Re: [mythtv-users] Shuttle Barebones Case SN95G5 V3 or SN25P
Some drives produce more heat than others, and it may be possible to have them spin down sometimes. CPU and graphics cards can contribute as well. On my shuttle cube, which is a little old now, I noted that cutting away the grid in the back that covers the big fan seemed to reduce the noise level a little. It should help with heat issues a little as well. The idea is that the fins of the heat pipe system already restrict the airflow enough without going through the secondary grid work, which likely add to the noise level by causing a disturbance in the air flow. Obviously this will void your warranty, and there are no gaurantees you will be happy with the results. I used a dremel cutoff wheel to do it, but if you do that I recommend safety glasses and a dust mask. You will also need to be careful not to get aluminum dust inside the case, and to use some compressed air to clean any out that does get in. It is probably a good idea to remove your motherboard before starting as well. Disclaimer: This is not really a recommendation, just a mention of something that worked for me somewhat. Doing this might break something. -Robert On Saturday 24 December 2005 11:14 pm, Kevin Ruse wrote: I have an SN42G2 (or something like that), just thought I'd let you know that heat and noise are a problem on this (esp since I added a second hard disk). It has to run with the case off, this does nothing to help with the noise :) I would expect the SN95G5 to have similar issues, particuallarly after Marius post. I have an SN42G2 V3 with a pvr500 and 2 hard drives and it is extremely quiet and heat isn't an issue. Given the other good press i've seen about these boxes, i'm a suprised to see you are having heat and noise issues. You can still get these boxes and i think they are well worth it. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] FYI: IDE Flash modules..
I thought it worth noting/reminding people of these since these can save some aggravation with embedded system designs. The following link shows a 32MB ide flash module. http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/ItemDetail.asp?ItemID=TS32MDOM40V 32MB $18.80 (Note: I've not purchased from this site, although I have used the 256MB version of these modules without any problems.) For those that want to boot from the network, but have hardware that doesn't really work well with network booting, for whatever reason, this seems like the way to go. Basically you put /boot on the flash module including grub and your kernel and then have it use nfs for the root file system. I may buy one for one system just so it no longer needs a hard drive. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Digital Audio with myth
On Monday 28 November 2005 02:08 pm, Nick wrote: On 25/11/05, Phill Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] That's because the S/PDIF is outputting a digital stream which the receiver decodes and is responsible for amplifying. I don't think it's possible to dynamically adjust a digital audio stream before it hits the amp. It is always possible to scale numbers and a digital stream is just a stream of numbers. Now, as to what the sound card actually supports and what the drivers support, I have no idea. Certainly not being able to control the volume from the digital jack is not a new thing. I suppose the mixer controls probably control analog mixers on a sound cards...? If that is the case, then it explains why control of the digital output level is generally not found. From a practical perspective, your better off to pass the unscaled numbers to your home theatre receiver. The reason for this is if say you cut the volume to 1/4 (1/(2^2)) of its maximum in amplitude and you are sticking with 16 bits of precision then you have lost 2 bits of precision. Of course even hearing the difference between 14 and 16 bits is not that easy, and hearing the difference once you move to 24bits may in fact be impossible. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Auto login as user and start Myth.
This is probably easy, but I can't think of an obvious way to automatically login as a user. From that point you need to start X and mythfrontend, but that is probably easy as long as one can figure out how to execute a script as a particular user. The overall idea is to have the system get to the point that you can use the remote automatically after you turn it on. I'm using Gentoo Linux. This shouldn't be that hard, but I just don't see an obvious starting point other than maybe figuring out the init process from inittab or maybe something like xdm that does autologins. -Robert Denier ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Digital Audio with myth
On Monday 28 November 2005 04:56 pm, Steve Hodge wrote: On 11/29/05, Robert Denier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Monday 28 November 2005 02:08 pm, Nick wrote: On 25/11/05, Phill Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] That's because the S/PDIF is outputting a digital stream which the receiver decodes and is responsible for amplifying. I don't think it's possible to dynamically adjust a digital audio stream before it hits the amp. It is always possible to scale numbers and a digital stream is just a stream of numbers. But there isn't necessarily a direct mapping between the numbers in the stream and the volume of the resulting audio. Think AC3 and DTS passthrough. A quick glance shows that the PCM control _does_ control the audio level of a CMI9761 when using mplayer to play a realaudio stream, but it doesn't seem to work in Myth. Perhaps there is the beginning of a solution there or maybe I just need to set something. Obviously, as was stated above, this may be useless if the stream has some complex encoding and is just being passed through, but it seems as if it should be at least possible to control the volume level in myth if the audio being decoding is just 2 channel stereo PCM audio compressed as mpeg3. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] LIRC experience and ideas
Typically to use LIRC you need a receiver and a compatible remote. I bought packard bell receivers which come with the little packard bell remotes, that I wouldn't really recommend for long term use. Here is the best plan I could come up with, so far anyway... 1) Buy a nice learning universal remote. 2) Set it to use the TIVO dvr code or something else nice, perhaps a dvd code. Make sure whatever you use gets responses in mode2. At this point you will have a remote with a lot of buttons you can map, and likely some that don't do anything, that you want to use. You could try to search for codes forever that make all the buttons you want to work, to actually work, but, well, I found that problematic. Another alternative is the following. 3) Choose a secondary remote that isn't used with anything. I used the packard bell one. Take the file from your secondary remote and do something like cat secondaryRemoteLirc.conf /etc/lirc.conf The goal here is to append the secondary remote codes to this file. Now go in and relabel all the secondary remote codes to something else. I suggest prepending something like pb_. 4) Now take the buttons that don't do anything and teach them using them buttons from the secondary remote. 5) Finally edit your lircrc file to make it all work. This should allow you to use all the buttons on a learning remote you want, without trying to find a magical code that has all the buttons active, and that your receiver can see the codes from. Good Luck. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] nonlinear 16:9 stretch?
On Monday 21 November 2005 03:20 pm, David wrote: Robert Denier wrote: On Monday 21 November 2005 02:14 pm, Cory Papenfuss wrote: [snip] I spent a few minutes and tried to figure out a quick way to do this non linear stretch. I could maybe come up with something nicer later as for as a function to do the stretch, but the problem is this needs to be real time, and if it gets too fancy it takes significant resources. Assume input video is X horizontal pixels. The exact number doesn't matter, but for simplicity 480 will be assumed here. Assume further that you can divide it into 10 equally, or nearly equally wide vertical stripes. 1) For the stripe on the far left you could repeat each pixel 3 times. 2) For the next two stripe repeat each 2 times. 3) Then stripes four through seven are just a normal one:one mapping. 4) The next two stripes would be the same as (2). 5) The final stripe would be the same as (1) In other words the pattern for repeating pixels would be... [3,2,2,1,1,1,1,2,2,3] Depending on the true original horizontal pixel size one might have to adjust the video scaling parameters to make sure the center section has the right overall ratio. The advantages to such an approach are 1) Very fast 2) Somestimes just repeating pixels makes things less blurry, but thats usualy not an issue. The disadvantages 1) It is a non smooth way to stretch an image. Something bicubic or similar would be cleaner, at the expense of cpu time. 2) This may look poor in practice, although I suppose one would have to try it. It is just the simplest approach I could think of quickly to do this. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] nonlinear 16:9 stretch?
On Monday 21 November 2005 05:00 pm, William wrote: divide it into 10 equally, or nearly equally wide vertical stripes. 1) For the stripe on the far left you could repeat each pixel 3 times. 2) For the next two stripe repeat each 2 times. 3) Then stripes four through seven are just a normal one:one mapping. 4) The next two stripes would be the same as (2). 5) The final stripe would be the same as (1) In other words the pattern for repeating pixels would be... [3,2,2,1,1,1,1,2,2,3] Dont forget that the vertical also needs to be scaled so your routine gets to be quite a bit more complicated. Not sure if some kind of a lookup table might do the trick. Divide the screen into zones and assign each zone a pair of strech values. You would need to limit the number of pixels per zone to keep it from becoming visible as a pattern. Actual no it doesn't, or at the very least video cards have been doing linear scaling for a really long time. All this idea was doing was approximately doing the horizontal strentching. It would be up to XV or whatever to do the final linear expansion however that works. For instance suppose the input image was 480x480 and the output image of the filter was 864x480 with the center 192 columns being left unaltered. (40%) Again, I'm not saying this would look all that good necessarily but maybe some similiar variation or such will be ok. At any rate you now have a 864x480 image you want to fit say 1366x768. I don't know the details of how XV does it, but it would just be a linear expansion for the graphics card, like expanding 480x480 to the whole screen would be. There might be some details I'm missing. Some of which may remain hidden until the idea is actually tried, but I think it should work, at least in principle. Other than that I'd tend to consider looking at how games do things. Don't they sometimes map pictures onto polygons and such? Perhaps there is someting that can be abused for this purpose there. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Slightly OT - Power Control
Can anyone think of a simple device to buy that connects to a computer that allows you to turn off and on a 115V device? An obvious Myth application would be to control a pc monitor with a fixed on off switch, or perhaps a fixed audio amplifier. Of course, I'm actually tentatively planning to stick it on my satellite modem's connector and let a cron job force reset the thing every night so, hopefully, it stays stable the rest of the time. Actually for my purpose, a little power timer like at a hardware store would likely work. I do have an eventual goal to control an audio amplifier's power from a linux console though.. [I do realise I could build something, but I'd rather just find a stock solution.] -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] OT: Need help diagnosing backend hardware failure
Disconnect all your drives, external peripherals and cards except for video and see what happens. If it stays on then perhaps your problem is in the half you disconnected and so forth.. Of course I've disconnected things and had something mysteriously start working only to plug them back in and still have everything working... Don't forget to reseat your memory at some point. I suggest using one known good piece at some point as well.. -Robert On Friday 18 November 2005 09:47 am, Darren Richards wrote: Sorry for the OT post, but my wife will be missing Gilmore Girls today, so apparently this is an emergency. My backend machine decided to shut itself off sometime during the night last night. Strangely, the power light was still on, but the computer was off. I reset the PSU switch in back, and turned the computer back on. After 15 seconds or so, it shut itself off again. This time the power light was blinking. I tried again, and this time it only made it 3 or 4 seconds before shutting off. My first thought was that I have a bad power supply. But with the blinking light, I thought perhaps something was telling the PSU to shut down. I checked the CPU heatsink and fan, and everything seems to be working. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. I figure I'll probably cannibalize another machine and start swapping parts out until it boots... thanks, darren ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] MyBlaster/Dish Network
Overall the MyBlaster serial seems rock solid with two dish network receivers, where the IR blaster did flaky channel changes no matter how long I messed with it, especially when myth was doing the channel changing. [When myth is changing the channel, there are other things going on that seem to make IR blasters less reliable.] I can send someone the files I'm using if someone needs them. You will need a serial IR blaster, and one receiver set with id 1 and the other with id 2. Note, I don't have anything particularly new, I just did a couple minor changes to a set of perl scripts linked in a past list post. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] MyBlaster/Dish Network
I'm going to use the format [FILENAME] and then paste the file. The only change to the perl script was just an edit to make it find the file easier. Perhaps it wasn't even needed. I have everything in /usr/local/bin. To use these you will need to copy paste these into files and make the scripts executable. Myth calls the change_channel scripts. [Don't forget the alternate keys are for receiver remote code 2. This is settable on the receiver, or at least the ones I have.] -Robert Denier [---/usr/local/bin/change_channel.sh---] #!/bin/bash perl /usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl $1 [---/usr/local/bin/change_channel2.sh---] #!/bin/bash cd /usr/local/bin perl /usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl changechannel d2.keys $1 [---/usr/local/bin/d2.keys---] power = 1B008B0300C70C1700C7058900BE0354010091212100 select = 1B008C0300C90C1500C9058700C00352010091122100 exit = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058600C003570100911211212100 0 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C003540100911211122100 1 = 1B008C0300C90C1500C9058700C00354010092112100 2 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C00354010092122100 3 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C00356010092212100 4 = 1B008C0300C90C1500C9058700C9034A0100911121112100 5 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058600C9034E0100911121122100 6 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058600C903510100911121212100 7 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C9034D0210911122112100 8 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C9034C0100911122122100 9 = 1B008C0300C90C1400C9058700C9034C0100911122212100 [---/usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl---] #!/usr/bin/perl # MyBlaster.pl: Controller for the MyBlaster serial IR blaster (www.mytvstore.com) # By William Munson [wmunson] (July 26, 2004, ver-1.4) # # This code is being released into the public domain for non-profit use. # For commercial use please contact me at our support forum: # http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=622#622 # # Version 1.0 - Initial release of code. # Version 1.1 - Added macro feature. # Version 1.2 - Fixed some timing issues in the data transfer to MyBlaster. # Version 1.3 - Fixed output for devices other than DSS/Satellite receivers. # - Added support for port locking which keeps a second instance # suspended until the 1st has completed. # Version 1.4 - Public Release #1 - Updated documentation for release. # Version 1.4.1 - Added Learing and emitting learned keys - Vlado $|=1; use POSIX qw(:termios_h); use FileHandle; use Time::HiRes qw( sleep ); # Defaults to standard COM2 port, 19200 baud. my $serial=init_serial(/dev/ttyS0,19200); # Com 1 # my $serial=init_serial(/dev/ttyS1,19200); # Com 2 # Device code for the piece of equipment you want to control. This info can # be found in the MyBlaster Library folder. # # 775 controls a standard Dishnet receiver. $remote_code=775; # Device Type is a hex value from 0 to A and represents the type of device you # want to control. Below is a list of the available device type codes. # 0=TV, 1=CABLE, 2=Video Acc, 3=DSS/Satellite, 4-VCR, 5=Laser Disk, 6=DVD # 7=Tuner/Amp, 8=Amplifier, 9=CD, A=Home Control $Device_Type=3; # Duplicate process protection. Enable this if you use the same blaster to control # multiple devices. With this enabled, multiple instances of the program will each # sleep until the blaster port is free. Uses a lock file. $Use_Locking=0; # Lock File name. $LockFile=/tmp/MyBlaster.lock; # remote file prefix. The file name will be $prefix_remote.keys $remote_prefix = /home/mythtv/MyBlaster_; # Use verbose output mode for debugging. $verbose=0; # Time delay between each channel digit. $inter_key_delay=0.1; # Emit time. This is the length of time the command is sent. Probably a # good idea to leave this alone but if you are getting repeats of buttons # then you can shorten it a little bit. $Emit_Time=0.333; # Learn Time. This is the length of time we let MyBlaster to try to learn a command. $Learn_Time=3.0; # Enable to press a key to finalize channel entry $finalize=1; # Key used to finalize channel entry $finalize_key=select; # Enable to clear the on screen display more quickly. $quick_clear=1; # Key used to clear the display. Taken from keymap below. $quick_clear_key=exit; # Time to wait until clearing the display $clear_delay=2.0; # Misc variables needed by the program $Count=0; # These keys should be common to all device codes. The remote buttons # may have different names. Feel free to change the name but not the value. %keymap=(1 = 0x01, 2 = 0x02, 3 = 0x03, 4 = 0x04, 5 = 0x05, 6 = 0x06, 7 = 0x07, 8 = 0x08, 9 = 0x09, 0 = 0x0a, vol_up = 0x0b, vol_dn = 0x0c, mute = 0x0d, ch_up = 0x0e, ch_dn = 0x0f, power = 0x10, enter = 0x11, ch_100 = 0x11
Re: [mythtv-users] MyBlaster/Dish Network
True, I originally had change_channel.sh and change_channel2.sh in my mythtv configuration, and it was easier to not go in and change things. It was a bit of lazyness on my part I suppose. On Wednesday 16 November 2005 05:58 pm, William wrote: [---/usr/local/bin/change_channel.sh---] #!/bin/bash perl /usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl $1 Its good to see that my scripts are still getting used. I just wanted to add a note about starting the script. You do not need to call the script from with a shell. Just put: /usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl in the script field for that capture card. If you need to use options: /usr/local/bin/MyBlaster.pl option option Mythtv will append the channel number to the end of the string and will call the script shell itself. No need to double shell the thing. Also will give you a noticable speed increase when changing channels. PS - I should have time this winter to pull the learning mode code into the origional command set and will release an update. Check sourceforge for the latest version which is currently 1.4.1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hardware recommended?
