I have been running KnoppMyth for more than a year now. It has been on a single server setup with a PVR350 card. I think KM is fabulous - thank you to the team.

I would like to expand my setup to be a more general setup with a allround mediaserver in the basement and frontends in the other rooms of the house. I have build a backend server with a PVR-500 card (samsung tuners so I had to compile ivtv 0.4.6 pre to get it to work). The Master backend works ok now. All i have left to fix on the backend is not running the gdm (front end is not loaded on boot) and to have the backend deliver DNS to the local network.

My main problem is the Frontends. I have followed the FrontEndOnly HowTo on the Wiki. I have also tried the DisklessFrontend HowTo. Great HowTos that got me up and running with a diskless machine with tv on the VGA out screen of som old fanless IBMs with a P3 600Mhz.

My problem is that i try to setup at machine with the old PVR-350 card as a FroontEndOnly machine with PAL tv-out on the PVR-350.

I have installled the machine as an autoinstall with the backend as masterbackend. Everything works ok and i have PAL tv-out on the PVR-350. Afterwards I have to make the machine to a frontend only machine.
- I stop Mythtv-backend and Mysql,
- I edit the setup of the frontend to the IP-address of the master backend.
I edit the fstab to redirect /myth to the masterbackends /myth and a ls shows that it works.
I edit /usr/share/mythtv/mysql.txt to
Where 192.168.1.100 is my basement master-backend and FE1 (192.168.1.101) is supposed to be the PVR-350 Living room frontend.

So everything seems to be working ok - except that when i convert the FE1 to be a FrontEndOnly install the PAL setup of the PVR-350 is converted to back to NTSC (distorted screen properties in black/white and no sound on the TV).

If I run to at normal VGA output the problem dosn't arise - but then again that is not "PAL/NTSC world".

XFConfig86-4 on the FE has everything setup for PAL so my conclusion is that something on the backend direts the frontend from PAL back to NTSC. If I start mysql and mythtv-backend from an xterm on the frondend it switches the gdm to PAL instantly without restart of the gdm.

What on the Backend directs the setup of PAL back to NTSC output on he Frontend when it runs FrontEndOnly and how do i get a PVR-350 to output PAL on a FrontEndOnly machine?
/jensK

In the master db there is a table called settings which controls the behavour of all the frontends (and backends?) Have a look at the settings table on your frontend & backend and with any luck you should be able to set it manually to pal.

Thanks mad_paddler
I am away theese days. I will have a look when I come back.

Do you know what value to look for?

I have read posting:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8175
but none of the values looks like a NTSC/PAL setting.

JensK

It is time for a short autum holliday in Denmark and I have some time to look at my KnoppMyth setup again. I have upgraded my server to R5D1 and a new HW platform.

I am still trying to build a silent livingroom machine. The goal, abslutely silent means no moving parts inside the machine = no CPU fan and no physical disk. I wil have the PVR-350 to deliver the mpeg2 decode muscles instead of the CPU, I will have no disk so either it has to be diskless or use CF as a disk.

Steps in the process are:
1- Have pvr-350 to handle PAL tv-out - done
2- Offload heavy jobs to the new P4 3Ghz Backend server - done
3- Make livingroom KM frontend only (still having boot disk) - in progress
4- Make livingroom either diskless or CF based disk - comming

Step 1 and 2 is done thanks to excellent KM distro - thank you Cecil and all. I am presently running R5D1 on the new P4 3GHz backend wth a PVR-500 with Samsung tuner. I had to install ivtv 0.7.1 and to patch the kernel for the Samsung PAL tuner. Now it works - great. If somebody needs a howto on the wiki on this please post me and I will make a walk through of this.

I have the server deliver music for my Sonos music system and Myth to old laptop pc'es and to my living room low power slave backend /TV combination. At the same time the new backend has muscle enough to stream recordings of to pc's on the local network.

Step 3 was to make the living slave backend a frontend only with a PVR-350 to handle the decoding of mpeg2. The use of a PVR-350 meant that I could use an old P3 600Mhz fanless machine for this.

The living room machine is currently running as a slave backend with everything working as expected - PVR-350 tv-out in PAL format and such. /myth is via NFS directed to the master backend /myth so recording and such is on the master backend. Only remaining challenge is to make it diskless.

