[mythtv-users] Hauppauge -pvr -350 : Unable to use decoder functionality from Mplayer

[Michael T. Dean]

Umesh Chandra Prasad wrote:

>  For past few days I have been unsuccesful in sending video (MPEG2) to Hauppauge PVR-350 decoder
>via MPlayer.
>
Actually, although it is possible to patch MPlayer to allow you to send 
MPEG streams directly to the decoder, you almost certainly do not have 
one of the patched versions.  The patch causes several problems that 
tend to outweigh the benefits, so few (if any) people are using it.

> Though 
> i) cat /tmp/c.mpg > /dev/video16 works.
>ii) ivtvfbctl /dev/fb0 -globalalpha -nolocalalpha -alpha 0 
>   dd if=/tmp/test_capatured_video.mpg of=/dev/video16 bs=64k
>  
>
Both of these are sending MPEG (1/2) data to the onboard decoder (as you 
thought)--unlike MPlayer, which draws the video to the PVR-350's 
framebuffer.

>In my mythtvfrontend log it says no XVideo supported for your video driver.
>  
>
<snip>

>In MythTV setup : 
>Mythtv->VideoSetting->Player Setting -> mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -vo xv %s
>  
>
The "-vo xv" option is specifying that MPlayer should use the Xv (X 
Windows Video extension) "video output driver."  Unfortunately, the 
"driver" for the PVR-350 TV out does not support Xv, so this will not 
work (as you've discovered).

So, how do you make it work?  Use:

mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -vo x11 %s

And be prepared to buy a new CPU (and possibly motherboard).  The x11 
driver is significantly slower than the xv driver (which was designed 
for use with video), so it requires some serious processor power.

To get better performance, make sure you're using Matthias Baddaire's X 
driver, ivtvdev ( http://membres.lycos.fr/badzzzz/ ) instead of X's 
built-in framebuffer driver (fbdev).  If that doesn't work, you can try 
patching MPlayer to make better use of the ivtv framebuffer with DMA 
using http://kmos.org/~ckennedy/ivtv/mplayer-ivtvosd.diff .  If you 
patch MPlayer, change the mplayer command line to:

mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -vo ivtvosd %s

Note that even with the ivtvosd patch for MPlayer, I've found 
performance less than ideal on my Athlon XP 1700+.  YMMV.

Mike