I know this is an on-going problem. I have found a number of threads here about it http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18678&highlight=hd5500+ntsc+audio and http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17863&highlight=hd5500+audio for example. I have tried pretty much everything in those posts with no luck. Just for background, I have an intel dual core, on board video with HDMI out, Digital SP/Dif out, and 1 hd-5500. I have successfully gotten the clear QAM off comcast cable, I have a firewire connection from a DCH-3200 working perfectly. The only thing left is analog NTSC on the hd-5500.

Here is what I have done so far.

I have the DMA capable hd-5500:


Alsa recognizes it:


There is a /dev/dsp1


Alsa is loading the correct modules:


I have made the changes to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base


alsamixer is set for both devices (not muted)
Backend >> Capture Cards >> check box "Open DVB Card On Demand" is set on the DVB side.
I have the DVB and the v4l inputs in a custom input group HD55

So here is the problem. If I set the v4l card to use /dev/dsp, right after a reboot I can get a few minutes of good video but no audio. After a while I get the video flashing green, static, etc. every couple of seconds.

Here are the DVB Settings:
Card Type: DVB DTV Capture Card (v3.x)
DVB Device Number: 0
Signal Timeout: 3000
Tuning Timeout: 5500
Recording Options
Max Recordings: 1
Wait for SEQ: Checked
Open DVB Card on Demand: Checked
Use DVB Card for active EIT Scan: Checked
DVB Tuning Delay: 0

Here are the v4l Settings:
Card Type: Analog V4L Capture Card
Video Device: /dev/video0
Probed Info: pcHDTV hd-5500 HDTV [cx8800]
VBI Device: /dev/vbi0
Audio Device: /dev/dsp
Audio Sampling Rate: 48000
Default Input: Television

Also on the frontend I have all the recording profiles set to uncompressed 48000Khz

So what happens is after a few minutes of good video and no audio, I start getting lots of static, green static, skipped frames etc. Here is what it looks like from the frontend logs:


The backend log looks like this:


Simply changing the /dev/dsp in the v4l audio device to /dev/dsp1 gives me this in the frontend log:


The backend log gives me this:


So apparently /dev/dsp1 is not the correct device?

What am I missing? If anyone can help me with this I would really appreciate it!!!


I have another issue that I hope is relatively simple (if a little OT), I keep getting this error in my backend logs:

Is there an easy way to fix this?

Dothedog

One more piece of data. I just did a cat /proc/asound/pcm and got this:

Should there be a card 01 Analog for the CX88?

I have been struggling with this for a while. Please any help is appreciated.

DoTheDog

In terms of MySQL, I'd check the db for errors. Anything on the pcHDTV forum in regard to NTSC?

Cecil, Thanks for the reply. I actually did a "repair tables" in mythweb and I haven't seen the mysql errors since. I also did as your linked post suggested and have no errors. I will let you know if they come back.

On the pcHDTV card analog, I will try posting to that forum as well. I have googled and googled and found that there are others with this problem but I haven't found the solution. If I get a fix, I will post here.

BTW, Cecil, THANK YOU for your work on this, Knoppmyth is a great distro and for the most part has worked out of the box. Just got to get these final little things taken care of.

Dothedog

You're welcome. If you find a solution, please let use know.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Cecil,
Yeah, I posted on the pcHDTV forum here as well. Next stop is tech support there. I actually live in Salt Lake City, so I think I will try giving them a call. I will post here if I find a solution.

DoTheDog

Sorry, can't help you with your problem but I have to ask, why bother doing this when analog is going away very soon?

_________________
Paul O'Flynn

Just a quick note to whoever reads this and gets confused. Analog over the air broadcast (meaning you use rabbit ears or an antenna to get analog TV) is going to be retired on June 12, 2009 in the United States. You can get a converter box to down convert digital stations if you still want to use your analog TV or tuner. What your cable or satellite TV provides you is completely up to them.

True but it's my understanding that (comcast for example) have already stopped analog broadcasts in many areas and the rest are soon to follow. Maybe I'm just more averse to debugging these problems than most but it wouldn't seem worth it when you could lose your signal at any moment.

Good luck,

_________________
Paul O'Flynn

I have analog NTSC coming out of my satellite STB and going into an HD-5500.

I also record OTA ATSC on this HD-5500. I have an analog sound card though. The only two tricks that I remember having to do were to set up both DVB and V4L drivers in mythtv-setup and make sure you select the "open dvb card on demand" in mythtv-setup. It sounds like you have done both.

I'd through the HD-5500 into a different PC and do a test install on a junk hard drive for a test to see if you have hardware problems considering that it works ok for a little while after boot.

Hi Cliff (of cliffsjunk fame),

You have a HD-5500 card capturing analog NTSC video WITH sound?

What is the data rate (filesize per hour) of analog NTSC video captured with the HD-5500 card? I've only used the HD-5500 card for digital tv (HDTV mostly) because from what I've read on forums, getting it to capture analog video is more trouble than it's worth. In fact, I've never seen a successful "how-to capture analog" guide for either the HD-3000 or the HD-5500 card.

For analog NTSC video (from the satellite receiver) I use a Hauppauge PVR-150 card. With the PVR series of cards, you get the benefit of MPEG video compression done by the card (rather than your processor) in real time. I have the data rate set around 5000kb/s. So every 1 hour of NTSC video takes up about 1.9GB of hard drive space. That allows 2 hours of video on a single layer DVD-R disc (for storage and sharing).

Eric

_________________
KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Sorry I am not very active on the forum lately...

Yes, I have an STB running SVideo to the SVideo in on the HD-5500. I
just set up my brother in law and sister the same way and it works fine too.

I also record ATSC OTA and sometimes it even records ATSC and Analog
at the same time. Works fine.

You need to pretend that you have two different cards when you have an
HD-5500. In mythtv-setup, set one up as DVB DTV (with "open DVB card
on demand" enabled) and the other up as Analog V4L.

Of course run the STB svideo to the svideo in on the HD-5500 and the STB
audio to you sound card's line in input.

As always, fiddle with alsamixer to make it record from line in. There is
usually a slider to boost the record level. I find that it needs to be all the
way down or else you make the analog recordings (that get boosted) a
lot louder than the DVB recordings (which have audio as part of the
digital file capture and thus don't get boosted thru the line-in booster).

I played with my recording profiles and found that this works good (but
I have a dual core 3.4 so I have plenty of CPU). In "recording profiles"
select "software encoders (v4l based)" and set all profiles to this:
(first page)
544x480

(video)
MPEG-4
bitrate 4400
max qual 2
min qual 15
max qual diff 4
(y) scal bitrate for frame size
(y) enable h-q encoding
(y) enable 4mv encoding
(n) enable interlaced DCT encoding
(n) enable interlated motion...
Number of threads 2 (because I am running a dual core CPU)

(audio)
MP3
48000
MP3 quality 2
volume 90%

Data rate with this setup is about 1.7gig per hour.

Let me know if it helps. Let the others that have problenms with HD-5500
know if it helps.

Cliff