[mythtv-users] PVR-350 output?

Brett Lucey brett at happykoala.com
Mon Oct 13 14:01:08 EDT 2003


From: "Will Dormann" <wd at pobox.com>
>
> I have a question about how it would work with MythTV, though.   The card
> has S-video and composite outputs, so I'm assuming that the TV would be
> hooked right into the 350, right?   Does this output retain the
interlacing
> of the MPEG2 recordings?

You connect the TV via the S-Video or Composite.  I find the picture quality
is far superior with the S-Video connector.  The interlacing is retained
(which is what you would want) and the picture looks "normal" on your
television.

>
> Right now, I'm using the TV-out of my Pundit.  From the point that I start
> the machine, everything is displayed on the TV.   How would this work in
> the case of a PVR-350, though?    Can X be displayed through the PVR-350?
> (using it as a sort of video card, I guess)

You would need to get the latest ivtv alpha driver.  When you compile that,
there is a module which is a driver that turns the PVR-350 into a
framebuffer device.  You can then run X with the framebuffer driver.  The
picture quality in X isn't so great, and you have to tweak the UI settings
to make it fit on the screen, but the actual quality of replaying mpeg
recordings is just as good as TV, and WAY better than anything I was getting
from the TV out on my video card.

You also have to recompile MythTV to enable the support for the PVR350.  In
the libs/libmythtv there is a file called ivtvdecoder.cpp.  In the first
line of one of the functions is a "return false;" with a comment that
indicates to remote it to enable PVR350 support.

Unless you're ready for some headaches, it might be wise to wait a little
longer to use the PVR350 features.  They work, but you have to use a lot of
finesse to get them to work:

example:  If your X screensaver kicks in while you're using the framebuffer
driver and decoding a stream, the computer crashes.

Hope this is helpful :)

-Brett



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