill wrote: Everything I read says I just need to set the wake-up alarm by echoing a time and date to /proc/acpi/alarm and then suspend the machine by doing: echo -n mem /sys/power/state Where did you read this? I'd like to know because everything *I* have read says that ACPI suspend-to-RAM doesn't really work on Linux. I have never been able to make it work on my laptop; I can get it to suspend to RAM by doing echo 3 /proc/acpi/sleep, but there appears to be no way to wake it up after that. Suspend-to-disk (so-called software suspend) supposedly works but I've never been able to make that work either (and even if it did, it wouldn't be suitable for this purpose because there's no way to do a wakeup other than physically powering it on). ACPI is essentially a power management standard that pushes all the power management out of the BIOS hardware and into the OS. The more paranoid among us think this was a ploy by Microsoft to make it harder to run non-Windows OS's on PC laptops. But either way, the ACPI implementation in Linux is not very robust as yet. Whether or not it will work will likely depend on exactly what kernel version you are running and what motherboard and BIOS chip. But it is highly unlikely that it will be as simple as echoing something to a /proc or /sys file. If you do manage to make it work, I'd love to hear about it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Exit and shutdown
On Thu, 2005-09-15 at 21:01 +1000, Phill Edwards wrote: Which XML file? I've searched through all the XML files under /usr/share/mythtv/themes and I can't find one that contains the text Exit now which makes me think this isn't in an XML file. In /usr/share/mythtv/mainmenu.xml, there is a commented-out SHUTDOWN entry, which may be what the previous poster was referring to. But this only gives you a Shutdown option in the main menu. Clicking it produces the same behavior as the ESC key; I still only have the option of No or Yes, exit now. No shutdown option. It is clear that finding a way to get automatic shutdown to work is my only option. I'm running from ATrpms so I don't have cpp source. So here's a question about automatic shutdown, that I ask just to make sure I'm not trying to do the impossible. What I'd like is to have the master backend shut down the idle slave, but I don't ever want the master backend to shut itself down, as that machine is used for purposes other than MythTV and needs to stay up all the time. I thought I could use the pre-shutdown script for this and have one that returns 0 on the slave and 1 on the master, but this doesn't work. What happens is that the master never does a shutdown of the slave either. I'm afraid that if the shutdown script returns 1 on the master, it will shut itself down too. I don't want that. Is there any way to configure the master backend so that only slaves ever get shut down? Maybe using a shutdown script that does nothing on the backend and does a real shutdown on the slave? The problem with that is that the log quickly fills with attempted shutdown messages on the back end. Any way to avoid that? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Install of PVR-500
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 10:12 -0400, Gerald J. Berg wrote: While installing MythTV on a new system, the MythTV backend menu offered PVR-350 and PVR-250 MPEG encoder boards, but not PVR-150 or PVR-500. I am using a 350 and a 500. Should I simply select the 250 for the second and third encoder boards? That worked fine for me. I suspect when the code was written, the 150 and 500 cards didn't exist yet. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hello all.. i'm the lastest mythnewb looking for advice :D
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 13:31 -0500, Derek Meek wrote: There is a lot of noise on my cable line already - I have a booster on the fork that leads to my TV (other fork goes the cablemodem) I have been told that it is better to put the booster before the fork rather than after it. The fork itself can introduce noise, and then you're boosting the noise along with the signal. Putting the booster as far upstream as you can is best; amplify signal, not noise, as much as you can. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hello all.. i'm the lastest mythnewb looking for advice :D
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 13:56 -0500, Derek Meek wrote: Ok, i'll probably get the PVR-500 and I'll give in on the video card and use an nVidia board (for the driver support) for output to the TV Depends on what you plan to do. For standard definition TV, the ATI onboard chip that came as part of my ASUS Pundit-R machine works perfectly well for TV out (once I downloaded the driver from ATI). But, I only have SD, I don't do any high definition yet. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Exit and shutdown
I did search the archives and I found one possible solution to my problem involving hacking an XML file, which I can probably do assuming I can find the correct file to edit. I just finished setting up a Pundit-R machine as a front end. It worked quite well once I got everything in place. But I found that I couldn't get good signal quality on the backend system if I had a splitter in the computer room, even with two signal amplifiers upstream. (I have no clue how to do crimped connections, I'm not qualified to do that, and I've done everything else that has been suggested to increase signal strengh other than that so I am out of options). So I said, fine, I'll just use the PVR-500 alone in the backend (works fine, good quality on both tuners), and heck, I'll take the PVR-150 and put it in my front end downstairs; I've got a cable hookup there and I can save the 500's tuners for recording and at least get some use out of the 150 for watching Live TV. Also, the 150 has a remote that I've been able to get working with lirc, so it solves my problem getting the Streamzap to work on the front end as well (no longer necessary). So all this long-windedness is setting up for the real question. I put the PVR-150 into the front end, and of course that meant I had to set that system up as a slave backend. Had a little trouble but got it working eventually. Once I did that, I no longer see the Exit and Shutdown option in mythfrontend. Why did it go away? I have read about the auto-shutdown features and I presume this is related to that somehow. But I don't really want to use the Pundit as a recording backend even though it might be capable of it. I don't have a UPS down there and I don't want to leave it up all the time. But I do want to use the PVR-150 for watching live TV, which means I have to set the frontend system up as a slave backend. But I want to shut it down when I'm done using the front end. But now I only have Exit and No, don't exit options and there's no way for me to shut the system all the way down cleanly without a keyboard attached. Is hacking the XML file the best way to get what I want, or is the kludgy set the auto shutdown time to five minutes solution I've seen proposed better? I just don't want my master backend to try and schedule recordings on the frontend because it won't be up most of the time and it doesn't have auto-wakeup either. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] mythbackend fails silenty
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 18:39 +0100, Nick wrote: On a related theme, what is the difference between starting a daemon in /etc/rc.d/init.d with the service command and just running it from the command line directly? Most likely, environment variables such as $HOME. I've always run init.d scripts using the service command, but now this thread shows it may be problematic when running scripts directly without it. When you are already logged in and using the service command, the login environment is already set up for you. When daemons are started, there is no login environment. It is therefore a bug (or a mis-design if you will) to depend on the login environment for a program that is started at boot time. Programs designed to run at system startup time should not be looking in user home directories (even root). Such programs normally use config files kept in /etc somewhere (e.g. on FC systems, /etc/sysconfig/mythbackend or some such thing). Or the startup script should have a variable to set where the config file is. But relying on environment variables like $HOME to find it results in exactly this sort of problem. I note that on my FC3 system, you can set $MYTHTV_HOME in the /etc/sysconfig/mythbackend file, but doing so did not work. That's a bug I think, albeit one that is easily worked around. I ran into this same problem on my frontend system; it worked fine if I started mythbackend as root or as mythtv, but would not work if started at boot time. I solved it by having mythbackend start when mythtv logs in (right before mythfrontend starts), which also happens automatically. On my back end, it does look as though I put a copy of mysql.txt into /.mythtv, which I only discovered I needed when I modified the startup script to start mythbackend under strace, so I could then see that it was trying to open /.mythtv/mysql.txt . I don't know why I didn't think of the environment thing before that. And I *really* don't know why I didn't remember going through this when the same problem occurred on my slave backend system. I think I'm getting too old for this stuff :-) --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150/500 and bttv?
