[mythtv-users] No GUID showing up in Firewire capture card setup

[Jarod Wilson]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:08 AM, Bob Shanteau <rmshant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jarod Wilson wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Bob Shanteau <rmshant at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> And here's the result on a Startech 2+1 Firewire PCI card with a VIA
>>> VT6307
>>> chip that I just from OfficeDepot.com:
>>>
>>> [mythtv at localhost ~]$ dmesg | fgrep firewire
>>> firewire_ohci 0000:01:09.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNKB] -> GSI 19 (level,
>>> low)-> IRQ 19
>>> firewire_ohci: Failed to reset ohci card.
>>> firewire_ohci 0000:01:09.0: PCI INT A disabled
>>> firewire_ohci: probe of 0000:01:09.0 failed with error
>>>
>>
>> Ew. That's ugly. Not sure what happened there. I hate firewire sometimes.
>> Or at least the multitude of poorly implemented firewire chips out in the
>> world.
>>
>
> I just tried installing the Startech card on the old FIC AU13 motherboard
> and it works with MythTV! Here are my outputs:
>
> ***
> [mythtv at localhost ~]$ dmesg | fgrep firewire
> firewire_ohci 0000:01:0a.0: PCI INT A -> Link[APC3] -> GSI 18 (level, high)
> -> IRQ 18
> firewire_ohci: isochronous cycle inconsistent
> firewire_ohci: Added fw-ohci device 0000:01:0a.0, OHCI version 1.10
> firewire_core: created device fw0: GUID 001106664555791b, S400
> firewire_core: created device fw1: GUID 001c11fffea6e812, S400
> firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
>
> [mythtv at localhost ~]$ plugreport
> Host Adapter 0
> ==============
>
> Node 0 GUID 0xf98c040808048cf9
> ------------------------------
> libiec61883 error: error reading oMPR
> libiec61883 error: error reading iMPR
>
> Node 1 GUID 0x001c11fffea6e812
> ------------------------------
> oMPR n_plugs=1, data_rate=2, bcast_channel=63
> oPCR[0] online=1, bcast_connection=0, n_p2p_connections=0
>   channel=0, data_rate=2, overhead_id=0, payload=376
> iMPR n_plugs=0, data_rate=2
> ***
>
> The GUID in MythTV autopopulated and I can watch TV.
>
> The problem is that I was only using the FIC motherboard for testing. It's
> an old Athlon full size ATX motherboard that uses DDR memory and AGP video,

Whoa, wait, holy crap, is that an *onboard* firewire port? If so,
that's the infamous and known faulty nforce2 firewire controller, if
I'm looking at the specs for that board correctly... Heh. That's one
of a tiny handful of nf2 boards w/nvidia's very very bad attempt at
doing their own firewire controller. I've got such a board myself, but
haven't had time/desire/motivation to try to come up with suitable
hackarounds in the firewire driver to make that thing behave. There's
a kernel.org bugzilla somewhere for that...

> and I just bought a MicroStar K9N6PGM2-V2 microATX DDR2 Athlon64 motherboard
> with PCIe video for use with a small horizontal case for my home theater
> setup. But at least now I know how Firewire is supposed to work with MythTV.
> I suppose I will have to try some Firewire cards in the new MicroStar
> motherboard until I find one that works with MythTV.

Just got this board myself:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394

Onboard firewire works just fine with my Motorola QIP-6200 cable box.
(Its got a Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 firewire controller on it).

As for reliable add-on cards, I've yet to see a card with an Agere
FW323 controller on it that didn't work (this is the primary chip
Apple put onboard all their machines for quite some time before moving
to predominantly firewire 800). Via controllers are somewhat spotty
but most of their chipset quirks are now known. Some revisions of
JMicron controllers are buggy, but work-arounded going back a while
now. ALi controllers are known flaky and non-functional. Certain TI
chips are very reliable, others less so (but most of the quirks have
since been discovered and work-arounds added to the firewire driver).
nForce2 is a train wreck, not expected to work at all. In short, if
possible, get something with an Agere FW323 on it. (Newer stuff may
actually say LSI FW323 now though, since LSI bought Agere a while
back).

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com