Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
MagicITX wrote: On 4/15/05, Jonas Pedersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MagicITX wrote: Did you try Setup - Appearance - Screen settings - GUI width,height, X offset, Yoffset? That worked for me when using 800x600 output. Have tried that and that moves the mythTV GUI fine. The problem is that when I watch recordings or live TV I switch to another resolution. I have tried to change that under the Playback menu, but that does not help me. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users Your system changes to a different resolution for playback? Mine doesn't do that which probably helps. On the same menu mentioned above there is a Use GUI size for TV playback option. Selecting that took care of the playback size/position problem for me. Yes I do use a different resolution for playback. Reason for doing this is that I have not found out how to control the size and position of ouput from mplayer. So ouput from mplayer goes on the same resolution as the myth GUI (a resolution that uses underscan, and because of that not filling the whole screen). Recordings and live TV uses another resolution that is running in overscan. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
MagicITX wrote: Did you try Setup - Appearance - Screen settings - GUI width,height, X offset, Yoffset? That worked for me when using 800x600 output. Have tried that and that moves the mythTV GUI fine. The problem is that when I watch recordings or live TV I switch to another resolution. I have tried to change that under the Playback menu, but that does not help me. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On 4/15/05, Jonas Pedersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MagicITX wrote: Did you try Setup - Appearance - Screen settings - GUI width,height, X offset, Yoffset? That worked for me when using 800x600 output. Have tried that and that moves the mythTV GUI fine. The problem is that when I watch recordings or live TV I switch to another resolution. I have tried to change that under the Playback menu, but that does not help me. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users Your system changes to a different resolution for playback? Mine doesn't do that which probably helps. On the same menu mentioned above there is a Use GUI size for TV playback option. Selecting that took care of the playback size/position problem for me. -- Tim www.magicitx.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
I have an M1 setup with a PVR 350 card. I recently rebuilt it using the 0.20 ivtv drivers, 2.6.10 kernel and 0.17 MythTV. Everything got compiled from scrach using Gentoo, and has the unichrome and XvMC drivers installed. I have only one, really annoying, problem with it. Whenever a recording starts or finishes, if I am watching a recording (or even something with MPlayer) at the time, the entire box locks up. Happened a couple of times too when copying files and recording starts/stops. It means I have to time when I watch things on the box very carefully. Devan Lippman wrote: I don't use EPIA for myth but I don know that the C3 is not a single core and some C3 processors actually compile better as i586... So does this mean there's a mini-ITX board for sale, or were you just getting discouraged? ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
Quoting Matt Sullivan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have an M1 setup with a PVR 350 card. I recently rebuilt it using the 0.20 ivtv drivers, 2.6.10 kernel and 0.17 MythTV. Everything got compiled from scrach using Gentoo, and has the unichrome and XvMC drivers installed. I have only one, really annoying, problem with it. Whenever a recording starts or finishes, if I am watching a recording (or even something with MPlayer) at the time, the entire box locks up. Happened a couple of times too when copying files and recording starts/stops. It means I have to time when I watch things on the box very carefully. I have almost the same setup as yours, are you using the tv-out on the VIA board? If you do, which resolution are using and is under or overscan you are using? Have also experienced many lock-ups with the 0.20 driver, but it was cured with a upgrade to a 0.3.2 IVTV driver. Hope that helps. -- Jonas Pedersen http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk jonas (a) chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
I avoided upgrading to the new driver due to negative early reports, but I should really try the new one, see if it helps. I have everything running through TV-out on the VIA board. I am running at 800x600. Dont have my exact xorg.conf to hand, but I'm using PAL. Thanks for the tip. Matt Jonas Pedersen wrote: Quoting Matt Sullivan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have an M1 setup with a PVR 350 card. I recently rebuilt it using the 0.20 ivtv drivers, 2.6.10 kernel and 0.17 MythTV. Everything got compiled from scrach using Gentoo, and has the unichrome and XvMC drivers installed. I have only one, really annoying, problem with it. Whenever a recording starts or finishes, if I am watching a recording (or even something with MPlayer) at the time, the entire box locks up. Happened a couple of times too when copying files and recording starts/stops. It means I have to time when I watch things on the box very carefully. I have almost the same setup as yours, are you using the tv-out on the VIA board? If you do, which resolution are using and is under or overscan you are using? Have also experienced many lock-ups with the 0.20 driver, but it was cured with a upgrade to a 0.3.2 IVTV driver. Hope that helps. -- Jonas Pedersen http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk jonas (a) chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Dr. Matthew J. Sullivan Bioinformatics Systems Architect Conway Institute Belfield Campus University College Dublin ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