I'd go with an nforce chipset probably. I bought an nforce 2 board for this purpose and it seems fine, and it is fairly low cost. Fancier and newer ones are probably fine, but I'd avoid anything that was released in the past ~3 months if possible, unless you have solid information on its reliability in similar situations. [Things a few months old tend to have more bugs worked out, and may even have bios updates available.] For capture, unless your dealing with firewire or HDTV over the air signals, you almost certainly want to go with a hauppage card. I'd just get a PVR 150 and if you need another later you can add one then. Of course if your sure you want two then the 500's work well apparently. (A 500 is basically two 150's on a single pci card.) For memory 512MB is probably the best choice. More probably won't help, although HDTV might be an exception. I only used KnoppMyth for a day to try to figure out why my Gentoo installation didn't work. Still, it is a good starting point. I'm not familiar with that particular motherboard. As regards to noise, well you need to decide if you want your backend to be separate from your frontend(s). If so, then maybe your backend can make lots of noise, but be put somewhere so it doesn't matter. Your front end can be diskless and fanless if you go with something like VIA EPIA, or probably some normal processors, with the right heat sinks. One irritation about diskless systems is they seem to lag a bit more and are of course more trouble to initially setup. Gigabit network based diskless systems might be interesting. Some of the cases on logicsupply.com use power supplies without fans, although what all those can be used with would require some research... Good luck. Btw I'm sure I've seen this topic several times before. If you look around the mythtv web page there should be a link to search old messages of this list somewhere. -Robert On Wednesday 16 November 2005 07:36 pm, Bertrand M wrote: Hello, I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction in regards to hardware, as I am getting a little overwhelmed with all the choices. I run FreeBSD and XP at home, but haven't used Linux in a long time. Here are my needs: - I want to use the Silverstone LC11M case, - I will probably use KnoppMyth as it seems the easiest - am worried about fan noise, - will be using MAME and bittorrent more than actual encoding - but want one capture card with the option of having two at some point, - am not worried about money necessarily (if something costs 100$ more and is THAT much better, fine) For a mobo, I was looking at BIOSTAR TForce6100-939 but it seems that is very problematic with Linux drivers? Another direction I was considering would be to use a mobile Pentium or Celeron. Is this common? I assumed my first capture card would be a Hauppauge PVR-x50. What mobo+cpu combos run the coolest and are least problematic driver wise? GPU wise, sounds like nVIDIA is the only way to go, correct? - Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] zap2it listings update
I glanced at it before and thought I found the right command, but it would seem to not have worked. (It has been well over a week.) At any rate, how do you zap the channel database and get it so that only the channels you have selected at zap2it are shown and not old channels that no longer have guide information since they are deselected.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV Sharing Question
On Monday 14 November 2005 01:51 pm, Gary Franczyk wrote: Hi, is there a way I can share a MythTV system with my friends? I mean, I would like to see the TV shows that my friends have recorded on MY MythTv box And perhaps select them to download to my box when I want to watch them. (even if I cant watch them right away and I have to wait for the system to download the file) I'm not affiliated with the developers or anything, but I rather suspect MythTV having an official p2p function is less than likely since that would introduce the issues that plaque other p2p programs.. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] MyBlaster Initial Impression
I have the MyBlaster serial working and it seems solid on dish network receivers so far. I'll write a bit more later, but for now I'm just testing out my new email address. (My university is deleting my old address since I graduated.) I ended up modifying the MyBlaster.pl script slightly, but whether a better understanding of how it works might have made it unnecessary, I don't know yet. At any rate, I'll add some more later. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] pchdtv3000 svideo input w/Dish HD?
On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 13:53 -0600, James C. Dastrup wrote: I'm reading up on all this hdtv stuff so I can drool about it. I've read that only terrestrial hdtv is available for linux, but I'm not about to invest money in an antennae. I've got Dish currently, and I don't plan to go hybrid. The only thing I can think of that might capture HD signals from say a component video connection would be a very high end data aquisition card, or perhaps three data aquisition cards, one for each signal. If for instance you used national instruments boards you could possibly synchronize three of the pci boards with the rtsi bus. Of course the boards alone are likely to cost several thousand or more. You would probably also need a very high end computer. Windows XP and Labview would likely make it easier initially. I suspect one might also need a raid drive configuration to handle saving raw uncompressed HD information. At any rate, I suspect if someone wanted to capture HD component video that it is doable, if you wanted to throw enough money and time at it. Some basic electrical engineering knowledge would be a plus as well. The interesting trick is, whether or not it would be possible to compress it down to mpeg2 in real time using todays cpu's. I honestly don't know, but I suspect the answer is yes. I suppose the moral is, that somethings are amusing to ponder doing, but until someone makes a card/chipset specifically for capturing HD I doubt it is going to be cost effective for an average consumer. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Long term stability?
Does anyone have a backend that runs for a week or more under reasonably heavy use? By run, I mean with no manual intervention or cron jobs resetting things/etc. I still have to occasionally do a /etc/init.d/mythbackend restart although I'm not quite sure why... If people do, perhaps a few could give their 1) PVR hardware 2) Motherboard chipset 3) Kernel version 4) IVTV version. 5) Firmware version? 6) System Memory and, well, anything else they think relevant to stability. Actually, I wonder if there is a database anywhere of such things, or if such a thing would be useful. If nothing else, this might give someone a bit of guidance when putting together a system. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] gentoo advice please
On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 11:26 +0100, Tom wrote: Hi Ben, maybe a stupid question: Do you compile the video4linux stuff for that card? For my card (and gentoo), it was not added, so I have to configure the kernel for that and recompile it. on gentoo just do # genkernel --menuconfig all You may want to just configure the kernel yourself. 1.) make menuconfig Configure everything. If you have an old .config around in that directory even better, since, hopefully some of the existing choices are good. 2.) make all modules_install Wait 3.) mount /boot mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage.orig 3.) cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot [change to the i386 as needed.] is more or less how I handle generic kernels.. Of course you have to have grub or whatever setup to expect that, but that is In particular make sure the following is in your kernel, and not as a module. a) The root file system and the boot file system. b) The processor type and optimizations. c) NFS support d) Optionally if your booting from a network card you have to select those options as well.. Most other things can be modules, although if your making a custom kernel, you will find it quicker to compile to, for instance, deselect all 10/100 network card options except the one you are using. In general I tend to recommend compiling in network card drivers. Sound card can go either way. Special drivers for capture cards might be better off to leave as modules. I remember having an issue getting an older capture card to work with the hauppage cards, but I don't remember what I did to fix it, since keeping the old card working didn't matter to me. and add your stuff. Tom Am Montag, 7. November 2005 11:07 schrieb Ben Edwards: I decided to take the plunge and wipe my problemetic KnoppMyth install and replace it with gentoo. So far I have managed to get a working system with X and xfce4:-). What I can't find is anything on getting a new (conexant chipset) nova-t card working:-( Ben -- Ben Edwards - Bristol, UK, England WARNING:This email contained partisan views - dont ever accuse me of using the veneer of objectivity If you have a problem emailing me use http://www.gurtlush.org.uk/profiles.php?uid=4 (email address this email is sent from may be defunct) ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] fanless Epia, Mediamvp or network dvd player for frontend?
On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 23:04 +, Andrew Wilson wrote: [snip] Epia - My current frontend/backend is an epia. I'd just be replacing it with a fanless frontend-only box. Works very well but has a few annoying bugs which might go away with another box - judging by how infrequently these problems are discussed on this list they don't affect everyone: Lipsync can get bad, Horrible audio chirping after skipping forwards, more prevalent on recordings from some channels than others. Pros: can attach hd, dvd. Cons: expensive, big. A quick look shows this one.. http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/23_66/products_id/183 How is that big? Of course I'll agree on the expensive part. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Gave up IR Blaster ordered MyBlaster
I finally gave up on an IR Blaster. I tinkered with the gap various times and never found a value that was rock solid with Dish Network receivers. If I had a remote receiver that would see the 56k pulses It might help, in that I could get the value of gap that way, which may or may be enough help. From what I can tell there are two problems with generic IR blasters. 1) The faster modulation frequency required makes it that much harder to be consistently right and not mess up any channel changes. 2) Kernels these days hapilly multithread, and it is so easy for another process to delay things and mess up the timing. Maybe if the entire blaster code was in the kernel, it might be able to remain solid regardless. I'm not sure if a kernel scheduler is available to insure the precision needed to gaurantee this. Even if it was, it would probably be a lot of work to figure it out, and would probably take a decent chunk of resources just for that task. What is needed almost is to find an external interface that runs at 56kHz. I can't see how using the data lines on a serial port can work cleanly since you have the start and stop bits.. Something like one of national instruments digital I/O boards would likely be simple enough to program to do it, but then it is cheaper to buy the my blaster. Similarly you could develop something similar to the myblaster, but then it is again easier just to buy the MyBlaster product since the time involved, for me to do it anyway, would not be trivial.. This might be something to think of if I ever get back to working on figuring out USB chips with microcontrollers.. If nothing else it would be a good learning project.. At any rate, as the title suggests, I basically gave up on getting an IR blaster to work solidly in my case with Dish Network receivers. I suppose if you dedicated a machine just to that, it might work, since there would be no large programs preempting things, but with myth doing everything else, it just seems unlikely in my case.. I'll let everyone know my experiences with the MyBlaster in a week or two, once I've had time to get it and be sure of it.. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Slightly OT: XM or Sirius Recording
Has anyone seen an elegant solution to work with Satellite Radio? In the ideal case, myth basically does everything needed, except obviously you don't need to record video and you have to get the programming from some where. For one channel, which is likely what I'd get it for, mostly, I figure you would want a command like arecord showname duration in seconds with the result being showname-date.mp3 at your desired bit rate. Hopefully this combined with a series of cron jobs and you would be done... At any rate, I just thought I'd see if this kind of problem has already been solved by someone. One of the reasons I want to get XM is, while an internet audio stream is possible, it is low quality, and I forget to turn the stream off a lot. Basically it eats away at the amount I'm allowed to download with satellite internet, so I figure $14.00 a month or whatever is worth it, hopefully. (I also hope to use it in my car.) -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frozen Video
On Sat, 2005-11-05 at 16:09 -0800, Drew Tomlinson wrote: I have a Gentoo box running kernel version 2.6.13-r5, and MythTV 0.18.2 built from Gentoo's portage system. I'm using a video card with the nvida nv18 chipset (6600?). I also have a custom xorg modeline for my widescreen HDTV. My video card is connected via a VGA to component converter. The screen looks good and regular desktop mode works fine. The mouse moves. MythTV menus are displayed and the cursor moves around when I hit the arrow keys. The problem is when I switch to a video mode. The video freezes at the first frame. The audio continues and plays just fine. The freezing problem occurs whether I'm viewing LiveTV, previously recorded shows, and even video files via MythVideo. All of this used to work until I upgraded hardware and rebuilt my system. I have no idea what the cause might be or where to start looking. Any ideas? Drew Since your information is relatively generic, I am just tossing out possibilities. You may be able to eliminate some right away.. Your best bet is probably video card drivers though... --- Does mplayer/xine/whatever play videos? If so everything is probably working well. You say mythvideo does not play so I assume this will fail too. Can you play videos without sound? Try mplayer -nosound filename.avi If that works then you probably have sound card/driver issues. You have an nvidia card. What drivers are you using? Get a pen and paper, or whatever, and note down your current combination. Sometimes one just keeps trying different drivers and/or other things until a clue appears. If you run out of other things you might try more conservative kernel options by turning off anything video card related.. Is there a card in the next slot next to your AGP? card? Sometimes that used to cause trouble. Try removing it. For that matter, at some point trying the system with only the video card, and no other cards might be worthwhile... Perhaps you should connect a normal computer monitor for testing just to remove that converter from the equation and be able to test independently. Still if the video is freezing, it seems unlikely to be the converter unless the converter is actually sampling the signal, which seems unlikely. Then again I suppose it could be the tv doing the freeze frame.. Finally, is this a new card, or a card that has never been fully tested in that board before? If so, can you try something else? If that is not possible can you check the card elsewhere? By check I mean, make sure you at least get it playing back videos under as similar a configuration as you can manage. If that works, and you can't think of anything else then perhaps the card doesn't like the motherboard.. If it doesn't work, the possibility of a bad card exists. Does the card or your motherboard have spots for more power cables? Is the fan on the card running? -good luck -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: Settling the HD debate WAS: Re: [mythtv-users] A warning about Samsung HDDs
On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 10:57 -0500, Steve Adeff wrote: On Monday 31 October 2005 15:20, Robert Denier wrote: I didn't see this mentioned so I thought I'd add it. Hard drives come with different amounts of cache ram. I believe 16MB is about the largest out now. The point being that a larger cache may result in a bit less work for the moving components which in turn may result in longer life. I'm not sure this would matter in practice though. Still, if your getting a new drive, I'd look for at least an 8MB cache for performance reasons if nothing else.. in fact all the extra cache does is allow the drive to appear to operate faster. hdparm has a -t and -T tests, one for cache speeds one for actual disk speeds. Since the amount of data being written stays the same there is Cache is potentially useful against wear and tear if it causes the total amount of head motion to be less. Perhaps the program asks for the first 50KB right then, but in a subsequent operation 5 seconds later it asks for the next 50KB. Now the head could be anywhere 5 seconds later and have to go back to read that next 50kb. If, on the other hand, it read the next 100KB into cache memory during the initial read, it can directly refer to that and save on one positioning of the head. Does it work exactly like this in practice? I don't know. I never studied caching algorithms to that degree, and from what someone else said, the cache size doesn't seem to affect reliability in practice, and in the end those are the results that matter. Still, caching is an important technology. No, it doesn't always work, but you wouldn't see it all over computer architecture if it didn't have some significant benefits... -Robert no real difference in component wear. The platters will be spinning no matter what and the head movement is done electromechanically, so theres no real wear and tear to be concerned about. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Help Diskless frontend
On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 09:14 -0500, Phill Wiggin wrote: Out of curiosity, why does your setup suck[s] for mythfrontend? I was planning on setting up a similar system (to get rid of the HD in my My diskless system works.. Its gentoo based. I don't have it auto loading X or even have lirc configured on it yet since, well, I just haven't spent the time on it. (That and tapping my right control key on my keyboard switches to that computer anyway...) I did plug in an ati RF remote and compiled that module, but that was a stop gap until I got around to doing the full lirc setup which I'll eventually clone to other systems.. One irritation on my setup is the board doesn't survive a reboot without turning off the power for ~10 seconds first. Basically, if your going diskless expect more work to set it up, and you likely want 512MB of ram. For the 'Ideal' diskless setup, if you can find a motherboard with a gigabit ethernet jack that will boot diskless it might improve performance a bit. Basically it might save a few seconds here and there... (Mine is just 100BT). Of course if you just want a quiet system you could possibly use a little laptop drive and pretty much do the same thing.. -Robert frontend), but if your problems are the norm, I may have to rethink that plan... Phill Adam Skinner wrote: Hi , I would like to setup a diskless mythtv frontend. I have a working gentoo based installation working so far (pxe loader , nfs share based kernel) , but this sucks for mythfrontend. I noticed in an earlier post, someone mentioned they had something similar using knoppymyth. Please could you explain a bit more in detail. Any other suggesstions?? Im thinking ramdisk may help. A ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: Settling the HD debate WAS: Re: [mythtv-users] A warning about Samsung HDDs
I didn't see this mentioned so I thought I'd add it. Hard drives come with different amounts of cache ram. I believe 16MB is about the largest out now. The point being that a larger cache may result in a bit less work for the moving components which in turn may result in longer life. I'm not sure this would matter in practice though. Still, if your getting a new drive, I'd look for at least an 8MB cache for performance reasons if nothing else.. Another thing worth considering, particularly if you use many of the same drives is how much power they use. High power usage will make them harder to keep cool and cost some more electric wise.. A final factor to consider is how much noise they make. I don't think that has a direct relationship with reliability though since there are a variety of physical components in a drive... -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] DVB-S Users: Anyone have C-band?
Bear in mind that my C-band info is not current. We never purchased a 4DTV system because it just wasn't cost effective compared to the little dishes especially with multiple receivers. I think 4DTV receivers might have a second channel number for digital channels, although I do not know the details. On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 15:50 -0700, Greg Grotsky wrote: I currently have a DVB-T setup with MythTV working using the HD-3000 and I like it alot. I've been thinking lately that it would be really cool to have a satellite hookup and access to many more than just the 6-7 local ATSC channels. I checked out the zap2it config for satellite C-band and 4DTV channels, they are both loaded with stations. I did some research about doing C-band (8' dish) and I'm wondering how does one control the actuators on the dish in order to point it at different satellites? Generally on the remotes you would have a letter key assigned to each number key. I.E. 0 - 9 were different letters. Satcom 1 just became F1 and Galaxy 3 became G3 and so on. On the remote you would press Sat - G - 3 except the G was really one of the number keys.. This would change to a particular satellite and then you would change the channel by either the up/down button or entering 1-24. All the acutator control information and tuned channel data doesn't come down the same coax cable, does it? The C-band system we have uses a set of wires for the linear actuator, a set of 3 wires for the polarization motor, and a coaxial cable for the C-band signals. Any newer units will have a second coaxial cable for Ku band signals. The actuator wires typically run at something like 24-36 volts with the direction of movement controlled by which one is made positive. A thin pair of wires return pulses to track position. Breifly here are some of the advantages of C-band.. 1) C-band has somewhat better picture, at least on some channels. The last I looked you still had many channels being sent over analog scrambling which means, in general, using something like 6MHz to send the picture. An analog picture sent over that much bandwidth will usually be better than a digital picture sent over a small dish, although it really depends on how much bandwidth the small dish system can dedicate to the channel.. One thing I noticed when I did a side by side comparison some time ago was that very fine details were smudged a bit by the small dish. 2) Want some of the channels that are only on C-band. To be honest I can't think of anything there that I care for anymore, but there are wild feeds and such. Of course most of it you can't find a listing for. I do remember losing patience waiting for the next weeks episode of a show and finding the feed of it television stations were meant to record.. 3) C-band is, or at least last I looked anyway, was cheaper, but you get fewer channels and you really can't use multiple receivers without multiple dishes, and even then you negate any savings.. In general 3 doesn't apply to me because we have several receivers. I can't think of any channels on C-band I want anymore. I thought about just buying HBO (You can buy 1 channel and it probably would still be cheaper than adding it to the small dish) there and connecting it to myth, but that would likely be a pain. Finally the picture difference is not that big of a deal, and there is a lot more maintenance involved in keeping C-band systems performing at their peak compared to small dish systems... -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Better looking playback?
