[mythtv-users] trying to watch TV via mythtvfrontend produces blank screen

Ray Olszewski ray at comarre.com
Sat Jul 19 09:39:35 EDT 2003


At 01:28 PM 7/19/2003 +0200, Akos Maroy wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm new to MythTV. I just configured it, but when I try to watch TV using 
>mythtvfrontend, I only get one big black screen (and valid audio). but no 
>visuals on the screen.
>
>I'm using RedHat 9, and tried mythtvfrontend with both Gnome and KDE. On 
>the same system, xawtv shows TV fine.


This should be a FAQ (even including the xawtv part).

The usual explanation for this symptom is that you are running a video 
card/X driver that does not properly support XV (that is, the XVideo 
extensions to XFree86). Because xawtv does not use XV, the fact that it is 
working is NOT a test of the ability of your system to display MythTV 
images properly.

To check if it is an XV problem, install xine and see if it will run when 
set to use XV ("xine -V xv some_video_file_name"). Or use xvinfo to see if 
X reports that your system is capable of XV (though a "yes" on this test is 
not definitive, as some XV drivers are buggy).

In any case, the odds are about 100 to 1 that this is an X problem, not a 
Myth problem.

If you want help here with it, post again, but include the results of the 
tests I've suggested above, and tell us the basics of your setup (what X 
version, what video card and X driver, maybe more). I infer that you are 
using a combined backend/frontent, but you should confirm that too.





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