Matt Sullivan wrote: I avoided upgrading to the new driver due to negative early reports, but I should really try the new one, see if it helps. I have everything running through TV-out on the VIA board. I am running at 800x600. Dont have my exact xorg.conf to hand, but I'm using PAL. Reason for asking is that when I run tv-out in 800x600 in overscan, the image is a bit too far to the right. I did not see it before I was watching a recording with the logo in the upper right corner and a part of the logo was missing. Have not been able to adjust this anywhere in mythTV. Do not know if you have this problem, if you don't I would be glad to see you xorg.conf file. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On 4/14/05, Jonas Pedersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt Sullivan wrote: I avoided upgrading to the new driver due to negative early reports, but I should really try the new one, see if it helps. I have everything running through TV-out on the VIA board. I am running at 800x600. Dont have my exact xorg.conf to hand, but I'm using PAL. Reason for asking is that when I run tv-out in 800x600 in overscan, the image is a bit too far to the right. I did not see it before I was watching a recording with the logo in the upper right corner and a part of the logo was missing. Have not been able to adjust this anywhere in mythTV. Do not know if you have this problem, if you don't I would be glad to see you xorg.conf file. -- Jonas Pedersen - jonas(a)chown.dk http://chown.dk http://pictureshow.dk Nyheder på din windows desktop? http://rss.chown.dk ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users Did you try Setup - Appearance - Screen settings - GUI width,height, X offset, Yoffset? That worked for me when using 800x600 output. -- Tim www.magicitx.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On 13/04/2005, at 12:35 AM, James Stembridge wrote: On Apr 12, 2005 11:58 AM, Matthew Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so although TV worked out of the box it was pegging the CPU until I did a recompile (takes 2.5 hours :/). Why compile on the epia? I just compile deb's on my desktop, transfer them over to the mythtv box and install. Much quicker :) It certainly would be a good idea to do that - if I had another x86 box to compile on ;) My home PC is a PowerBook and I'm not brave enough to attempt a cross-compilation setup with gcc (if that's even possible). Matthew. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On Apr 13, 2005, at 5:49 AM, Matthew Phillips wrote: On 13/04/2005, at 12:35 AM, James Stembridge wrote: On Apr 12, 2005 11:58 AM, Matthew Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so although TV worked out of the box it was pegging the CPU until I did a recompile (takes 2.5 hours :/). Why compile on the epia? I just compile deb's on my desktop, transfer them over to the mythtv box and install. Much quicker :) It certainly would be a good idea to do that - if I had another x86 box to compile on ;) My home PC is a PowerBook and I'm not brave enough to attempt a cross-compilation setup with gcc (if that's even possible). I can't remember what package it was, but I've had trouble compiling things for my epia on my desktop machine. The issue was that I compile for epia with -march=c3, and the offending package built a utility for itself, and then failed running it since the desktop didn't have the c3 magic. I'm sure there's a better way around this, assuming the offending package supports cross compiling, but being the lazy person I am, I just build everything for my frontend on my frontend. Sort of computer assisted procrastination. Regarding giving up on epia, I don't have any of the DMA problems, or even FF/REW problems (although the machine is diskless, so I suppose there are fewer DMA contentions), but I have had more than my fair share of video problems. Part of the problem is possibly caused by a problem with my TV (some picture distortion), but also video stuttering problems with live tv, which seem to be XvMC related. I haven't applied all the patches to .17, but I think I read there are XvMC VLD changes in CVS I don't have that are related, so I'm crossing my fingers and waiting for .18. I'm not giving up on my M10K yet, but if I knew then what I know now, it's not the way I would have started. -Michael ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On 4/13/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The issue was that I compile for epia with -march=c3, and the offending package built a utility for itself, and then failed running it since the desktop didn't have the c3 magic. Does using -march-c3 make any noticable performance difference? I just use standard debian packages (which afaik will work on an i386), even my kernel is just a standard i686 version. Regarding giving up on epia, I don't have any of the DMA problems, or even FF/REW problems (although the machine is diskless, so I suppose there are fewer DMA contentions), I have a disk and haven't see any issues. How might they manifest themselves? The only stability problem I've had was lockups caused by the longhaul cpufreq module, since I've stopped using that it seems pretty solid. James. