[mythtv-users] help with xawtv

[Bruce Markey]

Ray Olszewski wrote:
> See below.
> 
> At 01:18 AM 6/12/2003 -0700, Bruce Markey wrote:
> 
>> brian wojnar wrote:
>>
>>> Mythtv is working fairly well so far, I'm having
>>> trouble with xawtv though.  All of the channels are
>>> one channel off, is there a way for me to offset and
>>> correct this?
>>> Also all of the channels show up black and white. Using the right 
>>> arrow key corrects this after a couple
>>> of presses.  Is there a way to get color for all of
>>> the channels permanently?
>>> I'm using a Leadtek TV2000 and Mandrake 9.1.
>>> I am a linux newbie, I will rtfm again if I missed anything.
>>
>>
>> It's currently the last item in the FAQ:
>>
>> ) All of my channels seem to be off by one, and the picture quality is 
>> poor
>> - The bttv driver is not autodetecting your tuner type correctly, or
>>   you are specifying the wrong tuner type.  Find out which one your
>>   card uses, and read Documentation/video4linux/bttv/CARDLIST to find out
>>   how to specify it.
> 
> 
> 
> Bruce -- Does this FAQ reply make sense in this particular case? He says 
> that MythTV *does* work (at least that is how I interpret "Mythtv is 
> working fairly well so far"), but xawtv does *not*. Since both use the 
> same tuner-type setting ... that's in bttv, not in the user app ... how 
> can tuner-type selection be causing the problem in one app but not the 
> other?

Just for some context, I had sent a couple of these FAQ type
answers before going to bed. I wanted to get quick help for
the apparent influx of first time users with the new release.

I interpreted his messages as the mythtv installation went
well and things are working fairly well execpt... To further
isolate the problem, here's what happens even when using xawtv.
Since the symptoms were identical to the tuner type (off by one
but black and white) I send the pointer to the solution in the
vast majority of cases.

> My own guess in this instance is that he has specified different 
> frequency settings in mythbackend and xawtv. This is the common second 
> cause of this symptom, and it probably should be mentioned in the FAQ 
> reply.

My experience is that if I choose the wrong frequency table
I get nothing but snow or a blue screen. The exception, I guess,
would be if you had the correct tuner type and selected the
bogus Canada Cable in xawtv (no longer in myth ;-). I almost
did send the "canada-cable" troubleshooting link:

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.html#ss18.16

but this seems more confusing. The FAQ says 'here's the problem,
you need to change this, figure it out'. The troubleshooting
section says 'this was a bogus work around, here's the real
problem, figure it out'.

I've noticed that several of the questions about off by one
channel have been followed by awkward discussion of which tuner
types to try, where to put the bttv options, etc.

If you (or anyone else =) could put together a troubleshooting
item that actually walks through fixing an off by one channel
problem, that would be great! This would then be the best place
to mention the possibility that the wrong frequency table has
been selected.

--  bjm