I've no idea as to that particular tv. In general you want in order of best to worst. 1) DVI connections at the full resolution of your TV's DLP element running non interlaced, but that may not work due to DVI limitations. 2) If the previous doesn't then you might try a plain VGA connection at the full resolution, or as close as you can handle. (1920x1080p)? 3) DVI interlaced at 1920x1080i or DVI with ~720p. I'm not sure which will be better here.. In general find a way to use a better connection than S-video if you have a TV that fancy. Component is another options, but using DVI or regular VGA is probably the way to go. This is not a new topic, so I rather suspect a search of old messages might be useful.. On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 19:37 -0400, MacNean Tyrrell wrote: I have a nvidia geforce 5200, using svideo out. Mythtv looks sharp and very nice looking. However playback is still not that great. Not really sharp like the menu. I've played with the XV picture color controls, and tried kernel, bob, and liner deinterlacing techniques and nothing looks as sharp as that. Is it because it's deinterlacing the video? or because of the ivtv driver for the 2 pvr 250's i have? I've seen 5200 with dvi outs (like this, but this is 5500, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130197), i have a 52 lg dlp tv with dvi input, my cable and my dvd player go to the 2 composite inputs, would getting this video card could i then run it in progressive so no deinterlacing required? And would it look better at all? Also, i've seen some cards that say HDTV out, but it looks like a s video output, can someone explain what this is, and would it help either? -- Sincerely, MacNean C. Tyrrell ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hardware Woes
The only obvious thing that comes to mind is to check that any hard drives that are involved in streaming are actually using dma. I.E. hdparm /dev/hda Beyond that, in no particular order... 1) Are you running a good video card driver? (Perhaps a binary driver from your hardware vendor?) 2) Is your kernel configured for preemption? Sometimes that can help, and occasionally, it can even hurt, but the second is mostly due to some other buggy driver. 3) There are options to use DRI(sp?) [Direct Rendering] and such for video cards. I've never been ambitious enough to get them working as I haven't had the need, but with hdtv you might have the need. I believe that also requires some kernel configuration. 4) Are program versions actually compiled with support for the P4? Things run a bit faster if programs use all the processors native instructions rather than say only those that would work on a generic 686. I tend to doubt this is the cause of your problem though. Good luck, -Robert On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 15:58 -0700, Gregg wrote: I recently upgraded my motherboard and processor from a p4 1.6 to a p4 3.0 and asus p4r800-v deluxe. It seems that hdtv stutters more than it did on the 1.6. I was able to watch it on the 1.6 without stutter unless I fast forwarded it. Should I upgrade the kernel to an SNMP version? I used Jarods Guide to originally install mythtv. I am currently running 2.6.11-1.14_FC3, 512mb ram p4 3.0ghz,pchdtv3000,pvr250, fx5200, and 120gig hd. Any suggestions are greatly appriciated. -Gregg ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Upgrade to MySql 5.0
I wonder if that tiny database (sqlite?) that comes with php5 (?) is adequate for mythtv. The main thing is it treats everything as strings. I don't think it has support for accessing remotely so it may not be useful.. I found it useful when I needed a database and didn't have the space for mysql... On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 09:14 -0400, Lee Koloszyc wrote: Adrian Kladnig wrote: Is anyone running MythTV with MySQL 5.0? Are there any config changes that I will need to make to get it to work properly? Is there a way that I can run MySQL 5.0 in parallel with MySQL 3.23.58 (just to hedge my bets!) Thanks, Adrian. I had problems with mythfilldatabase and MYSQL 5.0, I wouldn't upgrade just yet. I read somewhere that repeat is now a MYSQL keyword and it breaks the mythfilldatabase SQL. Lee ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] MyIRBlaster - Myth Issues Only??
I had a lot of trouble changing channels reliably since I moved to dish
network 301 receivers from a 5xx series. Someone suggested that the gap
value in the file may have to be changed and that it was cpu/serial port
dependent.
I kept changing it and figured it was a lost cause at one point, and was
about to order a MyBlaster, but then I decided to change it some more
and eventually ended up with something that seems ok. I started with a
gap of 175000 and ended with 40 in /etc/ledxmitd.conf.
I tossed together this script to zap and restore things to try different
gap values. I'm sure someone could clean it up if they cared to do
so...
#!/bin/bash
modprobe -r ledxmit_serial
modprobe -r ledxmit_dev
PID=$(ps -A | grep ledxm | egrep -o [0-9]{3,5})
echo Found PID=[$PID]
if [[ $PID != ]]
then
echo Killing existing instance of ledxmit...
kill -s 9 $PID
fi
/bin/echo Starting ledxmit stuff...
setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart none
update-modules
modprobe ledxmit_serial
nice -n -20 /usr/local/lirc-ledxmit/sbin/ledxmit-ledxmitd
For reference that is an AMD XP 2000+ (Technically it is actually an AMD
MP 1900+ running as a 2000+.) with an nforce 2 motherboard.
It seems that the normal way of entering remote codes from an unknown
remote will determine the value of the gap, but, unfortunately, dish
network receivers run at 56kHz(?) and my IR receiver doesn't pick up
them, so I was stuck working from a premade file and guessing.
-Robert
On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 13:19 -0400, George Nassas wrote:
On 26-Oct-05, at 1:08 PM, Scott S. wrote:
Has anyone seen this? Or have any other ideas on a fix? Any help would
be great.
I haven't seen this problem with mine but I remember when I was setting
up a modem I had a heck of a time getting the serial connection to work
reliably. One thought I have is when you test it through the command
line are you the same user as the myth backend? I remember that being a
factor for some reason, you may have to add the backend user to the
dialout group or whoever owns the serial port. Or, do the channel
change through a script that explicitly sets the line parameters before
running the channel change script.
- George
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[mythtv-users] Feature Idea: Put PIP window to far right on 16:9 when 4:3 sources
It looks like on a 16:9 display you could put the 4:3 image on the left and the PIP window on the right, perhaps even with the default sizes. Obviously there would be black space below the pip window, but that way both video sources would display without overlap. Obviously you could also flip it and put the big 4:3 to the right and the little 4:3 to the left. At any rate, I'm just tossing out an idea. Perhaps it is even a new and useful idea.. Of course if anyone knows of a simple way to do this now, then I'd be curious as to how. I know you can move the main video window.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hardware Selection for backend
Is some of the transcoding done on the backend? I haven't checked where it is being done yet.. At any rate if the backend does transcoding then springing for a decent cpu, especially if a substantially better one is say $20 or so is probably worthwhile. Basically I'd look at prices if your buying new. Sometimes spending only a tiny amount more can get a signifcantly better cpu, and who knows if you will be using that machine for myth forever.. A quick glance at pricewatch shows athlon xp 2600 333 $66 xp 2700 333 $72 xp 1600 $49 athlon 64 3000 $119 (It might be worthwhile going 64 bit if your going for brand new equipment, but it is a tossup I guess.) I suppose also, if your running it continually, the cost of providing energy should factor in over the lifetime of the unit, but I couldn't begin to estimate how that would effect the long term cost. I do think the nforce recommendation is a good one. I remember some posts about via? being less than ideal for the hauppage pvr cards. I'm using an nforce 2 board I think cost about $50 from newegg. On the other hand, there is probably no reason to go nforce 4, so nforce 2 or 3 is likely good. Of course if you have something older that will work so you don't have to buy anything then the solution is simple. Good luck.. -Robert On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 20:47 -0400, Steve Adeff wrote: On Monday 24 October 2005 20:18, Jon Solomon wrote: I am building my first Mythtv Backend from scratch. I plan on using 3 Hauppauge PVR 500's to record 4-6 stearms at time. My question is how fast of a processor and how much ram should I get? Which Motherboard would you recommend that have little or no issues with the PVR 500s and SATA HD? Thanks I advanced for the help. CPU speed won't matter much, so if you've got an old P3-ish system use that. If you want to build a new computer, look for an nForce3 based board with pci and agp and SATA. get the cheapest cpu you can find or the board and 512megs of ram. It'll be an Athlon of some sort so it'll be fast enough. Steve ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] IR blaster fails sometimes?
On Fri, 2005-10-21 at 22:00 -0300, Mark J. Small wrote: Hi everybody , sorry if this is a double post... I've got a recurring issue that is starting to really annoy me. On many weeknights I record two consecutive programs on the same channel. The first recording stops at at 00:35, and the second record starts at the same time. Quite often, the second recording gets tuned to the wrong channel. Last night, I got half an hour of Leno instead of Ghost in the Shell. My ir blaster tuned my DCT2000 to channel 6 instead of channel 26. The 2 got lost somewhere along the way. When I look in my syslog, I can see the lirc events for each digit. The 2 gets sent at 00:35:05 The 6 gets sent at 00:35:08 The OK gets sent at 00:35:09 (tell dct2000 to really change the channel -- auto tune is off) The EXIT gets sent at 00:35:10 (kill dct2000 osd) I think that the 3 second lag between the 2 and the 6 is causing my problem. By the time the 6 comes along, the 2 has been ignored. On successful channel changes, the digits get sent every second. (I pause 0.7 seconds between sends.) I'm guessing that at the time of the failed channel change, the machine is heavily loaded. But why would it happen for at 00:35 every night, thus killing the channel change for some of my favourite shows? I checked, and there are no cron jobs running at 00:35 to slow things down. My cron.hourly is at 17 minutes past, my cron.daily is at 12:25 (noonish), and my cron.weekly and cron.monthly are between 4:00 and 6:00. I looked through lots of logs, and I noticed that at 00:35:03, in mythtvbackend.log, there is a reschedule requested for id 0 This finishes at 00:35:08. Is this what is slowing my machine down so much? What can I do about it? Faster CPU? More RAM? nice the channel change script? My backend is a Duron 800 with 256MB RAM and 3 PVR 250s. Try something like nice -n -20 /usr/local/lirc-ledxmit/sbin/ledxmit-ledxmitd in your init script for it. If it works you may not want to leave it at -20. I'm not sure if that will cause problems. If you just want to hunt for things going on around then and don't wanat to stay up, you could put something like this in a script... #!/bin/bash LF=/tmp/logfile while [[ 1 == 1 ]] do date $LF top -b -n 1 $LF sleep 10 done That file might grow really large so I wouldn't let it run forever... This is a bit simplistic, but perhaps it will be helpful. I have some issues with my IR blaster not being reliable as well controlling a dish network 301 receiver. I'm tempted to buy a my blaster just to avoid having to debug the problem. One person said the gap setting in the configuration file can matter a great deal, but I have not found a reliable setting yet. I also have not spent a great deal of time on it yet. Oh look I told it to record 300 and it switched to 30 and I missed the first part of a show. I'm not sure a MyBlaster is a perfect solution, unless perhaps the extra receivers can be programmed in. I suppose I could use two of them... Good luck with this.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] lirc output reliability
On Fri, 2005-10-21 at 22:40 -0600, jgmtfia Mr wrote: http://www.mytvstore.com/product_id_004.html They have USB as serial versions. (I found out the name yesterday, but thanks.) I'm not too sure about using the usb versions.. I found some more info here just now. http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/archive/o_t/t_103/start_30/index.html It looks like it might solve the stability issue. From what I've seen online results are somewhat mixed... The key results seem to be that you can most likely control two dish receivers with two serial versions of theses things. At around $45 a piece, that is a little expensive though. It also seems like people are having some success controlling a couple receivers with one, but I haven't studied the details yet.. On 10/20/05, Robert Denier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I thought I saw a device that connected via a serial port that would send remote codes awhile back, but I can't remember its name. Basically you would send a 2 or whatever via serial, and not the complex modulation pattern. The devices hardware would handle the rest. Now, I've no idea if such a thing would work with multiple dish 301 receivers or not, but perhaps someone can at least think of the name of it. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] lirc output reliability
I thought I saw a device that connected via a serial port that would send remote codes awhile back, but I can't remember its name. Basically you would send a 2 or whatever via serial, and not the complex modulation pattern. The devices hardware would handle the rest. Now, I've no idea if such a thing would work with multiple dish 301 receivers or not, but perhaps someone can at least think of the name of it. -Robert On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 11:33 -0400, Dan Wilga wrote: At 10:08 AM -0500 10/19/05, Robert Denier wrote: For some reason my lirc output has been very unreliable lately. I keep getting wrong channels, particularly sense I went to dish 301 receivers from the newer model version. I have the same problem. I believe it has to do with the fact that lirc relies on the RTC timer. If something happens to interrupt it while it's pausing, the frequency of the output will be off and the receiver will balk. I think what makes the 301 more sensitive to this than other IR devices is the fact that it operates at a higher frequency (56000 Hz) than most. I'm using an opto-coupler to interface my serial port to the Dish 301 receivers, so I know it's not an LED-related problem. I have tried niceing the lirc process so it won't be as likely to get interrupted, but that doesn't seem to help. My next step is to build a device that will send the IR pulses independently of the PC, but I don't know how long that will take. For now I just put up with the occasional missed program. By the way, I analyzed the signal received by the Dish receiver with an oscilloscope and compared it to what was being generated by my device. After tweaking, I came to this lirc config, modified from the stock 3100 remote: begin remote name 3100 bits 16 flags SPACE_ENC eps30 aeps 100 header550 5830 one 550 1550 zero 550 2570 ptrail550 gap 5530 min_repeat 8 toggle_bit 0 frequency56000 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] Can anyone reccomend me a wireless nic for FC4?
WG311T works with the atheros (madwifi) driver, or at least the version I have does... On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 08:19 -0500, Mercury Morris wrote: On 10/19/05, Duncan Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey guys Sorry to go a bit off topic, but I'm looking to set my myth box up wirelessly. I'm asking here as I figured there would be quite a few of you on here using FC3/4. I recently tried a Netgear WG311T but couldn't for the life of me get any form of encryption working. The problem stemmed from the windows driver via ndiswrapper being too large for the default kernel stack (or something like that, a known Fedora problem apparently), and so I had to use the madwifi driver. This worked perfectly unencrypted, but its hardly ideal. The card has since gone into another Linux box just fine, so no real loss.. So anyway, I'll be buying another one very shortly, the requirements being 54Mbs minimum, and with WPA-PSK working happily (WEP would do though). I'm fairly competent Linux wise, but a card that works with the minimum of fuss would be nice. Anyone got any ideas from personal experience? I have a similar combination - WG311T and FC3 - using WEP, working well. Was it a minimum of fuss ? No, but right close to minimum, perhaps because I also have the companion to the WG311T - the WGT624 Wireless Firewall Router. Surprisingly smooth madwifi installation followed by some trial-and-error to get the WEP keys working. This all happened some months ago, but I remember that I started with no keys at all, just to see if the equipment would work. After bringing up the network connection without WEP, I entered a single WEP key into the WGT624 and the same key into /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0. The first try at a WEP key didn't work, so after searching forums and mailing lists, I entered the key in quotes followed by the word restricted. The line in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0 is: KEY=XX restricted After this last bit of tweaking, the wireless connection has been stable and reliable. If you still have problems after trying to get your new card working, I can add more information from all the notes made during the trial-and-error period. Good Luck ! -- MM ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] lirc output reliability
For some reason my lirc output has been very unreliable lately. I keep getting wrong channels, particularly sense I went to dish 301 receivers from the newer model version. I wonder if it is a timing issue or the IR light isn't strong enough. At any rate, I thought I remembered a serial device that was perhaps a little more reliable. I was wondering if anyone has experience with dish network 301 receivers and getting two of them to reliably change the channel. I'd consider just buying something if it would solve the problem. Beyond that I guess I need to look at my circuit again. I'm using kernel 2.6.12.5 and I believe lirc-7.0 with the typical dish network instructions. I think I tried a 7.2 version but it errored so I went back. I suppose the question is whether anyone is using a recent kernel and has this setup. If so, I could perhaps compare what they have and see if I can figure out what is different... This setup used to work better before so perhaps the 301's need a brighter ir light... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] The Race to Change the Channel
I tend to more or less agree that changing channels super fast is not too important. Small dish receivers haven't ever done this fast. Of course adding the myth layer slows things down a little, but for quite practical reasons and its no big deal. Now if one wanted a trivial way to flip channels fast, at least in principle, you could use inactive capture cards to lock on and start a stream on the next channel while your still on the current channel. Then you also need to have the decompression sequence started as well, but in principle you could double your flipping channels rate. Is it worth the trouble? I doubt it... -Robert Denier On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 21:33 -0700, Joe Votour wrote: I agree, with one caveat. I still use the LiveTV feature, although not as much as I used to (because even though I'm on the west coast, most of my channels are east coast feeds, which necessitates recording everything). Even though I still use LiveTV, I would never, ever channel surf. What's the point, when you have full program information available with only a button press? If I'm watching LiveTV (because, perhaps I've watched all of my recordings), when I want to find something to watch, I'll scroll through the program guide. It's much more effective than scrolling through every channel. Even with a real TV, channel surfing is a pointless waste of time. While you're busy going through your 50+ channels looking for something to watch, you might be missing something you'd actually enjoy. -- Joe --- Andrew McNabb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 11:08:55PM -0400, Sam Krupa wrote: What is the fix for the channel changing problem! Everyone knows that changing channels is slow, but most of us don't care. I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV to watch Live TV. I just record all of the shows I like. MythTV was designed and optimized for time-shifting, and I don't think there are very many people that would want to change that design just to make changing channels faster. That's my opinion, anyway. -- Andrew McNabb http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/ PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55 8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users __ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/ ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] (Slightly OT) Multi room Multimedia playback
I'm curious if anyone has ever heard of a good solution to say play back an audio stream in many rooms at the same time, while keeping it in sync enough so they didn't clash. I'm guessing something like a server program running on all machines waiting for audio and some kind of command like AudioLink 3,4 to link the computers audio in rooms 3 and 4 to the audio on whatever computer is running. Once linked anything played on that computer would also play on 3 and 4. I think I heard something along these lines with mp3's before, but I don't remember the details. For now at least I'm using a couple twisted pairs in a network cable to run audio to different places. I tend to need to isolate them with audio transformers, and the quality is not quite what I'd ideally like, but it does work.. (The best way to run pure analog audio multiple places is likely using the differential (balanced) connections used in professional audio equipment, but then you get to the messy conversions required for normal equipment..) ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Multiple frontend on one machine
The question reduces to running multiple X servers on one machine, each going to a different video output. You would also need multiple sound cards. I think alsa can handle that differentiation. You may be able to run each session in a chroot area separate from the main one to keep things organized. You might need to use different types of remotes (usb/ir/wireless ir keyboard) for the different ones. Of course it might be possible to just use two ir receivers, one on com1 and another on com2 and run separate lirc sessions in the chroot environment. I'm guessing getting this to two off of one would be rather tedious with extras being even harder. This sounds like it could potentially be a large amount of work and I'm not sure if it would work. A hybrid idea might be to do something where X is using two screens and you maximize a mythfrontend on each... I believe this is called xinerama. -Robert On Sun, 2005-10-16 at 00:37 -0500, Alberto Alonso wrote: I doubt many people use this, but I have an interest on running multiple front end instances on a single machine. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks, Alberto ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] running backend as debian runlevel service?
