[mythtv-users] Misc. PVR-350 TV-out issues

[Gerald Schepens]

I have a few issues since I've started using the PVR-350's TV out.  
Picture quality is not one of them -- it's great!  However there are a 
few other things. which I have a hunch may be interrelated.

My ivtv version is 1.9-22-rh9.at.  Myth is 0.14-58.rh9.at.   Kernel 
2.4.20_28_36.rh9.at.

[Point of order from a list administrator: would it be better for me to 
have posted a separate message for each issue, so that each would become 
a thread?  Let me know if you have an opinion on that.]

1)   My regular video card is an nVidia geforce4 ti4200.  I have a 
monitor attached to it, on which my console appears at boot.  However, 
once my ivtv-fb loads, the console goes back a few pages and sticks 
there.  Once I'm in X, it seems that my console out is sort of being 
directed to my PVR350!  Is it possible that the ivtv-fb driver is taking 
over /dev/fb0 when it shouldn't?  (Because, doesn't the kernel use fb0 
as a video card frame buffer for displaying the console?)  And is there 
a fix for this?

2)   When I'm watching live TV and I press "m" on my remote to get the 
TV listing display, the PVR350's screen gets dimmer but the picture 
continues to update on the screen, as though the picture were preparing 
to be overlaid with the osd.  No real problem so far, but the listing 
appears on my monitor rather than on the TV.  Although this is workable, 
I'd rather it continued to function like it did when I was using my 
nvidia tv-out, with the tv-display displaying the osd.  I understand the 
difficulty involved because suddenly we're asking the card to display 
something that isn't part of an mpg stream.    Nevertheless, if somebody 
knows whether this can be done, great, but it's not enough of an issue 
to make me switch back to using the nvidia tv-out.

3)   If I rewind or fast forward through a recording too rapidly, 
mythfrontend sometimes hangs.  Some of the time, it appears to take the 
kernel along with it.  When it's just mythfrontend that gets hung up, I 
have to switch to a terminal and kill the mythfrontend process.  When I 
restart mythfrontend, the pvr-350 TV out usually won't function any 
longer.  Sometimes I can't switch to a terminal to kill mythfrontend -- 
the remote, the keyboard and the mouse all seem to have no effect on the 
system and I have to cycle power on the PC.  In this case, I wonder if 
ivtv-fb hasn't misbehaved.  Has anyone else had this experience?