[mythtv-users] HD-PVR Issues

Alan Young ayoung at teleport.com
Sun Mar 7 17:37:43 UTC 2010


On 03/06/2010 09:03 PM, Jeff Wormsley wrote:
> Alan Young wrote:
>> If the EHCI driver is being loaded and lsusb shows USB 2.0 host
>> controller hubs, then I'd suspect you may have a bad USB cable.
>> There's also a possibility that the controller chip has been damaged
>> in some way. Poor USB port designs are notorious for shorting out via
>> static electricity.
> Hmm, this is indeed odd. This has worked before, but I happen to have
> several brand new USB2.0 PCI cards laying around (bought for old PC's
> with no USB at all and then never used) so I may give that a try. I
> think I have a couple of open slots.
>
> ... time passes...
>
> Ok, in goes the new card, and a little lspci detective work, and a doh!
> moment, below.
>
>> You might not need to update the firmware, but if you need to you'll
>> need to download the windows driver and attach the HDPVR to a computer
>> running windows to update it. This isn't really recommended unless you
>> are having some kind of problem or happen to have a really old version
>> of the firmware that doesn't support Dolby captures. If you had a old
>> version there would be a different message. So I don't that's the case
>> here.
> I updated it to the latest firmware a couple of months ago, and I don't
> think it has changed since then.
>
> But, this tells me what has gone wrong. That last firmware update I
> installed was because it fixed the resolution switching problem. I had
> pegged my DCT-6200 box to 480i earlier, and I undid that when I
> installed that firmware. Apparently, the hdpvr works on 1.1 USB at 480i.
> I never noticed my USB ports were 1.1 because of that, but looking with
> lspci at the motherboard chipset, I found datasheet and it plainly says
> UHCI, which is 1.1.
>
> 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1
> (rev 02)
> 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2
> (rev 02)
> 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #3
> (rev 02)

This is quite possible at 480i.  The bitrate for SD 480i is far less than the 
larger HD formats.  In addition the HDPVR encodes/compresses the audio and 
video data before it is sent over the USB bus to the host PC.

> I added a generic USB card, but I'm not sure what's up with it...
>
> 01:03.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
> Controller (rev 62)
> 01:03.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
> Controller (rev 62)
> 01:03.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 65)
>
> I don't know why it says USB 1.1 on two ports and 2.0 on another. It has
> four external and one internal USB headers. It shows controller 2 as USB
> 2.0, and lsusb says my hdpvr is on Bus 001 Device 002.

That's normal.  The USB 1.x and 2.x controllers appear as different devices to 
the host even though they are all on a single chip on the PCI card.  Some 
chips have a single 1.x and 2.0 controller.  The nvidia MCP51 southbridge on 
my mythtv box is like this.  Others have multiple 1.x controllers and a single 
2.0 controller.  And there's apparently some that have multiple 1.x and 
multiple 2.0 controllers.

A USB host controller claims the ports differently depending on what's plugged 
into the headers.  The important thing is to only plug USB 2.0 devices into 
the same ports or hubs.  Mixing slower devices with faster will pull that 
branch of the bus down to the slowest speed of the devices that are plugged in 
there.  Doing a lsusb -t is useful to see the relationships of plugged in devices.

[alan at pdvr ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05dc:a560 Lexar Media, Inc. JumpDrive FireFly
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2040:4901 Hauppauge
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1784:0008 TopSeed Technology Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

[alan at pdvr ~]$ lsusb -t
Bus#  2
`-Dev#   1 Vendor 0x1d6b Product 0x0001
   `-Dev#   2 Vendor 0x1784 Product 0x0008
Bus#  1
`-Dev#   1 Vendor 0x1d6b Product 0x0002
   |-Dev#   2 Vendor 0x2040 Product 0x4901
   `-Dev#   3 Vendor 0x05dc Product 0xa560

> The important thing is I run cat and it records as long as I let it.

Excellent.  :-)

> And, despite occasionally the audio not coming in, it works in myth now
> at full 1080i resolution, even in Live TV.

That's a known bug.  The current workaround is to put a delay of 1-2 seconds 
in your channel change script to allow things to stabilize.

>> Check the controller info above and that should point you in the right
>> direction.
> Thanks ever so much for your help. Since I had it working before (but
> only in 480i), I never would have suspected a 1.1 USB port.

You are welcome.

Alan


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