[mythtv-users] detecting live video within mythtv?

[Brian Wood]

On May 11, 2006, at 5:37 AM, Adam Hirsch wrote:

> Our satellite box will occasionally stop producing video and sit at  
> a black
> screen for hours, annoying my wife to no end when her recordings don't
> work.  The fix is to power-cycle the satellite box, which I could  
> pretty
> easily script the machine running mythtv to do.  (i.e. use the IR  
> blaster
> to send "power-off" and "power-on" codes.)
>
> Question is, is there any way from within mythtv to tell whether or  
> not the
> satellite box is currently sending video?  I'd rather not cycle the  
> box if
> we don't have to.
>
> I was thinking that maybe I could do a quick test capture
>
> cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg
>
> for a set number of seconds, and then look to see how big the  
> resulting
> file is.  (presuming an mpg captured this way would vary its size  
> based on
> complexity and content.)
>
> Is there any slicker way to do this test?

This might not be what you're looking for, but if your receiver is  
supplied by a service provider I'd start with calling them and asking  
if the unit might be defective, and if so could it be replaced.

This is not normal behavior for a sat receiver.

Or you could simply power cycle the receiver at intervals, at times  
when you know it is not in use.