[mythtv-users] Newbie Q's.

[Francis Hartojo]

I've been playing with MythTV for the past week and have some questions about it.  I can't find any relevant answers on Google, so I'm hoping may be you guys can help me out.

Some background info:
- Mythbuntu 8.04 x86_64.
- AMD Phenom 9600 2.3GHz Quad-Core.
- 4GB DDR2-800.
- Asus M3A Motherboard.
- NVidia GeForce FX5200 256MB PCI.
- PCHDTV HD-5500, connected to Cox Digital Cable STB (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2100).
- Seagate Barracuda SATA/300 500GB.
- Memorex Dual-Format DVD Recorder E-IDE.
- Streamzap PC Remote.

Current issues:

- The mythbackend process crashes every now and again especially when switching in and out of LiveTV.  It's not as often as with Mythbuntu 7.10 x86_64, but still does.  Every time it crashes the following message appears on /var/log/messages:

mythbackend[12124] general protection rip:7f89a2db0d94 rsp:46dfcda8 error:0

The rip and rsp values differ each time.  No other clues that I can find out.  The 7.10 i386 version is rock solid in this regard, but it only sees about 3GB of RAM which is to be expected.

- The capture card takes its input from the STB via coax.  It works fine for the most part, but there's a long lag between pressing a button on the STB remote (e.g., changing channel, getting program info) and seeing the result on TV.  I've observed it can take as long as 30 seconds.  I can sort of "clear" it by switching out of LiveTV and back in again.  I take it this is due to LiveTV buffering of some sort?  Is there a way to reduce this lag?  By reducing the amount of programming it buffers, perhaps?  I don't see a way to adjust this though.

I've an IR blaster on order, so I'll hopefully be able to control the STB using the same Streamzap remote.  Will it make any difference for this problem?

- DVD and other video (file) playback is sort of choppy.  Doesn't seem to be quite as choppy as in version 7.10, but it still is quite noticeable.  I've increased the drive speed setting to 12X, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.  DMA is enabled on the drive according to hdparm:

$ hdparm -d /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 using_dma     =  1 (on)

Anything I can do to smooth out video playback, DVD, file or otherwise?  Audio playback is perfect, BTW.

- I can't seem to schedule a recording.  I go into Manual Schedule, set the channel (i.e., channel 3 as what the STB outputs on), set the time and duration, set Record Only This Showing in Recording Options and save these settings.  But, nothing shows up on the Upcoming Recording page.  It keeps saying I haven't scheduled any recording.  What am I missing?

Those are it for now.  Overall it works rather well, actually.  If it can just replace the VCR for recording and the CD/DVD player for playback purposes, I'd be very happy for the time being.

Thank you very much in advance.
 
-- 
Francis Hartojo
echo "sunegbwb at lnubb.pbz" | tr '[a-z]' '[n-za-m]'


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