I'm not sure if this helps, but this is Gentoo's Script. I also
included the /etc/conf.d/mythbackend file. This is the first I noticed
that there was an option to run Myth as another user than root. Since
this is a dedicated box, there shouldn't be a great need to do so, but
it might be something to look into...
-
mythbackend ~ # cat /etc/init.d/mythbackend
#!/sbin/runscript
# Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-tv/mythtv/files/0.18-mythbackend.rc,v
1.3 2005/05/22 22:43:19 cardoe Exp $
depend() {
need net
use mysql
}
checkconfig() {
if [ ${MYTH_USER} != root ]; then
for i in $(groups ${MYTH_USER/:*/}) ; do
[[ ${i} == audio ]] audio=yes
[[ ${i} == video ]] video=yes
done
if [ -z ${audio} -o -z ${video} ] ; then
ewarn
[[ -z ${audio} ]] \
ewarn ${HILITE}${MYTH_USER/:*/}${NORMAL} is not in the
audio group
[[ -z ${video} ]] \
ewarn ${HILITE}${MYTH_USER/:*/}${NORMAL} is not in the
video group
ewarn
ewarn insufficient permissions discovered
ewarn mythbackend may not start correctly
ewarn
fi
fi
}
start() {
[[ -z ${MYTH_USER} ]] MYTH_USER=nobody
[[ -z ${MYTH_NICE} ]] MYTH_NICE=0
[[ -z ${MYTH_VERBOSE} ]] MYTH_VERBOSE=none
checkconfig
HOME=/var/log/mythtv/
QTDIR=/usr/qt/3
# Work around any strange permissions that may be on these files.
chown -R ${MYTH_USER} /var/log/mythtv/
ebegin Starting MythTV Backend
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --chuid ${MYTH_USER} \
--exec /usr/bin/mythbackend --nicelevel ${MYTH_NICE} \
--make-pidfile --pidfile /var/run/mythbackend.pid \
--background -- --verbose ${MYTH_VERBOSE} \
--logfile /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log
eend $?
}
stop () {
ebegin Stopping MythTV Backend
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile=/var/run/mythbackend.pid
eend $?
}
--
mythbackend ~ # cat /etc/conf.d/mythbackend
# Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
#
$Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-tv/mythtv/files/0.18-mythbackend.conf,v
1.2 2005/05/14 17:10:03 cardoe Exp $
# Specify which user to run as
#
# NOTE: this user must have permissions to write
# to the LOG and PID directories specified
# below. Furthermore, this user must be able
# to write to the audio and video devices
# that are configured in MythTV. This can
# be achieved by adding this user to the
# audio and video groups.
MYTH_USER=root
# Specify debug-level in log.
# Accepts any combination (separated by comma) of:
# all,none,quiet,record,playback,channel,osd,file,
# schedule,network,commflag,audio,libav,jobqueue
#MYTH_VERBOSE=none
# Set the nice level (see nice(1)). To give mythbackend a higher
# priority, you may want to set this to -15.
#MYTH_NICE=0
On Fri, 2005-10-14 at 01:09 -0700, Mike wrote:
Steve Adeff wrote:
I tried setting up mythbackend to run as a debian service in init.d/ but
when I do so I get errors that don't allow it to record or the frontends to
connect. the log files don't seem to show any problems though. I was
wondering if anyone else has set this up and how you did it?
thanks,
Steve
I took this from those abandoned debian packages listed in the myth
documentation. (just modified the paths)
##
#! /bin/sh
#
# mythtv-server MythTV capture and encoding backend
#
# Based on:
#
# skeleton example file to build /etc/init.d/ scripts.
# This file should be used to construct scripts for
/etc/init.d.
#
# Written by Miquel van Smoorenburg [EMAIL PROTECTED].
# Modified for Debian GNU/Linux
# by Ian Murdock [EMAIL PROTECTED].
#
# Version: @(#)skeleton 1.9.1 08-Apr-2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
#
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/mythbackend
NAME=mythbackend
DESC=MythTV server
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
set -e
USER=mythtv
RUNDIR=/var/run/mythtv
ARGS=--daemon --logfile /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log --pidfile
$RUNDIR/$NAME.pid
EXTRA_ARGS=
NICE=0
if [ -f /etc/default/mythbackend ]; then
. /etc/default/mythbackend
fi
ARGS=$ARGS $EXTRA_ARGS
mkdir -p $RUNDIR
chown -R $USER $RUNDIR
case $1 in
start)
echo -n Starting $DESC: $NAME
start-stop-daemon --start
Re: [mythtv-users] OT: unplugging the fan of the grafic card
In general, the fan is there for a reason. If you unplug it, it might fry. Whatever you do, never run it without a heat sink. I suppose you could monitor the temperatures with an infrared thermometer and try to see if normal myth usage will get it that hot. You might also be able to find a passive heat sink that will do the job in certain cases. directron.com? Of course modifying the card will likely void the warranty.. Also, you may be able to find a quieter fan, or possibly run the fan at a slightly reduced voltage. Be careful with reduced voltages, since if you get too low the fan may not reliably start. Obviously with a reduced voltage the fan spins less fast and you get less cooling.. Personally, I'd look around for a card withoug a fan. For SDTV even a Geforce 2 MX would likely work. For HDTV you might need something a little faster, but I suspect you could still find one. The radeon 9000 I have in my myth box is decent and it has a passive heat sink, although most people seem to prefer nvidia here, since the driver support seems to be better, particularly if you use tv out. I suspect the 9000 is fast enough for hdtv, but well I don't have an hdtv source yet, and my amd xp 2000+ probably isn't anyway. -Robert On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 09:56 +0200, Yann Lehmann wrote: I am planning to build a MythTV system, and would like to install a NVidia grafic card for software decoding of the recorded shows. The newer cards almost always have active coolers (with fan). Does software decoding use the heat producing features of the gpu, and if not, can I just unplug the fan to get a silent system ? Thank's Yann ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Pull my hair out over DVI-HDMI for my HDTV
One thing I find interesting is that 1920x1080=2073600 and 1600x1200=192 (common dvi resolution for lcd displays.) So from a pure bandwidth prospective DVI might be able to handle it. I'm not sure this is useful but I figured out a combinations that should take similar bandwidth to 1600x1200 and are the same aspect ratio as 1920x1080.. 1920x1080 = 2073600 -- HDTV res 1920/1080 = 1.777 -- HDTV pixel aspect ratio [A smaller resolution that should be similar bandwidth to 1600x1200] 1848 x 1040 = 1921920 1848/1040 = 1.777 %screen utilization = 1921920/2073600 = 93% [Slightly smaller still.] 1840x1032= 1898880 1840/1032= 1.78 $screen utilization = 92% I suspect either the dvi spec just doesn't support it, or maybe the chips used can't handle that rate. Still if someone was bored and could enter an arbitrary resolution, I'd be curious what is the highest dvi resolution obtainable was. I suppose the results are not terribly interesting other than from an academic standpoint since most people wouldn't want to give up a significant amount of screen area regardless. -Robert Denier On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 22:27 -0600, Greg Grotsky wrote: John, it is a DVI limitation because your video card is sending a digital signal to the TV and it's displaying 1:1. meaning one pixel from the video card to one pixel on the TV. You won't be able to adjust the overscan or scale the picture since it is a digital signal. Using a digital signal will give you the clearest possible picture and it was what I wanted but I changed my mind mid-purchase (and actually returned two TVs). I went analog (D-sub) so I could scale the screen down to fit on the TV, I play lots of games on my TV and in order to see the status bars on the edges of the screen I had to switch to analog mode anyway (the DVI port cuts about an inch off all four sides of the picture). Besides, I'm happy that I went analog because I got Sammy's new 5678W which does 1920x1080p, the thing they don't advertise is that you can't get a 1080p transmission over anything but the D-sub plug. DVI/HDMI doesn't support those high bandwidths (yet?). Good luck, and if you need more modelines, I have all the ones for my TV from powerstrip. -Greg On 10/13/05, John Clabaugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here are a few that work for my Sammy DLP via the DVI port: ModeLine 1280x720 74.2 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 ModeLine ATSC-720-60p1 74.2 1280 1320 1376 1648 720 722 728 750 ModeLine ATSC-720-60p2 74.2 1280 1320 1376 1650 720 722 728 750 I still get overscan that I can't adjust out with modelines. Is that is a DVI limitation? ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] FYI - Winbook 32 inch lcd - 1366x768 1:1, dvi
I got my 32 inch lcd to replace the vizio. I think part of the reason my vizio wasn't working on digital was I was using the 8.4.13-r2 of the ati binary drivers for this radeon 9000. I moved to 8.16.20-r1 ebuild and it works. I'm getting the full 1366x768 resolution of the display in a 1:1 mapping using the provided dvi cable. The contrast ratio isn't quite as good as the Vizio, but everything else looks good. Actually, straight on the contrast may be better, but at a sharp angle I think the Vizio was a little better. Of course the vizio couldn't do the 1:1 mapping I wanted, which is why it was returned. It also couldn't sync via the digital connection when the computer rebooted. The winbook does fine. The winbook is also heavier, but I think when I remove the base to wall mount it, some of that will go away. If anyone wants one of these take a look at pricewatch since you can get it for $999 and $100 shipping instead of around $1099 + $135 shipping. This is definetly a clear improvement over the Vizio for only about $30 more than what I paid at Sams Club. If anyone needs my xorg settings or something let me know. One final note is that I did have some strange remote problems for about 15 minutes but it seems fine now. Now, if only the speakers were detachable. Oh well. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] which is better, using S-Video or VGA?
