[mythtv-users] recap: building mythTV system with pvr-350, Shuttle sk41g, Mandrake 9.1. conclusion: BAD COMBINATION OF PARTS (at the moment)

[Patrick Lu]

I just finished my mythTV system. Hopefully some people will find this
useful. And also, hopefully some people will be able to give me pointers
on some open issues.
 
Observation #1: The linux video drivers for the built-in video of the
sk41g don't have overscan support. This means that the tv-out isn't able
to fill the tv screen properly. At 640x480, I my image is a box in the
middle of my television, filling up maybe 60% of the available screen
area. At 800x600, the best resolution to run it at, most of the screen
is filled, but there are black stripes on either side of the image (and
smaller, less noticeable stripes on top and on the bottom). Also, there
is a slight pincushion effect and the right side of the display is
truncated slightly. And at 1024x768 I only get like three-quarters of my
display to fit on the screen and the rest is truncated. The upshot is
that by running at 800x600, all TV images will look "taller" than they
are supposed to, and there will be some conspicuous stripes on either
side of the screen. I've seen other posts confirming this.
 
Observation #2: I can't watch live TV or watch and record the same time
for more than 20 minutes before the system chokes and the pvr-350 stops
capturing. Sometimes, but not always, I see an error message that says:
'Backend stuffed up in RequestRingBufferBlock' (Isaac, couldn't you have
thought of a less disgusting error message than backend stuffed up?
Hehe, just kidding.). However, I've done 'mplayer /dev/video0' and it's
worked overnight. If anyone out there is also using an sk41g with a
pvr-?50 card and they're NOT getting this error, please enlighten me!
>From what I've seen in other posts, this is a problem with via-chipset
mobos used in conjunction with pvr capture cards, and people have been
blaming the ivtv drivers.
 
Conclusion: My overall conclusion is that, due to the unfinished nature
of the savage video card and ivtv drivers, you will 1) get crappy tv-out
if you use the Shuttle sk41g and 2) not be able to capture and play
simultaneously if you use an sk41g/pvr combo. Perhaps in the future the
drivers will have improved a bit, but right now, imho sk41g with pvr is
NOT a winning combo. If I could do this all over again, I would get
either an epia mobo or a Shuttle xpc not based on a via chipset. Though
this kind of makes me feel like a sellout, at this point, I'm saying
fuck it and I'm looking into windows alternatives, because I don't feel
like replacing my hardware.
 
 
 
 
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