1. Firewire drivers don't load at boot.
I installed the drivers according to various scattered suggestions, and got them to work. Well, until I reboot, and then I have to modprobe the firewire drivers and create the symlink for /dev/raw1394 after each reboot. Any good way to automate this? Anyway, there are other issues that may be at work. I've seen the following in dmesg even when they worked after I first installed the drivers.
Badness in ohci_hw_csr_reg at drivers/ieee1394/ohci1394.c:3154 [<e09fa130>] ohci_hw_csr_reg+0x69/0x82 [ohci1394] [<e1234c42>] host_reset+0x64/0x106 [ieee1394] [<e1234699>] highlevel_host_reset+0x27/0x34 [ieee1394] [<e09f915a>] ohci_irq_handler+0x907/0x95d [ohci1394] [<c013d4e6>] handle_IRQ_event+0x21/0x4a [<c013d64b>] __do_IRQ+0x13c/0x249 [<c0104e04>] do_IRQ+0x5e/0x7a ======================= [<c01035b2>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20 [<c0120b50>] __do_softirq+0x2c/0x79 [<c0104edc>] do_softirq+0x38/0x3f ======================= [<c0104e16>] do_IRQ+0x70/0x7a [<c01035b2>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20 [<e09f6393>] set_phy_reg+0x1c2/0x1c7 [ohci1394] [<e09f6f68>] ohci_devctl+0xd4/0x757 [ohci1394] [<e123a3d8>] csr1212_generate_csr_image+0x1ab/0x1bb [ieee1394] [<e1231121>] hpsb_reset_bus+0x1c/0x22 [ieee1394] [<c012dd4b>] worker_thread+0x1ff/0x31b [<e1233564>] delayed_reset_bus+0x0/0xb6 [ieee1394] [<c01178ea>] default_wake_function+0x0/0xc [<c02fd6bb>] schedule+0x45d/0x4ea [<c01178ea>] default_wake_function+0x0/0xc [<c012db4c>] worker_thread+0x0/0x31b [<c0132b05>] kthread+0x69/0x91 [<c0132a9c>] kthread+0x0/0x91 [<c01011dd>] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0xb ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[000e5cfffeb45cde] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-02:1023] GUID[00004c0100003e9c] ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized
Not sure what all this means, but like I said, it does work. Ugly as this stuff is (I don't like it when drivers first message says "badness"), it would be nice if it would do it at boot time, because after I do all this, I can at least use 6200ch. But see #2 for another related issue.
2. Can't watch LiveTV (related to #1)
The first time I found out about #1 was when I tried to watch LiveTV. I think the failure to change the channel with the 6200ch program caused MythTV to "forget" the last successful channel and replace it with 0. So now, even when I get the drivers loaded, I can't tune, because the first thing it tries to do is tune to channel 0, which doesn't exist and fails. I have no clue how to use MySQL to fix the 0. Perhaps this behavior can be changed so 0 is replaced by the first channel in the channel list? I mean, 0 is guaranteed to fail, but the first channel should work once the previous error is fixed, right?
3. PVR-250 audio not working anymore.
When I first got firewire working, I could watch via the PVR-250 as well as firewire (well, until the first reboot, and only the SD channels). Now, the PVR-250 won't work right either. Video shows, but audio is gone. I have an onboard CMedia outputting via SPDIF. MythMusic and MythVideo work fine. I worry about the dmesg line "ivtv: Encoder Firmware is buggy, use version 0x02040011", though. Audio output is "ALSA:spdif" and mixer is "default". I think I can figure this one out eventually. After about 5 Gentoo attempts and at least that many FC3 attempts, I've got this thing to work more than once. Just listed it in case someone knows of some interaction between firewire capture and a PVR-250 I won't be able to figure out on my own.
From here below are some other problems I have that I don't really expect much help with, but you never know. Please don't take it as griping or anything!
4. Losing audio on firewire playback, video jerky (dried strips of video? ;-) ).
That one magical time I had firewire capture working (again, until the first reboot), I scheduled and captured about five shows. I can watch these, albeit slightly jerkily, but... If I do anything such as pause, FF, or RW, the audio goes away. My theory is that my CPU is too slow. I had mistakenly turned on deinterlacing (a mistake because I am running 1080i, see below) and it flat out wouldn't play. Well, a frame here and there, and no audio. I turned that off, which greatly reduced CPU load, and got to the point I am now. Since I only have a 2.4Ghz CPU, and I see most people recommending 3.0Ghz, that is probably my problem. Looks like a CPU upgrade in my future.
