[mythtv-users] frontend crash during UK dvb-t playback - only at adverts

[Alan Bates]

i'm running 0.18 - most recent one available for fc4. not certain
which version of the nova-t i'm running - uses tda1004 firmware, so
it's an oldish one i think. oddly, when i run the frontend from the
terminal to check what it reports, the frontend seems less inclined to
crash, but still has the audio problem - namely, sound drops out after
the green frame and there's an occasional crackle until either it
recovers itself or i skip forward then back.

in the frontend terminal at the point where the problem occurs it
reports: GetNextFreeFrame() - served a busy frame. Dropping

followed by a few prebuffering pauses.

i'll keep trying to kill it in terminal - if it remains more stable
i'll just change my startup to run it that way.

On 9/20/05, Stephen Williams <stephen.gw at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/20/05, Alan Bates <bite.my.shiny.metal.ass at gmail.com> wrote:
> > hi all – I now have a stable dvb-t myth setup running on an up-to-date
> > fedora core system, using the hauppage nova-t. only major problem thus
> > far is:
> >
> > watching certain UK channels, the frontend crashes when the commercial
> > break begins – happens both with recordings and livetv. channels
> > identified so far are channel4, e4/e4+1 and  abc1.
> >
> > I suspect the reason is that these channels broadcast in a variety of
> > aspect ratios, and switch over at the start  of the adverts, causing a
> > break in the signal of some kind – i.e. main broadcast  is in 16:9,
> > channel ident may be in low-res 4:3, followed by ad in 16:9. this
> > often causes a broken keyframe (?) which the system struggles to
> > recover from, manifesting itself in a green frame, a period of
> > scrambled or non-existent audio, and quite often, the complete and
> > sudden death of the frontend. rest of the programme and other channels
> > are fine.
> >
> > anyone else seeing  this behaviour or anything similar? let me know if
> > there's any debug info that'd  help…
>
> I've been running 0.18 since it was released on DVB-T in the UK with a
> (version 909) Nova-T. It's quite normal for the adverts and the actual
> programme to be in different aspect ratios, at most I see the odd
> green frame / short garbled video but very rarely.
>
> You don't say what version of Myth you're running. The current SVN
> head is undergoing a major DVB re-write so i'd use the 0.18-fixes
> branch for a production system until that all settles down.
>
> Have a look in the logs to see if there's anything useful, otherwise
> try and get a backtrace (see the user guide for instructions).
>
> Steve
>