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roontoon
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 Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:26 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: If you're in the US and thus can get your guide info from zap2it, scanning for SDTV channels is contra-indicated. It will only cause you grief. You'll eventually have to drop your lineups and recreate them (and the input connections) to correct the problems this causes.
As far as I can see (whoops signature blocks weren't showing from the "post a reply" screen!) you never said what you're using for your video output. It really helps to have an acceraled driver with Xv support builtin. It also helps to match the output resolution (especially the vertical) to the capture resolution. I got a dramatic improvement in quality going from 800x600 output to 640x480. if you're mapping 480x480 (the default capture settings) to 1024x768 you are going to see artifacts that'll just about make your eyes bleed.
Finally enabling deinterlacing can make a significant improvement, the best results I've seen are with Bob 2x.
OK so I should go and drop my lineups and recreate them. I scanned them because nothing was showing up. Do they show up after Mythfilldatabase is run? I will be outputing via SVideo on my NVIDIA Geforce card. So you are also saying I need to map the output resolution to something close to what I am view on.... I have tried 640x480 but saw no improvement. Think I should try a higher resolution?
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:38 pm |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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roontoon wrote: Do they show up after Mythfilldatabase is run? Yes. When you setup the "Video Source" (listings) in mythtv-setup it should DL the lineup. Then after you're done with your config setup there, you need to run mythfilldatabase (Note the corrected case, in Unix case matters.) roontoon wrote: I will be outputing via SVideo on my NVIDIA Geforce card. So you are also saying I need to map the output resolution to something close to what I am view on.... I have tried 640x480 but saw no improvement. Think I should try a higher resolution?
Higher would be worse. 640x480 is the best I've seen for NTSC.
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roontoon
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:21 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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I will be attemting to resove this issue this evening when I get home as I still have poor picture quality and the screen breaks up from time to time. I wanted to ask that during the upgrade of the ivtv drivers and firmware how do I know that the firmware in particular was done correctly. Also do different versions of the firmware work better with different cards? I have been trying to think of anything that I might have done wrong up to this point. I bought the Hauppauge tuners because of the good reviews from other folks. Now I am not sure if these problems are due to the install or perhaps I have a bad card.
Thanks AGAIN!!
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:33 pm |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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roontoon wrote: I have checked the cable connections and as far as I know I don't have any splitters.
This is my next guess. You almost have to have splitters unless they gave you some super funky piece of equipment. Look for small (2-3") rectangular metal boxes on your coax cables the connection from the wall goes in one side and 2 or more outputs come out the other.
Disconnect the cable screwed into the PVR cards tuner input (it is screwed on right?) and connect it directly to your TV to check the signal quality.
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roontoon
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:50 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: roontoon wrote: I have checked the cable connections and as far as I know I don't have any splitters. This is my next guess. You almost have to have splitters unless they gave you some super funky piece of equipment. Look for small (2-3") rectangular metal boxes on your coax cables the connection from the wall goes in one side and 2 or more outputs come out the other. Disconnect the cable screwed into the PVR cards tuner input (it is screwed on right?) and connect it directly to your TV to check the signal quality. I am running it directly from the cable (screwed yes) out of the wall. I don't have a cable box at all. As far as I know the cable goes directly to the outside. As far as quality on the TV it is great. BTW in the interum i got the s-video feed going to the TV and while viewing through the Myth box the quality degrades. Another observation is that I have notice a little instablity in my setup. I have been leaving the machine on and I have notice once that the backend crashed and another time the front end crashed. Don't know if it is related but I thought I would mention it. I am starting to wonder if I have a bad card.
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:45 pm |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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More likely a memory problem.
I don't remember if the KM CD comes with memtest86, but hunt down a bootable CD with that on it and do a low level torture test on your RAM for 12 hours or so. Make sure that you watch the temperatures as it's very CPU intensive. It's how I (accidentally) figured out that the CPU fan on my SFF workstation box had quit...  Very often the problem is just the something like overly agressive RAM timings set by the BIOS to try to make the mobo look a few % better than the competion in benchmarks... This trick usually works since reviewers tend to use ultra-premium RAM.
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roontoon
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:17 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: More likely a memory problem. I don't remember if the KM CD comes with memtest86, but hunt down a bootable CD with that on it and do a low level torture test on your RAM for 12 hours or so. Make sure that you watch the temperatures as it's very CPU intensive. It's how I (accidentally) figured out that the CPU fan on my SFF workstation box had quit... Very often the problem is just the something like overly agressive RAM timings set by the BIOS to try to make the mobo look a few % better than the competion in benchmarks... This trick usually works since reviewers tend to use ultra-premium RAM. Thanks. Doing that now... BTW they have a bootable .iso image here http://www.memtest86.com/#download0
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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roontoon
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:01 am |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: More likely a memory problem. I don't remember if the KM CD comes with memtest86, but hunt down a bootable CD with that on it and do a low level torture test on your RAM for 12 hours or so. Make sure that you watch the temperatures as it's very CPU intensive. It's how I (accidentally) figured out that the CPU fan on my SFF workstation box had quit... Very often the problem is just the something like overly agressive RAM timings set by the BIOS to try to make the mobo look a few % better than the competion in benchmarks... This trick usually works since reviewers tend to use ultra-premium RAM. OK it memtest has been running for 12 hours and it has produced 34 errors. These errors were mainly with test 4 an 6 which are described as: Quote: Test 4 [Moving inversions, random pattern]
Test 4 uses the same algorithm as test 1 but the data pattern is a random number and it's complement. This test is particularly effective in finding difficult to detect data sensitive errors. A total of 60 patterns are used. The random number sequence is different with each pass so multiple passes increase effectiveness.