5. Modelines, modelines, modelines.
I have about four months of this list's emails stored on my machine, and this comes up all the time. I thought I'd be cute (read: lazy) and just buy the card Jarod uses and use his modelines. They sort of work, but the geometry is way off. I adjusted a little with xvidtune, and now have it close. xvidtune, however, won't let me change much. More than one or two "wider" or "narrower" or "left" or "right" and it says I am outside the capabilities of my card. Still, it was enough to get rid of the tear in the middle of the screen. The 6200 output is rock solid and perfect. The 9A60 output is wiggly (hard to describe, although a friend who works on arcade monitors calls it "dot crawl". Plus the overscan is awful, so I switched to Jarod's "in1080i" mode which gets rid of most of the overscan. Which brings me to another question:
6. Non-native resolution question
My TV is an early Samsung 54" HDTV ready rear projection unit. It supports 1080i, 540p, 480p, and 480i. When viewing straight from the 6200, using the info button on the remote, even SD channels report 1080i. Try as I might, I haven't found anything to tell me what the native resolution is on this TV. I did find out how to get into the service menu, and tweaked the geometry settings to make the 6200 output at 1080i look great. But the 1080i from the nvidia card via the 9A60 requires completely different tweaking. I'd love to figure out how to get a modeline to duplicate the 6200 output. I have access to a high bandwidth digital scope if anyone knows how to decode the waveform so I can figure out what it is putting out and if the nvidia 5200 can match it. The real question is, though, since I switched to "in1080i" timings, my resolution is now 1760x960. Other than the loss of resolution, what is the effect of this? Does it put more strain on my already overtaxed CPU, or less? If I am able to get a stable picture without all the problems, would it be ok to drop to 960x540? Will that play on a 2.4Ghz CPU? I don't really mind the resolution drop, as I am used to SDTV, and the recordings will still be 1080i, so when I am able to afford a better TV, I should be able to watch them in all their glory.
7. Dark scenes cause input overlay to appear
When viewing with the 6200 direct to the TV, dark scenes/black screens are no problem. When doing the same with the 5200 and 9A60, they cause the TV to put up its current input overlay (it flashes COMPONENT2 at random locations on the screen). A bright scene and it goes away, until the next dark scene or black screen. This is probably related to #6 and #7.
8. Video sync
Obviously, I built from source to get the firewire stuff. I also enabled the OpenGL video sync option, and checked the box in the setup that I thought was supposed to turn it on. My frontend still reports the same old software sync method though. What have I missed? I'm not too worried about this yet, as until I fix the above issues, it isn't much to bother about.
Here's a few gripes, not really MythTV specific, but issues that other MythTV users might run into.
9. IRMan integration.
Apparently these beasts are rare. There is no good guide on installing them in FC3, and all of the remote files out there don't work with them, as they output different codes than the simple serial IR receivers. I got it working once and archived all the files to my video partition, which I don't reformat when I wipe the system and rebuild (did I mention I've done this several times? <grin>) Just a note, in case anyone else has one. I can help you get going with a Hauppage grey (old style) or using IRW. I have had to build from source, as for some reason, I've not got an apt-get install lirc to support it (even adding apt-get install libirman doesn't help). Fortunately, it's an easy build.
10. LCD integration
I have a matrix orbital VFD. LCDproc is a pain to set up. Same as with the IRman, once I got it working, I saved all my configs so I don't have to reproduce it every time. My case has five buttons, and it is neat to use them to control the MythTV menus for, oh, about 5 minutes. I mean, really, I have a remote, right? ;-)
11. Griffin PowerMate
The kernel detects it, but doesn't like it. Has anyone used one of these in Linux, or with Myth? If I could get it detected, I could use it for the same types of things the matrix orbital buttons do. I'm sure it would be about as useful (read: not very), but it sure looks cool! (My case looks like this but with a silver Powemate and silver buttons: http://www.atechfabrication.com/images/htpc/HTPC_Case_black_157b_320.jpg ).
input: Griffin PowerMate on <NULL> usbcore: registered new driver powermate
That <NULL> is what I think is killing it.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Maybe it will do some good for me and others, maybe not. I do feel better, though, and thanks to everyone who develops, tests, and helps others! You people are the best!
Jeff.
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