[mythtv-users] HDTV on Myth -- is it a "myth?"

[John Patrick Poet]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004, jack wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
> > bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Jarod Wilson
> > Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 9:26 PM
> > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] HDTV on Myth -- is it a "myth?"
> >
> > On Oct 11, 2004, at 18:13, jack wrote:
> >
> > > I had pretty much all the problems you described but I knocked them
> > > off one
> > > by one on an AMD64 3400. The one I can't get rid of is signal
> > > strength... I
> > > can only get into the high 80's on one channel at a time with a highly
> > > directional antenna (the silver sensor).
> >
> > You don't need a high 80s signal to get a good recording though. My
> > *strongest* signals (I live about 20 miles outside Seattle) are in the
> > high 60s. All the high 60s recordings are perfect. A few of my stations
> > come in with signals in the low 50s, and while I get the occasional
> > failed recording due to lack of signal lock, when they do record, 99%
> > of the video is perfectly fine (every once in a blue moon, there's some
> > pixelization in the video stream where I presume the signal dropped a
> > bit).
> >
>
> Really?! I thought the signal quality was what was holding me back. Gonna
> have to go back and investigate more, but I am almost positive if the signal
> strength isn't 85 or better mythtv just craps out early on in the stream. I
> am almost 50 miles away from the tower, for some reason I don't think my
> high 85 equals one of your low 60's =p
>

My *best* signal strength is somewhere arround 89.  Most of my stations fall
between 73 and 85.  In general, all but one is watchable with little
pixelization.   I am 9 miles from the towers, with direct line-of-sight.

The one station that gives me problems, admits they are broadcasting at less
the 1/4 power.  They claim they have to build a whole new tower before they
can up the power.

You can actually get pixelization from "other" factors.  If your hard disk
is too slow, it may not be able to feed the data to mythfrontend fast
enough for it to decode and display the entire frame.  Or maybe the data is
not getting written to your hard drive fast enough, and it is loosing data.

I use my mythbackend box for lots of other tasks.  If I get too many going
at once, I start seeing pixelization issues.

John