[mythtv-users] Re: MythTV : Little Sleep, Lots Of Reading... I Failed.

[Isaac Richards]

On Monday 09 June 2003 11:45 am, Craig Longman wrote:
> >- ALSA is not required at all for things to run, there's no reason to make
> > it look like it is.  The only reason that it's recommended for most
> > setups is that the drivers generally work better than the kernel drivers.
>
> alsa is better for non pvr-250 and non btaudio installations only,
> right?  in other words, when you need to use the sound card in full
> duplex mode, and perhaps in some special cases where the kernel audio
> has problems (like VIA M-10000)?

Pretty much, yes.

> >- Using lirc on the pvr cards does not use the serial modules, so your
> > stated reason for forcing a recompile of the kernel is wrong.
>
> lirc on the pvr uses the i2c interface, and that's the reason for
> possibly needing to recompile, right?  but if you had a recent kernel,
> then it might not be necessary.  the i2c and the v4l(2) stuff are whats
> important for the kernl, is this correct?

Nope.  Kernel should have a new enough version of i2c, and it should have v4l 
already compiled.  Don't need v4l2 in the kernel for the ivtv driver, so 
everything should be just fine with the stock kernel.

> >- A better bitrate peak would be 4000, not 8000, for an average rate of
> > 2500. Having the peak bitrate too high can cause problems.
>
> well, this is certainly not always the case.  if i drop the bitrate
> below an average of about 5Mbps, i get choppy audio and video.  now that
> i've patch mplayer, i should test to see if it is just myth, or the
> actual recording thats the problem.

We're talking peak bitrate here, not average -- he's already recommended 
dropping the average bitrate down to 2.5Mbps, which wouldn't work for you as 
you've said.

> >Also, I would very much prefer that you submit patches to the existing
> > docs to Robert, instead of writing your own.
>
> normally, this is how this starts.  someome takes something and does a
> good job of it, then it can get submitted and hopefully included.  by
> and large, these howtos start out as 'this is what i had to do' and
> grows from there.

The reason the official docs don't have much info on redhat 9 stuff is because 
I'm pretty sure that no one's bothered to submit anything to Robert.  

Thing is, I have some control over what's in the official howto.  I can 
guarantee that, for the most part, it's right.  I can't do that for random 
people's instructions.

Isaac