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On 4/13/05, MagicITX [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 4/13/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 13, 2005, at 5:49 AM, Matthew Phillips wrote: On 13/04/2005, at 12:35 AM, James Stembridge wrote: On Apr 12, 2005 11:58 AM, Matthew Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so although TV worked out of the box it was pegging the CPU until I did a recompile (takes 2.5 hours :/). Why compile on the epia? I just compile deb's on my desktop, transfer them over to the mythtv box and install. Much quicker :) It certainly would be a good idea to do that - if I had another x86 box to compile on ;) My home PC is a PowerBook and I'm not brave enough to attempt a cross-compilation setup with gcc (if that's even possible). I can't remember what package it was, but I've had trouble compiling things for my epia on my desktop machine. The issue was that I compile for epia with -march=c3, and the offending package built a utility for itself, and then failed running it since the desktop didn't have the c3 magic. I'm sure there's a better way around this, assuming the offending package supports cross compiling, but being the lazy person I am, I just build everything for my frontend on my frontend. Sort of computer assisted procrastination. Regarding giving up on epia, I don't have any of the DMA problems, or even FF/REW problems (although the machine is diskless, so I suppose there are fewer DMA contentions), but I have had more than my fair share of video problems. Part of the problem is possibly caused by a problem with my TV (some picture distortion), but also video stuttering problems with live tv, which seem to be XvMC related. I haven't applied all the patches to .17, but I think I read there are XvMC VLD changes in CVS I don't have that are related, so I'm crossing my fingers and waiting for .18. I'm not giving up on my M10K yet, but if I knew then what I know now, it's not the way I would have started. -Michael ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users You can do a fresh Gentoo stage 1 install on an M10k in a couple days. Most of that is machine time so it doesn't tie you up. The plus is once its done you know your system will work. -- Tim www.magicitx.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users Don't give up on that epia just yet http://slashdot.org/articles/05/04/13/158226.shtml?tid=152tid=104 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
I don't use EPIA for myth but I don know that the C3 is not a single core and some C3 processors actually compile better as i586... So does this mean there's a mini-ITX board for sale, or were you just getting discouraged? -- Thanks, Devan Lippman [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 4/13/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 13, 2005, at 11:15 AM, James Stembridge wrote: On 4/13/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The issue was that I compile for epia with -march=c3, and the offending package built a utility for itself, and then failed running it since the desktop didn't have the c3 magic. Does using -march-c3 make any noticable performance difference? Dunno, I've never done it any other way. I just figured since I was compiling from source anyways, I would set the appropriate arch. I just use standard debian packages (which afaik will work on an i386), even my kernel is just a standard i686 version. I started with Debian sarge. Trying to work through my tv out problems, I switched to a self compiled Xorg, and not being a deb wizard, I then had to compile everything that depended on X. I'm sure if I took the time, I could have found a deb for Xorg 6.8.2, and learned how to use deb sources so I could do the unichrome patches. Or even just found unichrome debs. But even though it has been frustrating, sometimes I like to build the stuff myself so I know more about how it works. Regarding giving up on epia, I don't have any of the DMA problems, or even FF/REW problems (although the machine is diskless, so I suppose there are fewer DMA contentions), I have a disk and haven't see any issues. How might they manifest themselves? The only stability problem I've had was lockups caused by the longhaul cpufreq module, since I've stopped using that it seems pretty solid. I never installed longhaul, and I've never had DMA issues. I'm just referring to the constant stream of via dma complaints, system lockups I believe. I imagine you could be right, that longhaul has a large part in it. Also, I know the ivtv people recently discovered they had been letting a bad default value exist for dma timeouts, and this somehow affected via more than other chipsets (via chipsets had a different default dma timeout value?). But, since I don't seem to have any dma issues, I'm just worrying about the problems I do have. I'm thinking .18 will fix my XvMC VLD, and then I need to find a job, so I can pay someone to come and tune up my TV! -Michael ___ 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] gave up on the Epia
On 12/04/2005, at 3:02 AM, Micah Wedemeyer wrote: Hi all, Well, I've finally given up on my Epia frontend/backend. It worked reasonably well for about 8 months and I got TV and DVD playback to finally work, but it was a very flaky platform. About a week ago, I was trying to rip a DVD while watching TV at the same time, and it locked up (DMA bug is my best guess). On reboot, I found that there was something wrong with the superblock of the XFS partition where all my recordings were stored. snip Micah, sorry to hear it's been such a pain. I can only say that this must be specific to particular EPIA mobos since I have a M10K system that's working very well. It certainly wasn't easy to get Myth running, but most of the difficulty came from areas that weren't down to the mobo. The main issue related to EPIA is that the 2.6.9 kernel that shipped with the FC3 distro uses Longhaul CPU scaling, which was causing frequent system hangs. Moving to stock standard 2.6.10 (no recompile needed) and the system's current uptime is nearly 26 days. The second main issue was that the Myth RPM's didn't have Unichrome XvMC built in, so although TV worked out of the box it was pegging the CPU until I did a recompile (takes 2.5 hours :/). That plus the ALSA stuttering bug in 0.17 cost a lot of time. I've read of the DMA-related woes that some EPIA boards have, but all I can say is that haven't run into anything like that - I'm often simultaneously hammering the 100Mbps ethernet and the disk and never had a problem. I suspect that at least some of the people who thought they had DMA probs were actually hitting the Longhaul bug, which had a similar symptom: total lockup. So I guess it's a matter of choosing an EPIA mobo that's proven itself, rather than giving up on the whole platform. Matt. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
