[mythtv-users] need help with wintv-401 and myth

Thomas Fjellstrom tfjellstrom at strangesoft.net
Wed Dec 10 02:34:29 EST 2003


On December 10, 2003 12:08 am, Patrick E. McKnight wrote:
> Thomas,
>
> Well, there might be many areas holding you up.  Let's see where they
> might be....
>
> WinTV-DBX-401 card tends to run poorly on the rtjpeg codec, use mpeg4
>
> From:
>
>   http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-dev/2002-November/001114.html

Yup. used mpeg4.

>
> bttv version is WAY out of date.  Try upgrading to 0.9.11, see:
>
> http://bytesex.org/bttv/

Well, from the site, I just assumed that the new series was "unstable".. For 
one, it failed to even compile. so I just stuck with the 0.7 series.

> Gentoo kernel - I had problems with the 2.4.X series and many gentoo
> folks suggested I upgrade to the 2.6 series.  Well, I did and I'm not
> going back to the 2.4 version ever again.  The latest test series tends
> to be much smoother for all aspects of the system and alsa now works
> flawlessly.

I have a bit of a problem there, I either need the evms patches, or LVM 
without the problems it had before (not sure what was causing the problems, 
the problems being random IO errors in some programs, especially after the 
"volume" got close to full, but they went away after using evms).

> Also, if you are running gentoo, I would recommend using the latest
> (bleeding edge if you will) ebuilds by specifying:
>
> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86
>
> before you run emerge.  So you can do the following to get the latest
> packages:
>
> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 emerge -up mythtv
>
> If you have already done this then go on and we'll continue with the
> configuration...

I used to have that set in my make.conf... After a few months, my system was 
hosed. packages failing to install, etc.. So know I only run with ~x86 IF 
NEEDED... And I just ran the above command, theres nothing to update.

> Now I assume that mysql is setup correctly but this may be presumptuous.
>   Make sure you invoke the mysql command at the prompt and check the
> database, tables, and layout to ensure that they correspond to the sql
> files shipped with mythtv (see sql files in: /usr/share/mythtv/database).

I use the mysql server for otherthings.. that is, the mysql server is running 
on a seperate machine from either the front or back end. Neither the back or 
front end seems to have a problem connecting, or running queries.

> Once you have established that mysql is running fine, make sure that
> bttv is working for you in the new kernel.  I used tvtime to check out
> my setup and it took a great amount of fiddling with the kernel modules
> settings in:
>   /etc/modules.d/alsa
>
> and put in the following lines:
>
> alias char-major-81 bttv
> options bttv card=1 autoload=0 radio=0
> post-install bttv insmod tuner type=2

tvtime works flawlessly. 

I'm using:
btaudio
msp3400
bttv gbuffers=16 card=0 tuner=2 radio=1
tuner type=2
lirc_i2c

that in my /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4 without the msp3400 module, I 
get complete silence from /dev/dsp2, whereas with it, I get occasional pops 
and crackles, but its still otherwise silent.

I just noticed, the gbuffers is 16.. Could that cause problems? I'll try 
setting it lower and testing mythfrontend again.

>
> Specifically, I made sure that all drivers were compiled as modules and
> NOT directly into the kernel.  Also, I was using nvidia drivers for my
> setup and needed to recompile the nvidia drivers each time after I
> compiled the kernel.  A bit of a pain but now that I know I have to do
> it I'm prepared to wait the extra 30 seconds.

yeah. I've found that most drivers work best as module, especially in gentoo.

>
> Whoops, forgot one other thing.  I have two VIA boards and found that
> agpart must be compiled as a module
>
> from the gentoo forum:
>
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=54793&highlight=agpart
>
> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support) - MODULE
> VIA chipset support - ON
> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 DRI support) - OFF
> Frame-buffer support>>ATI Radeon display support (EXPERIMENTAL) - OFF
>
> Hopefully this gets you started on the right track.  Keep with it.  I
> found the challenge almost - I repeat almost - more fulfilling than the
> end result.

I believe my 3d stuff works fine. except I don't have the glx and dri modules 
loaded into X... mixing DRI with the gatos r128 capture (km) drivers is 
fatal...

I suppose I have two things to try to fix the picture.. lower the gbuffers, 
and load the dri X module...

> Cheers,

Thanks.

> Patrick


-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom at strangesoft.net
http://strangesoft.net



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