Test 6 [Moving inversions, 32 bit pat]
This is a variation of the moving inversions algorithm that shifts the data pattern left one bit for each successive address. The starting bit position is shifted left for each pass. To use all possible data patterns 32 passes are required. This test is quite effective at detecting data sensitive errors but the execution time is long.
I am not sure if this is a significant amount of errors or not considering it was on for 12 hours. It also states on the website that errors are not always due to a bad module. It could be motherboard, CPU, L1 and L2 caches.
http://www.memtest86.com/#trouble I only have one chip so I can't swap to test. I would hate to buy one and still have the same issue. I did swich out motherboards due to a previous posting issue. Not sure what to do other than return the RAM and see what happens.
Got any other ideas before I do this?
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:21 am |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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roontoon wrote: OK it memtest has been running for 12 hours and it has produced 34 errors.
:
I am not sure if this is a significant amount of errors or not considering it was on for 12 hours.  Oh my, YES. That many errors in a mere 12 hours is pretty much a smoking gun. You should be able to leave memtest86 running for weeks and end up with an error count of zero. At this point I'd be suspicious of everything installed on the system which might have been corrupted as it went through RAM. roontoon wrote: It also states on the website that errors are not always due to a bad module. It could be motherboard, CPU, L1 and L2 caches.
:
Got any other ideas before I do this?
Yeah. Those are possible causes too. One of the MoBo possibilities is the timing thing I mentioned. A number of folks around here have gotten relief from similar issues by detuning the memory access timings in their BIOS. There may even be a wiki page if you look. Basically you've got to make sure you have "conservative memory timings" for your CAS/RAS/... (not turbo or auto-overclock or whatever) then take manual control and make them one step more conservative (longer). After you do this and save it, fire up memtest86 again, but this time you can quit on the first error. It might be worth trying one more detuning step if you're still getting errors, but beyond that...
BTW - Have you ever tried running mbmon to check your CPU and Chipset temperatures? Overheating can cause flakyness like this too...
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roontoon
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 10:24 am |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: At this point I'd be suspicious of everything installed on the system which might have been corrupted as it went through RAM.
I went and got another RAM chip and I am currently running memtest again to see if it throws any more errors. Are you talking about a full reinstall? tjc wrote: A number of folks around here have gotten relief from similar issues by detuning the memory access timings in their BIOS. There may even be a wiki page if you look. Basically you've got to make sure you have "conservative memory timings" for your CAS/RAS/... (not turbo or auto-overclock or whatever) then take manual control and make them one step more conservative (longer). NEWBIE ALERT NEWBIE ALERT Got a wiki page? I generally don't mess around with anything in BIOS unless I have to so I am not at all familer with any timing adjustments. tjc wrote:
BTW - Have you ever tried running mbmon to check your CPU and Chipset temperatures? Overheating can cause flakyness like this too...
With in specs... You know while this is a little frustrating because I am eager to use MythTV, when things don't work is where I myself learn the most about computers. While my main goal is to get a working Myth box my secondary goal was to learn about Linux.....
BOY am I getting an education!!! 
Thanks again
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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roontoon
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Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:51 am |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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OK. Since I last posted I was testing some new RAM to see if it threw any errors with memtest86. I ran it for 5 hours without an error. I thought I was home free. I reinstalled Knoppmyth , reinstalled the ivtv drivers and firmware and I had the same problem. I then obtained a pvr-150 card thinking that the pvr-500 might be bad. Same results. I changed the cable from the main box outside stringing it thought the house to the mythbox. (wife was happy about that) SAME RESULT... ARG... I have replaced every part except the CPU, drives, video card and power supply. Here is a picture of the reception I am getting.
If I switch the cabe back to the TV, PERFECT PICTURE!!! What else can I do?
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:12 pm |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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roontoon wrote: tjc wrote: At this point I'd be suspicious of everything installed on the system which might have been corrupted as it went through RAM.
I went and got another RAM chip and I am currently running memtest again to see if it throws any more errors. Are you talking about a full reinstall? Yes.
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roontoon
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Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:34 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
Tampa, Florida USA
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tjc wrote: roontoon wrote: tjc wrote: At this point I'd be suspicious of everything installed on the system which might have been corrupted as it went through RAM.
