[mythtv-users] Huge numbers of dropped frames - what to investigate?

Keith Hanlan mythtv at hanlan.ca
Tue Jan 20 16:23:28 EST 2004


I'm running MythTV 0.13 on the following system:
   - Althon 1700XP+ with 1GB
   - Hauppauge PVR-250
   - 120GB WD1200JB-00FUA0
   - ASUS A7V333 M/B
   - redhat9 "upgraded" using Axel's AT packages.

I find that I am getting huge numbers of:
   ivtv: Not enough free buffers, stream 0
My /var/log/messages looks like:
   Jan 20 13:00:03 kph kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder set size
   Jan 20 13:00:03 kph kernel: Setting full NTSC width
   Jan 20 13:00:03 kph kernel: Setting full NTSC height
   Jan 20 13:00:21 kph kernel: ivtv: Not enough free buffers, stream 0
   Jan 20 13:00:54 kph last message repeated 93 times
   Jan 20 13:02:02 kph last message repeated 230 times
   Jan 20 13:03:09 kph last message repeated 177 times
   Jan 20 13:04:16 kph last message repeated 203 times
   Jan 20 13:05:23 kph last message repeated 222 times
   Jan 20 13:06:29 kph last message repeated 185 times
   Jan 20 13:07:36 kph last message repeated 203 times
   Jan 20 13:08:44 kph last message repeated 212 times
   Jan 20 13:09:50 kph last message repeated 185 times
   Jan 20 13:10:57 kph last message repeated 216 times
   Jan 20 13:12:05 kph last message repeated 234 times
   Jan 20 13:13:12 kph last message repeated 201 times
   Jan 20 13:14:19 kph last message repeated 217 times
   Jan 20 13:15:25 kph last message repeated 190 times
   Jan 20 13:16:33 kph last message repeated 224 times
   Jan 20 13:17:41 kph last message repeated 219 times
   Jan 20 13:18:48 kph last message repeated 207 times
   Jan 20 13:19:55 kph last message repeated 208 times
   Jan 20 13:21:04 kph last message repeated 235 times
   Jan 20 13:22:11 kph last message repeated 210 times
...

You get the idea. The resulting video is *barely* watchable. Lots
of episodes of pixilation and other noise. Meanwhile, the load on
the system seems low and nothing much else is going on.

My ivtv module came from
ivtv-kmdl-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at-0.12-cvs20031004_16.rh9.at

I seem to recall that the module is simply a wrapper for the stock
connexant windows driver. I assume that is what these files are:
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       262144 Nov 22 19:55 /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-dec.bin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       262144 Nov 22 19:55 /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-enc.bin
# sum /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-dec.bin /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-enc.bin
26733   256 /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-dec.bin
03403   256 /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-enc.bin

The first of these files contains the string "Version 2.02.023"
while the second contains "Version 2.04.211"

Is my problem as simple as using the wrong drivers? Or is there
something else I should investigate?

Thanks,
Keith Hanlan
Ottawa, Canada


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