[mythtv-users] Firewire + PVR-250 Issues, plus some venting
Jeff Wormsley
daworm at comcast.net
Wed Mar 2 04:51:52 UTC 2005
I have a few issues with the system I've been building (for what seems
like months now: sometimes I think I have Jarod's guide and the CVSHowTo
memorized!). Perhaps someone here can help.
1. Firewire drivers don't load at boot.
I installed the drivers according to various scattered suggestions, and
got them to work. Well, until I reboot, and then I have to modprobe the
firewire drivers and create the symlink for /dev/raw1394 after each
reboot. Any good way to automate this? Anyway, there are other issues
that may be at work. I've seen the following in dmesg even when they
worked after I first installed the drivers.
Badness in ohci_hw_csr_reg at drivers/ieee1394/ohci1394.c:3154
[<e09fa130>] ohci_hw_csr_reg+0x69/0x82 [ohci1394]
[<e1234c42>] host_reset+0x64/0x106 [ieee1394]
[<e1234699>] highlevel_host_reset+0x27/0x34 [ieee1394]
[<e09f915a>] ohci_irq_handler+0x907/0x95d [ohci1394]
[<c013d4e6>] handle_IRQ_event+0x21/0x4a
[<c013d64b>] __do_IRQ+0x13c/0x249
[<c0104e04>] do_IRQ+0x5e/0x7a
=======================
[<c01035b2>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20
[<c0120b50>] __do_softirq+0x2c/0x79
[<c0104edc>] do_softirq+0x38/0x3f
=======================
[<c0104e16>] do_IRQ+0x70/0x7a
[<c01035b2>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20
[<e09f6393>] set_phy_reg+0x1c2/0x1c7 [ohci1394]
[<e09f6f68>] ohci_devctl+0xd4/0x757 [ohci1394]
[<e123a3d8>] csr1212_generate_csr_image+0x1ab/0x1bb [ieee1394]
[<e1231121>] hpsb_reset_bus+0x1c/0x22 [ieee1394]
[<c012dd4b>] worker_thread+0x1ff/0x31b
[<e1233564>] delayed_reset_bus+0x0/0xb6 [ieee1394]
[<c01178ea>] default_wake_function+0x0/0xc
[<c02fd6bb>] schedule+0x45d/0x4ea
[<c01178ea>] default_wake_function+0x0/0xc
[<c012db4c>] worker_thread+0x0/0x31b
[<c0132b05>] kthread+0x69/0x91
[<c0132a9c>] kthread+0x0/0x91
[<c01011dd>] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0xb
ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[000e5cfffeb45cde]
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-02:1023] GUID[00004c0100003e9c]
ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized
Not sure what all this means, but like I said, it does work. Ugly as
this stuff is (I don't like it when drivers first message says
"badness"), it would be nice if it would do it at boot time, because
after I do all this, I can at least use 6200ch. But see #2 for another
related issue.
2. Can't watch LiveTV (related to #1)
The first time I found out about #1 was when I tried to watch LiveTV. I
think the failure to change the channel with the 6200ch program caused
MythTV to "forget" the last successful channel and replace it with 0.
So now, even when I get the drivers loaded, I can't tune, because the
first thing it tries to do is tune to channel 0, which doesn't exist and
fails. I have no clue how to use MySQL to fix the 0. Perhaps this
behavior can be changed so 0 is replaced by the first channel in the
channel list? I mean, 0 is guaranteed to fail, but the first channel
should work once the previous error is fixed, right?
3. PVR-250 audio not working anymore.
When I first got firewire working, I could watch via the PVR-250 as well
as firewire (well, until the first reboot, and only the SD channels).
Now, the PVR-250 won't work right either. Video shows, but audio is
gone. I have an onboard CMedia outputting via SPDIF. MythMusic and
MythVideo work fine. I worry about the dmesg line "ivtv: Encoder
Firmware is buggy, use version 0x02040011", though. Audio output is
"ALSA:spdif" and mixer is "default". I think I can figure this one out
eventually. After about 5 Gentoo attempts and at least that many FC3
attempts, I've got this thing to work more than once. Just listed it in
case someone knows of some interaction between firewire capture and a
PVR-250 I won't be able to figure out on my own.
From here below are some other problems I have that I don't really
expect much help with, but you never know. Please don't take it as
griping or anything!
4. Losing audio on firewire playback, video jerky (dried strips of
video? ;-) ).
That one magical time I had firewire capture working (again, until the
first reboot), I scheduled and captured about five shows. I can watch
these, albeit slightly jerkily, but... If I do anything such as pause,
FF, or RW, the audio goes away. My theory is that my CPU is too slow.