On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 19:28 -0700, Joe Votour wrote: I've read the thread you you mention, and call me skeptical, but I don't buy it 100%. Neither did I. I know lots of people who get fine reception without having to hand-crimp every connection. I am skeptical as to how much that matters except maybe in a few exceptional cases. But I do know just from my own experience that the signal degrades when splitters are used, especially at the end of a long run. The PVR-500 also has a splitter inside it (it must, to the single input to two tuners) and is therefore more sensitive to signal degradation than is the 150 (same card, single tuner). This is by no means intended as expert advice, it is merely what I have observed in my particular setup. I might just have to run a Windows/Linux comparison at some point. I'm all for scientific experimentation to lend credence to or downplay theories; that would be an interesting test. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150/500 and bttv?
On Sun, 2005-09-11 at 17:01 -0400, Michael Tiller wrote: I don't know if the BTTV card just sucked (it was a Win-TV card) or if there was some kind of interference with the PVR-150?!? If anybody knows of a reason why the presence of the PVR-150 should make the BTTV signal suck and knows a way to address the problem, I'm all ears. I tried to use a pcHDTV-3000 in the same machine as a PVR-150, and had the same problem: the PVR-150 looked great, the signal for the 3000 sucked. In my case it turned out to be a signal strength problem. I was trying to split the signal, and apparently it degraded it enough the 3000 was sensitive to it. The 3000 worked fine without splitter. I ended up with the same problem when I switched to a PVR-150 and a PVR-500. The 150 worked great, the 500 had problems with low numbered channels. Again the 500 worked fine without the splitter, so I ended up using just the 500 and putting the 150 into my front end system (solves my problem getting the Streamzap remote I bought to work on the front end, since the Hauppage remote works fine with the 150). You might try plugging the cable only into the bttv card and removing any splitter you might have had to get both cards connected, and see if the bttv card works better then. In my case, it's just too long a run. I don't have a cable outlet in the computer room so I had to bring it through the wall from the living room. It's a 20 foot cable and there's just no way I can put a splitter at the end of such a long run. I tried using a signal amplifier and it helped only a little and the signal on the second card was still not good enough. I tried swapping cables to rule out a bad cable. I'm assuming that it's just not possible to put a splitter at the end of a long run. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150 (Model 1045) - $64.99 @ CompUSA + FAQ
On Sun, 2005-09-11 at 14:59 -0700, Mark Menke wrote: Do you have to passs any special flags to the ivtv module when you load it? I 've got the same card, but can't get the audio to work. cat /dev/video0 leaves my with an mpg that has great video and no audio./dev/video0 leaves my with an mpg that has great video and no audio. I had the same problem. There are several ideas on the ivtv list, you might want to search those archives. In my case, what worked was to put this in my modprobe.conf file: options cx25840 cardtype=0 --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] WinTV-PVR-500
On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 17:32 -0700, Joe Votour wrote: Also, check that in the MythTV setup that you used Tuner 0 for both /dev/video0 and /dev/video1. Thank you for that tip; all the different tuners and device names is very confusing. I just got a PVR-500MCE that I was trying to add to my PVR-150, and I now have all three tuners working! For all of you who are having problems getting all of this working, I'll say the same thing people said to me when I was having problems: keep at it, it's worth it. MythTV rocks! I am at the point where the VCR is disonnected from the cable and is used for playback only. My big desktop is a combo backend/frontend with the three tuners, and a Pundit-R frontend is in the main TV room. It's great! But it did take a significant portion of my free time for a couple of months to get to this point. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] streamzap remote RECENT info?
Thank you for the information. On Tue, 2005-09-06 at 15:13 +1000, Ben wrote: Let us know how you progress. Will do, but I have a busy week so it may be a few days before I have time to get back to this again. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] streamzap remote RECENT info?
