[mythtv-users] Setting up SA3250HD and FireWire

Allan Wilson allanwilson at gmail.com
Fri Jun 16 23:48:52 UTC 2006


On 6/16/06, N Dugas <normdugas at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> jacob wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:47:21PM -0500, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
> >
> >>jacob wrote:
> >>
> >>>Ok, maybe something very obvious is eluding me, but I cannot get my
> SA3250HD
> >>>to work reliably, with Myth or test-mpeg2. The work I've done so far
> amounts
> >>>to:
> >>>
> >>>Plug in FireWire connections on the box and computer. plugreport gives:
> >>>
> >>>Host Adapter 0
> >>>=======
> >>>
> >>>Node 0 GUID 0x001692180d260000
> >>>------------------------------
> >>>oMPR n_plugs=1, data_rate=2, bcast_channelc
> >>>oPCR[0] online=1, bcast_connection=0, n_p2p_connections=0
> >>>        channel=0, data_rate=2, overhead_id=0, payload6
> >>>iMPR n_plugs=0, data_rate=2
> >>>
> >>>Node 1 GUID 0x0001080038030803
> >>>------------------------------
> >>>libiec61883 error: error reading oMPR
> >>>libiec61883 error: error reading iMPR
> >>>
> >>>    On the advice of my readings, I do
> >>>
> >>>plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].n_p2p_connections=1
> >>>
> >>>to setup p2p communication. I patched sa3250ch to use my vendor and
> device
> >>>identifiers, as well as modifying the CTL_CMD1 calculation to use chn
> << 8.
> >>>I've gotten it to come up once, exactly, and spit video, but attempting
> to
> >>>change the channel blew it out of the water, and I haven't been able to
> get
> >>>it that far again. Whenever I try and use it in Myth, I get strings of
> >>>
> >>>2006-06-15 19:53:36.808
> >>>RingBuf(/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg): Invalid
> file
> >>>(fd 20) when opening
> '/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg'.
> >>>0 retries remaining.
> >>>
> >>>followed by strings of
> >>>
> >>>2006-06-15 19:53:37.483
> >>>RingBuf(/mnt/video/mythtv/recordings/1012_20060615195330.mpg) Error:
> Invalid
> >>>file descriptor in 'safe_read()'
> >>>
> >>>both of which haven't been particularly illuminating via google. Myth
> >>>supports the SA3250HD, so either it's completely fragile (mostly
> broken), or
> >>>I'm missing something. I'm currently using Christian Marillat's
> packages for
> >>>Debian/Sid i386, although I tried the SVN trunk with no more success.
> It's
> >>>possible my problems stem from trying to tune 5C channels, in which
> case I'd
> >>>be interested in people's methods for setting up their channel lists to
> >>>exclude them. If someone has a working 3250 FireWire setup, I'd be very
> >>>interested in how they got it set up. If I can get this working, I'll
> >>>definitely add it to the Wiki.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>Have you gotten it to work reliably *outside* of Myth using the tuning
> >>commands and capturing the output to a file?
> >>
> >>Kevin
> >
> >
> > No, hence my observation about missing something really obvious.
> test-mpeg2
> > gives either nothing or garbage data. As far as I can tell, I've
> followed
> > the necessary steps to set everything up. I'm at a loss for other
> avenues to
> > pursue, other than setting up, say, a gentoo box and see if that
> performs
> > differently. I've tried both 2.6.11 and 2.6.16, for the record.
> >
> > Are there other tools I should be using than the patched sa3250ch and
> > test-mpeg2? The direct capture of the mpeg2 data streams is my goal,
> > regardless of resolution. Hence the firewire connection.
> >
> > Jacob
> > _______________________________________________
>
> You mention that test-mpeg2 sometimes gives you garbage.  This is the
> MPEG2-TS stream.  What you can do is redirect to a file (test-mpeg2 >
> file.mpg), wait 10 - 15 seconds, ctrl-c, then playback via mplayer.  If
> you see video, you have a working firewire capture.  If you get no
> video, make sure the file is not zero length.  This is how I did it for
> my Moto DCT-6412.  It took some fiddling to get working and it still
> does take some fiddling from time to time.
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>

Getting video and changing the channels are two completely diffirent things
I would focus on the video first and get it working consistently with
test-mpeg then move to fixing channel change then try in myth. Here is what
I have to run to get my sa3250hd working
allan at mythtv:~$ more /usr/bin/mythfwreset
#! /bin/sh
plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].n_2p_connections=0
sleep 2
plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].n_2p_connections=1
sleep 2
plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].channelc
sleep 2
plugctl -n 0 oPCR[0].bcast_connection=0
I also have to unplug the firewire cable and then plug it back in before
running the command. Then make sure that you change to a non 5c encrypted
channel using your cable box remote and try to capture data piping it to a
file. If it plays using mplayer, don't worry about the audio then you have
crossed one hurdle, then go and get the source code to the channel changer
file for the sa3250hd compile it and then try to execute it. If it comes up
with errors try to fix them if you miss out then post the errors here. Then
from there try it in Myth. It is possible to get a fairly stable firewire
system but right now it takes a little work but it sounds like you have most
of the hard stuff done like loading the firewire modules. Good luck and let
us know how it goes.

Allan
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