On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 16:42 +0100, Andrew Wilson wrote: This is what I was going to do (replace my TV with my good quality LCD computer monitor) until I tried it out. The picture quality is simply FAR better on a TV than on a monitor. While a monitor may expose flaws in the tv signal to a greater extent, I simply don't buy that TV's give better pictures. Take a good wallpaper that is as big as a current lcd monitor's native resolution and compare that to a tv side by side. If you think the tv gives the better picture, well, then I'm surprised. I suspect part of the issue deals with removing interlacing artifacts and the interpolation a video card will do to stretch out an image. If you can look for a video card that does something better than simple linear interpolation. Most newer ati/nvidia once probably do something decent, but I haven't looked lately. As to the dinterlacing, well myth has a couple options. Finally unless your using a 350's s-video output, I doubt the signal is being reconstructed correctly to go to a tv and preserve the interlaced structure. Maybe nvidia's cards do it, but I doubt it. Without this preservation your again likely better off with a monitor. And also TV looks FAR better on an old fashioned CRT than an LCD or even a plasma TV. Sure, they are more convenient what with the slim size, and lower power consumption but they are just not as good for watching TV. Go to a TV shop and see for yourself. At any rate I personally think my vizio l32 lcd looks better than my old 32 inch crt, but thats still my opinion I suppose. I'm taking this lcd back when the winbook 32 arrives so I can get a 1:1 dot for dot display rather than the vizio's rescaling of the vga signal. I may make a better post tomorrow once I get it to play with, but if anyone wants a winbook 32 inch lcd you may want search for it via pricewatch.com. You should see it offered for $999 + 100 shipping instead of $1099 + ~$135 shipping at their web site. Also, if you want to use the monitor for anything other than tv, well then a monitor is better as well. For instance, I can read quite easily off this LCD monitor. Perhaps doing so sometimes will have some small benefit to my vision since it is farther away, although I'm obviously not an eye doctor... -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Not your everyday newbie questions
On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 13:56 -0400, R. Stavros Bezas wrote: Robert, In regards to the 1:1 pixel mapping idea you suggested: Do you have any more information regarding this so I can look further into it, I am curious to find out more about it. 1:1 mapping only applies to discrete devices like lcd's and dmd (digital micromirror device). Thanks to google I now know that is what DLP uses. (This is difference between a technical article read years ago and something useful.) At any rate those devices have some real physical resolution since there is a discrete number of elements. Perhaps it is 1920x1080. I don't know. What you want to do is set your graphics card to that physical resolution and use a dvi/hdmi cable to send it to your tv. Now the key to 1:1 pixel mapping is your sending digital data for say coordinate 100,500 over that dvi cable. That data should only be used to change the intensities associated with the 100,500th element. That is all there is to it. One would think it would be obvious and work everywhere there is a digital connection, but it doesn't. The vizio I have, for one, I couldn't get it to work with the hdmi connection, but apparently many tv's take that digital signal and rescale it and make it fit the available pixels, hence even if you input the exact size for your xorg.conf file, you get something that is slightly smeared on your screen. How do you determine if this is happening? Well create a png file that is composed of a black and white lines arranged vertically. Black lines for the even numbered lines, and white for the odd or visa versa. Show that on your tv and if it looks even and uniform then you have 1:1 mapping, if not, then not. Again, if its mostly video your showing, I doubt you can really tell from a few feet away. You might tell with text, and well it will be obvious with that kind of prepared image. In general though a 1:1 mapping should make things a little sharper than it otherwise be when sent from a computer. Note that you may not be able to manage your full resolution as a 1:1 mapping. The panel I'm getting is 1366x768 and I've read reports that you can do 1360x768 and throwing away 6 lines. At any rate good luck.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] FYI 1:1 pixel mapping lcd hdtv's
It looks like gettign a 1:1 pixel mapping on lcd tv's is difficult at least in the lower end. I may return the vizio l32 I bought and get a winbook 32 inch from winbook.com. Their warranty is only a year though, and the contrast ratio looks worse, but apparently gets significantly better reviews overall from people. That particular one is available from microcenter.com as well and if they have a store nearby it looks like a much better deal, particularly with the $135 shipping winbook wants to charge. I was wondering if anyone could toss out any other lcd tv's in that range that will display 1360x768 over dvi with a 1:1 pixel mapping? Of course having an lcd with more pixels wouldn't hurt, but I need to keep the price sane.. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Cannot get signal from PVR-250 component input to display on the screen
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 22:34 -0500, Paul Olson wrote: Hello- New to Mythtv, have had a lot of success with the main features, but am stuck at a few points. Would appreciate any assistance. I have connected a VCR to the component video input (also made the I suspect you mean composite video input... audio connection). When I fire up the VCR and switch the card to that input, I hear the audio but do not see any video on the display; I just Is the tape recorded with macrovision? Perhaps the card is paying attention to the macrovision encoding and not allowing capture.. see a blank screen. Cable is ok, when I connect those cables to the TV, the video displays fine. I am fairly certain that I have something wrong in the card setup, byt I have not been able to isolate my mistake. Can someone point me in the right direction? Try a tape that is recorded with an ordinary consumer video camera so your sure it doesn't have macrovision on it. Alternatively try using the output of a game system or something.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] FYI -- Vizio L32 LCD 16:9 Widescreen
It seems that is it not possible to get 1366x768 (the panels resolution) or anything remotely close via the hdmi interface. (I have a dvi- hdmi cable). I'm using Xorg and the ati binary drivers. The ordinary vga interface works fine and the picture is good there, so I'll probably live with it.. If anyone knows of a way to get the hdmi port working I'd certainly like to know. I'm using a radeon 9000 with vga/dvi outputs. I have used the card before to drive a 1600x1200 signal for my desktop display via dvi so the card should be fine and I don't think I'm doing anything wrong with xorg. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Need suggestion for Frontend only fanless solution
For the truly desperate to be noise free, well water cooling can do it. That is assuming you can do something with the water lines. In the best case scenario perhaps you can slip them down in the basement and do the other half of your loop there, assuming you have a basement and all that. Personally, even though I run a crude water cooling setup, I think its too much trouble for most... In hindsight I wonder if it was worth it.. On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 18:53 -0700, Reza Naima wrote: I used myhthv on my mini, and it sucked at 1600x1200. I think it's way under powered for mythtv, personally. I sold my mini and bought a pundit-r, but that's too loud to use as a frontend. So I'm looking for something else now. Reza On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 07:13:11PM -0400, Todd Houle sent me this... The Mac Mini is a low cost Macintosh ($500). It is just a small computer (2inches x 6.5 in x 6.5 in.). It does not come with a keyboard, mouse, monitor or enough RAM. It is designed to be fully functional, but inexpensive- and it's quiet. I think it comes with a bit small of a hard drive and not enough RAM. The system bus may be a little slower than other computers as well, but I'm sure it works for MythFrontEnd just fine. If you're serious, I'll pick one up to test on (I'm an Apple guy). Mac is a unix machine so it's not too different from other unixes out there (which is why Myth could be ported to it). The mini has DVI out and an included DVI to VGA adapter. An S video out adapter is $19. There's a nice port of MythFrontEnd out there so I can just run it on my Mac laptop and point it to my Linux backend. And I do run MythOnMac on my laptop - over wireless even. I have an old 802.11b router so I get a 1/2 second pause every 3 seconds of show. Kinda annoying, but to watch the game and keep up on the score while i wash dishes, it works just fine. Someday I'll get an 802.11g router and I hope that'll fix it. http://www.apple.com/macmini/ http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/MythOnMacOsx Todd On Oct 6, 2005, at 6:09 PM, Ricardo Kleemann wrote: Thanks Todd, Which version of the mac is the mini? I'm sorry I'm not too familiar with Macs, I'm just interested in finding out more about different alternatives for frontends. Is this an older mac? Does it already come with an appropriate video card? It's awesome to think mythtv can run on a laptop...! Ricardo - Original Message - From: Todd Houle To: Discussion about mythtv Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 3:04 PM Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Need suggestion for Frontend only fanless solution I'm running a front end (not to TV) on my Mac G4 laptop (1.6Ghz)- which has a hair more power than the mini. Here, I'm using 33% of my CPU when watching a show. The show is recorded with a PVR350 at high quality (720x480?). Seeing as the mini is only a little less brainy than this machine, I think it would work just fine as a front end. I don't know anything about HDTV though. The S-video output adapter is an optional purchase for $19; it comes with DVI and VGA output. btw- on a remote front end, when I pause live tv, that's still using the buffer defined on the back end, right? Starting a show, I hear the hard drive buzzing away in my laptop... Todd On Oct 6, 2005, at 12:42 PM, Ricardo Kleemann wrote: Does this mini-mac solution work well for a frontend? What model / version of the mac is this? Ricardo __ Todd Houle Apple Certified System Administrator ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] WinTV PVR 150 vs WinTV PVR 350
You probably want the 150 MCE since, as you said, you are only using it as a backend. Amazon has it slightly cheaper than newegg, but then newegg is almost certain to get it to your door faster. I suppose if your sure you want 2 of the devices you might get a 500, which has two on a card. I see no advantage for the 500 over a couple 150's, other than saving a pci card slot. On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 12:35 +0200, Tomas Roos wrote: Hello. I am about to order a new PVR card since I am not able to use the hardware encoding on my Winfast PVR2000 card. Which one of these two cards would anyone of you recommend? WinTV PVR 150 or WinTV PVR 350 Does both work with hardware encoding in MythTV? I have no use for the extra functions in the 350 card since I will only use this card for the backend which is located away from the TV. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] TV-Out
You probably want to get an nvidia card. I have some ati 7k cards and they do work, well when you recompile xorg-x11 with the ati tv out patches from gatos, but overscan isn't supported at all. On Sun, 2005-09-25 at 15:52 -0700, DSanchez wrote: Ok, So my video card is an ATI 7000 with s-video out. I have it connected to my TV and the audio works perfect but the video signal is scrammbled. I went into the properties of the display settings and i set the card as dual headed casue i still have my monitor connected to the system. For the second monitor i set the setting s at 640X480 but tht didnt fix it. I tryed adding this line to my xorg.conf Section Monitor Identifier Monitor0 VendorName Monitor Vendor ModelNameNEC MultiSync FE700 DisplaySize 330240 HorizSync31.0 - 70.0 VertRefresh 55.0 - 120.0 Option dpms Section Monitor Identifier Monitor1 VendorName Monitor Vendor ModelName56in WideScreen TV HorizSync30.0 - 50.0 VertRefresh 60.0 - 60.0 Option dpms yet i still have scrambled video ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Source for drives
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:30 -0700, Fedor Pikus wrote: On 9/27/05, Dean Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My sentiments exactly. It's a bullshit scam and I've had 3 rejected. Some manufacturers are worse than others. Seagate has been pretty good, I bought at least 5 of their drives at Fry's over the last year (the ones in white-and-blue boxes, 5 years warranty) and they always sent rebates, and pretty quick. Western sent all rebates in the end but some took several months. [snip] My general opinion on rebates is they are a pain, and I've had difficulty getting them honored at times too. The last LCD monitor I bought had some stupid 10 day rebate which they counted from the date I purchased the monitor online. They then claimed it arrived on day 11 or 13 or something, when I sent it right away and it should have arrived in time. I ended up having to call the manufacturer and get ahold of who was in charge of highering the rebate company. Even then it still took several months to get the rebate and several long calls waiting on hold. IMO, if your fairly busy otherwise it might be effectively cheaper to just go to newegg's site and get one... -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Slighty OT: Pundit PSU about to die.
I'm not sure where you got the fan, but directron.com has the best selection of fans I know about. Power supplies do contain dangerous voltages, so if your not sure about what your doing, I'd recommend finding a replacement. -Robert On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:06 -0500, Robert Kulagowski wrote: Has anyone had any luck replacing the Pundit PSU fan? I've seen some posts where an external PSU has been used but I'd rather keep things inside the case. I tried finding a replacement powersupply and wasn't successful, so I opened up the existing powersupply and replaced the fan. It just _barely_ was larger than the exising powersupply fan, so it was a tight squeeze. The fan also had a 4 wire drive connector, so I had to connect it externally. You could probably cut the existing wires and just splice in if you'd like. Also, am I in any danger of getting instantly spikey hair by poking around inside the PSU (once it's switched off, obviously) No user serviceable parts inside, so if you fry yourself it's all your own fault. However, if you are going to open it I'd leave it unplugged from the mains for a while to let any capacitors discharge first. Finally, even after all that, the Pundit ran for another few months before a power even killed the powersupply all-together. I'll probably end up with an external powersupply that has those plug-style connectors so I only use the cables that I need instead of having 60 wires coming out of it. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Watching Live TV seg faults with ati-drivers
Using a normal gentoo install for an amd xp processor I get segmentation faults when I try to watch live tv on a radeon 9000 with the ati-binary drivers in portage. The normal ati driver built into xorg-x11 seems fine. I've looked and haven't really found anything too helpful yet about why. Of course for sdtv I probably don't need those drivers, but if I do hdtv in a couple weeks, I very well might.. I suppose I can get a new video card if I have to.. (It is worth noting that I can play back things in mplayer using the ati-drivers.) Does anyone have any ideas? -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR 500 and nforce2 chipset
As you can see, my pvr150 seems fine. I'm not really using the bt878 based card, although I need to get another 150 and it will be as if I was running a 500, more or less. I forgot some of the details I went through to get it working, but I may be able to figure them out if you have a specific question. -Robert :00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (different version?) (rev c1) :00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 1 (rev c1) :00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 4 (rev c1) :00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 3 (rev c1) :00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 2 (rev c1) :00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 5 (rev c1) :00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP2A ISA bridge (rev a3) :00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP2A SMBus (rev a1) :00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP2A USB Controller (rev a1) :00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP2A USB Controller (rev a1) :00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP2A USB Controller (rev a2) :00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation MCP2S AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a1) :00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP2A PCI Bridge (rev a3) :00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP2A IDE (rev a3) :00:0b.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3) :00:1e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (rev c1) :01:06.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01) :01:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11) :01:08.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11) :01:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage II+ 215GTB [Mach64 GTB] (rev 9a) :01:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10) On Sat, 2005-09-24 at 14:17 -0400, Larry K wrote: I am thinking about making the plunge on the PVR-500, but I thought I better ask if there are any problems getting this card to work on an nforce2 system before I jump in. Can anyone weigh in? ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Spontaneous Reboot w/ PVR-500/150
It sounds like you have bad hardware or incompatible hardware to me. It could be software, but from the way you describe it, I'd tend to suspect hardware. In particular i.d do something like this.. 1) Check your voltages of your power supply via some monitoring software. 2) Run memtest86 and look for bad memory. If it reports some try running with only one stick, if that applies. 3) Try some other form of stressful application. I.E. use the cpuburn program to see what it comes up with. If it crashes and the memory and power supply tested clean then it sounds like cpu or motherboard issues. (Do you have a good heat sink and is it attached well?) 4) If you get that far and it only crashes when your using a pvr-500/150 card you probably simply have an incompatible pci card/motherboard combination and I suspect your stuck buying a new motherboard. On Sat, 2005-09-24 at 20:13 -0400, Brian M. Sperlongano wrote: Out of curiousity, and I know this has been discussed before on the list... Is anyone else still experiencing spontaneous reboots with their PVR-500/150, even with the latest motherboard bios upgrade? I'm still seeing reboots on the order of anywhere from once every 15 minutes to once every 4 hours, with my infamous KT400 mobo... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Full screen/Windowed Switching
On mplayer you can just hit f to go full screen and then f again to go back to a windowed version. Does anyone know if myth can do something similar? I just got an LCD TV and I can see it being useful to put the tv in a window sometimes since it is, more or less, a computer monitor after all, and the picture isn't going to fill the entire screen anyway, at least unless you have 16:9 content. I know you can change to windowed mode, but that requires going into a menu and changing settings. I suppose I could do something like a stop/restart with a script, but that is not quite ideal.. Of course next up is to get a dvi-hdmi cable. I wonder if there is anything to be aware of there. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Tutorial on Encoding (mostly re: file sizes)
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 15:58 -0400, Brian McEntire wrote: When resizing, is it possible to accidentally stretch the image? I saw someone say 480x480 wouldn't be a noticeable difference from 720x480... is the because of the way a TV uses scan lines? On a monitor it seems like it would be very different. To be fair there are two issues here. First of all you have the immediate source of the signal. In general they will be 1) Pure analog 2) Some form of mpeg compression If you have dish network afaik they encode normal channels with 480x480 mpeg 2 compression. In general this will limit the frequency content in the signal so that it is not useful to sample it at a higher resolution than 480x480 again. Of course with the case of the number of lines, that is a fixed quantity and you simple sample at 480 lines and be done with it. In the case of the horizontal resolution this is not 100% true since, unfortunately, you can't sample the exact same positions as were originally encoded, and there is always the case of noise being added due to the digital to analog conversion. (The noise may increase the frequency content of the signal, and thus require a higher sampling frequency to preserve the information content. Of course, it is quite possible the capture card will filter out high frequency noise before capturing data anyway.) In the case of a typical myth setup, you will likely see some black bars on the side of your encodings meaning your capture card is possibly sampling parts of the tv signal that has no data and dish network never encoding anything into, so that to, be paranoid, and assure you are not losing quality you might have to sample at a bit more than 480 pixels horizontally. Perhaps 512x480 or 640x480 for instance. Of course things are not that simple either. As you increase the sampling resolution, you must also increase the bit rate of the encoding to avoid degradation. This is why a 480x480 encoding may look better than a 640x480 encoding if the bit rates are the same. If in doubt, try various settings and compare them. There are a lot of factors here, and the vague arguments I made only make a case for not going too much beyond what the signal was originally encoded as. In the case of a pure analog signal that was received by an aerial, things are different and it may indeed help to go 720x480 or 640x480, provided you also give the codec a large enough datarate to handle the video. Finally, if you absolutely know you are going to transcode something anyway, you generally want to have the capture size set to whatever your final size will be, and set the initial capture datarate a bit on the high side so you preserve as much quality as possible prior to the final transcoding to mpeg4 or whatever. I used to use huffyuv for captures in windows, even though it used a very high datarate, because I wanted the initial encoding to be lossless, before I edited the system and converted it to mpeg. (Huffyuv is probably too high of data rate for myth and useless with cards designed to capture in mpeg2 anyway since you would have to add a pointless recompression.) I'm curious because I want to transcode HDTV (1920x1080, 1280x720, and 850x480) down to 850x480. For HDTV pulled off of QAM/Cable, I'm seeing MPEG2 file sizes of about 6.2 GB/hr. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] garbled audio
On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 20:54 -0600, Stephen Atkins wrote: Hello again everyone. So I thought I would try out the latest development sources 0.3.9 but no luck. I then removed the PVR150MCE and still no luck. What it sounds like is that the audio is actually out of sequence in that some audio packets(?) are out of order. First all of all you need to be certain it is just a sound card issue, so I suggest mp3's. From what you said, it sounds like a sound card issue and not anything to do with ivtv. I had weird problems with gentoo-2.6.12, especially errors with the clock deciding that 24 hours should occur in about 2/3's that much time or perhaps less. I had audio problems as well. The latest 2.6.13 gentoo sources seems to have fixed the time issue and the related insane keyboard repeat issue, unfortunately sound is still not really right. I'm listening to an mp3 via an optical cable and you can hear the distortion easily enough. (This is an asus a8n sli premium.) On the other hand my front end system uses a biostar m7vig 400 where I soldered a connector on for spdif output. It uses a VT8233/a/8235/8237 AC97 chip according to lspci. It is also running 2.6.13 gentoo sources and it sounds fine (well you have to turn down one thing in alsa mixer to get sound, which is wierd, but still it does sound fine.) so I suspect the driver support for the nvidia chip on my motherboard is lacking. The quickest cure is probably to find a nice sound card that is well supported and just use that. I particularly recommend this idea if your in a hurry and your audio chip is something fairly new. I can post my frontend .config file, if it would be helpful.. It can also sometimes be helpful to go back to the vanilla souces. It seems computer repairs get reduced to trial and error more often than anyone likes.. Can some one tell me what kernel version and ivtv versions they are using? I'm running a 2.6.12-gentoo-r10 with IVTV-0.3.9 and a rom of pvr_2.024.23035. I had everything working before my HD blew up but it was running a 2.4.25 kernel. Thanks for the help. Stephen ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Cannot playback recorded video.
I suppose it is obvious in hindsight that the frontends need to see the files stored by the backend and it would be quiet silly for myth to reinvent the wheel to do this. mount -t nfs mythbackend:/mnt/store /mnt/store on the frontend did wonders :) (Of course the actual command will depend on a particular setup.) That is probably in some instructions somewhere for that matter... On Sun, 2005-09-18 at 23:34 -0500, Robert Denier wrote: Does anyone have a clue why I can't playback a recording? I'm doing Media-Library - Watch Recordings - Selecting One - I - Play and nothing happens. I think it is related to how I can't watch an in progress recording, but I'm not sure. I'm guessing/hoping its something obvious, at least to someone who has had the problem before. Backend amd xp pvr 150 newer ivtv drivers Frontend amd xp booting from nfs ati 7000 video and custom compiled x to get those tv out drivers. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Cannot playback recorded video.
