[mythtv-users] DCT-6200 Firewire issue User Database

[Steve Adeff]

On Saturday 14 January 2006 20:23, Big Wave Dave wrote:
> Did you ever come up with any conclusions or suggestions on an
> "optimal" configuration? Perhaps a recommended FireWire chipset?
>
> Dave

As far as I can tell, the Via firewire chipsets are very hit or miss. some 
people have had luck with them, some (like me) have had nothing but trouble 
with them. If I was to recommend, I'd say get a Texas Instruments, Lucent,  
or Agere(sp?) chipset. I have an NEC on the board I ended up getting, which 
so far has been great, so if you've got one, you should be ok. I've also 
talked to a couple folks with Sound Blaster Audigy's that have had excellent 
results using the sound cards firewire, I think they may use TI or Lucent 
chips on their boards.

I found that those who compiled their firewire library's seem to do better 
than those that used precompiled packages. Though this may be coincidence, so 
if your distribution has the required library's as packages, try them before 
compiling your own.

But, I did spend some time analyzing how my setup worked and had an idea, and 
I talked to a couple dev's about it. One suggested I try something before 
trying my idea. Apparently a few months back this came up on the list and an 
idea came up....

What he suggested was to set the firewire cable box to use broadcast in 
mythtv-setup, even if p2p is the only settings that "sticks" when using 
plugctl. (so get the port and node right, set it to broadcast, 400MB/S).

First, if you have any automated scripts to run plugctl to change settings, 
disable them, we don't want to change the "natural" state of the firewire bus 
for this experiement.

So, shut down the mythbox, unplug the cable box power, and then turn on the 
mythbox followed by the cable box. This should reset the firewire bus at both 
ends. I did this last thursday but have been gone all weekend. From the point 
I did it till I left I never missed a recording, data streamed every time. 
But I got some missed channel changes. I need to check now to see how it did 
over the weekend.

Give this a try. Let me know if you notice any change in the bahviour of your 
setup. 

-- 
Steve