On Sun, 2005-09-04 at 21:22 +1000, Ben wrote: Please post your modprobe lirc_streamzap dmesg First I see: lirc_dev: no version for struct_module found: kernel tainted. lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61 lirc_streamzap[-1]: Streamzap, Inc. Streamzap Remote Control on usb3:3 attached lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin: sample_rate: 0 usbcore: registered new driver lirc_streamzap lirc_streamzap $Revision: 1.12 $ registered But later I see: usb_unlink_urb() is deprecated for synchronous unlinks. Use B() instead. Badness in usb_unlink_urb at drivers/usb/core/urb.c:461 (Tainted: PF) [c02c7d30] usb_unlink_urb+0x98/0x9a [dc9d1ddb] irctl_close+0x77/0xe3 [lirc_dev] [c01785d7] __fput+0xdc/0x10a [c0176d13] filp_close+0x3f/0x6f [c010394d] syscall_call+0x7/0xb What lirc device files do you have? # ls -l /dev/lirc* crw--- 1 root root 61, 0 Sep 5 12:56 /dev/lirc0 srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Sep 5 19:41 /dev/lircd I run lircd -d /dev/lirc0 followed by irw that produces no output. On the other hand, if I run irrecord -d /dev/lirc0 /tmp/out, then I do get a response from irrecord, which suggests there is a problem with my /etc/lircd.conf file. The file I'm using is the one I got from lirc.org though: # this config file was automatically generated # using lirc-0.7.1-CVS(serial) on Fri Feb 4 23:20:56 2005 # # contributed by Christoph Bartelmus # # brand: Streamzap # model no. of remote control: PC Remote # devices being controlled by this remote: USB receiver Since would appear that Chris s one of the main developers for lirc, I would presume this file has been well tested with a Streamzap remote and this module. From that, my best guess is that I've got a new style remote, that needs it's own lircd.conf file. To that end, I tried running irrecord to produce a lircd.conf file. When I did that, and then ran irw, every button showed up as the first one declared (OK in this case). I will need to play with irrecord more before I make any conclusions, but it's clear that the stock lircd.conf file does not work with my remote. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HD3000 and High-Def
On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 09:02 -0400, Brian Stults wrote: Donavan Stanley wrote: You don't USE a cable box with QAM. This really surprised me. I bought an HD3000 a long time ago to get it before the FCC deadline. However, I haven't used it yet because I thought I would need to get another cable box to use QAM. So the tuner in the HD3000 can receive channels in the hundreds? What Donovan means (I think) is that cable companies do not generally provide HD over QAM. Yes, the HD3000 card will do QAM. But it's not a good card for that, because all the encoding is in software (which puts a high load on your CPU), and none of the content is HD. If you want to receive QAM signals, a PVR-150 or other MPEG2-encoder card is better. The HD3000 will receive HD OTA programming. If you want to get HD from your cable company, you will need a cable box that outputs unencrypted content over FireWire. From what I have read on this list, this is the only way to get HD content off of cable, and you will be fortunate if you can get a box like this from your local provider. Of course the people at the local office will have no clue what you're talking about if you ask them about any of this either. From what I've been able to gather, if I ever want to do real HD content, I will have to go to satellite or settle for what comes OTA. BTW, I too learned all this the hard way, after buying an HD3000 to beat the FCC deadline. Only then did I learn that it's not the right card for me. It worked with the QAM signal, but the PVR-150 works better and costs less. At some point, I may experiment with some antennas to try and get OTA HD using the HD3000. I've read here that you don't necessarily need a large rooftop antenna, people have done it with cheap $20 HD antennas from Radio Shack. Whether that will work for me (or for you) will depend on reception conditions in our respective areas, and whether our machines can handle the load of capturing and displaying an HD stream. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HD3000 and High-Def
On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 10:41 -0400, Cory Papenfuss wrote: The 5th (QAM) is typically used for digital signals OK, I am now 100% confused. What do you call analog cable? I thought that was QAM. The reason I thought that was because I can plug my analog (not digital) cable into an HD3000, and it works just fine. This is NOT a digital signal I am fairly sure, because it also plugs directly into the antenna port on a TV and that works too. What am I missing here? Confused, --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HD3000 and High-Def
On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 12:29 -0400, Cory Papenfuss wrote: I think where you are getting confused is that the HD3000 is three cards in one:\ Not only that, but it appears that different types of signals can be handled by the same physical input port. The card has only one coax port, but if it can handle both digital and analog cable, it follows that it magically detects which signal is on the coax port and does the right thing with it? Or is this determined by which driver is loaded? I'm now hazarding a guess; unless I'm still confused, if one uses the V4L drivers with this card, that works if you have an analog SD signal (I know this works because I have done it), and the DVB drivers would be required if you have a digital signal, but it's the same physical coax port in either case. Am I getting closer now? This probably also explains why I have never been able to get the DVB drivers to work: I don't have a digital signal. All this time I thought QAM was analog cable which is why I am so terribly confused about all of this. It does matter though, because I have this card still in my system even though it is not currently being used. The PVR-150 in the same system is doing the work now. But I'd like to use both cards if I can. I could either hook up an antenna to the HD3000 and use it for capturing HD OTA signals (maybe later as I don't have an HD-capable TV yet), or just hook it to the same analog cable signal as the PVR-150 is using, and use it as a second tuner for PIP or for watching one program while recording another (all the usual reasons why one might want multiple tuners). But, if my confusion is less than it was before, it looks like those two uses of the card would require different drivers. Is that correct? Thank you for helping me become less confused, or at least confused on a higher plane :-) --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] OT: HD-3000 QAM working for anyone?
I have gotten the HD3000 to work with QAM, via Comcast analog cable. But, I used the V4L drivers. I don't have any HD content (yet) so I didn't need that, and I had a hard time getting DVB to work. If I try to split the signal between the HD3000 and a PVR-150 in the same machine, then I can only get the low numbered channels (and poorly at that), and the high numbered channels won't come in at all. This happens if I just put the splitter on the line even if the second fork of the splitter isn't connected to anything, and it also happens if I just use the PVR-150 under Windows 2000, so that rules out a lot of MythTV or driver problems. I never actually got both cards to work at the same time; I kind of gave up when splitting the signal screwed things up so badly. I've used them both individually at different times (I've stuck with the PVR-150 to get hardware capturing). I have wondered whether a signal amplifier might help. I'd really like to use both cards. I've also thought about putting the HD3000 into the new frontend I'm building and turning that into a slave backend too, but it's only a Pundit-R with a Celeron CPU so I'm not sure it can handle the software signal processing). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] streamzap remote RECENT info?
I've been searching around the net, and there are threads about Streamzaps, but all of them mention having to apply patches to the kernel or to the lirc source. Versions mentioned to which patches actually apply are much older than what I have. I've got kernel 2.6.12-1.1376_FC3 and lirc 0.7.2 sources (which come with a lirc_streamzap module). Is it possible to get the Streamzap to work with this software or should I just give up and buy something else? Right now this is the ONLY thing stopping me from deploying an otherwise well- working front end in the TV room which might get the WAF above 0. Without a working remote, it's useless in the TV room, and she hates watching TV in the computer room on the monitor (no comfy couches in here :-) I can get the lirc_streamzap module loaded, I have a lircd.conf file that supposedly works with this thing: # this config file was automatically generated # using lirc-0.7.1-CVS(serial) on Fri Feb 4 23:20:56 2005 # # contributed by Christoph Bartelmus # # brand: Streamzap # model no. of remote control: PC Remote # devices being controlled by this remote: USB receiver # I can start up lircd, and connect to it with irw, and when I press buttons, I see the red light on the receiver blinking, but irw has no output at all. If it's too much trouble to get the Streamzap to work, what other kind of IR receiver and remote would be better for Myth with the lirc and kernel versions that I have? I could use a USB, serial, or parallel device as long as it will work with Linux/Myth without a lot of time and frustration. Thanks, --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] air2pc off ebay?
