[mythtv-users] Help setting up a Mythbuntu box

stuart stuart at xnet.com
Fri Jul 11 23:51:48 UTC 2008



Per Baekgaard wrote:
> I'm in the process of setting up a dedicated box for Myth. It is 
> equipped with a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2 motherboard, which has an 
> embedded ATI HD 3200 controller (!), and uses as its tuner/grabber a 
> card that identifies itself 1131:7133 with SSID:SVID 1a7f:2004 (revision 
> d1). I don't know what card it is, and it has been somehow glued so that 
> it cannot easily be removed for a full visual inspection (and checking 
> so far has not revealed any marks). The card appears to be based on a 
> Philips/NXP 713x chipset -- maybe some derivative of an Encore ENLTV-FM 
> card.
> 
> (I asked Encore for further help, but they just said it sounded like it 
> was "probably close to an ENLTV-FM card" and I could use that driver and 
> look at sourceforge for more information ;-) Maybe it is some kind of 
> OEM card?

Can you do an lspci?

Then look here to see if you can find a matching set of chips:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCI_Cards

Then, I would still try to visually inspect the card and compare it to 
pictures on the web.  Trying to do this when you know what hardware you 
have is hard enough!

> I have spent quite some time setting up the box. To get the tuner 
> working, I've added "options saa7134 card=107 tuner=54" for modprobe to 
> use, which appears to make it work (sort of). It also apparently works 
> with "card=3".
> 
> Running Myth on the open source ATI driver shows a very sluggish 
> picture, so I upgraded to the latest Catalyst driver from ATI (8.6, 
> released June 2008) and got that installed, enabling TexturedVideo 
> support (the latest one doesn't support simple XV).
> 
> I am thus now able to sort of run Myth, but have a bunch of problems:
> 
> 
> 1) I cannot capture any sound from the tuner, no matter what I try.
> 
> AFAIK, 713x based cards use the 7134-alsa driver (which is correctly 
> loaded according to lsmod) and should provide the output in (my case in) 
> /dev/dsp1 (oss) or alsa hw:1,0. I've tried setting up myth to use 
> /dev/dsp1 is sound input, but I get no sound.
> 
> I have also tried using mplayer and tvtime to show the video stream. 
> Both works well (tvtime very smooth also in full screen mode) for 
> showing video, but none of them captures any video (not even mplayer 
> with the proper adevice and forceaudio settings)... even doing arecord 
> off the input just gets me empty sound. The video stream is thus, as 
> expected, empty. WIth mplayer, trying to capture video off the 
> saa7134-alsa interface and limiting it to 32000Hz, it also looses sync, 
> so something is not right with this setup.
> 
> 2) The video output from myth is garbled. It takes up to 10s before it 
> starts showing any video in LiveTV mode, and then it displays the video 
> twice on screen. The entire picture is visible -- twice, in that it is 
> compressed to half height and then repeated on the screen with one 
> version on the top half and another on the bottom half.
> 
> This is likely a fglrx driver setting I got wrong... I'm using the 
> TexturedVideo options currently, and have tested other combinations 
> also, but cannot find one that both uses less than 100% CPU and also 
> displays the image correctly.
> 
> 3) Changing the channel from any of the programs (myth or tvtime) often 
> fails, and the channel shows no input.
> 
>  >From tvtime I can sometimes succesfully cycle inputs ("i") to get it 
> alive after it looses the channel, but it appears quite unstable, and 
> sometimes it just crashes myth that silently exits (nothing special in 
> the logfiles).
> 
> This is likely due to an incorrect grabber setting -- I'm hoping someone 
> can identify the card and point me in the right direction for the 
> parameters!
> 
> 4) The speakers are internally connected to the line2 (front panel 
> audio). I am not able to find a way to route the sound to that output, 
> for some strange reason -- it always goes to the back panel mini jack. 
> I'm not sure what it is connected to either, but I fear I need to enable 
> also a AC'97 codec or some HD audio settings on that output.
> 
> 
> There are other problems too, but these are the worst ones at the moment.
> 
> I know the hardware is not optimal -- but it is not mine, and I would 
> like to get it to run, if possible. There is plenty of CPU power in the 
> box (it is an AMD X2 5400+ something).
> 
> So any hints/ideas will be much appreciated!
> 
> 
> 
> -- Per.

Sounds like you have a lot going on here.  And I'm not sure I can help 
with sound (I've had my share of problems).  Have you tried the alsa 
mixer controller yet?  Perhaps, if you are using a digital tuner and 
stereo speakers you may what to check if you are properly down mixing 
multi channel sound to stereo.






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