[mythtv-users] Query wrt using a pvr150/ivtv card in mythtv - tuner broken?

[Don]

I agree - the symptoms suggest something with the V4L drivers/API has changed,
but the ivtv-utils package hasn't been updated in about 3 years and
still works ; so
if something -has- changed, I'm damned if I can figure out what. I
also concur with
your observations about the status of analog tv (it was recently
turned off completely
here in .au), and that was the reason I jumped to abandoning the
PVR-150 altogether ;)

Regarding the idea entering the data for UHF chan69 into the database
manually, I
tried that, but it doesn't work -- if you switch to that tuner input
after setting it up manually
like this, I get a blackscreen before it aborts (video failed to
start, buffers failed to fill),
so it would seem like the trouble with scanning channels (all channels
locked but no
signal) also squashes this approach...

The satbox does have 2 video out ports, 1 x composite & 1 x S-VHS plus
RCA sockets
for audio ... so I'd need go the composite route (which still should
be marginally better
quality than doing the RF [de]modulator shuffle =), and yes... it was
always hassles with
audio input selection that stopped me from using that approach in the
past and settle
on the RF hookup  -- I'd be very interested in seeing your bash file &
giving that a go here!

Cheers!





On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Stephen Worthington
<stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 20:16:30 +1000, you wrote:
>
>>Greetings,
>>
>>  I did search the list archives, and found 1 recent post (jul 20 this
>>year, subject 'Locked') wherein the user was complaining about mythtv not
>>scanning/tuning-in their connected dvd player - I can only guess I'm seeing
>>the same thing here, but I can probably explain the situation better ;). My
>>backend server setup has 2 x dvb-t cards and the single PVR-150 card. This
>>latter card has only one connection - an RF patch cable between the tuner
>>TV ant in & the RF out socket on an aust-star sat paytv box (which I know
>>is modulating on UHF channel 69 of the old .au frequency table). I have an
>>IR blaster all setup to flip channels on the satbox etc etc, and this all
>>worked a treat by just setting up manual record times/rules for that card
>>in mythtv. There is some picture quality degradation using this route, but
>>it's not -that- bad and still quite watchable..
>>
>>...that system was running Debian 6 and in mythtv-setup' you could setup
>>the card as per normal, tell it 'no grabber', connect your RF patch-cable
>>and turn on your vcr/dvd/paytv device, scan for channels, and it'd flip
>>thru the entire (australian here) channel set one at a time (status - No
>>Lock) until it found the channel/frequency the device is modulating on
>>(signal level would jump up & status to 'Locked')., this would give me one
>>channel (which is set as the starting channel) -- worked a treat, and this
>>is the channel 'scanning' that OP was talking about me thinks...then I
>>updated the motherboard, clean install of Debian 7.1 and went to setup the
>>backend fresh, and...
>>
>>... now, the same process sees the tuning status proclaiming 'Locked' for
>>the entire frequency/channel set, as it speed-skips through all 50+
>>channels in 2seconds without pausing/ever seeing -any- signal level ;
>>increasing the tuning  timeout etc has no effect. So I decided to check
>>with ivtv-utils, just incase the card had coincidentally died..
>>
>>... issuing 'ivtv-tune -t australia -c 69' returns '/dev/video0 814.250MHz
>>(Signal found)' and if I follow on with 'cat /dev/video0 &>test.mpg' , I
>>get exactly what I expect when replayed with mplayer ; a slightly degraded
>>mpeg capture with audio all as it should be ; so the card is working fine
>>it seems (even to the point of -not- returning 'Signal found' when
>>switching to known vacant channels)....
>>
>>..so, I cross checked a couple of other linux tv apps ; xawtv I can
>>definitely vouch -did- work fine with the pvr-150 I have here (it's type
>>26559 with FM1216 ME MK3 tuner), but now pretty much mimics the results I
>>get in mythtv...ie; no signal detected on any channel, tvtime refuses to
>>talk to the card at all (incorrect ioctl for device?), so I suspect this
>>problem is not entirely mythtv's fault (if at all).
>>
>>My query is, what should I do about this? Abandon the pvr-150 and get
>>different hardware? If not only mythtv but also the other apps mentioned
>>have seemingly lost the ability to manipulate the card's tuner, where would
>>I look for such a bug and/or report it?
>>Any help/clues/comments appreciated.
>>
>>Apologies for creating a new thread about this ; couldn't figure out how to
>>reply to the original...
>>
>>Cheers
>
> It sounds as though the PVR-150 drivers or V4L API for tuning analogue
> cards has changed somehow and it is not tuning using the same methods
> as before.  If that is the case, ivtv-tune must have been updated for
> the changes and works, but other programs have not caught up yet.
> Analogue TV is going away rapidly right around the world and no-one is
> putting much priority on supporting it any more.
>
> Since scanning is not working, you could just put the right frequency
> data in the database manually.  Do you still have access to the old
> working database?  You could copy it from there, or maybe the correct
> value for the freqid field is actually the AU channel number = 69.  In
> New Zealand, if I remember correctly, we just had to put in the
> channel number.  You can use mythweb to easily set freqid values for
> channels.  In 0.26 the channels table is available at:
>
>   http://<your mythtv box IP address>/mythweb/settings/tv/channels
>
> Also, does the satbox have any video out capability - component out,
> S-Video out, SCART, or as a last resort, composite video out?  You
> could connect that and an audio cable to the PVR-150.  Except maybe
> for composite video, you would get a much better picture.  I have my
> New Zealand SkyTV box set up for S-Video output from its SCART
> connector into my PVR-500 card and it works well (PVR-500 = dual
> PVR-150).  There is one workaround that has to be done for a problem
> with the audio input selection in the drivers, but I can give you my
> bash file for that if you want to try that setup.
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