On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 09:46 -0700, myth joe wrote: I hope this isn't too stupid/weird/unclear a question, but do I need to use the patched kernel? If all you need to do is patch or add something that is compiled as a module, then you should be able to use the kernel that comes with FC3. You may need a kernel-headers or kernel-devel package (if you don't already have it) to get the stuff in /lib/modules that you need for compiling modules. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Which Window Manager?
On Thu, 2005-08-25 at 13:35 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: As for me I have 4 Pundit-R's [...] I don't have keyboards or mice hooked to any of these machines. They are controlled purely using StreamZap remotes ($25) via USB. What type of IR hardware are you using? I ask because I just got a Pundit-R to build a front end out of, and keyboard-less control is the only problem I haven't solved yet. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Which Window Manager?
On Thu, 2005-08-25 at 14:29 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: As I thought I said, we are using the StreamZap remote. You did say that. It comes with it's own USB receiver: But I didn't know that part. I was hoping to use the same universal remote I already have downstairs for the TV, amplifier, DVD player, VCR, etc. rather than having to have yet another remote. I suppose for $27 I could get one of these anyway and program the universal remote from it. Anybody got a better idea? Got a lircd.conf file for the thing? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] pcHDTV3000 and PVR-150 together?
Here is just a note for the record. I am not at all sure what is really going on here, but in case anyone else runs into it... I started with a pcHDTV-3000 card, and after the usual initial Myth newbie struggles, trials, and tribulations, I got it to work. The problem was I had the wrong card. Since I don't actually have any HD content right now, what I really needed was a hardware encoder card (but I didn't know about any of this stuff when I started, it just seemed nice to buy from a vendor that supports Linux over Windows). Myth worked, but recording or watching TV took up a lot of CPU with the software encoding, and I do want to use this machine for things other than Myth. So I got myself a PVR-150, and again went through the trials and tribulations, this time as an ivtv newbie, and got that to work. So far, so good. But I thought, why not have two tuners? I could use the PVR-150 most of the time, and only use the 3000 when I need a second tuner (PiP, watching while recording, or recording two shows at once). So I put the 3000 card back in, based on previous posts in this thread saying that people were able to make the two very different tuner cards work together. I never got very far with this, because here is the strange thing: as soon as I put the pcHDTV-3000 card back in the machine, my Conexant modem (with Linuxant driver, used primarily for faxing) is no longer recognized. I have no clue as to why a video capture card would interfere with a modem card, and this happens even before I enable any drivers (the 3000 card wasn't being recognized either because there was no driver set up for it yet). Remove the 3000 card, and the modem works again. Bizarre. So for now, I am running with just the one PVR-150 card. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] PVR-150 no audio
I have just spent the last several hours looking through Jarod's Guide and searching the mailing list archives, but have not found the answer. I replaced my pcHDTV-3000 card with a PVR-150 (I don't have any HDTV yet anyway) because I wanted hardware decoding. I am using an analog cable hooked to the coax input of the card. First I set up the card under Windows to make sure it worked, the cable signal was good, etc. It works fine under Windows. Video and audio are good. Back to Linux, I got the ivtv drivers installed. The modules all load. All capture tests I have run produce the same result: there is video, but no audio. Other audio apps work fine so I believe my sound card and ALSA drivers are configured and loaded correctly. The capture tests I have run include cat /dev/video0 to a file, then reading that file with mplayer; running mplayer directly off /dev/video0, and mythfrontend. All the same: video is good, no audio. Mythfrontend in Watch Live TV mode will change channels, but ptune-ui.pl will not (it SAYS the channel was changed but the running mplayer is not affected). Running aplay /dev/dsp while any video is playing also produces no sound. The only thing I found that remotely covers this (not saying there isn't anything else, just that if there is, I haven't been able to find it) is a line from the troubleshooting section of the MythTV install doc, a link to stuff specific to the PVR-250/350, which I am assuming would be similar to the 150 because they are all MPEG2 encoder cards. It says that no audio can be caused by loading the wrong msp3400 module. However, I am as certain as I can be that I am loading the correct module. I have installed ivtv-0.3.7a, but I briefly tried one of the 0.3.6 versions with the same results. If I look under /lib/module/`uname -r` , the ivtv directory is the only one that contains an msp3400.ko file. # modinfo msp3400 filename: /lib/modules/2.6.10-1.770_FC3/ivtv/msp3400.ko parm: probe:List of adapter,address pairs to scan additionally parm: probe_range:List of adapter,start-addr,end-addr triples to scan additionally parm: ignore:List of adapter,address pairs not to scan parm: ignore_range:List of adapter,start-addr,end-addr triples not to scan parm: force:List of adapter,address pairs to boldly assume to be present description:device driver for msp34xx TV sound processor author: Gerd Knorr license:GPL vermagic: 2.6.10-1.770_FC3 686 REGPARM 4KSTACKS gcc-3.4 depends:i2c-core srcversion: 8CA10DEA2DD743C63D22AEC I do note, however, that the troubleshooting chapter says that I should see a line that says parm: standard int, and as you can see, there is no such line. All I did to build the driver was make; make install. Is there some parameter I need to tweak to make this build correctly? Have I done something else obviously wrong? Thanks for any help, --Greg # ivtvctl -a ioctl IVTV_IOC_G_CODEC ok Codec parameters aspect : 2 audio : 0x00e9 bframes : 3 bitrate_mode: 0 bitrate : 450 bitrate_peak: 600 dnr_mode: 0 dnr_spatial : 0 dnr_temporal: 8 dnr_type: 0 framerate : 0 framespergop: 0 gop_closure : 1 pulldown: 0 stream_type : 0 ioctl VIDIOC_G_FMT ok Type : Video Capture Width : 480 Height : 480 ioctl VIDIOC_QUERYCAP ok Driver name : ivtv Card type : WinTV PVR 150 Bus info : 0 Driver version: 775 Capabilities : 0x01030011 ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUMINPUT Input : 0 Name: S-Video 0 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 1 Name: S-Video 1 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 2 Name: Composite 0 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 3 Name: Composite 1 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 4 Name: Composite 2 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 5 Name: Composite 3 Type: 0x0002 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard: 0x007F3FFF ( PAL NTSC SECAM ) Status : 0 Input : 6 Name: Tuner 0 Type: 0x0001 Audioset: 0x0003 Tuner : 0x Standard:
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150 no audio
