[mythtv-users] PVR500 and recent mythtv-backend versions

[James Warden]

Hello,

I've been using mythtv for a long while now on a home network. The server is debian based, contains a PVR500 card (not the newer ones with digital chips, only the good ol' analog tuners). Clients are linux or windows based.

Anyway, I recently upgraded the server to kernel 2.6.29.1-1-686 from debian. It contains ivtv version 1.4.0.

I checked the driver was working well by the trivial 'cat' test:
cat /dev/video0 > file.mpg and played the mpg file with mplayer or others
same with /dev/video1

So far so good. I also upgraded the mythbackend to what debian multimedia is providing : 0.21.svn20090430-0.0

After this upgrade, all my frontend clients are showing a quite scrambled picture. I can still see what it is about but it is noisy, as if someone was detuning the channel frequency on purpose and randomly.

When I do a /dev/videoX dump afyer that, I get a screwed mpg file. Only an rmmod ivtv followed by modprobe ivtv will fix it. But starting the backend again will screw it up once more.

I tried the SVN code as well, the QT4 port. It compiled fine and ran fine but with the same image symptom. It is not the first time I see this in all these years, using the PVR500 with the debian mythtv-backend package. Usually, I just compiled the SVN code and things were fine again but not this time. I believe recent mythbackend updates must screw something with the PVR500. This is not an ivtv issue as a fresh modprobe and /dev/videoX dump will produce a clean image.

Anyone with something similar ? If not, I'll provide more technical details.