[mythtv-users] can't watch or record tv

[Ian Truelsen]

Whoah dude, your setup sounds an awful lot like mine.  I've got a GF4 
MX440 SE, which I run in dual-headed (Twin View) mode along with my 
regular ol' monitor, and it looks pretty good.  Granted, it's only about 
a 25" TV, but it looks about the same as regular broadcast.  I run the 
TV-out and the output from the "other" sound card through an RF 
modulator (the el-cheapo $20 Shack model) and through a wall and about 
15' of coax to the TV.  Looks dandy.  I use an Iomega Buz card for the 
capture, an X-10 RF remote to control the sucker and a Redrat IR 
transmitter to control my "external tuner"  ;)  Works like a charm, 
although I had to write a bit of glue code to get everything playing 
together nicely.

Yeah, so to actually answer your questions, I dunno nothin' 'bout no 
vidmodes, but the examples with the NVidia drivers worked fine with my 
card/tube.  And my XP1800 with a single 7200 RPM IDE disk plays without 
skipping/jitter/smoke at about 5% load (total between frontend and 
back).  Might I suggest buying a Buz on Ebay 
<http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=buz+iomega>?  It only 
cost me $10.50(+$6.00 S&H), which is a heck of a lot cheaper than a dual 
Athlon mobo and a coupla Athlon MP's.

-Jon

P.S.: The drivers for the Buz weren't exactly a breeze to get installed 
and running, but what's the fun without a challenge?

Charles Choukalos wrote:

>All,
>
>In case anyone's in the same boat as I... I thought
>I'd pass on some information.
>
>I have a server in my master closet with an Nvidia
>Mx440 card (tv-out) that pipes the tv signal into an
>RF modulator ($50 at radio shack), into a combiner
>which combines a low-pass filtered (OnQue sells these,
>you can also build them yourself... $20 or so) CableTV
>input.  So I can from any tv in my house watch cable
>tv up to channels 84, and then flip over to my channel
>(94) and watch mythtv or what ever the server's
>playing.  Neat huh?  Well... long story short... the
>picture quality absolutely blows.  Turns out that if I
>hook the server via S-Video directly to a tv it looks
>great... then unplug tv and plug into RF modulator...
>it looks great.  However, when you reboot... you've
>got to do the same.  I found this tag from the Xfree
>log... how can I turn this into a valid modeline? 
>(I'm assuming this will fix the quality issues for me,
>and probably anyone else walking the same path)
>
>(**) NVIDIA(0): Validated modes for Display Device 0:
>(**) NVIDIA(0):      Default mode "800x600": 40.0 MHz,
>37.9 kHz, 60.3 Hz
>(**) NVIDIA(0):      Default mode "640x480": 25.2 MHz,
>31.5 kHz, 60.0 Hz
>(II) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be
>800 x 600
>(==) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (75, 75)
>
>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 40000
>GetModeLine - hdsp: 800 hbeg: 840 hend: 968 httl: 1056
>              vdsp: 600 vbeg: 601 vend: 605 vttl: 628
>flags: 5
>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 40000
>GetModeLine - hdsp: 800 hbeg: 840 hend: 968 httl: 1056
>              vdsp: 600 vbeg: 601 vend: 605 vttl: 628
>flags: 5
>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 40000
>GetModeLine - hdsp: 800 hbeg: 840 hend: 968 httl: 1056
>              vdsp: 600 vbeg: 601 vend: 605 vttl: 628
>flags: 5
>GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 40000
>GetModeLine - hdsp: 800 hbeg: 840 hend: 968 httl: 1056
>              vdsp: 600 vbeg: 601 vend: 605 vttl: 628
>flags: 5
>
>
>Also, I'm playing around with an ATI RF remote... just
>insmod'ing the ati_remote module gets most things
>working out of the box.  Ie numbers map to numbers,
>the left,up,down,right arrows map.... the a,b,c,d,e,f
>keys map... but all of the other buttons don't do
>anything.. . nor does my xmodmap seem to work.  Any
>advice?  Am I missing something?  Do I have to setup
>my X11 to use it as a mouse to get it to work?  I
>really need to map in the ESC button... this running
>to the server everytime I want to back up is killing
>me ;)  FYI, it is a bit slow when I'm at the other end
>of the house trying to scroll through my movies... but
>its not too bad.
>
>Also, since I've got a wee bit of the scottish in me
>wallet... how bad is the electricity bill for having a
>dual athalon server running?  Right now, I'm seeing
>about a $25 hit for a dual Piii (550) with about 8
>drives in it... I'm thinking about upping it to around
>11/12 drives and a dual athalon... that way my media
>server can be handle all of my computer tasks... and
>it'll be the only thing on.  (Granted it'll be working
>most of the time).  Now I dogg the current server
>really bad (usually 1 processor is doing video
>encoding/reencoding most of the time... spare
>processor is sometimes hit with mythtv recording
>and/or playback + misc compiles.  I imagine it'd get
>worse with the Athalon rig though)
>
>Thanks,
>Chuck
>
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