1. stop hijacking threads I would be glad to but I have no idea what that means. 2. ivtvctl below shows you are set to the tuner audio, I'm assuming you want the line in. set it to line in. (This assumes you have a cable box which is connected to s-video or composite in.) No, the analog cable is the only connection I have to the card. I have no cable box. But that is enough to produce audio in Windows. The documentation also appears to say that the audio *should* be in the MPEG2 stream that comes off the card, assuming I read it right. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150 no audio
Replying to my own message in the SAME thread; hope that's not hijacking. My audio problem is fixed! What worked for me, which I bumbled my way into searching the ivtv list, was to add options cx25840 cardtype=0 in modules.conf, and to copy in another firmware file, /lib/modules/HcwMakoA.ROM The PVR-150 was somewhat difficult to get working, but now that it works, the video and audio quality are excellent. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] pcHDTV 3000: Questions from a MythTV newbie
On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 08:55 -0400, Donavan Stanley wrote: As of now I've decided to get a PVR-150 card so that I can get decoding done in hardware. The PVR-150 is a hardware encoder not decoder. This is probably just my own ignorance with the terminology (again). I'm not using TV out on my backend machine with the capture card. I just want the process of extracting the signal from the wire and storing it as MPEG2 to be done in hardware; i.e. the recording process. I don't care about the display (this particular machine already has an NVidia Radeon 9800 card with TV out, so if I ever do connect it to a real TV, I'll use that connection). Is that the encoding or the decoding? Does the PVR-150 do the recording part in hardware or not? If not, I have the wrong card. I'm just worried about the backend machine now, which I would like to also be able to use for other purposes which is why I want hardware recording. There have been good threads recently on how to choose frontend system hardware, but I need to make sure my backend system is really going to work properly before I lay out the money for the frontend. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] pcHDTV3000 and PVR-150 together?
Has anyone actually successfully used a pcHDTV3000 and a PVR-150 together in the same machine? In the end, I'd like to use the PVR-150 as the main tuner for analog cable, and use the 3000 for OTA HDTV via an antenna. Can this be done? Right now I've got FC3 with a 2.6.10 kernel. I originally had the 3000 only and the machine worked mostly OK (when I didn't mess up the config parameters )-: I tried adding the PVR-150 and installing ivtv, but the new card doesn't work. I can configure it in Myth, but tuning to it produces only a black screen with brief streaks of color. xawtv segfaults when given /dev/video1. I suspect the root of this problem is that I'm trying to use two different drivers for two similar devices (as far as the kernel is concerned). They are both /dev/video devices with major number 81, so I suspect that means I have to find one driver that works for both. I don't think I can use v4l (cx*) for the 3000 and then try to use ivtv for the 150. Is there a driver that works for both? If not, I'll probably remove the 3000 and use the 150 only with ivtv drivers; I gather that is known to work and I don't have any HD content yet anyway. If I do use two cards, can I use the same video source for both given that they are both connected to the same cable source, or would I need to create a second exactly identical video source? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] pcHDTV3000 and PVR-150 together?
On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 11:21 -0400, Jim Reith wrote: The 150 requires some recent version of ivtv. I was successful with 3.6y but there are newer ones. you don't state what version you installed. it won't work with the 2.0/stable version Sorry, I should have given a version number but I'm at work and don't have the exact info handy. However, I am aware from past threads that I need the bleeding edge drivers and the stable ones don't work. I got the most recent one from ivtv.tv (released like a day or two ago). It was 3.7.something . It sounds, from the other responses, like I need to find a way to get the DVB drivers to work with the pcHDTV3000, something I have been unable to do thus far (I only have analog cable, which I thought made a difference but now I'm no longer sure of that). May require going to a 2.6.12 kernel, painful for many reasons. My problem of course is that I have other things I use this machine for that also have custom-built kernel modules, like a Linuxant-powered WinModem and VMware, and I can't go to 2.6.12 until there are modules available from those driver vendors that work with 2.6.12 and it's a lot of work to convert even when there are. For now it's probably a better course for me to just remove the 3000 card and try to get the PVR-150 card working without the added complication of a second card, then try to get the 3000 added in later when I really need it. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] nuvexport fails to run anymore
On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 22:08 +0200, Hugo van der Kooij wrote: ffmpeg had critical errors: pipe:: Error while opening file I don't know if this is the same problem I had when trying to set up to burn some DVD's or not, but nuvexport is expecting the video in the .nuv file to be in MPEG2 format, and it is in fact already in MPEG4 format (which it was on my system because I was using a software endocer) you will get this error because ffmpeg cannot decode the video and thus the video pipe is empty. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] pcHDTV 3000: Questions from a MythTV newbie
On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 10:14 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: regarding the pcHDTV 3000 and it's compatibility with Myth on Fedora Core 3. What have you got connected to this card? I have this card and FC3, and I use the v4l drivers, but that's because all I have connected to the card right now is analog cable. I suspect those who know more than I who can answer your question are also going to need to know what you have connected to the card. I use v4l because DVB only works with digital inputs, which of course analog cable is not. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 22:36 -0600, Chad wrote: The very unlikely scenario would be that you record everything in high quality, and transcode down to an acceptable resolution/quality using your recording profiles. I'm not (yet) doing any transcoding, but I don't have multiple versions of the recordings either. I may try playing with mplayer arguments, looks like that's about the only hope. The problem setting was in the software encoder, so I'm most likely out of luck. Unless I can find some way to sort of re-encode the signal to the proper resolution. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] pcHDTV 3000: Questions from a MythTV newbie
On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 11:41 -0700, Gregorio Gervasio, Jr. wrote: DVB only works with digital g inputs, which of course analog cable is not. No, that's wrong. Most US cable providers have agreed to provide unencrypted QAM feeds of local digital channels if you subscribe to plain basic cable. You don't need to subscribe to digital cable. I use the pcHDTV-3000 (dvb) That's very interesting, I may have another try at it. But I have never been able to get the pcHDTV-3000 to work with anything other than the standard v4l drivers. The DVB drivers did not work when I tried that, whether I used the default ones or the ones downloaded from pchdtv.com, using FC3 but still with a 2.6.10 kernel (maybe that's my problem?) But there are other things I use like VMware that I could never get to build proper modules for 2.6.11 so I'm still on 2.6.10. As of now I've decided to get a PVR-150 card so that I can get decoding done in hardware. Until I'd been on this list for a while, I foolishly believed there was no such thing as a WinCapture card :-) (think WinModem if you didn't get the joke). If I get the PVR-150 working, I may later try connecting an OTA antenna to the pcHDTV-3000 to try and get some real HD. I do find it interesting that there may be some actual HD content on analog cable. I'll have to look into that more. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Starting over from scratch; need advice or information
