[mythtv-users] Mangled screen video with Live TV or recorded programs

[Roland Roberts]

>>>>> "me" == Roland Roberts <roland at astrofoto.org> writes:

    me> A couple of weeks ago, I started experiencing "mangled" video in
    me> some recordings.  I'm running on FC5 with the atrpms.  I think I've
    me> tracked this to updating to the mythtv 0.20-143 rpm which I did on
    me> October 29.  Recordings before that date have no trouble, *some*
    me> afterwards do.  I was also able to confirm that the problem happens
    me> with LiveTV but does not appear on the "real" TV hooked up to the
    me> same antenna/cable.

    me> The mangling is intermittent.  I'll watch fine for several minutes,
    me> then the frame gets mildly jumbled, then it goes back to normal.  I
    me> could probably provide a suitably downsampled copy of a few seconds
    me> worth of video to anyone who wants to see the effect.

Oops, I failed to say anything about my hardware....

The host is a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz, the system has 2GB of RAM, and the
tuner is a Happauge PVR-500.  The host also runs some low-priority
high-CPU jobs in the background.  It's been that way for as long as I've
been running MythTV, and the problem persists even if I shut down the
background jobs.  I've also run MythTV both as root and as a normal user
with no change in the problem.

It appears that the problem occurs more often (1) during commercials,
which I can live with since I skip them anyway, and (2) whenever a
program puts up a bar at the bottom with text information, e.g.,
watching a PBS problem when they put up the current person's name and
info.  I don't know why that might have any effect, but it *seems* to.

roland
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Roland B. Roberts, PhD                             RL Enterprises
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