[mythtv-users] Re: MythTV : Little Sleep, Lots Of Reading... I Failed.

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Monday, Jun 9, Isaac Richards wrote:

> You have a number of inaccuracies in your docs, btw.

I do appreciate that being pointed out, especially by the fearless 
leader!

> - ALSA is not required at all for things to run, there's no reason to 
> make it
> look like it is.  The only reason that it's recommended for most 
> setups is
> that the drivers generally work better than the kernel drivers.

I know, and I've actually already added a comment to that effect in the 
latest (not yet posted) version of what I've been working on.

> - Using lirc on the pvr cards does not use the serial modules, so your 
> stated
> reason for forcing a recompile of the kernel is wrong.

I didn't say that it used serial modules, at least not that I see. I 
say that you have to recompile so lirc loads drivers as modules, rather 
than using the drivers compiled into the kernel, since a driver newer 
than those compiled in the kernel needs to be used... The only mention 
of serial is in the label of the section of the kernel config that you 
have to change...

I'm trying to clarify it though, thanks.

> - A better bitrate peak would be 4000, not 8000, for an average rate 
> of 2500.
> Having the peak bitrate too high can cause problems.

Well, okay, but just to let you know, I grabbed that bit of information 
off this page:

http://mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-19.html#pvr250

I'm actually running 8M avg/16M peak myself.

> - If you don't want it to capture at 480x480, why don't you just go 
> into the
> recording options and change the resolution there?

So you're saying if my card was set to 480x480, and I select 720x480 in 
the MythTV setup, it'll adjust the card's capture rate accordingly? I 
was unaware that MythTV could adjust that setting on the card. Cool.

> Also, if you're going to
> tell people to blindly change to NTSC and the 4th input on the card, 
> you
> should at least show how to get the correct numbers for those by using 
> the
> querying commands (-n to list the inputs, -s to list the video 
> standards).

I added a section on using 'test_ioctl -a' into my latest revision (not 
yet posted) to cover that. I don't think I was blindly telling people 
to use input 4; I said the ivtv docs themselves say to use input 0 for 
tuner on a PVR-250, but in my case it was input 4, and to try those 
first.

> Also, I would very much prefer that you submit patches to the existing 
> docs to
> Robert, instead of writing your own.

I'm working on that right now, just got an email back from Bob about 
it. :)

I still think that an OS- & hardware-specific guide has a place though, 
because the main docs are littered with some much extraneous 
information for other distros, other cards, etc., and I know I found 
myself bouncing around from page to page, and the steps weren't in the 
ideal order for my setup.

Keep up the good work,
-jcw