Have you tried installing and using xawtv? If all you want is to watch TV, it's less complicated than the full Myth package, and it works great for me on FC3 with my pcHDTV-3000 card (I'm still working on Myth). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 01:15 -0600, Chad wrote: As far as mythtv is able to tell, it is working. Recordings get made and stored, they can be seen in the Manage section, it's just that the parameters for the recording are incorrect so what gets saved is garbage. Miraculously, I was finally able to fix this! The key, it seemed to me, was that I was able to watch live TV, but couldn't make any non-garbled recordings. Being able to watch live TV presumably rules out all sorts of possible problems, including hardware, the card settings, channel settings, and the like. So where do Live TV and scheduled recordings differ? I think I found the answer. In mythfrontend, under Utilities/Setup - Setup - TV Settings - Recording - Software Encoders (v4l) there is one for Live TV and one for Default. I went painstakingly through all the submenus for these to find where they were different. It turns out that the second screen under Default set the resolution to 720x480. Under Live TV, it was set to 480x480. So I changed the Default's resolution there to 480x480, and poof! Now my recordings work. It was never a de-interlacing problem at all! This little faux pas kept me down for a week. I have no idea how or why this got changed, but at least it keeps me from having to rebuild the entire database from scratch. So now the $65,000 question: is there any way to recover the old recordings made while things while things were set wrong now that I know exactly what *was* wrong? It turns out that my MythTV and my VCR decided to screw up on the same night and I missed getting the recordings of the premier of SciFi Friday; new season-premiere episodes of three of my wife's favorite shows. I sure could increase the WAF for MythTV a lot if I could somehow recover those garbled recordings so we could see those missed episodes thanks to the fact that I had MythTV! Thanks for everyone who helped me out. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 01:15 -0600, Chad wrote: Check your mythtv-setup settings. In your video sources section, check that you have the channel frequency table correct. I believe you can also set this in the General settings in mythtv-setup, so check there as well. For your analog cable, you probably want us-cable. This is interesting, because the default value is us-cable, but when I changed it from Default to us-cable explicitly in the channel settings, I can now change channels on Live TV again (but new scheduled recordings are still venetian blinds). Also, in the General tab, make sure your TV Format is correct (probably NTSC). Yes, it is set to NTSC. I will try more of your suggestions later when I have some time. Thanks for the help. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 01:15 -0600, Chad wrote: Now go ahead and start mythfrontend and flip down to the Setup button, and then to TV Settings. In here we will try a couple things, after changing 1 thing, test your playback. I suggest testing playback using LiveTV instead of a recording, just to make sure it's not the recordings fault ;) Although I have made some progress, I am more confused than ever. The progress I have made is that Watch Live TV now works. I even found the thread on out-of-sync audio, and got rid of the echo with some amixer command lines I found there, so nobody tell me I should have searched the archives. I always do, but as someone else recently pointed out, if you don't know what keywords to search for, you won't always find the answer to your question. And if you don't know a lot about the technical terms surrounding TV signals and video formats, it's difficult to know what keywords to search for. I am not lazy, just ignorant, so please forgive me if I ask a question that has already been answered (I'm happy to go read the old answer as long as I know where to find it). But, I still get venetian blinds when I schedule a recording (and I'm pretty sure that if I search for venetian blinds in the archives, I won't find anything except my own thread :-) Very puzzling, since my understanding is that Live TV is actually implemented by recording it and playing it back, and it works in this circumstance, but does not work when it is a scheduled recording. Are there any parameters that are different between the two that I should look at, and before I go on to try the rest of Chad's suggestions below? --Greg Go into the Playback button screen and check that: Deinterlace is UNchecked. We will first check to see if that change alters your video output. Now go back out to the main screen and Watch TV. I will assume (from this point forward basically) that this didn't work. If it did, stop here :D Next, go back and check the box. You probably should go back and check the output, but I'd move onto the next section first. Check the box, and go to the next option and change it to bob (2x framerate). Leave the filters section blank... For now. Uncheck all 4 boxes below the filter box. Aspect override should be off. Go through the screens until you see Hardware Decoder Settings. IF you don't have an Nvidia 440 MMX or better (or better is vague if you don't know about video cards, but basically if you don't have an nvidia at all, uncheck both boxes at this screen. If you do have an nvidia card, and it's newer than 1-2 years, you probably have at least a 440 MMX or better) make sure that the Xvmc box is unchecked. Now comes the tricky section that is far over my head. The overscan screen. Feel free to play with settings here, I don't personally change them, so I suggest to leave them alone. BUT, if all else fails, it might be something worth plugging away on. Go ahead and click through to Finish. If all of this fails, I'd jump back out and drop the database. If this is an all-in-one setup, meaning the backend/frontend and database are all on the same machine. If it is, then here's how you can drop the database without sacrificing anything in the long run: su - to root, then: Kill any mythbackend processes: killall mythbackend (or however you normally do this if you normally do) And then dump the db: mysqldump mythconverg mythdb.sql Here I am assuming that you have used default names for databases et al. If not, you will hopefully remember what it's called here. Now the database is still there, you have only made a backup copy. So we need to actually drop the db now. If you aren't comfortable doing this, feel free to disregard my advice at anytime. Tinkering with db's can sometimes be a bit more of a let down than it should be. If you don't care at this point, then let's move on. Log into mysql (still as root): mysql -u root -p Supply the root password. If you don't get in with that, you will need to look at resetting the root password for your database. Hopefully, you are in, and at a mysql prompt: mysql -u root -p Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 11392 to server version: 4.0.24 Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql Here we dump the db: DROP database mythconverg; The semi colon is necessary. Now... You will be to create this db when you run mythtv-setup (as you were when you first installed mythtv). This *should* give you a clean db to start with, and see what is unveiled. If this all fails, the backup we made above can be fed back into mysql with: mysql mythconverg mythdb.sql -u root -p Again, supply the root password (hopefully we got past this point earlier). And now all should be back to (ab)normal as it currently is. Well, that's about all I can
