[mythtv-users] HDTV digital static with DVB

[ffrr]

Chris Trown wrote:

>>  
>>
>
>
>      This thread has me wondering, now.  I just got MythTV going and 
> have done some test records.
>
>      The Simpsons Halloween special recorded just fine, but it was in 
> SD format(Recorded from the HD channel).  That same night, I tried to 
> record Law & Order:CI.  That recording had a lot of breakups and qudio 
> dropouts.
>
>      The system is a 3.06GHz P4 with a HD3000 and a Rosewill Nvidia 
> 5200FX.
>
>      My understanding is that recording DVB streams is not CPU 
> intensive.  The card just grabs the digital data off the air and the 
> system writes it to disk for later manipulation/transcoding.  Am I 
> correct?  


That is my understanding of it as well, and what I see in practice.  
Recording a show hardly loads the CPU at all.


> If that is true, then I am casting a suspicious eye to problems with 
> reception.  I know that there is one channel that MythTV's scan didn't 
> pick up.
>
>      So I guess my question, is how can I tell if the problem I'm 
> seeing is trouble with recption vs. a possible system throughput issue?


It is hard.  I would expect that true reception problems would be less 
frequent and VERY random. I have yet to see a true reception problem on 
mine - I am lucky that I have very good reception.  Also, reception 
problems would not correlate at system load and especially disk I/O. 

Try starting a large file copy on the SATA drive while watching live TV 
under Myth.