Next step is therefore to make the livingroom slave backend a frontend only machine with the tv-out on the PVR-350 in PAL format. This is where my challenges presently exceeds my abilities

I have read the install frontend only on the wiki and have converted the living room machine from slave backend to frontend only. It is a good howto so it was no big deal - except that everytime I do this the tv-out converts clear and colorfull PAL to a black and white sort of mixture between PAL and NTSC.

The tv-out shows up on PAL tv but it assumes NTSC screen properties. It goes black and wihite and switches to the NTSC 720x480 dimensions on the PAL 720x576 dislay. What really makes me wonder is that it is not only the myth part that switches to this hybrid format - it is all of the GDM.

It is even more strange than this. I can have the frontend only on PVR-350 in PAL working bright/colorfull PAL if I don't boot or stop the GDM between having it running as a slave backend and converting it to a frontend only install. If I stop the GDM or boot after ther conversion to frontend only the GDM starts in this hybrid PAL/NTSC format.

I have checked the settings DB and everything looks to be set the same way running slave backend or frontend only. I have also checked dmesg and /var/log/messages and everything looks normal.

My conclussion so far is that when running as a slave backend there is something starting before GDM and the frontend that delivers a "we're running PAL here" signal to the PVR-350 to make it assume PAL format/settings. When the GDM starts, X comes up correctly in PAL color, dimentions and setttings.

When running frontend only this "we're running PAL here" signal isn't sent to the PVR-350. X still starts up in PAL settings but the PVR-350 tries to output it in NTSC format meaning no colors and 720x480 on a 720x576 display.

The short question on this long posting is: What process except XF86Config-4setup does this signaling of "we're running PAL here" to the PVR-350? Is it the mythtv-backend?

Or put another way - I believe that there is a part of the backend that starts this "prepare PAL" that is missing when I try running frontend only. What is this that is missing and how do I start it when I run a frontend only KM?
JK

I think that I went through this a while ago..

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... ght=#51577

try editing your:
/etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv

to include:
options ivtv ivtv_std=2

and your
/etc/init.d/set_ivtv_params

to force it to PAL mine is below.

-----------------------------

#!/bin/bash
# Set the ivtv Parameters
########################################################################
IVTVCTL='ivtvctl'
IVTVDIR='/etc/sysconfig/ivtv'
#----------------------------------------------------------------------#
# Default values, if not specified in $IVTVDIR/cfg-*
IVTV_DT='0' # Tuner input,
IVTV_DF='PAL' # tuner format [NTSC|PAL]
########################################################################
[ -d "$IVTVDIR" ] || exit 1
IVTV_DF='PAL'

PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"
# See how we were called:
case $1 in
(start)
cd $IVTVDIR || exit 2
for g in $(echo cfg-*) ; do
f=${g#cfg-}
unset IVTV_TUNER IVTV_RATE IVTV_PEAK IVTV_TYPE
source cfg-$f
case $IVTV_TYPE in
("") IVTV_TYPE=0x3000 ;;
(NTSC) IVTV_TYPE=0x3000 ;;
(PAL) IVTV_TYPE=0xff ;;
esac
IVTV_TYPE=0xff
$IVTVCTL -d /dev/video$f -u $IVTV_TYPE
$IVTVCTL -d /dev/video$f -p ${IVTV_TUNER:-${IVTV_DT}}
$IVTVCTL -d /dev/video$f -f width=720,height=576
$IVTVCTL -d /dev/video$f -c dnr_mode=0,dnr_temporal=0
$IVTVCTL -d /dev/video$f --set-vbi-embed=0
done
;;
(stop) # don't do anything on stop.
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/set_ivtv_params {start|stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac
########################################################################
# End

Thank for the reply.
I have tried as you describe, but it didn't change the situation.

I can stop mysql and the backend if I restart the frontend without restarting the GDM everything looks normal and myth is running as a frontend only with the nicest PAL display on the PVR-350 TV-out.

If I reboot (mythtv-backend and mysql is removed from init scripts) I get this strange hybrid PAL/NTSC mode on the PVR-350 TV-out.

I have looked at the logfiles but can't find anything that failes or shows any suspicious values or errors.
JK