Does anyone have a clue why I can't playback a recording? I'm doing Media-Library - Watch Recordings - Selecting One - I - Play and nothing happens. I think it is related to how I can't watch an in progress recording, but I'm not sure. I'm guessing/hoping its something obvious, at least to someone who has had the problem before. Backend amd xp pvr 150 newer ivtv drivers Frontend amd xp booting from nfs ati 7000 video and custom compiled x to get those tv out drivers. -Robert p.s. if anyone has an A8N-SLI Premium with a dual core chip, or even without and has a stable system, that does sometimes mess up audio, or keyboard repeat rates, or the clock, then I am definitely curious what kernel/configuratttion your using.. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] HDTV on Xbox frontend
On Fri, 2005-09-16 at 15:51 -0400, A JM wrote: Great information! Thanks. So, it's a processor intensive operation and requires some type of video out allowing for the connection between FE and TV in a HD format? Can this be done on a diskless system? Anything, well other than the backend, can be diskless. Of course there has to be storage _somewhere_ I have a Biostar M7VIG400 that can be booted off of NFS. In fact the TV i'm watching is using it. I ordered another one of these boards. One problem with the board is I have to do a complete power off to reboot the system. If you went that route and went hi def, you'd have to buy one of the fastest AMD xp processors to be safe. Of course if your starting from scratch you might want to go 64 bits. I have an amd 2000+ I'm going to use, although I'm uncertain if it is going to be fast enough. If the BE does the recording (HD-3000) and the front end does the displaying is that stream compressed as it travels the network? Afaik the stream is mpeg2 compressed before being sent over the air, at least with normal hdtv. I'm pretty sure it stays mpeg2 compressed until the frontend decompresses it. I guess what I'm asking is can a wireless connection handle HD or does it have to be wired? I'm not sure, other than 802.11b can not handle it. I think this has been discussed in the list before. I've seen a lot of mention of the epia systems are they just a fairly robust frontend with HD capability or mostly because of the form factor mini-? I'm not sure those are fast enough for HDTV. The board I mentioned might be a tolerable front end, except for that irritating problem. You can put in a new video card and sound card. The board does have a spot for a spdif header from its internal sound chip, but you would have to solder wires there and I have no idea if one would get any digital audio after doing it. (I had to download the manual to check on that, so it took me awhile to send this.) -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] Controlling multiple cable boxes
On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 10:58 -0400, Jim Reith wrote: At 10:11 AM 9/13/2005, you wrote: [snip] On Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 10:14:36AM -0400, Brian Long wrote: Along these lines, does anyone know how to control a cable box via direct USB connections? I know my cable box has a USB port, and if I hook up a USB keyboard to it, I can change the channels by hitting the number keys. The only thing that comes to mind that might be reasonably easy would be to 1) First make sure you can do what you need to do with that ordinary usb keyboard. Write down those keys and how they work. 2) Find a USB infrared keyboard or a PS2 infrared keyboard with a USB adapter. Connect this. 3) Train LIRC to output keycodes to the LIRC emitter as appropriate and fill in the details. Now that is less than a direct method, and to be honest, by skimming the previous thread is only really useful if you can, at the very least, set those different keyboard IR receivers to respond to different sets of IR codes. Of course, if you can just set the cable box to different sets of IR codes then you really should just do that, since this would be adding considerable complexity for little gain. Perhaps someone can think of a simpler way. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Vizio 32 HDMI,VGA(connector) LCD Sams Club $999
http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_shopping.jsp?coe=0oidPath=0% 3a-23542%3a-23589%3a-24298%3a-36941% 3a934545mt=an=0BV_SessionID=_SC_1593830576.1126657227_CS_BV_EngineID=ccdcaddfjikdffecfkfcfkjdgoodflf.0 I've no idea if my link works, but this thing has 1366x768 native resolution, and 800:1 contrast ratio. It is widescreen. It looks like a very good deal to me. I figure LCD versus widescreen is worth a little bit in power savings. At any rate, this looks like a very good choice for myth, as $1k tv's go, although admittedly my analysis is limited. The brand is also an odd one... I don't think it has an hdtv tuner, but if your going myth, saving money on not buying that part would seem a good thing... Picture Display: * 32” Flat Panel LCD Television (Native Resolution 1366 x 768) * Widescreen, High Definition Resolution * 480p (Enhanced definition), 720p (High Definition), 1080i (High Definition) * Spectacular Video Clarity with 12ms response time * Brightness 500 cd/m² * Contrast Ratio 800:1 * 3D comb filter * Progressive scan * Aspect ratio conversion * 3D D-inter lacer * 3:2 pull down * Anti-static and hard coated * 170° (horizontal/vertical) for CR10 Sound: * Built In 2 x 10W Convenience: * Gamma Correction * Stereo * Closed Caption * V-Chip * Picture in Picture * Universal remote control included * Optional Wall Mount Sold separately Tuner, Reception, Transmission: * Built in NTSC tuner for Standard Definition Television Power: * 50,000 hour lamp life (to half brightness) provides many years of viewing pleasure * Energy efficient LCD display consumes 60% less power than same size CRT televisions Connectivity: * Compatible with Video Signals 480i (standard definition) * 480I (SDTV), 480P (EDTV), 720P (HDTV), 1080I (HDTV) * Wide Viewing Angle 170° * PC compatible VGA connection. * 1 x HDMI * 1 x RF (for internal NTSC tuner) * 1 x RGB (Analog) * 3 x Composite * 1 x S-Video * 1 x Component * 4 x Audio in (RCA) * 1 x Digital Audio in * 1 x RS232, 1 x Serial port (DB9) * 1 x PC Audio in (Minijack) * 1 x Headphone * 1 x Audio (right + left) Dimensions: * 26.13”H x 33.1”W x 11”D ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Please help!
On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 23:48 -0400, Tony Paterra wrote: Michael, Well I'm obviously not michael, but perhaps I can help. What would be the effect of changing my setup to connect my digital cable STB to the PVR-350 using S-video instead of having the separate tuner connection? The key words here are digital cable S(et)T(op)B(ox) or more specifically digital. If many of your cables channels are digitally compressed, then it is also reasonable to assume that those channels are compressed with a high enough bit rate to be signficantly better than a pure analog transmission. Also, if the digital version is the only way to get those channels then you obviously need to use the digital cable box... Why is this important? Well if it was a pure analog cable system you would probably be better off just to split the signal from the cable company and connect it to the 350 and be done with it. Note that I said probably, since it is possible the tuner inside your 350 isn't as good as the one inside the digital set top box, but I doubt that is an issue. As a side note, if you can do it, I'd suggest leaving a blank card slot between your 350 and other cards, since this might reduce interference a little. Basically if you have digital channels I'd use the s-video cable from the digital tuner like you said. If you have only analog channels I'd stick with it plugged in direct. Better yet, you can simply try both without it taking really that long... I'm guessing this will send a much cleaner signal to the PVR that it would be less susceptible to interference than hunting down the cable companies line and putting better cabling and a Usually cable companies have enough gain on a line to be split several times. (Too much gain, can occasionally make things worse from what I've seen.) The other email mentioned quality coax and the rest. Basically, if your making your own cables, get a good quality RG-6 coax and ends, and the correct tool (that can be $30ish). In general, if you can do it, you should have one splitter from the main cable line, then each coax going to a separate tv. You should try to choose a splitter with only as many outputs as you are going to use. If you have say 2 - 30 foot coaxial runs and one 5 foot run, you may want to leave an extra 10 foot or so coax on the short run to balance things a little, but it usually won't matter. If you split it more than about three ways you might need the amplifier you mentioned, but again circumstances vary. booster as close as I can. The only thing left to do would figure out how to link up the remotes (I've seen recommendations for either a serial cable or an IR blaster). Well if your cable box has a serial port and can be controlled via serial then that is the way to go, otherwise it would be an IR blaster.. Sorry my background doesn't include a strong physics/EE education, does this stand to reason? I have a PhD in EE ;) Of course, I used almost none of what I learned there to answer this email. I suppose, if I was really bored I could try to look at it from a signals prospective, but I rather suspect it would be an afternoons work and not change much. As one final note for people distributing video to a lot of tv's and such. If you have an older house, it may be useful to check the electrical wiring in the house where the tv's are, at least if strange things are happening that can't be explained other ways. In my own house we found a ground wire was missing causing there to be some current traveling down the shield on a coaxial cable that went to a television downstairs. It wasn't much current but it measured around 60 volts on a meter and caused a dish network satellite switch not to work. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Opinion on philips 32 hdtv..
On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 02:07 -0600, Chad wrote: On 9/11/05, Robert Denier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] My thought is that if you are going with HDTV, you probably are looking towards the future, or better picture; either way, 16x9 is probably more along the lines of either of those choices ;) Otherwise, why not just grab a 200-300 tube from Phillips and save for a larger, more HDTV style TV when prices get even lower? Well the reason for that one was it had hdmi where the cheaper ones don't. A more interesting question is does it appreciably affect the lifetime of a 16:9 TV if you run mostly 4:3 content on it? I.E. After a year of watching 4:3 content will the sides be brighter when viewing 16:9 or have some other kind of observable difference due to the different useage patterns? I honestly don't know, It does seem to me that tv's last pretty long these days so maybe it doesn't matter that you would have the wasted space most of the times, as long as your useable screen size was similar. At any rate it was just a thought. Here is a thought. A 4:3 picture equals a 12:9 picture so 4 units out of 16 are unused. In particular 4:9 is unused. It seems to me that in theory you could stack 3 4:3 images on the right of a big 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen. For instance, something like my poor attempt at ASCII art below should be possible for a total of 1 main image and 3 secondary images. AAABB AAABB AAABB AAACC AAACC AAACC AAADD AAADD AAADD Of course I have no idea if this kind of idea would be useful in practice... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Opinion on philips 32 hdtv..
On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 12:41 -0400, Erik Pettersen wrote: [snip] Re: the phillips: regular walmart has the black widescreen version of this, best buy the silver widescreen version. I realize you aren't supposed to go by how the sets look in the store (although I have no I'm not sure walmart would let you, but if you had a very small pc/laptop with the hi definition connection you wanted to test and were somehow able to configure it before going into the store, then maybe you could hook it up and see what it looks like. I do agree that comparing it based on whatever analog signal they are feeding it isn't entirely fair. All in all I'd have to recommend windows with the manufacturers drivers during that kind of test, unless you were sure you had everything figured out in linux. Then again if it was a store with a great return policy, you could always return it if you didn't like it. Of course those things are still quite heavy, but afaik a crt tv is still the best value. idea how you're supposed to shop for an HDTV then...), but the phillips just looked awful to me and I *really* wanted to like it as it's priced right and has a QAM/ATSC tuner! YMMV. I ended up spending almost twice as much on an 30 LG widescreen CRT (which has a bit of a dubious reputation in same forum). Erik -- ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Opinion on philips 32 hdtv..
I'm just curious what people think of this one or if anyone uses one.. http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_shopping.jsp?coe=0oidPath=0% 3a-23542%3a-23589%3a-24298%3a-25206% 3a917068mt=an=0BV_SessionID=_SC_0269901913.1126490742_CS_BV_EngineID=cccdaddfiiijjkicfkfcfkjdgoodflg.0 Model: 32PT9100D This 32 Flat HDTV brings high definition picture quality with 1080i display and Dolby® Virtual Surround Sound right into your own home. This Progression Scan HDTV brings you razor-sharp and flicker free images. Relax, enjoy and let Active Control Plus optimize your theater-like viewing experience. With advanced connectivity, HDMI brings High-definition video to your large-screen TV Component Video is the best connection for DVD display. 32 Philips Flat HDTV $596.78 Features High definition picture quality with 1080i display Progressive scan for razor-sharp and flicker free images Scan Velocity Modulation Improves definition and contrast Active Control Plus optimizes viewing experience Theater-like audio performance Dolby Digital Ready for movies or concerts in full surround sound Dolby® Virtual Surround Sound Integrated HDTV tuner decodes ATSC and QAM signals Digital Cable ready with Cable Card slot Digital Program Guide Picture-in-picture for watching two programs at the same time Advanced connectivity HDMI brings High-definition video to your large-screen TV Component Video is the best connection for DVD display ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Opinion on philips 32 hdtv..
On Sun, 2005-09-11 at 22:46 -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote: Robert Denier wrote: I'm just curious what people think of this one or if anyone uses one.. http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_shopping.jsp?coe=0oidPath=0%3a-23542%3a-23589%3a-24298%3a-25206%3a917068mt=an=0BV_SessionID=_SC_0269901913.1126490742_CS_BV_EngineID=cccdaddfiiijjkicfkfcfkjdgoodflg.0 Model: 32PT9100D 32 Philips Flat HDTV $596.78 IMHO, if you spend $500 or more on a TV, it should be a widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio)... My argument against widescreen tv's right now is most real programming is formatted 4:3 still, well at least most of what I actually end up watching.. Of course you can get a widescreen for around the same price. Mike See also: http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/catalog/product.jsp?productId=32PT9100D_37_US_CONSUMERactiveTab=specificationslanguage=encountry=UScatalogType=CONSUMER ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Using firewire or usb external drives
I've found that the little 2.5 inch usb 2.0 external drives I've messed with can be a bit of aggravation. In the end it did work well, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone non familiar with it. While I haven't used myth a great deal, I sort of planned to leave one drive in my backend and leave the bulk of the storage in a seperate nfs/samba file server. This of course avoids the need of dealing with usb file systems. (It is assumed that the shows kept will be transcoded and stored on the file server.) If your worried about performance I'd really avoid usb type file systems. In theory usb 2.0 can be pretty fast, but the conversions and overhead of usb can't be helpful. It might be larger than any overhead due to file systems although I'm not sure. You seem to be proposing combining all the drives into one big software raid set or something. My questions is do you really need that? Separate drives and symlinks work very well in my experience and you can change out a drive with minimal work. Of course raid does offer redundancy if you configure it that way, but well video storage isn't that important to me. I've heard XFS is the fastest for large files and I have used it from time to time with JFS perhaps being more reliable. I recently moved all my server file systems to ext3 from reiserfs. reiserfs doesn't save much space, or speed if it is just mostly few hundred meg files and I think it is slightly more reliable long term. I'll probably use JFS I guess for the big partition for myth to store things. On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 13:31 -0400, Henry Fleischmann wrote: Hello all, I'm setting up my first Mythtv system on Gentoo and had a question about storage. What kind of problems will I run into if I base all my storage for recorded programs, stored movies, MP3s, etc. on external USB or firewire drives? For now I am putting my frontend and backend on the same system (Asus Pundit-r 3Ghz, 200GB HD) which only has 1 HD bay but I plan to move to separate frontend and backend setup if I find Mythtv and I get along ok. External drives seem like a good solution due to ease of expansion the ability to migrate them fairly easily to other systems. Should I avoid I stick with one directory per drive and avoid JFS/XFS? Is performance to low? Are their know problems with JFS or XFS on these kinds of drives? If I add all the drives to one files system will the spanned file systems be difficult to get back up on a different system that recognize the drives in a different order than the original? I am fairly familiar with JFS on SCSI drives using HP-UX (as of a couple years ago) but have never used it on Linux or with IDE. Thanks in advance! Henry ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Can't open video device: /dev/v4l/video1
I'm not sure this helps anyone since I didn't keep careful notes of what I did. I started with linux-2.6.12-gentoo-r9 with preemption, and everything compiled in the kernel for the bttv based card to work. I also started with ivtv 0.3.8 and I remember being able to dd if=/dev/video1 of=foo.mpg bs=1MB count=100 and get a playable file via mplayer. I also tried 0.2.0 ivtv in the middle, but that never did anything useful for me. It seemed worse in fact... I just tried 0.3.7 and I was a little more alert now than when I was trying to get it to work and noted a kernel error in the dmesg, so I glanced at what kernel I was running and decided to just go to plain vanilla 2.6.13 and then when I glanced in there I decided that preeption might be causing trouble so I got rid of that. (It is not as if a dedicated backend should need it.) After that I recompiled and then erased my 0.3.7 directory and extracted it again from the source file then recompiled and reinstalled that then did update-modules and modprobe ivtv . A glance at dmesg revealed that yes the dmesg was error free, so I reset things in mythsetup and then opened a frontend and whee, it worked. I have no clue if the problem gentoo-sources, preemption, 0.3.8 or just some wierd combination, but for now I'm going to declare victory. The installation I based this off of was sort of a generic compile of Gentoo linux. Gentoo-sources serve no particular purpose on Myth backend, or at least none I can think of. At any rate it is working now. The next thing to do would be to buy a 500 or two more 150's I suppose and get it working with 3 dish network receivers. The only obvious issue I can see is with 3 receivers/capture interfaces your limited to using a max of 3 myth boxes for playback at one time. Basically if I understand correctly, if I had one running at 3 locations, I'd have to go shut off one if I wanted to start playback at a new location. (There is only 2 people in this house normally, so this is only annoying.) Someone please correct me if this is incorrect or the problem is already solved another way. What would seem ideal is for live tv on a particular node to normally be unlocked, unless you specially say otherwise, meaning if you run out of tuners a particular node steals tuners in a specified order. Again I haven't looked, so maybe this issue is addressed another way. In general I'd rather not go beyond 3 dish network tuners since each additional one adds $5 to the monthly bill. If it would be useful I'd connect an additional capture card or just use the old bttv for a fourth card, but with only 3 capture sources I'm not sure that is useful. Maybe if the fourth is connectedd to the aerial antenna. I wonder if myth knows, or can be told, that the broadcast channels are the same regardless of where they come from. Come to think of it I might stop paying for local channels and just connect the antenna input on all the tuners. That would save $5 a month and still be organised. All in all I'm just glad its working. Now to get a frontend working with a tv. I'll start with Knoppmyth and then work on the version booting off of nfs. -Robert p.s. I assume their is no way to input a digital audio signal into a 150/250/350/500? I haven't looked, but it just seems a slight waste to do that additional D/A - A/D conversion. On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 04:35 -0500, Robert Denier wrote: Basic Setup Backend nforce2 chipset, 2.2ghz amd sempron 1 pvr 150mce 1 some other cheap capture card used for testing myth some months ago. Connected is a dish network receiver to the s-video jack on the pvr150 mplayer /dev/v4l/video1 works fine, albiet really slow in a vnc window (the slow is due to vnc.) The backend reports when you run it Can't open video device: /dev/v4l/video1 and I even did a chmod 777 out of desperation.. It shouldn't be having issues there... The frontend gets RemoteFile::REad() failed in RingBuffer::safe_read() Does anyone recognize the problem? I used the firmware on the cd per some set of directions.. It just seems to me that if mplayer can read it, then myth should when they are both running as root right now.. -thanks in advance, -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Kernel 2.6.13 - lirc
