[mythtv-users] Problems with audio - WinTV PVR-250

Thu Jun 19 15:21:40 EDT 2003

System Stats:
AMD 2000+ on an ECS K7S5A
512 PC2100 memory
Maxtor ATA133 Card tied to Maxtor 160 8MB Cache 7200RPM drive.
WinTV PVR-250
SIS7012 Onboard Audio
Gforce 4 MX 440
Latest IVTV DL'ed last night (Had to downgrade test_ioctl becuase of a
problem compiling)
Latest Mythtv

I have the exact same problem.  I'm running MythTv on RH9.  I had everything
up and running on a 20GB 7200 Drive last week but the sound choppyness was
driving me crazy.  I upgraded from OSS to ALSA and it was still choppy

 I rebuilt everything last night, replaced the 20 with a Maxtor 160 133 8MB
cache.
 Reinstall RH and got the lastest cvs of IVTV last night.  It still gets
choppy audio.

 I also tested the frontend on my Xbox and it had the same effect.

If I cat directly from /dev/video0 it's fine.  I'm thinking it might be my
onboard sound card (SIS7012 Onboard)  I will go get a SB Live tonight and
see what that does....  The only problem is that if the xbox was choppy then
it can't be the sound card...

Anyone else have a clue what's going on?  Heres my lspci..

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 735 Host (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 530 Virtual
PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513
00:02.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB
Controller (rev 07)
00:02.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB
Controller (rev 07)
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]
SiS7012 PCI Audio Accelerator (rev a0)
00:03.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 10/100
Ethernet (rev 90)
00:0b.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (rev
02)
00:0d.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc: Unknown
device 0016 (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440]
(rev a3)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt White" <whitem at arts.usask.ca>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at snowman.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 6:51 PM
Subject: [mythtv-users] Problems with audio - WinTV PVR-250

> I've been running MythTV for a couple of months now, when I get a chance
> to play with things.  I started out with an ATI TV Wonder, but last
> month, I picked up a PVR-250 to replace it.
>
> My main problem is that I seem to be getting quite a bit of skipping in
> the audio at times.  It seems to occur most often on a dark or hazy
> picture, but it also occurs at times when there is an almost-blank white
> screen.
>
> See below for details of my system....
>
> Before I put the PVR card in, the system would record fine, but didn't
> quite have the horsepower (crappy PC133 memory subsystem, I'm guessing)
> to record & play at the same time - I'd get skipping.  I was running
> 640x480 MPEG4 (2200).  I replaced the TV Wonder with the PVR, and now
> I can record and play at the same time with no difference (ie. I get
> audio skipping either way).
>
> I've seen this behaviour ever since I put the PVR card in, but I wanted
> to do some testing before coming to the list with my problems :-)
>
> I was originally running my audio out for the system through the Game
> Theatre XP's coaxial digital output to my amp (nice sound).  However,
> as you might guess, when the audio skips even a bit, it knocks sound
> out entirely for several seconds as the amp tries to figure out what
> is going on with the bitstream.
>
> Last night, I switched to using the plain audio output on the onboard
> Intel 810, and it's better, because it doesn't have to take that extra
> time to sync back up again, but the skipping is still there.  It almost
> sounds like the audio is slowing down when the picture gets dark (!)
>
> I also tried killing off myth entirely and doing a cat test from
> /dev/video0.  I recorded about 20 minutes of a show that I had seen
> problems with (Third Watch - even got an episode that Myth had recorded,
> so it was a good test).  In the Myth recording, I get the skips, but
> in the direct recording, it's perfect!
>
> I've tried multiple settings with the ivtv driver, as well, and it
> doesn't seem to affect this at all.  I'm currently using 640x480,
> bitrate 6000000, max_bitrate 8000000, dnr off.
>
> My next test step is to replace the motherboard, memory (and probably
> CPU) with something a little better, but since that's a bit more of
> an expensive jump, I thought I'd see if anyone could see something
> stupid that I'm missing :-)
>
> Has anyone else seen this?  Any ideas?  I appreciate any suggestions/
> assistance that you can offer!
>
> My setup:
>
> Pentium 4 1.5 MHz on Asus P4B (i845) motherboard
> This is a cheap motherboard that uses PC133 memory
>
> Drives:
>    hda (boot & os): Samsung SV1021H (10 GB)
>    hdb (myth storage): IBM DTLA-307075 (75 GB)
>
> DMA & 32 bit enabled on both - /proc/ide/piix shows UDMA 5 for both
> drives.
>
> Memory: 768 MB PC133
>
> Video Output: NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 (output via SVideo to a 42"
> widescreen)
>
> Audio: On-board intel-810 based plus a Hercules Game Theatre XP
>
> lspci shows:
>
> 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host
> Bridge (rev 03)
> 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP
> Bridge (rev 03)
> 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 12)
> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 12)
> 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801BA IDE U100 (rev 12)
> 00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 12)
> 00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 12)
> 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97
> Audio (rev 12)
> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17
> [GeForce4 MX 420] (rev a3)
> 02:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24
> [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
> 02:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100]
> (rev 08)
> 02:0d.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc:
> Unknown device 0016 (rev 01)
>
>
> Software versions:
>
> OS: Gentoo
> MythTV from CVS (latest test 2003/06/17 ~10:30 PM)
> ivtv driver from CVS (2003/06/09 7:00 PM, and again last night
> 2003/06/17 ~11:00 PM)
> NVidia binary driver (v4363)
> Alsa 0.9.0_rc6 (with intel8x0 and cs46xx drivers)
>
> --
> Matt White                          whitem at arts.usask.ca
> Arts and Science Computer Labs      University of Saskatchewan
>
> We ride never worried 'bout the fall
> I guess that's just the cowboy in us all
>          - Tim McGraw..."The Cowboy in Me"
>
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