[mythtv-users] Non-myth OSD not clearing while watching recordings (fine during LiveTV)

Wayne Thomas waynethomas69 at gmail.com
Sun Jul 18 18:45:03 UTC 2010


I do not use the mythtv internal audio controls but rather route all
audio to my external amplifier that I control using RS-232.  When ever
I change the volume or mute the amplifier the new volume level (or
mute status) is displayed on screen using osd_cat.
Recently I started fiddling with my playback settings to finally
extract the best quality playback possible (its been on my todo list
for an age).  I have an NVIDIA GPU that supports VDPAU so one of the
changes I made was to disable Composite in my xorg.conf.  The result
is really good and is noticeable both for SD and HD playback, however
it has one side-effect that is preventing me implementing it
permanently.
When ever a non-mythtv OSD displays (in my case osd_cat) during
playback of recorded content (recorded TV and Video playback) the OSD
refuses to clear.  If I change the volume several times it simply
writes over the last display and becomes unreadable.  If I pause then
play the OSD clears, and similarly if I skip forward or back it also
clears.  The problem is present only during playback of recorded
content; Live TV works perfectly as does all of the menu screens,
MythMusic etc, etc.

I have monitored mythfrontends output with verbose playback set and
there are no errors being produced, it simply appears to be that the
internal player isn't "refreshing" the whole screen often enough.  By
re-enabling Composite the problem disappears, but now I am painfully
aware of the loss in smoothness of playback.

Essentially I have three questions:
1 - What is the difference between LiveTV and Recorded Playback that
introduces this problem when Composite is disabled (I think I know the
answer but will see what others think first)?

2 - What can I do to prevent this problem (other than enable
Composite) or is there a "refresh" command I can send at the end of my
volume script to overcome it?

3 - If all else fails, is there a way I can hijack MythTV's own volume
OSD and use it to display my external volume level?  I am aware of
mythtv-osd but would like a volume bar as well as a numerical value.

Here are the relevant details of my system:

OS: CrunchBang Linux 9.04
Kernel: 2.6.32 (with patches)
MythTV version: 0.22.0+fixes23766-0ubuntu0+mythbuntu2
Playback Profile: VDPAU Normal
NVIDIA driver: 195.36.15
Motherboard: ASUS M3N78 Pro

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Wayne


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