[mythtv-users] Via Eden with PVR350 was working

[Jonathan Moore]

I decided it would be fun to play with one of those small form factor ITX boards
for a project. I was also wanting to build a MythTV box.....

I have now had the box working twice by using a a guide the "MythTV on a
dedicated Eden/PVR350 Mythbox Walkthrough" at

http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough

The first time it worked for about two days and then had a few lockups and
eventually got to where it would play video really slow and no audio. This was
whether I was viewing live TV or a recording. Recordings still seemed to be
working correctly, as copying them to another computer and playing seemed to
work. I reran mythsetup several times with the same results. Manually using the
dd test

dd if=/dev/video of=/dev/video16 bs=64k

works fine.

I recently dusted the unit off to try again (note I had been using as a file
server). Put the pvr350 back into the system and after two reboots had a
clicking drive. The PVR350 card never was able to use the composite out (was
using Svideo out). Since the drive was crashed I decided this was a good time to
send everything back.

Now I have redone everything from scratch with new drive and card. Again I had
the system working. I was playing with adding some new models (I think I was
most recently working on mythvideo). Rebooted and I am back to slow video no
sound. I noticed a high cpu load and in the logs saw something about flagging
for commercials. I turned this feature off which lowered the load while just
running the backend, but mythfrontend consums all cpu when viewing video, almost
as though the pvr350 hardware decorder is not being used, but I have checked and
unchecked the appropriate.

Since the card works using the basic ivtv testing setup. I assume the hardware
is fine and that this is a software issue of some sort. I also dumped the myth
database and went back through setup with no success.

For a while I thought maybe the system was over heating as the pci angle bracket
bends the card back over the top of the eden cpu area. I installed a fan which
has lowered the temperature, but even after being off all night last night. I
still get the slow playback. I also reset the bios settings.

This is mythtv 0.16, ivtv driver 0.1.9, debian sarge 2.4.26

Any help would be appreciated. I am about to give up on the Eden and just grab
another MB. At this point it all seems to be working except the cpu load issue,
which is probably causing the slow video and no audio.


-- 
Jonathan Moore
Director of Technology
Winfield Public Schools
Office 620.221.5100
Fax 620.221.0508





Visit Winfield Public Schools at http://usd465.com
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