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Sun, 2005-07-17 at 20:14 -0600, Chad wrote: The settings I was referring to are the ones you 'guessed'. If those aren't working, maybe there is something in the backend logs that tell why. Also, you could start the frontend from an xterm to see if it provides any feedback on reasons it's not working. As far as mythtv is able to tell, it is working. Recordings get made and stored, they can be seen in the Manage section, it's just that the parameters for the recording are incorrect so what gets saved is garbage. I don't see any error messages at all in the backend logs or when running mythtv in a terminal window, but it may be that I just don't know what to look for. At the moment, I'm ready to just give up on this. I don't really want to, given the amount of time and effort I've already put into it, but it appears to require more technical knowledge about TV signals and video formats than I have, which leaves me guessing at what boxes should be checked and what values should be set for things. It also seems unlikely that anyone else would be able to diagnose my problem for me unless they had access to my system and could run Utilities/Setup for themselves, so I think I have hit a dead end. Maybe someday when I have time to learn all about TV signals and video formats and have some clue what I am doing, I could try again. What is *really* frustrating is that it was working at one time. And in the end, if it is indeed working, maybe it's not interlacing, and it just reads like that is the problem. I don't know if this helps, but I tried running mplayer with -vf scale:-1:1 which is supposed to turn on interlacing. That changes what the picture looks like, but if anything it's worse. Looks more like interlacing is already on when recording but needs to not be on. Given that xawtv works, that seems likely, but again, I lack the knowledge of TV signal types and video formats to really know, so I'm just guessing again. I also don't know if this will help either, but another problem I now have that I didn't previously have is that I cannot change channels while watching live TV. It will show me whatever the last channel was that I had tuned to with xawtv, and it looks fine, but the up and down arrows have no effect. I wouldn't think this is related except that it's also a new problem I didn't used to have. I didn't notice it until now because I haven't been using Myth to watch live TV since xawtv is easier for me to use for that purpose. I get 1 station that gives me something like you are describing, and for me, it's from a crap signal. In my case I think I can pretty well rule out problems with the card or the cable signal, because xawtv works and I have tried recording off several different channels. Also all this USED to work, so it almost has to be something in the recording settings that is wrong. It all started when I was having trouble trying to burn DVD's because my .nuv files were in the wrong format (MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4), so I started tweaking settings trying to get things to come out in a different format and somehow screwed things up. But even a complete rerun of mythtv-setup, removing all of the settings and starting over from scratch, has not fixed the problem or caused any other problems, it's the same old same old no matter what I try. Transcoding works in that it runs, and the file size shrinks appreciably, but it doesn't correct the venetian blind picture problem. I don't think I'll try anything more as long as I am still just guessing. If you can, grab a cheapie bt8x capture card (they are like 20 bucks online) and see if the problem goes away. This is unlikely to help either (except that I might be using a different driver and therefore different settings). It also doesn't explain why things USED to work with the card I now have. I shouldn't have to do this, it feels like throwing good money after bad. It's not a great plan, but it'll give you second card anyway so you can toy with and use the HDTV card for what it was intended ;) Not a bad idea in the longer term, but I have to convince myself that I can even make this setup work at all first. For it to be really useful, I am going to need a front-end machine in the main TV room, and that is too much money to lay out until I'm convinced this can work with me at the controls. I would also need an antenna to get OTA HDTV signals. I live in Colorado, near the eastern face of the mountains, so reception really sucks here; ghost signals bouncing off the mountains are a big problem. An antenna for me is going to mean a high quality rooftop model, rabbit ears do not work here, so that is a signficant investment as well. It might be worth it, but more likely, I would have to go to digital cable to get the HDTV shows I really want (mostly sports). This again displays my ignorance of how this all works, because what I have read on this list since I started suggests that the only way I can really get HDTV from
[mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
All of a sudden, my video on recordings I make is screwed up. Previously-made recordings look fine and xawtv works fine, so I suspect I have messed something up in the recording setup parameters, but I cannot figure it out. What happens is, the audio is fine, but the video kind of looks like venetian blinds. I don't know how else to describe it; maybe a little bit like an old TV used to look if you set the horizontal hold way over to one side. Any ideas what parameter I might have accidentally messed with? I'm using a pcHDTV3000 card connected to *ANALOG* cable, with the v4l drivers (DVB doesn't work, probably requires *DIGITAL* cable which I do not have yet). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
Chad, thanks for responding. On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 11:16 -0600, Chad wrote: It reads to me like you are describing interlacing. When I first fired up a recording with my pchdtv 3000 interlacing stuck out like a sore thumb. You could try passing parameters to your playback software to deinterlace I have tried playback with deinterlace during playback on and off, it makes no difference. Old recordings look fine either way, new recordings look like venetian blinds. , OR you can deinterlace during recording I have not been able to find where this is set. it seems that you aren't using HDTV No, not yet. I plan to get digital cable eventually, but from what I've read on this list, I shouldn't have bothered with a capture card because it seems like firewire is the only thing that works with a digital cable box. The recording profiles is where this option is given, adjust the one you use (default probably) accordingly. I have never figured out whether I should be using RTjpeg or MPEG-4 as a codec. Under RTjpeg, there are no options at all that have anything to do with interlacing (that I can find). Under MPEG-4, there are Enable Interlaced DCT encoding and Enable interlaced motion est. Neither is checked. If you are trying to capture (not the right word, but...) HDTV using your card No, not yet. I just got this card because eventually I want to go to digital cable or satellite with HDTV, and at the time I bought it, I thought I might not be able to get one at all unless I got it before July 1, so yes, I have an HDTV capture card, but I don't have anything with HDTV signals hooked to it yet, just plain old analog cable. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] venetian blind picture
