[mythtv-users] How to enable HW MPEG Encoder in Mythtv

[Tony Sauri]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:27, Devin Heitmueller wrote:

>
> The HVR-1300 should behave identically to other IVTV cards such as the
> PVR-[123]50 series, as well as newer cards such as the
> HVR-1600/2200/2250.  If it's behaving differently, then that's a bug.
>
> Exactly what is the behavior you are seeing?  Is the device not
> showing up in the list if you select "IVTV"?  If it doesn't show up in
> the list, can you type in "/dev/video1" and see if that works?
>
> Devin

Thanks for your response Devin.

Your information helped me to get the card working correctly.

It is my opinion that the User Interface Experience I had caused me to 
incorrectly interpret the Failed Probe messages I was getting.

In case someone is interested here is the order of events I experienced

A) I set up the Frame Grabber device with no problem
B) I then went to add a new capture card
C) The Screen presented Showed the card type as V4L Analogue and the device 
address was shown as /dev/video0 (even though the video 0 address had already 
been claimed).
I thought its got the wrong address and entered /dev/video1 into the device 
address field and all seemed OK but I found that the system worked badly when 
it tried to write MPEG2 streams into a NUV file.
So back to C above after I had entered the correct device address I then 
changed the card type to the IVTV MPEG encoder and I was was presented with a 
probe failed message.  It was only after I had read your message I thought 
about entering the device address after changing the card type and after that 
all went well.

Note that for the card to be configured correctly iit is critical for the Card 
type to be selected first and then the device address entered.  ANd thats how 
the dialogue is laid out however the prepopulation of the fields led me to 
provide this data to the dialogue in the wrong order.

How to do things different to make the experience better.

I would consider not attempting to prepopulate the screen when defining a 
capture card.

If it is desirable to prepopulate the screen then device addresses that have 
already been used or claimed should not be presented,

The title of the MPEG encoder card should have the IVTV designation removed.  
Historically  I have seen messages on the list telling people that a V4L2 
MPEG encoder card is not an IVTV card (technically true) so I was a little 
apprehensive about using that card type but there was no other choice.

Regards

Tony Sauri