[mythtv-users] HD3000 DVB Recordings - Freezes on Playback

[Neil Spring]

On Jan 20, 2006, at 2:51 AM, frank s wrote:
> Hello, I am a newbie to mythtv and have a setup that
> is working fairly well, but is having a problem with
> freezes under certain conditions.

Yup.  I get freezes too, where mythfrontend leaks memory until it  
dies.  I've started to try to record significantly more HD than I  
want to watch just to debug.  Differences in my setup are:

> - HD3000 connected to us-cable (digital)

I'm terrestrial.  I know it's all very sensitive to antenna placement...

> - Dell 4700 w/Pentium 4 Processor 530 with HT
> Technology (3.00GHz, 800 FSB)

I'm amd64, and up to now thought it was a 64-bit issue.

> - 512 MB RAM
> - 160 GB EIDE SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
> - Hauppauge PVR 1081 RT connected to us-cable (analog)

I've 1G, a bigger (single) disk, and a not yet setup PVR-500 too.

> - Fedora Core 4

Debian.  2.6.15 kernel.

> - MythTV 0.18.1

I tried 0.18.2 as well, I think with no luck, am about to try svn  
trunk once I get it to build...  not that I have high expectations.

> - frontend and backend are both on this box

Yup.

> - a particular recording will always freeze at the
> same point on multiple playback attempts

absolutely.

> - skipping past the freeze point does not cause a
> freeze, but audio is lost even though the video is
> good

absolutely.

Switching filesystems did not appear to help (ext3 -> XFS);   
upgrading to 0.18.2 did not appear to help.  As far as I'm concerned,  
it's a bug in the decoder if there's an input stream that causes it  
to leak all memory and die, regardless of whether that input stream  
is corrupt, but the lack of audio after skipping suggests to me that  
it's not just the decoder.

Anyway, you and Michael aren't alone.

-neil