[mythtv-users] Re: 1000th picture quality question SOLVED?

[Howard Cokl]

Mark and Chad and anyone else watching this,

No luck.  Still having occasional lockups, I'm
thinking it's xvmc but if I disable xvmc my CPU shits
the bed if I'm watching HDTV.  AFAIK the picture
quality may have always been sub par and I didn't
notice, but now that I have noticed I want to fix it. 
I got my AA9A60 today and set that up but may do it
over again tomorrow and set up an interlaced modeline
so I can see if I can get rid of mythtv deinterlace. 
Some questions:
1.  what resolutions are you using?  I think my
freestyle captures @ 640x480 so myth has to bump that
up for me since my resolution is now 720x510.
2.  What kind of CPU do you have and what is the load
on it when watching live TV?  I have an Athlon XP
2700+ and watching live TV using the freestyle puts me
at about 87% idle.
3.  Have you tried cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg and then
watching that?

Thanks
Howard

--- "Mark L. Cukier" <mark at pemicro.com> wrote:

> Howard:
> 
> Any Luck?
> 
> - Mark
> 
> Howard Cokl wrote:
> 
> >Mark,
> >I may have been too hasty.  Couldn't fully test
> last
> >night since my wife is a Survivor freak and had to
> >watch.  The little testing I did the picture
> quality
> >is as close as I think I can get it.  However now
> this
> >morning I have had 2 hard lockups, can ping the box
> >but that's all.  I'll keep you posted.
> >
> >--- "Mark L. Cukier" <mark at pemicro.com> wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>Howard:
> >>
> >>I'll have to try recompiling tonight... did you
> >>alter any other 
> >>settings.pro options? (besides XvMC?).
> >>
> >>Just so I'm clear, in the end you ended up keeping
> >>MythTV set to use XvMC?
> >>
> >>And, you're settings.pro had:
> >>
> >>XvMC on, OpenGL on.
> >>
> >>Thanks! Looking forward to giving this a try!
> >>
> >>- Mark
> >>
> >>Howard Cokl wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >>>I've been messing with this most of the day,
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>benefit of being a stay at home 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>dad, and I think I have mine figured out.  I
> turned
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>off xvmc in MythFrontend 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>Setup and in my xorg.conf, this caused the a
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>greater load on the CPU but the 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>picture in Myth is the same as straight from
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>DirecTV.  I think the reason 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>that DVD playback looked so good while TV looked
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>uncrisp is that the default 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>playback command has mplayer use -vo xv instead
> of
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>-vo xvmc.
> >>    
> >>
> >>>But I need xvmc, I don't think my athlon XP 2700+
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>can handle HDTV without it.  
> >>    
> >>
> >>>So I followed this thread 
> >>>      
> >>>
>
>>http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/116194
> >>    
> >>
> >>>all except the modeline, recompiled mythtv with
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>OpenGL, and added Option      
> >>    
> >>
> >>>"XvMCUsesTextures" "True" to my
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>.  This seems to give me a 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>picture that is the same as directv and watching
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>live tv puts the cpu at 86% 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>idle using encoder 1 which is the freestyle card.
>  
> >>>
> >>>Of course I'm going to have to dick around with
> it
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>some more since my AA 9A60 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>should be here this week but now it seems that
> all
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>is good.
> >>    
> >>
> >>>On Tuesday 15 March 2005 19:32, Chad Delatte
> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>>>Alright, excuse me for my newbness here, but yes
> I
> >>>>meant to say the itvc16 chipset.
> >>>>
> >>>>I'm trying to establish that the problem we are
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>having
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>is with the newer revision of the pvr 250.
> >>>>
> >>>>So far we have the following list of people with
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>the
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>new cards and have the same issue with
> sharpness.
> >>>>
> >>>>hojoloco,
> >>>>You also have a newer design card and maybe the
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>cause
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>of the problems.
> >>>>
> >>>>1. Me        ITVC-16
> >>>>2. hojoloco  ITVC-15 (but it's a frestyle)
> >>>>3. dan       ITVC-16
> >>>>
> >>>>ross.campbell , I did everything in your list
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>except
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>for
> >>>>1. try a different decoder card (my M-179 had
> poor
> >>>>quality compared to my pvr-250) ----Have one on
> >>>>ordser, but think I got ripped off on ebay
> >>>>2. upgrade/downgrade your video driver and hack
> on
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>the
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>config files to optimize for the best resolution
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>and
> >>    
> >>
> >>>>refresh rate for outputting recorded TV -----
> Not
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>sure
> >>    
> >>
> 
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