[mythtv-users] OTA HD is sometimes good, sometimes bad...

[matthew.garman at gmail.com]

On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 10:42:20AM -0500, Todd Volz wrote:
> matthew.garman at gmail.com wrote:
> > I can't imagine what could have happened in the half hour
> > between these two shows that would cause one to be nearly
> > perfect and the other unwatchable.  I didn't move the antenna at
> > all, didn't use the MythTV box for anything else during that
> > time.
> 
> What signal strength do you get from this fox station?  Does it
> stay in the high 80s or does it move around? 

Right now I'm running "dtvsignal" (from the pcHDTV dvb-atsc-tools
package) for FOX.  Signal strength is rapidly moving around in the
72 to 77 range.

For comparison, I recorded "The Office" on NBC; there were a several
hard pauses (about 2 or 3 seconds each), but otherwise the picture
and sound were great.  dtvsignal is showing NBC around 70 to 75
signal strength.

> Are you sure that your Myth box isn't doing anything other than
> recording?  When do you schedule commercial flagging or do you
> have any trans coding jobs that might be fighting for IO or
> processing power on the backend doing the recording?

Definitely no transcoding jobs, but commerical flagging might start
right when the TV show starts (not sure, I'll have to check on this
when I get home).

But I really don't think it's a CPU load issue; I actually used to
run BOINC/seti at home on this box, but no longer do that (although
seti isn't really IO bound).  Oh, and also, this week, half of The
Simpsons was great, the other half, too blocky/unwatchable.

> You also might check your cable connections and try an amplifier
> if your signal strength is below 70.

I'm going to hit that Chicago OTA thread on AVS; perhaps I'll get an
amplifier.

Thanks!
matt