On Apr 12, 2005 11:58 AM, Matthew Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so although TV worked out of the box it was pegging the CPU until I did a recompile (takes 2.5 hours :/). Why compile on the epia? I just compile deb's on my desktop, transfer them over to the mythtv box and install. Much quicker :) James. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
Hi all, Well, I've finally given up on my Epia frontend/backend. It worked reasonably well for about 8 months and I got TV and DVD playback to finally work, but it was a very flaky platform. About a week ago, I was trying to rip a DVD while watching TV at the same time, and it locked up (DMA bug is my best guess). On reboot, I found that there was something wrong with the superblock of the XFS partition where all my recordings were stored. To make a long story short, when I tried to repair things, I screwed up the whole partition table and it no longer boots at all. Anyways, I don't want to bore you any more with my sad tales, but I do want to put out some warnings to potential Myth builders looking at the Epia platform. Like me, you will doubtless plunge in anyway, but at least you'll have a litte fore-warning. (My) Issues with the Epia: -- * Getting the Unichrome drivers to work could take a good amount of work. It may have gotten easier in the last few months, but I sure had a lot of trouble. If you're going for a trouble-free install of Linux/Myth, then the Epia is probably a bad idea. (Note: This is not a critique of the Unichrome drivers. I used them and loved them. It just took a lot of effort to get everything working.) * The Epia has a known issue with DMA. Check some of the postings at forums.viaarena.com I never had a problem when recording TV, but I definitely had a problem when transferring files over the LAN. If I tried to scp a file from my desktop to the Myth box, it would lock up hard in about 5 seconds. So, if you're hoping to use your Myth box as a media server (like I was), then Epia is definitely a bad idea. Again, this is personal experience backed up by others on the viaarena forums. YMMV * Many of the Epia MII boards have a bad PCMCIA slot (at least under Linux). When I plugged in my wireless card, dmesg would say that the slot refused to respond to requests to apply power to the card. I was able to find a workaround by using Linuxant's driverloader, but it was still a big hassle. * Getting the on-board temperature sensors and dynamic CPU clocking to work will take a kernel-recompile. At least it did the last time I checked. So, if you want the clock frequency to dynamically adjust to CPU load and/or temp, get ready for some work. * The slow speed leaves little headroom for mistakes and halfway kludges. By this I mean: with a fast system, you don't have to get everything working perfectly. Who cares about hardware decoding when you've got 2+ Ghz and software decoding barely registers on the CPU? I have a lot of respect for the people running the Epia ME6000s. If they can't get hardware decoding to work, then they're pretty much SOL. Besides, even if everything works, working with a slow machine can be quite painful. Try compiling a kernel 10 times on one of these things and you'll see what I mean. --- I guess my bottom line here is that getting an Epia/Linux system up and running can be a lot of work. Plus, in some cases (like the DMA issue), you may never find a solution. I finally got mine to work, but it was never 100%, and I was too afraid of screwing up what I had in order to tweak it more. So, if you're like me, and you just want a Myth box that works, take my advice and skip the Epia. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, and please feel free to voice your opinions. I just wanted to play devil's advocate for all the people out there that are eyeing the Epia as their Myth platform. They need to know that it will not be a cakewalk in order to get it set up. Now, let's just see if I sing this same tune after I've tried putting together a Myth box based around a AMD Sempron and an nForce-3 150 motherboard. Micah ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
I agree it isn't the easiest thing to get working. The first time I did it, it took 4 days to get working, a lot of that was compile time however. The second time I did it (after I hosed one of the partitions, entirely my fault), it only took about a day and a half, this time almost only compile time, minimal troubleshooting. There is the issue of getting everything just right, I'm running on an M10k. It shouldn't be that bad, I use the machine for myth, to serve up a few webpages, and for bit torrent. I actually have azureus running on that machine, it is a huge memory hog, but the machine still records and plays just fine. AFAIK, there is no way you are going to be running on an EPIA without building a kernel on your own, so having to compile in support for temp monitoring and speed changes shouldn't be a big addition. Maybe the EPIA isn't for the faint of heart, it does need HW decoding inorder for it to be usable. If you are building a HTPC, you should get everything working before it is rolled out in production though, even if it has more then enough power and you can get away with it, otherwise you will find yourself tinkering with a production box and end up frustrated cause you can't watch your shows. -- Asher ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gave up on the Epia
Hello, AFAIK, there is no way you are going to be running on an EPIA without building a kernel on your own, so having to compile in support for temp monitoring and speed changes shouldn't be a big addition. KnoppMyth R5A12. Using the CD as a frontend takes about 50% CPU. Installing to hard drive and installing the XvMC-VLD debs uses about 13% CPU (personally tested on a MII w/ 1.2 GHz processor). The next release will have MPlayer and Xine built w/ xxmc. Regards, Cecil ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