I had mistakenly turned on deinterlacing (a mistake because I am running
1080i, see below) and it flat out wouldn't play. Well, a frame here and
there, and no audio. I turned that off, which greatly reduced CPU load,
and got to the point I am now. Since I only have a 2.4Ghz CPU, and I
see most people recommending 3.0Ghz, that is probably my problem. Looks
like a CPU upgrade in my future.
5. Modelines, modelines, modelines.
I have about four months of this list's emails stored on my machine, and
this comes up all the time. I thought I'd be cute (read: lazy) and just
buy the card Jarod uses and use his modelines. They sort of work, but
the geometry is way off. I adjusted a little with xvidtune, and now
have it close. xvidtune, however, won't let me change much. More than
one or two "wider" or "narrower" or "left" or "right" and it says I am
outside the capabilities of my card. Still, it was enough to get rid of
the tear in the middle of the screen. The 6200 output is rock solid and
perfect. The 9A60 output is wiggly (hard to describe, although a friend
who works on arcade monitors calls it "dot crawl". Plus the overscan is
awful, so I switched to Jarod's "in1080i" mode which gets rid of most of
the overscan. Which brings me to another question:
6. Non-native resolution question
My TV is an early Samsung 54" HDTV ready rear projection unit. It
supports 1080i, 540p, 480p, and 480i. When viewing straight from the
6200, using the info button on the remote, even SD channels report
1080i. Try as I might, I haven't found anything to tell me what the
native resolution is on this TV. I did find out how to get into the
service menu, and tweaked the geometry settings to make the 6200 output
at 1080i look great. But the 1080i from the nvidia card via the 9A60
requires completely different tweaking. I'd love to figure out how to
get a modeline to duplicate the 6200 output. I have access to a high
bandwidth digital scope if anyone knows how to decode the waveform so I
can figure out what it is putting out and if the nvidia 5200 can match
it. The real question is, though, since I switched to "in1080i"
timings, my resolution is now 1760x960. Other than the loss of
resolution, what is the effect of this? Does it put more strain on my
already overtaxed CPU, or less? If I am able to get a stable picture
without all the problems, would it be ok to drop to 960x540? Will that
play on a 2.4Ghz CPU? I don't really mind the resolution drop, as I am
used to SDTV, and the recordings will still be 1080i, so when I am able
to afford a better TV, I should be able to watch them in all their glory.
7. Dark scenes cause input overlay to appear
When viewing with the 6200 direct to the TV, dark scenes/black screens
are no problem. When doing the same with the 5200 and 9A60, they cause
the TV to put up its current input overlay (it flashes COMPONENT2 at
random locations on the screen). A bright scene and it goes away, until
the next dark scene or black screen. This is probably related to #6 and #7.
8. Video sync
Obviously, I built from source to get the firewire stuff. I also
enabled the OpenGL video sync option, and checked the box in the setup
that I thought was supposed to turn it on. My frontend still reports
the same old software sync method though. What have I missed? I'm not
too worried about this yet, as until I fix the above issues, it isn't
much to bother about.
Here's a few gripes, not really MythTV specific, but issues that other
MythTV users might run into.
9. IRMan integration.
Apparently these beasts are rare. There is no good guide on installing
them in FC3, and all of the remote files out there don't work with them,
as they output different codes than the simple serial IR receivers. I
got it working once and archived all the files to my video partition,
which I don't reformat when I wipe the system and rebuild (did I mention
I've done this several times? <grin>) Just a note, in case anyone else
has one. I can help you get going with a Hauppage grey (old style) or
using IRW. I have had to build from source, as for some reason, I've
not got an apt-get install lirc to support it (even adding apt-get
install libirman doesn't help). Fortunately, it's an easy build.
10. LCD integration
I have a matrix orbital VFD. LCDproc is a pain to set up. Same as with
the IRman, once I got it working, I saved all my configs so I don't have
to reproduce it every time. My case has five buttons, and it is neat to
use them to control the MythTV menus for, oh, about 5 minutes. I mean,
really, I have a remote, right? ;-)
11. Griffin PowerMate
The kernel detects it, but doesn't like it. Has anyone used one of
these in Linux, or with Myth? If I could get it detected, I could use
it for the same types of things the matrix orbital buttons do. I'm sure
it would be about as useful (read: not very), but it sure looks cool!
(My case looks like this but with a silver Powemate and silver buttons:
http://www.atechfabrication.com/images/htpc/HTPC_Case_black_157b_320.jpg ).
input: Griffin PowerMate on <NULL>
usbcore: registered new driver powermate
That <NULL> is what I think is killing it.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Maybe it will do some good for me and
others, maybe not. I do feel better, though, and thanks to everyone who
develops, tests, and helps others! You people are the best!
Jeff.
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