[mythtv-users] Frames per second?

[Ray Olszewski]

At 09:38 AM 4/22/2003 -0500, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
[...]

>Sure; write something up and I'll look at getting it included in the
>HOWTO.

Try this (in an appropriate spot in section 3.2) --

If your video-capture card uses the bttv kernel module (the common ones 
do), you will want to be sure that when it loads, it loads with the option 
"gbuffers=16" or "gbuffers=32" (exactly how to do this is a bit 
distribution-specific). These settings give the bttv module enough buffer 
space to store 16 or 32 capture frames, instead of the default value of 2. 
The added buffering helps to minimize frame loss at times when the capture 
stream is changing rapidly (fast pans, for example) in ways that slow down 
the encoding process.

May I ofer a couple of other suggestions as well?

First, I can't find where the HowTo is explicit about which *version* of 
MythTV it is discussing. Since the current Debian-Sid version (which I'm 
attempting to install and configure) seems to be a bit different from that 
latest CVS version, this lack of information makes it hard for me to use 
the HowTo with confidence. You might want to clarify this in some very 
obvious place.

Second, a specific section I had trouble with yesterday is section 9.1, 
particularly where it reads:

>Switch to the setup directory and run the setup program:
>
>     $ cd setup
>     $ ./setup

I had two problems with this:

1. The command "cd setup" is itself meaningless if the reader does not know 
what PWD he or she is supposed to execute it *from* (since it is a relative 
path). Neither earlier in this section, nor anywhere else I read (I admit I 
haven't read every word) can I find this clarified. In fact, in my reading 
I found other places (e.g., the mysql section) where relative paths are 
specified but no prior indication of the PWD appears, at least not close by.

2. On my Debian-Sid distribution, I can't find a program or directory 
called "setup" anywhere on the system (exccpt for some setup scripts 
related to dpkg). I can, however, find "/usr/bin/mythtv-setup", which when 
run seems to be the program the HowTo section goes on to document. This is 
what occasioned my first suggestion above, since it implies either that (a) 
the Debian-Sid binaries do not reflect current, or standard, MythTV 
practice or (b) the HowTo itself does not reflect current, or standard, 
MythTV practice. I'd offer a fix, but since I don't know *which* problem 
exists, I can't.