On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 11:16 -0600, Chad wrote: You could try passing parameters to your playback software to deinterlace Can anyone explain exactly now I would do this? I have tried checking deinterlace during playback but it has no effect. Old recordings still look fine, new ones look like venetian blinds. , OR you can deinterlace during recording Same question: how exactly do I do this? I can't find any parameters that relate to this except the enable ones under the MPEG-4 codec and I've tried every possible combination of those on and off with no effect. I'm so frustrated right now that I want to chuck the machine in the river. I just don't know how to fix this. I've run through mythtv-setup, wiping out everything and starting over. No effect, venetian blinds iS all I can record. Any chance a complete reinstall might help? Can I do that without losing the recordings I already have that look good? I'm desperate and apparently clueless. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] splitting audio video for DVD
On Sun, 2005-06-12 at 06:58 +0100, Nick wrote: Are you automatically transcoding your recordings (if recording with an MPEG2 capture card) or recording directly into MPEG4 (if using a framebuffer card)? To be honest, I'm not at all sure what format the pcHDTV-3000 captures in; I am still learning the lower-level technical stuff. I did have automatic transcoding turned on, because without it, a single 3+ hour City Council meeting took up half of my 70GB /video partition. Transcoding took this down to about 8GB. I was pretty sure I had already tried doing a recording with automatic transcoding turned off though, but I'm going to try it again to be certain. Is there any way to examine a .nuv file and tell if it's already been transcoded or not? --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4 in .nuv file
This time I am quite certain that I did what I thought would disable automatic transcoding, but I still get the same result. What I did was to go in to Utilities/Setup - Setup - TV Settings - Recordings - Software Encodings (V4L-based) - Default and uncheck the Automatically transcode after recording box. If I go into Transcoders instead of Software Encodings, there doesn't appear to be any Automatically transcode box to check. After unchecking the box, I scheduled and made another recording, and tried both mplex methods on it, with the same results: the m2v file comes out looking like MPEG-4 and mplex won't read it. Is there something else I need to do to disable automatic transcoding? Is there anything I can do once I have the .nuv file to determine whether or not it is in the proper form? file just shows .nuv files as data. I'm sure this has to be something I can set in the configuration, but the number of twisty little passages through the setup menus is a bit overwhelming to me and I understand very little of what they all do. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4 in .nuv file
On Sun, 2005-06-12 at 14:31 -0400, Robert Tsai wrote: What I did was to go in to Utilities/Setup - Setup - TV Settings - Recordings - Software Encodings (V4L-based) - Default and uncheck the Automatically transcode after recording box. And on the Video Compression screen (maybe 3 screens later), what codec did you select? I think if you choose RTjpeg you get MPEG-2, whereas if you choose MPEG-4 you get ... MPEG-4. I tried this; same result. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HD-3000 firmware upload
On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 15:26 -0500, Mercury Morris wrote: As root, modprobe cx88-dvb When I did download and install drivers, the following lines got added to my /etc/modprobe.conf file: alias char-major-81 cx88-blackbird install cx88-atsc /sbin/modprobe cx8800;/sbin/modprobe --ignore-install cx88-atsc install cx88-dvb /sbin/modprobe cx8800;/sbin/modprobe --ignore-install cx88-dvb install btcx-risc /sbin/modprobe tuner;/sbin/modprobe --ignore-install btcx-risc Something similar would probably take care of the module loading at boot time. My guess is, you don't need all of those lines and neither do I, but that's what's in my file and I don't have to worry about manually loading any modules. I don't even have an 'azap' program on my system, and the pcHDTV-3000 card works fine (although I am only using it now for analog cable). --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HD-3000 firmware upload
On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 16:43 -0500, Mercury Morris wrote: /etc/rc.d/init.d/mythbackend start and the firmware loaded - I have no idea how !! I've never heard anything at all about having to load firmware, never explicitly done it, and my card works fine. Not only that, but if I don't start mythbackend at all, and just run xawtv, it works fine. I doubt if it is really necessary to reload the firmware every time the system boots. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] splitting audio video for DVD
I have tried both methods described in the Installing and Using MythTV document, and neither one works. One uses a script like this: === #!/bin/sh mkfifo aud0 mkfifo vid0 mkfifo dvdmpg mpeg2desc -a0 $1 aud0 mpeg2desc -v0 $1 vid0 mplex -f 8 -V -o dvdmpg aud0 vid0 dvdauthor -o $2 -f dvdmpg dvdauthor -o $2 -T rm aud0 rm vid0 rm dvdmpg === When I try this, the result is: DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10. Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi Send bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED] INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS INFO: [mplex] mplex version 1.6.3-rc1 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $) STAT: Picking VTS 01 STAT: Processing dvdmpg... Could not read **ERROR: [mplex] Unable to read from aud0. At this point, it hangs. I have to control-C out of it, then kill off the shell and mplex processes, and remove the fifo files. It creates the directory and the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS subdirectories, but they are empty. The problem is that mpeg2desc doesn't actually work. If I try running one of those commands by itself, the result is: $ mpeg2desc -a0 1007_2005061116_20050611163000.nuv 1.mp2 Could not read Just that, nothing more helpful. Using -v0 instead of -a0 gives the same result. It takes about 15 seconds before the error occurs, but the output file is empty. The second method involves using avidemux2 to split the audio and video. When I do this, separately save the audio and video, then run: $ mplex -f 8 -o 1.mpg 1.m2v 1.mp2 INFO: [mplex] mplex version 1.6.3-rc1 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $) **ERROR: [mplex] File 1.m2v unrecogniseable! INFO: [mplex] File 1.mp2 looks like an MPEG Audio stream. **ERROR: [mplex] Unrecogniseable file(s)... exiting. I am fairly sure the problem here is that the 1.m2v file is actually MPEG-4 rather than MPEG-2 which I think it should be: $ file 1.m2v 1.m2v: MPEG sequence, v4, video, simple @ L1 How do I get avidemux2 to savee the video as MPEG-2? Am I doing something else wrong? Thanks for any help or pointers to web sites or other documentation. --Greg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