I had a problem getting the ir blaster code to work under 2.6.13 and went back to 2.6.12.5. I tried 0.3.8 ivtc and that works as well, so maybe the issue I was having was due to preemption or the gentoo-sources patchset. Apparently some things that affect lirc changed in 2.6.13, and the script I found to set things up mentioned lirc 0.7.0 in its instructions. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Can't open video device: /dev/v4l/video1
Basic Setup Backend nforce2 chipset, 2.2ghz amd sempron 1 pvr 150mce 1 some other cheap capture card used for testing myth some months ago. Connected is a dish network receiver to the s-video jack on the pvr150 mplayer /dev/v4l/video1 works fine, albiet really slow in a vnc window (the slow is due to vnc.) The backend reports when you run it Can't open video device: /dev/v4l/video1 and I even did a chmod 777 out of desperation.. It shouldn't be having issues there... The frontend gets RemoteFile::REad() failed in RingBuffer::safe_read() Does anyone recognize the problem? I used the firmware on the cd per some set of directions.. It just seems to me that if mplayer can read it, then myth should when they are both running as root right now.. -thanks in advance, -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150 (Model 1045) - $64.99 @ CompUSA + FAQ
On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 21:35 -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote: Jay Jarvinen wrote: With the PVR-350 at about $160 these days, to me .. that's like buying a ~$100 TV-out card, vs $40-50 for a cheapo TV-out vid card. Not to mention you get more from the cheapo TV-out vid card: OpenGL, ability to do resolutions greater than standard definition, XvMC support (which is very nice for HDTV), VGA/DVI output, progressive output, Of course, XvMC assumes you buy an NVIDIA (since ATI's drivers /still/ don't support XvMC)... In fairness I'd think the 350 is about the only way to get s-video truly correct. Of course if you don't need s-video then yes, the 350 would seem silly to me... Mike ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-150 (Model 1045) - $64.99 @ CompUSA + FAQ
Normal video cards typically do 640x480 or 800x600 as typical modes your allowed to run the tv out on. Of the two 640x480 is pretty close the the 720x480 that is the NTSC standard. Of course the 720 doesn't mean alot. Dish network, for instance, uses 480x480 encoding. (This is all from my memory, but should be right.) Now, the difference in 720 or 640 or 480 as the number of horizontal datapoints, in some ways doesn't matter as much as correctly outputing an interlaced signal. (Yes sampling resolution matters, but quite often your better off not capturing at the highest resolution possible, especially if the original doesn't have that much detail or your final copy is a lower bitrate.) NTSC video uses 29.97 frames per second or twice that in fields. So in order to output the video without artifacts you have to sample in the way the signal is sent, meaning 59.93 (or whatever) fields per second at 240 lines. A field is all the even number or odd numbered lines. So a picture is made by drawing the even lines, then the odd numbered lines. Both sets together are called a frame. You also need to _output_ that information back the way you recorded it, meaning each field cleanly output, if you want it to look the best. It seems to me that no tv cards properly support interlaced output but instead just scan the section of memory where the progressive image is rendered and output that with the end result possibly drawing a field using part of two fields of video. Where will you notice this? Well mostly in action scenes, and most people would probably have to look a bit to see it. Of course I've also seen tv out's that never properly use the entire tv screen so that could be an issue with some cards as well. Again the quality of tv out's vary. Most here seems to think nvidia beats ati, and from what I've seen the 350 is the best you can do. I don't have one, so I can't tell for sure myself.. Thats about the best I can do in about 10 minutes, although to be honest you can find better explanations just by searching google. Google can be very useful in such endeavors.. On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 19:10 -0700, Blake wrote: On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 19:05:52 -0700, Robert Denier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In fairness I'd think the 350 is about the only way to get s-video truly correct. Of course if you don't need s-video then yes, the 350 would seem silly to me... Sorry, what does that mean: s-video truly correct? Are we talking resolution or...what? ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] OT: Recommendation for a WLAN PCI card (UK-based)
FYI The NETGEAR WG311T seems to do fine with the madwifi driver, or at least the one I just got from best buy seems okay. I've only tested the 802.11 b functions. (In my application I can't use the thick allnet card.) Of course newegg shows two box pictures. I have the one where the metal box is thin and only takes up the left half. If you get one it wouldn't hurt to get it from somewhere that allows returns in the event that it doesn't arrive with the chipset you thought it would arrive with. Also note my testing is from 10 feet away and I've only checked basic WEP, dhcp, and a few web pages so far.. Personally, based on what I know, if the thicker card isn't a problem, and for almost everyone it won't be, the allnet might be a better choice. Do note that the prism54 drivers most everyone use require a hard mac card like that one. Many of the new cards are so called soft mac versions where it simply doesn't work, although there is work on a new version here. http://jbnote.free.fr/prism54usb/index.html I tried an SMC card that turns out to requires the softmac driver, and I got the card to come up and go into master mode but pinging didn't work. In short, that doesn't seem ready for production use at this time.. Linux wireless, especially in finding cards that support Master mode can be an adventure.. Of course if you don't need master mode, you can possibly use the ndiswrapper to use windows drivers. I never investigated that since it didn't help with what I needed to get working.. -Robert On Mon, 2005-09-05 at 21:24 -0600, Andrew McNabb wrote: On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 01:53:14AM +0100, Nick wrote: Having built another backend for some spares and some new capture cards, I want to get it accessible via WiFi on my network (g-based). The best card currently available 802.11 card, in my opinion, is the ALL0271, which uses the prism54 driver. I've got a link and more info written up at http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/linux/hardware/ You won't need ndiswrapper or anything. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] OT: Probably dumb question about digital sound out
On Sat, 2005-09-03 at 21:04 -0400, Ryan Steffes wrote: Digital audio is digital audio, correct? Sort of. That is a lame answer, but sometimes going digital with the audio makes things a bit more messy. To support all the fancy features on your sound card your almost certainly going to need to use alsa, which you should normally be by now anyway. It is also possible to sometimes specify a specific port to output with using alsa like the digital port. Here is the mplayer example for doing that. Of course sometimes digital just works so ymmv. -ao alsa commandline help: Example: mplayer -ao alsa:mmap:device=hw=0.3 sets mmap-mode and first card fourth device Options: mmap Set memory-mapped mode, experimental noblock Sets non-blocking mode device=device-name Sets device (change , to . and : to =) As in the the sound in the source defines the number of channels, not the hardware? Well I've seen avi's have ac3 audio, and with a bit of work that can be sent right out the port, and in my case make the pretty blue light come on in my receiver for dolby digital sound. I'm sure dvd's are the same kind of thing. I'm finally getting the stereo I want (I love my wife, best birthday present ever!) with digital in and all that, but my computer doesn't have digital out. I've had some motherboard wonkiness anyway, so I was considering just replacing the motherboard and getting one with digital out and a gigabit ethernet port, such as the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe. I've got the same board and it is a good board. I've not tried much with the audio on it though. If you already have a newer 2GHz + cpu that is probably fine. If you have a sub 1Ghz cpu, then it might be a grayer area as to what is best. This is a dual channel board, so, in theory, if you put 2 matched memory sticks in the correct slots it will help a little. The motherboard advertises as 6 Channels which I assume they mean 5.1. My stereo is going to be 7.1, but the digital out on the motherboard will do just fine, right? I'm not sure. I suspect if your just using your card to pass precompressed audio from a video file it could, in theory, handle 7.1 or whatever. Of course if the card says 5.1 then the best you could hope for a game to generate is 5.1 and then its anyones guess if that would be generated on the digital output. Perhaps someone else knows. There's not a difference on the digital side because it's a straight pass through, correct? As a final note, it is worth noting that while a lot of dolby digital things are cool and what have you, that much of what is on tv doesn't support it, and sometimes rear speakers and such are just annoying. (I haven't bothered to even connect mine.) It really kinda depends on what you watch the most. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] newbie help - ATI capture card?
If you have spent two weeks on it, I'd tend to recommend, if possible
giving up and ordering a Hauppage PVR150 from newegg or your computer
store of choice. I'm trying to use cheap ATI video cards with s-video
out for front ends, which is doable afaik, but using a ATI for the
backend is probably just a path to frustration.
Of course the video out quality of video cards running Svideo is usually
sub par, with I think nvidia having the best ones and the best solution
being the hauppage one with TV out.. If you are using 20 or less tv's
you might consider seeing if you have a used computer store around you
can find some good used or just buy new monitors (They are surprisingly
affordable now). Avoiding the whole s-video issue has its merits. I
think I saw a sharp 19 monitor at one used computer store in St. Louis
at around $90.
Beyond the 20 range if you have the money, some tv's have digital
connections, and that brings with it a whole new set of issues.
Of course reading here might help...
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.1
On Sun, 2005-09-04 at 16:02 -0400, Todd Houle wrote:
I've been fighting for 'bout 2 week now and failing :( MythTV (I
think) is working.. I think the problem I'm having is getting Fedora
to recognize my TV Card. It comes up in lspci as an ATI Rage 128.
It also have a coax port on it that is ignored. I think I heard this
card was a TV Wonder card (not that all-in-Wonder) but am not sure.
ATI doesn't label anything...
I also have 2 usb TV tuners to try including an ATI USB (I've no idea
what model/version) and MyTV2Go ('for Mac' sticker on back). I was
using debian with no success so I switched to Fedora after I found
this tutorial on MythTV and Fedora online
The TV program and MythTV both say can't open /dev/video0. Looking
in /dev i see no video entries...Are there drivers for these
devices? How do I find/install them? I'm an advanced Mac OS X user
and very comfortable with command line- but newish to linux.
Oh- and am I right that the card with the coax port on it is called a
capture card?
thanks
Todd
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[mythtv-users] Best deal on premade lirc receivers?
www.mp3remote.com seemed to be one of the better deals for a nice all in one package, but their site didn't work when I tried to order. I suppose ebay is the next bet, but I was just wondering if anyone had found a prebuild lirc receiver that was an especially good deal. (It would help if the shipping gave one a better deal if you bought multiple receivers.) I also saw this one (below), and the OEM receiver seemed a good choice, but almost overpriced for no more than your getting.. Of course I'd rather not have to build them myself. They shouldn't be that expensive to build that way though. Actually a good idea might be for me to figure out gEDA and create the pcb layout to order a tiny order of boards. I seriously doubt I will save any money that way, but it would be a good learning experience and I'll likely need to build other things later.. http://www.home-electro.com/buy_it.php ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Best deal on premade lirc receivers?
I was looking at the tek-gems site for these remote receivers and noticed something interesting. The price per unit actually goes up when you order 2, although the shipping doesn't increase as fast. The best deal to the central united states seems to be for 5 of them. I'm not sure anyone cares, but if you think you might need a few more later, well I thought it mildly interesting.. Certainly its not worth my time to build 5 of them at this price. That would give me 3 for my initial units and a couple more for later ones.. qty price total_with_shipping 1 6.99 15.40 2 8 24.95 3 8 32.95 4 8 41.33 5 7 44.33 6 7 51.64 7 7 58.64 8 7 65.95 9 7 63.00 10 6 70.20 On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 11:18 -0400, Steve Bower wrote: On 9/2/05, Robert Denier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: www.mp3remote.com seemed to be one of the better deals for a nice all in one package, but their site didn't work when I tried to order. I got the same remote/receiver combo a couple years ago for much less at: http://tekgems.com/Products/winamp-remote-control.htm In fact I bought two. :-) I threw away the remote, and the receiver has been working perfectly. Steve. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Best deal on premade lirc receivers?
On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 13:03 -0700, Blake wrote: snip I've been following this discussion trying to figure out what I actually need. So, let me see if I've got this: (Someone correct me if I have any of this wrong.) Myth TV is divided into frontends and backends. Backends encode the video and cache it on the hard drive. Front ends play the video. For a back end you need typically a PVR 150, and a moderate computer. For a front end you need a way to play the video and audio and some kind of remote control unless you like the keyboard. There are other types of remote controls, but infrared is one of the easier ones. (Note that if you combine the front and backends in one machine you can sometimes use the pvr's remote, but I'm not interested in that.) 1. IR Remote Presumably there is a useful one at walmart. I suspect a search of old messages might be useful. 2. IR receiver on the computer This is what I ordered. It plugs into the serial port, and should, in theory, work with lirc, whenever I figure that mess out again. This kit also contains a remote, but no one seems to like the remote much. The receiver would go in the front end and allow you to change channels and such. 3. IR transmitter on the computer (because I'm going to be controlling the cable box, at least, from the computer.) The transmitter goes in the backend, unless of course your lucky enough to get a device that can be controlled directly with a serial cable. Some Direct TV satellite receivers are in this class. So far I think people have put up packages that are just one of the three or two of the three (think I've seen remote receiver and the above appears to be receiver and transmitter.) Now, I have an Audigy breakout box which has an IR Port (and, yes, it does go with the card in the machine). Any chance of making that work? I suspect the answer is unlikely. Check out lirc.org and for that matter the mythtv pages, and I suspect much of this will begin making more sense. From what I can tell, before I'd consider spending a lot of money on myth, I'd do at least several hours reading... A few hours research can sometimes save a few days debugging... Good luck.. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Hollywood Realmagic Plus
On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 05:22 +0100, Nick wrote: On 9/2/05, Big Wave Dave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I happen to have one of those laying around, and wish I could use it. I have a feeling they are too old for people to care about. I used it to watch DVD's on my P2-350 back in the day. I wonder how hard it would be to integrate? Has anyone ever looked into it? They are great cards. I am actually using the remote that came with it, to control MythTV. I also have one lying around from the 90s (P166 days) and would like to use it somehow, even just so it's not gathering dust. I'm quite sure xine has an ouput plugin to allow DVD/MPEG2 to be decoded through it, so maybe MythTV could be hacked to use it somehow - perhaps all native MPEG2 recordings could be automatically exported to MythVideo for accelerated playback through it? Nick The best I can suggest is to look at mplayer. I believe it can be compiled to support one of these. The last time I looked at the driver for the hollywood + it required a slightly older kernel, although I think that may have changed. While they are not perfect, you can pick up refurbished ati 7000 cards with an s-video output for like $25. (newegg occasionally) I haven't tested them with myth and tv out yet, but they should work, and that is a real video card so it is apt to be much less buggy than attempting to get an old dvd decoder card to do the job. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Slightly OT: VIA SP13000 will not power-down
I've got a shuttle cube exhibiting similar behavior that hasn't been worth my time to figure out yet, although I did upgrade the kernel which didn't fix it. Some things you might try.. 1) A new knoppix cd. If that works then its not your hardware. 2) Search through any newsgroups provided by mandrake. Perhaps someone has the same problem. 3) Look at your log files, see if you notice anything. 4) Shut down services and unmount network drives before attempting the shutdown. Maybe it will work then, and if it does, you might have a guess as to where to go. 5) Update all the system releated packages to the latest stable versions, however that is done on mandrake. 6) If the previous updates didn't work and you were using Gentoo I'd tend to recommend considering a rebuild of the OS, starting with a fairly minimal system. While Gentoo does a very good job upgrading cleanly, sometimes from scratch seems a bit cleaner and can sometimes matter. 7) I don't use the shutdown command myself. Does 'halt' do the same thing? On Tue, 2005-08-23 at 11:28 -0500, R. Geoffrey Newbury wrote: Can any help with this problem? I have an SP13000, running Mandrake 10.2 with epia patched 2.6.12.3-epia kernel. Whether I run shutdown -h now from a console window, or select Shutdown from the 'Start Menu', the machine switches to run-mode 0, does all the usual things, but stops/hangs at Power Down. I have to push and hold the Power button (for the 4 second delay) before it will go down. (This is actually the usual ATX 'power-off' state which is not really dead: for example the ASUS WL330G wifi gadget which is powered from a USB port, is still powered.) I cannot find anything in the BIOS which would prevent the usual 'power-off' step. In case it makes a difference, this MB is installed in a Silverstone LC11M case, with all of the apparently normal bits and pieces between the power supply and the MB. I don't think that there are any power leads missing. Geoff R. Geoffrey Newbury [EMAIL PROTECTED] Barrister and Solicitor Telephone: 905-271-9600 Mississauga,Ontario, Canada Facsimile: 905-271-1638 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Barebone myth tv nodes?
