[mythtv-users] mplayer, pvr-350, ivtv -- not working properly

[Michael T. Dean]

gabe at mustbethemoney.com wrote:

>Currently, if use -vo fbdev2 or -vo x11 in the command line, I have to
>also add a -framedrop because I am using an 800Mhz VIA CPU and ithat
>obviously does not have the horsepower to do the decoding on its own.
>  
>
The PVR-350's X Windows (framebuffer) driver (Matthias Badaire's ivtvdev 
driver) and the standard X Windows framebuffer driver (fbdev) do not 
support the X Windows Video extension (Xv).  Therefore, all data is 
written to the framebuffer using mmap'ed I/O--which is very resource 
intensive--meaning you need a pretty beefy CPU to keep up.  My Athlon XP 
1700+ cannot handle it (almost works, but it's dropping enough frames to 
be annoying).  Matthias's driver is much more efficient at accessing the 
framebuffer than the standard X framebuffer driver, so whereas no 
existing system can keep up using the standard driver, some of the 
faster systems will work with Matthias's driver.

>When I try with -vo ivtvosd I get real wierd playback.
>
ivtvosd sends the data directly to the PVR-350's hardware decoder--which 
can only decode MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and YUV (NV12 specification) data (but 
the ivtv drivers need more work to properly support the YUV format).  
Therefore, sending other formats (MPEG4 (XviD or DivX), QT, MOV, AVI, 
etc.) to the decoder is bound to cause problems.

>The particulars are as follows:
>
>MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team
>Kernel: 2.4.22-1.2179.nptl_47.rhfc1.at
>CPU: IDT/Centaur/VIA C3 Samuel 2 (WinChip C5B core)/C3 Ezra 900.3 MHz
>(Family: 6, Stepping: 3)
>ivtv-0.1.10-30_pre2_ck35.rhfc1.at.i386.rpm
>  
>
Might want to check out the ck63 series (I've got ck63b right now, but 
will be trying ck63d next).  Won't help this problem, but it seems to 
fix a lot of other problems and should be about as stable as 36a (35 is 
less stable than 36a).

>ivtv-kmdl-2.4.22-1.2179.nptl_47.rhfc1.at-0.1.10-30_pre2_ck35.rhfc1.at.i586.rpm
>Also using the Mathiews' X driver with ivtvdev as the driver specified in
>my X config file
>
>If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear em.  The video portion is
>usable with framedrop, but that is not preferable (obviously).
>  
>
Use a different TV-out or a different CPU/system.  I'm personally 
waiting for parts for building a VGA to NTSC converter (see 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?post=103525 ).  
Do you have a TV out on your Via system?  If so, the driver for Via's TV 
out supports Xv, so that's probably the simplest approach.

HTH.

Mike