[mythtv-users] First time setup: can't watch recorded or live TV

[Roger E. Scheen]

Hi,
   I put together a MythTV PVR project from scratch because I'm a Unix  
software engineer that wanted to learn more Linux, so it seemed like a  
fun way to do it.  Here's my setup:

MythTV version 0.20
ivtv:  version 0.7.4
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card (cx23416 based)
Linux kernel: 2.6.17-10-generic (Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10)

Worked through a lot of issues, but I seem to be hitting a brick wall  
with this one.  I startup mythfrontend, select "Watch TV", and I get a  
blank screen for about 5 seconds, then it comes back to the menu with  
no other clues.  Looking at the output from mythfrontend, I get these  
conspicuous messages:

2007-05-16 17:15:50.765 TV: Attempting to change from None to  
WatchingLiveTV
2007-05-16 17:15:50.766 Using protocol version 31
2007-05-16 17:15:56.997 DPMS Deactivated
2007-05-16 17:15:57.016 NVP: Couldn't find a matching decoder for:  
/media/mythtv/1147_20070516171550.mpg
2007-05-16 17:15:57.021 TV Error: StartPlayer(): NVP is not playing  
after 20000 msec
2007-05-16 17:15:57.076 TV Error: LiveTV not successfully started
2007-05-16 17:15:57.081 DPMS Reactivated.

In the backend log (/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log) I see:

2007-05-16 17:15:50.771 TVRec(1): Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2007-05-16 17:15:50.778 TVRec(1): HW Tuner: 1->1
2007-05-16 17:15:57.023 TVRec(1): Changing from WatchingLiveTV to None
2007-05-16 17:15:57.067 Finished recording Unknown: channel 1147
2007-05-16 17:16:22.325 Expiring Unknown from Wed May 16 17:14:17 2007,  
0 MBytes, forced expire (LiveTV r
ecording)

The channel 1147 seems curious, and I don't know where that number is  
coming from (I have basic cable channels 0-99).  Troubleshooting, I was  
able to determine that my basic video and audio seems to be working at  
least to a point.  I can cat /dev/video0 to a file, and then play that  
back using mplayer, and I can also do "mplayer /dev/video0" and  
watch/listen to TV.  I do get some warning/errors from mplayer, even  
though it seems to be playing video fine.  Stuff like:

Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system  
startup scripts.
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick

Playing /dev/video0.
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: avisynth.dll,  
/usr/lib/win32/avisynth.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/avisynt
h.dll
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO:  MPEG2  480x480  (aspect 2)  29.970 fps  6000.0 kbps (750.0  
kbyte/s)
======================================================================== 
==
Requested audio codec family [mp3] (afm=mp3lib) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 384.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 48000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp2] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-1 and  
layer-2 audio decoder)
======================================================================== 
==
open: No such file or directory
Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] Can't open /dev/fb0: Permission denied.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
======================================================================== 
==
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 480 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed :(
Opening video decoder: [libmpeg2] MPEG 1/2 Video decoder  
libmpeg2-v0.4.0b
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm: libmpeg2 (MPEG-1 or 2 (libmpeg2))
======================================================================== 
==

But, the bottom line is...mplayer still plays the video, even after all  
those warnings.

Is there any kind of trace or debug mode I can turn on in MythTV to get  
more output about what's going on besides "NVP: Couldn't find a  
matching decoder"?  Is this possibly just an LD_LIBRARY_PATH issue or  
something simple like that?

Thanks in advance for any hints anyone can give!

Roger