[mythtv-users] ivtv

[Andrew Dodd]

Quoting rwk at americom.com:

> Andrew,
> 
> I found your posting and read it with interest.  You state:
> 
> "Next, in some cases, the ivtv driver would get screwed up and
>  mythbackend would start spewing out Input/output errors when trying to
>  read from /dev/video0.  What I did was write a script that runs every
>  minute, and if the errors are detected in the backend log, will stop
>  mythbackend, unload and reload ivtv, and start mythbackend.
> 
> However, you did not provide the script for finding errors.  I have
> reviewed the backend log file and it shows no errors anyway, so I don't
> understand how this could work:
> 
> Here are the relevant messages from my log file:
> 
> 2004-02-08 18:00:01 Found changes in the todo list.
> 2004-02-08 18:00:02 Started recording "60 Minutes" on channel: 1002 on
> cardid: 2, sourceid 1
> 2004-02-08 18:00:02 Changing from None to RecordingOnly
> 2004-02-08 18:00:02 Using profile 'Default' to record
> 2004-02-08 19:00:01 Found changes in the todo list.
> 2004-02-08 19:00:03 Started recording "The 46th Annual Grammy Awards" on
> channel: 1002 on cardid: 2, sourceid 1
> 2004-02-08 20:00:00 Changing from RecordingOnly to None
> 2004-02-08 20:00:02 Found changes in the todo list.
> Input #0, mpeg, from '/video//1005_20040208180000_20040208200000.nuv':
>   Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video, 480x480, 29.97 fps
>   Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 384 kb/s
> 
> Neither 60 Minutes or the Grammys recorded (the file length was zero)
> and there are no errors reported in the log file.  So I don't see how
> your script would work.
> 
> Also, this approach (if I understand it) would wait until an error
> occurs before it restarts/reloads things, thus possibly missing the
> first minute or so of a program.
> 
> I am wondering if there is any way to poll the ivtv driver and ask it
> how it is doing (whether it is recording or not), which would allow one
> to restart it before the next recording.
The script should have been attached to my last message.  I reattached it here.

In my case, the backend logs keep spewing out "Input/output" error messages.  I
have had only one case of a failed recording without those messages, and in that
case the backend logfile had all sorts of MPEG errors.  (I'm pretty sure the
reason that happened was I was trying to use a remote frontend on my laptop -
Thanks to the timer functions of Qt's QTime class being horribly broken, the
frontend acted wonky and took down the backend with it.)

Since you're not getting any error messages, I really can't help you.  I always
get error messages.  :)

And yes, it would miss the first minute or so of a show.  That's what pre-roll
is for.  :)
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