I went and got another RAM chip and I am currently running memtest again to see if it throws any more errors. Are you talking about a full reinstall? Yes. I did that and a few other things.... see post with the picture....
d
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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roontoon
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:20 pm |
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:59 pm
Posts: 45
Location:
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I am still having problems with my build. I have literally replaced every part on this machine and I am still having the same problem that you can see in the picture a little further up in this thread. So now I am thinking that this is
a) due to me (very likely) or
b) due to the ivtv drivers ( maybe? )
I did the update to the ivtv drivers a little slower and I found a couple of things that I have questions about. During the Make and Make Install process I got a warning and some sort of conflict. I have included ivtv logs. I am at quite a loss here and I think I have eliminated everything I can think of in terms of hardware. Got any ideas? Should I post on the ivtv site? I have been screwing around with this for nearly 3 weeks now with basically the same results. The best results that I have gotten were with the photo further up in this thread. I just tried to reinstall again and now when I try to view TV I get a flash and I am returned to the MythTV menu.
Thanks in advance,
d (who is pulling out what little hair I have)
During Make
Code: CC [M] /usr/src/ivtv-0.4.6/driver/ivtv-ioctl.o
/usr/src/ivtv-0.4.6/driver/ivtv-ioctl.c: In function `ivtv_ivtv_ioctls':
/usr/src/ivtv-0.4.6/driver/ivtv-ioctl.c:1276: warning: unused variable `stream'
CC [M] /usr/src/ivtv-0.4.6/driver/ivtv-controls.o
A little further along. Code: Module /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/cx25840/cx25840.ko conflicts with the ivtv module of the same name -- please hide or delete it.
To hide: mv /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/cx25840/cx25840.ko /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/cx25840/cx25840.ko.HIDE
You will then need to run depmod.
Module /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/saa7127.ko conflicts with the ivtv module of the same name -- please hide or delete it.
To hide: mv /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/saa7127.ko /lib/modules/2.6.15-chw-2/kernel/drivers/media/video/saa7127.ko.HIDE
You will then need to run depmod.
IVTV logs Code: Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: ==================== START INIT IVTV ====================
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: version 0.4.6 (tagged release) loading
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: Linux version: 2.6.15-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: In case of problems please include the debug info between
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines, along with
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv: any module options, when mailing the ivtv-users mailinglist.
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Autodetected WinTV PVR 150 card (cx23416 based)
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:08.0[A] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Unreasonably low latency timer, setting to 64 (was 32)
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: ivtv version
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: Hauppauge: model = 26052, rev = G1B2, serial# = 8830541
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: tuner = TCL M2523_5N_E (idx = 112, type = 50)
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: tuner fmt = NTSC(M) (eeprom = 0x08, v4l2 = 0x00001000)
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: audio processor = CX25843 (type = 25)
Aug 17 19:45:22 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: decoder processor = CX25843 (type = 1e)
Aug 17 19:45:23 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: i2c attach to card #0 ok [client=tveeprom, addr=50]
Aug 17 19:45:23 mythtv kernel: tuner (ivtv): chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus ivtv i2c driver #0
Aug 17 19:45:23 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: i2c attach to card #0 ok [client=(tuner unset), addr=61]
Aug 17 19:45:23 mythtv kernel: cx25840 0-0044: ivtv driver
Aug 17 19:45:23 mythtv kernel: cx25840 0-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
Aug 17 19:45:26 mythtv kernel: cx25840 0-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
Aug 17 19:45:26 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: i2c attach to card #0 ok [client=cx25840, addr=44]
Aug 17 19:45:26 mythtv kernel: wm8775 0-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
Aug 17 19:45:26 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: i2c attach to card #0 ok [client=wm8775, addr=1b]
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (262144 bytes)
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Encoder revision: 0x02050032
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder MPEG stream: 128 x 32768 buffers (4096KB total)
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder YUV stream: 194 x 10800 buffers (2048KB total)
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder VBI stream: 120 x 17472 buffers (2048KB total)
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Allocate DMA encoder PCM audio stream: 455 x 4608 buffers (2048KB total)
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: tuner: type set to 50 (TCL 2002N) by ivtv i2c driver #0
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv0: Initialized WinTV PVR 150, card #0
Aug 17 19:45:27 mythtv kernel: ivtv: ==================== END INIT IVTV ====================
_________________
MSI 661FM2-LSR SiS Motherboard
Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
1 gig DDR SDRAM
Seagate 320GB EIDE HD
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB AGP w/DVI/TV-OUT
NEC ND-3550A 16X DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR-150
nMEDIAPC 100BA Media Center Computer Case
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tjc
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:46 pm |
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location:
Arlington, MA
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Those warnings are all harmless. The unused variable is a "so what", and the conflict warnings are taken care of when you do step 4 in the CompileIvtv instructions.
Looks like your card is being detected properly now and you definitely needed the new drivers for that given the TCL M2523_5N_E chip.
Did you do the firmware update too? Did you turn the box off stone cold (unplug it to be sure) for at least 5 minutes to flush the old firmware?
Have you fiddled with your recording profiles at all? You might want to bump the Live TV profile to 640x480 @ 6000-8000kbps to see if that helps.
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