[mythtv-users] Mono only (no stereo) on '350 with Myth; manual OK!

[Bradley W. Allen]

I'm getting mono only in Myth from my '350.

I'm getting stereo when I do it manually ("test_ioctl ...",
"ptune ...", "dd if=/dev/video0 ...").

This has been confirmed about a dozen or two times across multiple
days, driver initializations, Myth restarts (disk full problems),
and even maybe a crash or power failure or two (meaning a reboot).

About once per twenty, Myth records stereo, I think.

I believe that the IVTV driver might be left in a state after
Myth where it will record only mono until I do a channel change,
but I have to test that further.  I'm going to include a previous
email that was sent to the list but never made it which might
help diagnose.

What the heck is happening?  I don't even know where to start!
I've never seen a "mono only" setting or anything like that.

Myth records stereo fine off of my ATSC card.


Previous email regarding same topic:
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>From Bradley W. Allen Fri Jan 2 17:26:00 2004
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Date:	Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:26:00 -0800 (PST)
From:	"Bradley W. Allen" <vala_ulmo at yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Subject:	m0.13 cvs-ivtv mono only; dd if=/dev... stereo; '350
To:	mythtv-users at mythtv.org
CC:	vala_ulmo at yahoo.com
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This is with the Hauppauge 990 (WinTV PVR 350):

In MythTV 0.13 with IVTV CVS, MythTV is recording programs in only
mono.  I verified this extensively with many sound tests, and the
difference is obvious, clear, and consistent with this problem in
every case.  MythTV will not record stereo, whereas when I reset the
drivers (total unload and reload) and then use "dd", I get stereo
every time, no questions asked.

However, that's where it stops being simple:

1.  When I first looked, "dd" would not receive stereo at all,
despite lots of tuning from channel to channel using ptune.pl. 
Resetting all drivers brought me crystal clear awesome stereo.  I
even listened to a few ads it was so much relief to have it back!

2.  I tested mythbackend recording again, and like I said above
already, it was mono.  But when I went back to dd, as far as I can
recall, and my memory MIGHT not be right about this, I *was* able to
"dd" myself some stereo again.

3.  Just to test #2 again, I'm going to run mythbackend, record, then
try dd, again, to see what happens:

First, verify dd stereo:  affirmative.
Second, mythbackend record in stereo:  affirmative.  huh.  So, this
problem must be intermittant?  It's almost time for a channel change
for recording, so I'll wait for the next recording:
Third, mythbackend next recording on different channel stereo: woops,
that was my other input card, ATSC, which works fine in stereo.
Oh well.  Well, now I'm curious:  I'll set another mythbackend
record:
sounds like MONO.
back to dd:  whoa ... strange, Myth left it set to a different
channel than it was recording from.  How did it do that?  It was the
channel the other card is still recording from (verified).  Anyway
...
well, without changing from *that* channel, it sounds stereo.  Going
back to the same channel that sounded like mono just now in
mythbackend:  definitely in stereo now, but that's an ad; I'll have
to wait for main program; definitely stereo.
Trying mythbackend again on same program: (great ... how am I going
to convince it to try again ... let's eee here ... no, it's given up;
refuses ... hmm ... this is NOT EASY.  I can't convince it to try
again ... manually deleting entry in "record" table in mysql ... no,
that doesn't work either ...)

I'll have to give you futher data on this in the future, since I
can't resume an interrupted recording in Myth, but almost all of the
programs being recorded from my '350 by MythTV are in mono, whereas
whenever I do manual recordings except in rare cases when Myth has
left the driver in bad state, I get stereo.  Myth does record from my
HD-2000 in stereo just fine.  Both Myth backends are 0.13, but their
libraries may be different -- the one working with HD-2000 is in
Gentoo and the one with mono is in Debian Sarge (`Testing').

All the channels and programs I used for these tests were stereo; I
confirmed this in every case by verifying that any program I heard in
mono I also heard in stereo (so you can rule out me attempting to
squeeze stereo out of a non-stereo source).

The setting I used for loading the msp3400 driver was always one of
the following:

no options;
once=1;
and maybe once=1 simple=1.

Except maybe for simple=1, all tests were confirmed to work with dd
in stereo AND (sometimes) not work with MythTV (i.e., mono only
recording of stereo programs). 

=====
Bradley W. Allen
<VALA_ULMO at YAHOO.COM>

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