[mythtv-users] Setting up SA3250HD and FireWire

[N Dugas]

jacob wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:21PM -0500, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
> 
>>jacob wrote:
>>
>>>Ok, maybe something very obvious is eluding me, but I cannot get my SA3250HD
>>>to work reliably, with Myth or test-mpeg2. The work I've done so far amounts
>>>to:
>>>
>>>Plug in FireWire connections on the box and computer. plugreport gives:
>>>
>>>Host Adapter 0
>>>==============
>>>
>>>Node 0 GUID 0x001692180d260000
>>>------------------------------
>>>oMPR n_plugs=1, data_rate=2, bcast_channel=63
>>>oPCR[0] online=1, bcast_connection=0, n_p2p_connections=0
>>>        channel=0, data_rate=2, overhead_id=0, payload=146
>>>iMPR n_plugs=0, data_rate=2
>>>
>>>Node 1 GUID 0x0001080038030803
>>>------------------------------
>>>libiec61883 error: error reading oMPR
>>>libiec61883 error: error reading iMPR
>>>
>>>    On the advice of my readings, I do 
>>>
>>>plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].n_p2p_connections=1
>>>
>>>to setup p2p communication. I patched sa3250ch to use my vendor and device
>>>identifiers, as well as modifying the CTL_CMD1 calculation to use chn << 8.
>>>I've gotten it to come up once, exactly, and spit video, but attempting to
>>>change the channel blew it out of the water, and I haven't been able to get
>>>it that far again. Whenever I try and use it in Myth, I get strings of
>>>
>>>2006-06-15 19:53:36.808
>>>RingBuf(/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg): Invalid file
>>>(fd 20) when opening '/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg'.
>>>0 retries remaining.
>>>
>>>followed by strings of
>>>
>>>2006-06-15 19:53:37.483
>>>RingBuf(/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg) Error: Invalid
>>>file descriptor in 'safe_read()'
>>>
>>>both of which haven't been particularly illuminating via google. Myth
>>>supports the SA3250HD, so either it's completely fragile (mostly broken), or
>>>I'm missing something. I'm currently using Christian Marillat's packages for
>>>Debian/Sid i386, although I tried the SVN trunk with no more success. It's
>>>possible my problems stem from trying to tune 5C channels, in which case I'd
>>>be interested in people's methods for setting up their channel lists to
>>>exclude them. If someone has a working 3250 FireWire setup, I'd be very
>>>interested in how they got it set up. If I can get this working, I'll
>>>definitely add it to the Wiki.
>>>
>>>  
>>
>>Have you gotten it to work reliably *outside* of Myth using the tuning 
>>commands and capturing the output to a file?
>>
>>Kevin
> 
> 
> No, hence my observation about missing something really obvious. test-mpeg2
> gives either nothing or garbage data. As far as I can tell, I've followed
> the necessary steps to set everything up. I'm at a loss for other avenues to
> pursue, other than setting up, say, a gentoo box and see if that performs
> differently. I've tried both 2.6.11 and 2.6.16, for the record.
> 
> Are there other tools I should be using than the patched sa3250ch and
> test-mpeg2? The direct capture of the mpeg2 data streams is my goal,
> regardless of resolution. Hence the firewire connection.
> 
> Jacob
> _______________________________________________

You mention that test-mpeg2 sometimes gives you garbage.  This is the 
MPEG2-TS stream.  What you can do is redirect to a file (test-mpeg2 > 
file.mpg), wait 10 - 15 seconds, ctrl-c, then playback via mplayer.  If 
you see video, you have a working firewire capture.  If you get no 
video, make sure the file is not zero length.  This is how I did it for 
my Moto DCT-6412.  It took some fiddling to get working and it still 
does take some fiddling from time to time.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com