[mythtv-users] HD HomeRun Prime, CableCard, LiveTV works

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Mon Mar 19 18:10:21 UTC 2012


On 03/19/2012 01:34 PM, Ronald Frazier wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>> Try increasing your tuning and signal timeouts using mythtv-setup's
>> Capture Card section. Don't be afraid to try something like 7000/10000
>> ms (and if it helps, you can lower them down to where they stop working).
> I wouldn't recommend getting too aggressive with lowering the
> timeouts, as my experience with cablecards is that occasionally they
> can take a bit longer to complete tuning. This is especially true if
> you have a tuning adapter. So you could lower it to where it seems to
> be safe and then occasionally have a failed recording. I'd think it
> would be better to play it safe. Is there really much to be gained by
> lowering the timeouts (other than getting an error back a little
> quicker if you are watching livetv)?

No.  There's no real reason to lower them aggressively.  On my system, 
stability is the primary motivator for configuration and I explicitly 
raise the tuning and signal timeouts on my (all OTA-only, ATSC) capture 
devices.  As a matter of fact, I think all of the default values for 
signal and tuning timeouts for all the capture device types need to be 
raised, but haven't gotten approval to raise them, yet.

This is why I said, "can," rather than, "should."  And I only said it 
because, based on experiences in IRC and previous conversations, some 
people seem to be very concerned about making this change and--despite 
its making things work--seem to think it's a workaround rather than a 
solution.  I assume they may believe that it will just make things slow 
or something.  But, it's a lot easier to let them do what they want (and 
live with the consequences) than to argue once they've made up their 
minds.  (Of course, this approach often means we get to repeat the 
"sometimes tuning fails"/"raise timeouts" dance, again, once they lower 
them too much.)

Mike


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