I've been using Linux for a few years and have installed many distros. Use mainly Debian, so Knoppmyth is sorta up my alley. I'm not really much of a TV fan--I don't even OWN a TV. I do like to watch the occasional program like a documentary or something though. And I like to tinker with various tech projects and try to learn something new. So, that's how I came across and started to play with Knoppmyth.

I've gotten it installed ok. The target hardware is a Biostar socket 370 board with Celeron 1Ghz processor and 256MB RAM. I got an el-cheapo Happauge WinTV-go card (878x chip) that I thought might do encoding, but it seems I was wrong. 16MB SIS PCI video card and SB 64 AWE sound card.

I don't have (or want) cable or anything, so I started off just recording whatever broadcast TV I could pick up just to see how things work. I managed to record a bit and was amazed at the size of the files produced. I have yet to get sound functioning, but the first thing I want to ask about is choppiness on playback of the recordings I've done. I'll deal with sound (and some other things) later.

Watching a broadcast doesn't really work because I get 1 second of movement to about 5 seconds of pause. I suppose this little old 1Ghz Celeron is not really up to decoding realtime video. But I expected better performance on playback of recordings. And, to be honest, it is better. But it's still jerky. Like pausing slightly every 3 seconds or so. What's the way to deal with this? I.e., to make it smooth and not jerky? I don't really care to watch programs in realtime. Playing them back later is fine. But I would like playback to be as smooth as a real broadcast. Can I expect that out of this hardware?

Here are some general observations. I'm really surprised at the use of ext3 and ext2 filesystems. With such huge files as this generates and with the performance needed in reading them, wouldn't reiserfs or xfs or some other hi performance filesystem have been a much better choice? Also, to boot this thing I needed vga=normal since my LCD monitor doesn't like framebuffer sync ranges. The help menu (that you get by pressing F2) tells you to enter "knoppix" followed by your args--e.g., vga=normal. Well, that doesn't work, because there's no kernel on the disk called "knoppix." By experimentation, I found the kernel is called "knoppmyth." This help menu really should be fixed to reflect the proper name for the kernel. Finally, it needs to be made clear that a person has to sign up with zap2it--and already have a username and password--if they expect to get a channel list on their machine. This should be explained in the setup screens. Otherwise, nice work!

James

Is DMA enabled on your hard drive? This is a question that people in the know seem to ask in response to choppy video. Another recomendation is to install the nvidia drivers, but I guess that doesnt apply to you.

You could also try transcoding to MPEG4 and then trying to play that back. The files will be much smaller.

Your comments on the installer are sensible, but there is a new installer in the works, so there wont be any time invested in fixing those small issues.

..and zap2it only applies to USA users.

sorry I didn't read your entire post, I'm about three sheets to the wind tonight, but make sure you are not using vesa driver, cause that does not allow xv playback and can cause playback problems. there is a binary sis driver, but you have to load it, and it is available through apt-get with the appropriate sources.list entries.

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Xsecrets

Also try enabling libmpeg2 in the playback settings.

According to hdparm, dma is enabled. The disk is set to udma2.

I'll look into that some more. I fiddled a bit with transcoding yesterday but didn't manage to figure it out.

I tried it and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Trying to figure out what you're getting at. According to /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, the sis driver is being used. "binary sis driver" doesn't mean anything to me. Are you talking about something other than the XFree sis driver?
Thanks, James

this thread has a link to the sis drivers page and some of the config options.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... sis+pundit

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks for the link. I was unaware that there is an individual project developing SIS drivers. I suppose I'll have to pull this card and check whether it's supported. I'm unsure whether this project would help me, though: it seems kind of geared toward getting maximum clarity from SIS chips and chipsets, whereas my problem is choppy playback. Do you think that could be a video card issue? E.g., when I'm playing back recorded TV and the playback pauses slightly every 3 seconds or so? Anyway, I'll read over info on the project and drivers a bit more. Couldn't hurt anything to try them I suppose.

James

If your processor is i686 compatible this may help (if you havent installed the i686 modules already).