[mythtv-users] MythTV : Little Sleep, Lots Of Reading... I Failed.

Bruce Markey bjm at lvcm.com
Mon Jun 9 03:54:09 EDT 2003


Rob Case wrote:
> Ok so I started out this weekend with the goal of setting up a MythTV 
> box before the weekend was over.. sleep was not an option :)
> 
> I started out where I left off last week.. RH9/PVR-250/SB Live!
> 
> Jarod Wilson sent me his HOWTO and was readily available this weekend 
> for fielding questions. I made it through numerous (20+) reinstalls with 
> all of them ending the same way. (I don't blame the instructions, but 
> rather my setup)

I assure you, with no reservations, that Jarod Wilson's
notes are not the authoritative information needed to install
MythTV. There is no mention in your message of following the
documentation that is provided with MythTV. Therefore, I'm not
surprised that you had problems.

I setup a PVR-250 for the first time earlier this week and
followed the MythTV HOWTO. I expected to give feedback but
I had it working in less than an hour without a hitch.

If you do follow the documentation and find that the information
is incomplete, confusing, or wrong, please send your suggestions
so the the documentation needed for all MythTV users can be
improved.

> mythbackend, mythfrontend both loaded. Was able to setup scheduling and 
> tweak all the settings via the frontend.  Selecting "Watch TV" would 
> lock the front end up.

Had you tested and verified that the ivtv driver is installed
correctly and functioning properly?

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-19.html#ss19.10

The common test is to "cat /dev/video > test.mpg" then play
the file with an MPEG player. You should see and hear the
test recording correctly before going on to setup MythTV.

When you do run "setup" for MythTV, one common problem is
that in part 2 of setup, you need to make sure you choose
Card type: "Hardware MPEG Encoder card".

> The sound worked prior to adding ALSA. Once ALSA was added I could not 
> play any sounds but the test sound in KDE played while producing errors. 
> (SB Live!)

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-18.html#ss18.11

> So tiring of the 3 Disk reinstalls and 1 hour+ idle time I decided to 
> try my luck at Slackware 9 using one of the guides from 
> http://pvrhw.goldfish.org
> 
> After failing several times I decided to journey into the unknown and 
> try Debian. Until tonight I had never tried Debian. I love it! 
> Unfortunately I got hung up on the sound again! And my PVR-250 doesn't 
> like bttv.

A PVR-250 needs the ivtv driver, not bttv.

> ...So I tried to download the ALSA source and compile the 
> drivers based on the SB Live! Alsa-project.org instructions and had even 
> more issues.
> 
> I have read with the PVR250 you do not need a sound card.. is this true? 
> Will on board sound hurt my performance?

There are two independent functions for /dev/dsp ; writing
to create digitized data from an analog input and reading
to convert digital data and send an analog signal to your
speakers.

A PVR-250 digitizes the audio and multiplexes the audio in
the stream read from /dev/video. Therefore, your mythbackend
does not need to be able to write to /dev/dsp to record audio.
However, your mythfrontend does need to read from /dev/dsp to
hear the sound on playback. If you have the Master and PCM
unmuted and the volume up and can hear a test file with, say:

	aplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE_Startup.wav

then you should be all set.

--  bjm



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