[mythtv-users] distorted picture with WinTV PCI (BT878)

[Ray Olszewski]

At 12:21 PM 6/8/2003 -0700, Marc Gerges wrote:
>Dear all --
>
>Been playing around with it for some time and having asked on IRC, I
>couldn't solve following issue:
>
>MythTV seems set up correctly. I can watch TV, change channels, sound
>workd, I can pause and resume. However the TV picture is very
>distorted, tinted green, shadows in it etc. Sound works alright. When I
>hit the bottom of the screen, the KDE menu pops up undistorted. So it
>looks like it's the recording that's wrong.

Well, it could be either a capture problem that causes the problem, or a 
problem in the X driver's support for xVideo. I'd be surprised if it were 
the actual recording process, though (as distinct from the initial capture, 
I mean).

To distinguish the two possibilities, see if you can view mpeg or DivX 
recordings made by someone else (download some movie trailers, for example) 
with xine, making sure that xine is set to use xVideo ("xine -V xv"). If 
you see the same problems, then focus on X. If this video is good, then 
focus on the capture process.

Also, see how TV looks when viewed using xawtv. It does not use xVideo, so 
if the problem remains, that indicates a problem at the capture level. If 
the problem does not remain, you need to make sure ALL the capture-card 
settings are the same for xawtv and Myth to decide if the original problem 
is with X or capture.

Doing a runthrough on both branches of this troubleshooting tree is more 
work than I want to do this afternoon. So after you've run a test of the 
sort I described, please post again with the result, and include the 
relevant details for the branch where the problem seems to be.

Capture branch:
         exact make and model of capture card
         what country you are in (more specific than PAL)
         what bttv says about your capture card (card type and tuner type)
         what frequency set you are using
         what signal source (over-the-air, cable, satellite?)
         confirm that connecting a TV directly to the same signal source 
produces a good picture

X branch:
         make and model of video card
         X driver you are using
         X version (e.g., 4.2.0) you are using
         any special settings in /path_varies/XF86Config-4

Both branches:
         what Linux distro and version
         what kernel version ("uname -a" output)
         what version of MythTV
                 if packaged in RPMs or DEBs, where from


>Hardware is an Athlon 2000, WinTV PCI card, Kyro II graphics card with
>associated driver. We thought it could be that Myth is set to NTSC
>(while I am in PAL country), but that wasn't it. NTSC distorted even
>worse.

"WinTV PCI" card is not an exact make and model ... Hauppauge makes at 
least 8 different pci-slot WinTV cards that it distinguishes (even more if 
you count slipstreamed changes), none with that exact name.

I don't know what driver is "associated" with a "Kyro II graphics card".

>Did anybody encounter this kind of problem, and if so, where could I
>start searching?

I see what *sound* like similar  problems reported on the xine-user list 
from time to time. There, they turn out to be xVideo problems in almost 
every instance.