[mythtv] mythtv binary freezes computer

[mythtv-dev@snowman.net]

Whew, it has been a long road installing mythtv, but I look forward to
eventually getting it all to work.

The mythtv binary hangs on me when I start it up, even though xawtv is
working fine.  Only way to regain control of my machine is to hard reboot
and patiently sit through a fsck.

My machine:

Asus P4PE 512 DDR 
ATI TV Wonder (stereo, not VE) 
LeadTek GeForce4 Ti4200
Pentium IV 

2.6 Debian testing/unstable (installed via Knoppix LiveCD)

Knoppix Debian LiveCD recognized my capture card and GeForce4 card and
installed what I presume are the most recent stable drivers for them,
since Knoppix is released weekly and appears to be more up-to-date than
Debian woody.

Okay, so now ALSA works, as does xawtv, mythfrontend, and mythepg.

If I start mythtv from the command line, the machine hangs (after the
weird error message from LAME) and no video opens.

OTOH, if I get to mythtv through mythfrontend, the entire screen becomes
blue, as if I were running xawtv in full-screen mode, but had it tuned to
the wrong channel.  I get roughly three seconds of thin bars of static
and
then the machine freezes ... forcing me to hard reboot.  (I've got a
digital cable box, so to use xawtv I tune to channel 4 and switch
channels using the physical remote ... eventually I'll use lira but first
things first).

Any thoughts why mythtv binary locks up my machine but xawtv (and motv)
work just fine (using ALSA drivers).

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.  This one has me stumped.