[mythtv] I am having major problems with pchdtv-3000, cable and svn mythtv.

[Mark Frey]

 Daniel Kristjansson wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 13:24 -0500, Dylan Semler wrote:
>> On 11/14/06, Harley Peters <harley[at]hpeters.net> wrote:
>> One thing i have noticed is the picture is much better (not
>> perfect)
>> when first tuned to but very quickly turns into a mess. (3 or
>> seconds)
>>
>> Sorry for the interruption, but this last symptom looks very similar
>> to what I experience on all channels. On my system, displaying video
>> (or having any activity on the screen) causes my pcHDTV to loose
>> signal lock. You can test this by using azap to tune a channel and
>> then play the file with xine in a separate terminal while it is still
>> being tuned (perhaps you do this already--if so, ignore this message).
>> When you start playing the file with xine, the pcHDTV will lose signal
>> lock and the quality will degrade. Then when xine catches up to that
>> point in the file, you will see the degradation. Unfortunately, I
>> have not found a solution to this problem.
>
>Harley, can you confirm whether this might be the problem you are
>encountering. Just play a pre-existing recording while you try to
>capture the stream outside MythTV and also try scheduling a
>recording in MythTV and do not view a recording at the same time.
>If the recording you make while you are playing the video is
>corrupted or the video you make with MythTV while not watching
>a recording is not corrupted, then this is probably the problem.
>
>Dylan, your problem is almost certainly due to a motherboard
>chipset problem. To work around it you will want to make sure
>that the pcHDTV card and your video card do not share an
>interrupt and you will want to extend your PCI latency to
>at least 64 for the pcHDTV card, and reduce the PCI latency
>for the video card (especially if it is not an AGP card).
>Making the cards not share an interrupt may require changing
>which slots on the motherboard they are plugged into if you
>can not rearrange them in the BIOS settings. If you have any
>further questions reply on the user's list and BCC me so I
>don't miss the post there.

Myself and a friend also experienced these problems (and I to some extent 
still do) and it was only solved by using a different power supply. I tried 
messing with BIOS settings, changing slots, changing PCI latency, trying a 
pci-based IDE controller. Nothing worked. Tried an old 250W power supply, 
problem completely gone. Five different Antec power supplies exhibited this 
problem (pcHDTV 3000 stream errors under high system load). Two different 
Seasonics exhibited the problem but to a lesser extent (I am using one of 
these currently and my only problem now is with live TV). All these power 
supplies were 400W or greater. The only power supply to work without issue 
is a no-name 250W canibalized from an HP box. One of the motherboards is a 
cheap ECI, the other an expensive ASUS. I assume that the power regulation 
circuitry is poor on the pcHDTV 3000 and that some combinations of 
motherboards and power supplies are just going to exhibit this problem.

Even if this sounds nuts, try another power supply.

-Mark