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

Saravanan Subbiah saravanan_subbiah at sbcglobal.net
Sun Jul 20 06:07:59 EDT 2003


This is a reply to the mail originally posted by darkeye. I just joined
the list and I only saw the message in the archive. So was not able to
reply to that mail. Hope the list figures it out.


Anyways, I just wanted to add more info on this.

I have the *exact* same issue. The following is my config.

P4 1500 MHz with 384 MB ram and 40GB harddisk.
It is running Mandrake 9.1 with 2.4.21-0.18mdk kernel.
nVidia GForce 2 MX card and am using the nVidia GForce 2 MX/MX 400
generic driver.

I just bought this AverTV Studio PCI card which has bt878 chip and uses
bttv driver. with FM tuner and IR remote. I want to build myself a
HT+PVR with MythTV. I am breaking my head trying to make it run
properly.

Mandrake come with bttv.0.7.00 driver and xawtv worked well but I had
problems with mythtv. The screen used to go blank as soon as I pressed
watch TV in mythfrontend. The sound comes up though. 

After about a min. mythfrontend starts printing the following error msg.

Audio buffer overflow, audio data lost!


I have to kill the front end to get the blank screen of. But the sound
still keeps going on. Then I have to kill the backend and then start
xawtv and then exist it to stop the sound !


Interestingly I had same kind of problem (blank screen) with freevo too
which uses mplayer.

Then I tried compiling and using bttv-0.9.11 and 0.9.12 driver. With
these drivers, the picture was at least displayed. But some IRQ lockup
happens and the screen freezes. 

I used to get some IOSYNCEERROR error in mythtv.

This happened in mythtv , freevo and also xawtv, but in lesser frequency
(in that order). With mythtv, It only takes one channel change for it to
happen. So I concluded that 0.9  driver is buggy.

I read somewhere that 0.7.104 if bttv driver is stable ans so I compiled
that driver. But then xawtv plays well like a charm. But mythtv has the
same old problem. (back to square one !!)

With the 0.9 driver when mythtv was playing the video atleast for 
sometime, I found that it was taking about 50 to 60 % CPU. But neither
freevo or xawtv took any CPU at all. I did play the TV using mplayer
using XV driver and it worked fine without taking any CPU. From xvinfo
too, I think my card supports XV.

Why is mythtv taking more CPU ?

And how can solve this blank screen problem ?

I installed MythTV from the Mandrake RPMs.

Any help is highly appreciated.

thx,
Saravanan





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