[mythtv-users] ivtv setup question

[Andrew Dodd]

Quoting Myth TV <mythtv at maniclogic.org>:

> Not to be argumentative, but it hardly seems to be the "easiest" way. 
> That's great for tweaking particular channels, but not for a "card-wide"
> change, hence the test_ioctl.  Is there a specific place / init script /
> ivtv conf file, etc. where this could be run once at startup?

Apply the per-channel settings globally to each channel.  No easy way to do this
in the UI, but it's a simple job if you directly modify the database.

If your database is on the machine you're logged into:
mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg

Once the prompt comes up:
update channel set brightness=<something>;

Same works for contrast, colour (saturation in test_ioctl), etc.

Also great for doing fine-tuning of the channel frequency.  I've found that some
of my local stations are a little off.

If you just want to change brightness for one channel,
update channel set brightness=<something> where channum=<channel number>;

You can also restrict this via chanid instead.

Note that these are all defined on a range of 0 to 65535 instead of the various
ranges used by test_ioctl, so you'll need to remap most of the numbers.

The way I tune my contrast/frequency/etc is:
cat /dev/video0 | xine -

And then in another terminal start tweaking the settings with test_ioctl.  Once
I like them, I write them into the channel database.  I do this for each
channel, as every channel is somewhat different in brightness/contrast/tuning. 
(For example, I'm near NYC and NBC 4 is always perfect, while CBS 2 is a little
bit dark and needs a slight contrast reduction, plus needs to be tuned higher,
and UPN 9 is REALLY dark and needs significant contrast reduction, and needs to
be tuned lower.)