[mythtv-users] mythtv tv recording suddenly grainy / ugly (still going on :( )

[Alan]

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 09:01:59PM -0700, Alan wrote:
> So I've had mythtv on an amd 2600 and 2G ram and a hauppage pvr-350
> running just fine for ages.  I got a loaner new tv (went from a 21" tube
> to a 52" plasma).  In theory nothing changed in terms of the hardware or
> the connection method from the pvr to the tv.
> 
> However now recorded (and live) TV is very ugly and grainy (think really
> extreme digital noise or high jpeg compression).  Playing divx movies
> show up just fine and nice and sharp.
> 
> I haven't changed any settings in the mythbox and I have re-attached the
> old TV and it shows up there as well.  I've rebooted, reset all the
> cards and ram, but no change.  I've also checked the coax cables and
> splitter.  Even going from the wall straight into the PVR has no change
> (normally there's a splitter to split from the wall to the TV and the
> PVR).  The TV reception of video works just dandy of course.
> 
> Any suggestions or thoughts as to what to look at or check?  I've not
> see this before and am quite perturbed as to what would be wrong.

Still no luck here :(  The cable company amp is in place and powered,
and the TV reception is fine.  I've also done the following:

 - increased the default and livetv recording profiles from the default
   bitrate of 4500/6000 (default/max) settings to 7000/7500
 - turned off interlacing
 - changed the ffmpeg setting (forget what this setting is called)
 - set the system to use only the pvr350 decoder (I thought this would
   have been set, but for some reason, it wasn't).  This setting only
   changed the video output to fill the screen (I had tweaked it so that
   recording show showed with the black bars if it was 4:3 not full
   screen).

 None of these changes made *any* difference at all.  The one I'm most
 confused about is that the bitrate didn't make any visual changes.
 This is the setting in the recording profiles page which I figure
 moving up and down would do something.  I set it down to 2000/2500 and
 up to 7000/7500 from the 4500/6000 default and no changes. 

 Again the video to the TV is perfect, no change and it's all ok, but it
 seems like the input to the PVR is bad.  Is there any way to test?  Or
 set the various settings so that when I do a cat /dev/video0 > t.mpg I
 can see the changes there right away.

 TIA

-- 
Alan <alan at ufies.org> - http://arcterex.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers." -- Unknown