[mythtv-users] Detecting unencrypted HD channels

William Powell billpwl1 at verizon.net
Tue Apr 4 14:41:17 UTC 2006


i understand that this hardware isn't even close to being fast enough to 
view hd format video. this hardware is only intended as a recording 
backend. at this point I am only trying to determine what my available 
unencrypted HD channels are.

myth tv works fine for recording and viewing SDTV using either the 
hdtv3000 or hauppauge tuner cards.  Live TV is a little dodgy when using 
this machine as a frontend, but it works.

Installed Hardware:
Dual PIII 1.0 Ghz, 512 Meg Ram Geforce 6200 video, pchdtv3000, hauppauge 
pci tv tuner. ~220 gb lvm storage on 2 udma100 drives.

Software:
Fedora Core 4: Linux 2.6.15-1.1831_FC4smp #1 SMP Tue Feb 7 13:48:31 EST 
2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

mythbackend --version
Library API version: 0.19.20060121-2
Source code version: Unknown
Options compiled in:
linux release using_xvmcw using_v4l using_oss using_alsa using_arts 
using_ivtv using_firewire using_dbox2 using_lirc using_joystick_menu 
using_dvb using_dvb_eit using_x11 using_xv using_dvdnav using_xrandr 
using_xvmc using_xvmc_vld using_opengl_vsync using_frontend using_backend

mplayer --version
MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.2.3 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Coppermine,Geyserville (Family: 6, 
Stepping: 10)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE

xine --version
This is xine (X11 gui) - a free video player v0.99.2.
(c) 2000-2004 The xine Team.


I am following the procedures outlined in the mythtv wiki at: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Adding_QAM_Channels_For_HDTV_Tuner_Cards

I have scanned for channels using atscscan and got a channels.conf with 
233 detected channels. here is a small sample of this channels.conf:
[000-0002]:561000000:QAM_256:2112:2113:2
[001-0003]:561000000:QAM_256:2176:2177:3
[002-0004]:561000000:QAM_256:2240:2241:4
[003-0005]:561000000:QAM_256:2304:2305:5
[004-0006]:561000000:QAM_256:2368:2369:6
[005-0007]:561000000:QAM_256:2432:2433:7
[006-0009]:561000000:QAM_256:2496:2497:9
[007-000a]:561000000:QAM_256:2560:2561:10
[008-000b]:561000000:QAM_256:2624:2625:11
[009-000c]:561000000:QAM_256:2688:2689:12
[00a-0001]:561000000:QAM_256:2048:2049:1
[00b-000d]:567000000:QAM_256:2048:2049:13

Using azap to tume one of the channels returns the following:

azap [00b-000d]
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
tuning to 567000000 Hz
video pid 0x0800, audio pid 0x0801
status 00 | signal aabf | snr fd13 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 00 | signal fdf2 | snr fd45 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 1f | signal f3f6 | snr fd4d | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 00 | signal fdf2 | snr fd83 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 1f | signal fdf2 | snr fd93 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal dfff | snr fc8d | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal fdf2 | snr fd9b | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 00 | signal ffff | snr fd91 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 1f | signal f8d4 | snr fce5 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal fdf2 | snr fcd5 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f3f6 | snr fd69 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal ffff | snr fd4f | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal e394 | snr fce1 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal f8d4 | snr fd3b | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal ef9c | snr fd53 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK

So at this point I am assumming that I have a tuner card that is 
working. When I try to play the stream using: mplayer -nosound 
/dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

I get the following output:

MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.2.3 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Coppermine,Geyserville (Family: 6, 
Stepping: 10)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE


Playing /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0.

and that is all. No new windows open with video of any form. top shows 
no significant cpu usage and mplayer isn't using any processing cycles 
at all:
top -n5b | grep mplayer

top - 09:40:13 up 9 days, 14:12, 6 users, load average: 0.71, 0.37, 0.39
Tasks: 118 total, 1 running, 117 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu0 : 2.9% us, 0.5% sy, 1.5% ni, 94.0% id, 0.4% wa, 0.1% hi, 0.5% si
Cpu1 : 2.9% us, 0.5% sy, 1.4% ni, 94.1% id, 0.5% wa, 0.1% hi, 0.5% si
Mem: 512600k total, 498008k used, 14592k free, 27208k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 135032k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S P %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND

26018 bill 18 0 29028 7148 3144 S 0 0.0 1.4 0:00.09 mplayer
26018 bill 18 0 29028 7148 3144 S 0 0.0 1.4 0:00.09 mplayer
26018 bill 18 0 29028 7148 3144 S 0 0.0 1.4 0:00.09 mplayer
26018 bill 18 0 29028 7148 3144 S 0 0.0 1.4 0:00.09 mplayer
26018 bill 18 0 29028 7148 3144 S 0 0.0 1.4 0:00.09 mplayer

a ctrl-c breaks mplayer out with this response:
MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: demux_open

So clearly mplayer isn't doing anything with the video stream.

Could this be:
1. a bad build of mplayer?
mplayer can play sdtv mpg files that were recorded on another machine.
2. insufficient hardware to play the stream?
3. a typical response to an encrypted channel? I am skipping through the 
channel list but get the same response from all channels tried so far.


I hope this is enough info to point to a problem area. Any help would be 
appreciated.

Thanks,
Bill


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