I'm familiar with the EPIA motherboards, well the MII one anyway. It runs around $167, yet one obviously doesn't really need a pc card slot. Personally if I'm going to get to those expenses one almost might as well go Pundit or Shuttle cube variation I guess. Actually I should look at the variations on the shuttle cubes that are out now... Basically I was looking for a solution in a microATX motherboard that had everything quite cheap. I just bought a refurbished microATX with sempron 2200 and heat sink for $68.80 from newegg. It hasn't arrive yet, but if it's integrated video had s-video it would be perfect. (Of course they are sold out of those, and I've no idea of the quality since it is refurbished.) I just thought that perhaps there was an ultra cheap all in one motherboard solution that basically needed a stick of ram and a remote control. It is not really an unreasonable combination, but getting it all to work in Linux might be another matter. If anyone does't know about them, they might take a look at logicsupply.com . They have ide flash memory modules that plug directly into an IDE connector starting at $51 dollars for a 256MB version. Of course if you don't know how to build a Linux system so it never mounts a partition rw, other than during development, then I can't really recommend it. (Flash memory devices have a finite number of read write cycles.) The basic idea is to create a compressed squashfs image and then use the union file system to overlay a ramdrive so the system is happy. If you have a few files you need to edit every now and then put them on a separate partition and create symbolic links to them before creating the compressed image. That way you can temporarily mount the partition read write and edit those files. For this to work with myth I suspect you would need a 512MB CF module and at least 512MB of ram since you don't have any disk swap.. I'm trying to think of the advantage of such a system over nfs and the only obvious reason would be for portable devices that use wireless or in cases where NFS booting is impossible. Hard drives are far easier and can be very quiet... (I'm assuming the original reason for avoiding a hard drive was for reasons of noise.) On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 01:24 -0700, Todd Duffin wrote: I am running an EPIA M1000 and am very happy with it. It is an ITX form factor. Has everything you are talking about. VGA, SVideo out, Analog audio out (and digital out too!), LAN, USB, Firewire, IR, 1000mhz CPU...the ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Barebone myth tv nodes?
Has anyone seen or figured out the lowest cost way to get a bare mythtv node up? I was thinking of setting up myth around the house and what I'm looking for is something like 1.5GHZ + cpu Integrated sound Integrated video with tv out on motherboard Integrated network All of the previous need to work with myth obviously, including doing NFS booting via the network. In a perfect world it would be a tiny case as well, but somehow I suspect to get all these things the price might get more expensive. A shuttle or Asus Pundit might be possibilities, but both were more expensive than what I had in mind. If anyone sees some refurbished motherboards that are decent that might be idea. The sticking points seem to be getting the tv-out to work as well as the nfs booting off the network. -Robert ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Slightly OT -- Video converter recommendation.
Does anyone know of a very good device that takes 2 Composite 1 S-video 1 VGA and outputs 1 VGA. This needs to do a high quality conversion to VGA and could possibly cost as much as a couple hundred dollars top. I've got a couple cheap ones that do something similar, but quality is pretty important here. Secondly does anyone have recommendations for ~14 inch LCD screens that take a VGA signal and run on 12 volts. They should be as small as possible which means they likely should have no speakers and not have a large amount of plastic around the screen. The application is for a tour bus system I'm working on improving. Actually heres a thought. I wonder if you can control a VCR through myth. That way I could possibly integrate a myth based control system into the entire thing. That approach may be overkill though. The only use for the time delay that comes to mind is to rewind the live recording of the exterior camera. Still its a thought. A somewhat compelling one at that, especially if they eventually did integrate a mobile satellite tv system like was discussed. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] PVR-250 is hot! hot! hot!
IMO your pushing things too much for the long term health of your system. I suggest picking up a quiet fan from directron.com or something like that and adding one. You could possibly run it on +12 - +5 = 7V from the power supply by going between the 12 and 5 volt leads to keep it quieter. I'd also be curious about your hdd temperature. Bake a hard drive for a few months and it tends to hurry the RMA requirement.. Still you may be perfectly ok, it just seems chancy to me with a poor ventillation case, with both the fast GPU and PVR card in the long term. 64C isn't really ideal for the CPU either. A very good heat sink with some proper thermal transfer compound may helpa little there.. Good luck. On Wed, 2005-04-20 at 11:04 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, My Myth box has extremely poor ventilation, and subsequently, runs very hot. I wanted it to be extra quiet, so I shut off all the rear exhaust fans except the PSU fan. The PSU fan is pretty slow; I've reduced fan speed (with a FanMate) for the CPU fan, and I let the GPU (Geforce4 Ti4200) go full speed. All in all, pretty quiet. As for temps, it's another story. I don't have lm_sensors working (something about their eeprom module causing issues with ivtv's tveeprom). However, my case has some temp sensors. The heatsink on the CPU is about 64C, and the internal case temp is up there as well. However, I think this is still within spec (AMD Sempron), so I'm fine with it. I might undervolt the CPU a little, to see if that would help. Anyways, I don't care about temps as long as it's not causing problems. My cause for concern, however, is the PVR-250. It has no fan on it, and it is getting much hotter than anything else in the case. I taped a temp sensor on the back of the card, and it routinely gets up to 74C. I can't find any specs on the operating range for it. Has anyone had any problems with their PVR-250 overheating? What are the symptoms. Thanks, Micah ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Random bad? idea DXR2
It is worth noting that afaik a dxr3/hollywood+ mpeg2 decoder card does do interlaced tv output correctly. I just setup mplayer with a 2.4 kernel and got that all working. (Links for the relevant info are on the mplayer page.) The thing is, since I can't think of any way to use that as a normal graphics adapter I don't think it would work with myth anyway. Its just that the quality of the tv out maybe better than some. Of course there is also the fact that I don't know if those cards are available anymore. Still I managed to get mplayer playing on a tv with xvid type source material on a amd k6 500 (i think). Note for people like me that forget about use flags in gentoo, well adding the mmx and 3dnow flags and recompiling mplayer made a huge difference. I've no idea what the effect is in myth though. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] RF remote
ATI makes one. Check the kernel options for 2.6.x, there is a driver. They have a newer version now. I'm not sure of the status on that, but a bit of research will likely find out. On Thu, 2005-04-14 at 16:55 -0600, Devan Lippman wrote: Can anyone recommend a good RF remote? I'm having trouble finding ones that have linux driver support. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Samba or NFS?
On Sun, 2005-04-10 at 08:48 +0100, David Morrison wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Robert Johnston wrote: On Apr 9, 2005 3:49 PM, John Andersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 09 April 2005 8:52 am, Tony Godshall wrote: Perhaps cfs? It's encrypted nfs, and security is a concern if on wireless even more than wired because it does not require physical access. Oh for pete's sake. Someone is worried about efficiency enough to think about abandoning Samba for some supposed slight advantage of nfs and you propose adding an encryption layer in there? Network security should be handled at the network level not the file system level. And if he's using 802.11x, he should at least have WEP, if not WPA, enabled I use WEP so I'm happy with that. Adding an encrypted file system = more data to transmit = slower performance. Two trivial notes. If you use WEP you may not want to use any automatic utility an access point or something comes with to change a password into a key since some of these are inherently flawed in there generation. Secondly, WEP does add a little to the packet overhead. I myself live in the country where someone would literally have to sneak a laptop up fairly close to my house to do anything, in which case one definitely has other problems requiring policeman. I'm certainly not recommending anyone avoid encryption on a wireless link, its just sometimes physical boundaries are adequate as they are for wired ethernet. Now if you wanted something much more secure you could take a look at my phd project on my web page. The test code there only works on cards that use the orinoco drivers right now though. There has been insufficient interest to make it work in general. To be honest, most people do not need that level of security anyway. Of course moving away from WEP into WPA would definitely be a good idea if you live in a non rural area, since WEP is well not so hot. Dave -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCWNo9Tvi0LnvdKq0RAiAIAJ9HWT5ITaMyuc3qN9SHs1H6pR7kpACgmsZi U9FtDlrJpKRANpEtRRAITxU= =IUon -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Configure backend w/o GUI
Well I think the mythconverg database contains all the settings, but editing that without the nice gui interface sounds like a nightmare to me. I'd recommend solving the QT problem. Perhaps someone here will know a solution if you give details, unless of course you've already tried that. On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 20:18 -0600, Devan Lippman wrote: is there a way to configure a backend server without using the QT interface?? Having a lot of trouble getting qt to run correctly and I'll prolly never have to use it again once I get the backend configured... -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] C-Band Satellite with Myth?
Has anyone setup myth to work with a C-band satellite system? In some ways the pictures on ordinary channels are better there, but then a lot of channels have moved away from C-band. The reason the pictures are better, of course, is its an uncompressed signal, at least for the older videocipher II encrypted channels. By setup I mean you'd want the guide to work and myth to somehow handle entering the channel data so the dish moves and all that. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Satelite service recommendation for use w/ MythTV
On Fri, 2005-04-01 at 18:35 -0500, Maverick wrote: I've had a working MythTV box for a couple months now, and so far it's been tuning my basic cable channels that my local cable company has. I've been thinking about switching to DSS for TV cause their lineups have more to offer than my local cable. My main questions are, Dish or DirectTV? My brother (a home theater installer) says go with Dish, it's better...true? Dish - requires an IR blaster of similar to change channels - lower monthly cost, at least when I had mine installed. - If you have more than one receiver I think you tend to end up running two cables from the receiver. Maybe 3 with local channels. - Uses actual mpeg2 technology Directv - Direct serial connection possible to change channels on at least some boxes. I have no idea how this works I have dish. - I think they are still more monthly - They have more sports channels I think - Usually one fewer cable from the dish than dish, but only if you have multiple receivers. - I don't think they are quite using standard mpeg2 for their signals. I've no idea about firewire. Personally from what little I've heard if you didn't want to save a little money on programming then directv is probably what you want for myth. I have dish and don't regret that. If nothing else the dish network CEO is a democrat and the directv one is a republican which may be a silly way of choosing, but well given that it is also cheaper.. *shrug* Are there any specific hardware boxes I should look for? I'm assuming I'll just tune the DSS box w/ MythTV and use lircd to change channels, but are there any boxes with Firewire worth seeking out instead? -Kenneth ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Mostly OT: Pundit PSU fan died
Bear in mind I don't have a Pundit, however if its a standard ATX power supply connector then pretty much any standard ATX power supply should work to power it. If it has some proprietary connectors on it then probably not. It might not be a bad idea to take a wire and put a couple ring connectors on it and attach one to the bare case of the power supply and another where the original power supply was. This wire should probably be routed with the rest of the bundle with nylon ties or something to avoid accidentally creating an open loop to transmit or receive signals. There is also the fact that a systems electromagnetic compliance is likely tested with the factory power supply and case closed. The missing supply might cause it to emit a bit more. The wire bundle itself going inside is a likely source for leakage. Is any of that a problem? Probably not, but well there are always studies about EM exposure. At any rate I had a little ASUS box awhile back from Newegg with a proprietary supply that died, and I do remember running it for a few minutes with a regular supply to troubleshoot it. Unfortunately I needed it for a demo, and not in rigged form and it was a refurbished item which Newegg doesn't allow returns on and I did not have time to risk another flaky one. At any rate Newegg agreed to RMA it for the full value if I bought a new item then. Thats where I got my second shuttle box. It was about $100 more though. I have no idea as to brick power supplies though. On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 17:08 -0800, emory wrote: Nick- When you quoted $50 for a replacement PSU, was that from Hipro or ASUS? I've been looking into getting a replacement PSU for my Pundit-R because it's too noisy, but it's hard to find a PSU that fits in the Pundit's 8 x 12 x 12 cm PSU compartment. My PSU is from Delta Electronics. I'm wondering if the Hipro ones are any better. Ideally, I would like something that's more efficient, as the Delta PSU's are rated pretty low and heat up readily. I've read rumors that ASUS might have switched PSU suppliers around the same time that people started complaining that the Pundit was not virtually silent as advertised. I was also thinking about using an external PSU, kind of like you are doing. Is that actually a safe thing to do? Can one buy a laptop-like external power supply inteded for such use on desktops? - emory On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:55:46 -0500, Will Dormann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nick wrote: Very sorry to hear that. Was yours a Pundit or Pundit-R system? Did you have lm_sensors running at the time? Were both the CPU and PSU afffected or just the CPU? It was just the PSU fan on a Pundit AB-P 2600 system. The PSU is a Hipro 200W unit. The 80x20mm fan has only two leads, so I don't think it has any sort of monitoring capabilities. I tried lm_sensors at some point, but upon loading the module, the CPU fan goes to high speed (negating any benefit of Q-fan). So I scrapped that idea. I'm not sure if any PSU temperature info would have been available to lm_sensors in the first place, though. CPU fan is fine. I've currently got a full size PSU hooked up to it. Everything works fine. It just looks ugly now, 'cause the PSU is outside of the case! :) -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Re: Energy Usage of MythBoxes
On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 13:21 +1000, David Whyte wrote: Hrm... this might be my excuse to get a PVR x50 card (~20/mo savings, payback in 5-6 months... not too shabby). Doesn't that just mean the card will consume the power to do its magic? So where you save on the CPU you lose on the tuner. Maybe...unless it takes less energy just to write the MPEG2! For people that are really determined to save power, you might want to pick up a clamp on ammeter. They run about $30 or $40 at hardware stores. You will also need an extension cord you can separate and get one and only one of the power wires inside the clamp. (All the insulation should be left on the wires.) Power = i^2 * R so basically power utilization goes up as the square of the current. For the actual power usage multiply the amp reading by the RMS voltage. I suspect thats about the only way to be sure if the PVR-250 will save you any power usage overall. Personally I rather doubt it will be that much. On another note. I have no earthly clue what the power factor is for computer power supplies, but one would think it would be possible to add the correctly sized AC capacitors and correct that if you were really concerned about it. Of course then you need to do all the math and make sure a nice case is found to keep the capacitor terminals away from anyones fingers. Actually I don't remember if conventional electric meters will read a larger value because of the tendency for the inductive loads to outnumber the capacitive ones or not. It might be something to check on one day. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] MobileMyth?
On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 17:52 -0800, Aaron Stewart wrote: I kicked this idea around for a while (I think my post on it is in the archives somewhere) but didn't get terribly far with it (was just working on building out hardware). Though my idea had to do with syncing using WiFI to a master server while the car is parked, rather than physically attached storage. Thats what I would do as well. You need to have some kind of cron job in either the car computer or a home pc that tests if the car is around. From there just setup an rsync server to mirror a tree on the car computer. Rsync also seems to be great for web sites, especially if you are on a modem or what have you. With a cron job setup on the server to sync occasionally and a private rsync server, the job of keeping the site in sync even on a really slow connection is quite easy. On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Andrew Close wrote: On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:59:48 -0700, Nathan Hesson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rather new to the mythtv scene but had an idea and wanted to see what kindof response this got. I know some c++ programming and am looking at trying to build a MobileMyth extension. It would be a complete linux from scratch operating system that is intended to run on a lightweight, machine for your car. My idea is that you have an external harddrive (be it usb or firewire or flashdrive or whatever and you select from a mythweb interface or interfacein mythtv what content you would like to transfer (music movies games recordings images) You then transfer then to the drive and plug the drive into a seperate computer in your car. It then reads the drive and you have a mythtv interface to select all of the content that you just selected. I know you could export everything and load it to a notebook or something but i am looking at doing something that would take very little time to select. Kindof a set it and forget it. Also it would be very cool if you could control it via a touchpanel but that shouldnt be too hard to interpret mouse movements. Anyway, that was kind of long so I will shutup and see what everyone thinks. Thanks Nathan p.s. If this has been talked about before please let me know. i looked around and could not find anything. hi Nathan, i like the idea of a mobileMyth. there may be other plugins out there that provide some of this functionality. one of my future projects is to put together a carputer and i thought Myth would be a great frontend. add a MythGPS plugin and maybe a MythOBDII plugin. :) instead of LFS you may want to look into borrowing from KnoppMyth since it's already a paired down distro that is set up for Myth use. unless you have LFS experience or are itching to try... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] directv and dish network
On Wed, 2005-03-16 at 18:02 -0500, David George wrote: On 03/16/2005 05:46 PM, Ricardo Kleemann wrote: If I hooked up a VCR to save some tapes to disk (or even burn DVDs), how would I control that from mythtv? There isn't an easy one-button way of doing this. Sometimes it is just easier to press play on the VCR and type 'cat /dev/video video.mpg'. What I did once was setup an input source on one of my capture cards called vcr and setup a dummy source for it. Interesting, I'm assuming this only works with hauppage pvr cards? ? What does a file read on /dev/video do for ordinary cards? Is the format parsable? cat /dev/video0 does manage to completely corrupt my ssh window beyond even a 'reset' ;p On a more serious note I was thinking of eventually making a gpl library for Labview for manipulating video. If I can just do a read of that 'file' and run it through a function or what not to extract it out to RGB or YUV, then it would likely be enough. (Note that Labview is a visual programming language some scientists and engineers like.) If would of course have to use existing linux code. Of course there isn't a high demand for this, but it might be nice for some people who would need it to have an alternative to the expensive national instruments package. Of course this is getting off topic.. -- Robert Denier ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2005) University of Missouri-Rolla http://www.finiteinfinity.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
