[mythtv-users] hiccups loading DVB firmware: related to HD3000 troubles?

[Greg Woods]

I am still trying (unsuccessfully) to get some kind of HD input to my
Myth system working. SD/analog via a PVR-500 card works great, from the
same cable line. The TV is also able to tune QAM channels, and the
Motorola 6412 box has very good HD output.

(Firewire looks hopeless, it works about 1 in every 20 reboots and only
for a short time. Long enough for me to know that I can display HD from
Myth if I can ever find a way to capture it).

The other possibility is an HD3000. I can get a connection to it, but
the video is jerky, hesitant, and partially broken up into little
squares (looks like very large pixels). I can send a clip if anyone
wants to see it, but even a few seconds is 32MB.

First question is whether the attached dmesg output for the DVB driver
helps explain this. It looks like it had several hiccups loading the
firmware, but finally succeeded. Or would the DVB part of the card not
work at all if there were firmware load problems?

Three things I've heard suggested for this are signal strength, PCI
latency timing, and signal interference. I can pretty much rule out PCI
latency timing; I spent all yesterday afternoon trying different timings
in the BIOS, and using setpci. Didn't make the slightest difference. I
don't think it's signal strength either; Myth always reports signal
strength of over 90%. I have tried removing all splitters from the line
(including the one outside the house), and it doesn't make the slightest
difference. 

That leaves interference.  The PVR-500 in the same box works great; I
don't know whether or not that would help isolate the cause of the
interference (assuming that's the problem). I tried removing the signal
amp from the line; no help. Removed all the splitters; no help. 
Is there any way to find out where the interference might really be
coming from? Some kind of measurement device my friend the hardware guy
might have? 

I'd be willing to replace the power supply if I could believe that is
likely to help, but it's a financial expense and a huge labor project. I
don't want to that just because nothing else has worked, I'd like to
have some reason to believe it would help, and some way to know what
type of power supply might work better.

If it's cable interference, would the HD3000 be more sensitive to this
than the TV's QAM tuner or the PVR-500? Because the cable path for these
is pretty much identical. I may try using a heavily shielded cable for
the last part of the run behind the shelf where other electronic devices
and power cords live, assuming that is the most likely source of the
interference. That is at least relatively inexpensive. Any
recommendations on good places or web sites to obtain quality shielded
coax? I know the answer is almost surely not "Radio Shack" :-) (again
assuming that "quality shielded coax" isn't an oxymoron )-:

Looking for any straws to grasp at,
--Greg

-------------- next part --------------
cx2388x dvb driver version 0.0.5 loaded
CORE cx88[0]: subsystem: 7063:3000, board: pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV [card",autodetected]
TV tuner 60 at 0x1fe, Radio tuner -1 at 0x1fe
cx88[0]/2: found at 0000:02:0d.2, rev: 5, irq: 217, latency: 64, mmio: 0xf6000000
cx88[0]/2: cx2388x based dvb card
DVB: registering new adapter (cx88[0]).
DVB: registering frontend 0 (Oren OR51132 VSB/QAM Frontend)...
cx88_blackbird: Unknown symbol cx88_do_ioctl
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
or51132: Waiting for firmware upload(dvb-fe-or51132-qam.fw)...
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_timeout
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_stop_dma
cx88[0]/2: restarting queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [de2c4880/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
or51132: Version: 10001334-17430000 (133-4-174-3)
or51132: Firmware upload complete.
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty
cx88[0]/2: queue is empty - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_start_dma w: 0, h: 0, f: 2
cx88[0]/2: setting the interrupt mask
cx88[0]/2: [dc1ee980/0] cx8802_buf_queue - first active
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue
cx88[0]/2: cx8802_restart_queue: queue is empty