Myth seems to disable my DVI output when the backend starts, is there a setting in myth to activate it or do i need to muck around with the mod lines? ive got an s-video going to my TV atm, but with horizontal movement i get the screen "splitting" into sections, hoping this will help?

When I switched from the VGA output of my FX 6200 card to the DVI output I didn't have to make any configuration changes -- it just worked. Perhaps it's different moving from s-video to DVI. Having said this, the problem you are describing may not be resolved by simply moving from s-video to DVI.

I believe the problem you are describing is sometimes called "tearing" --might want to search the forum for this term to find posts and solutions for people that have had this problem.

It that doesn't help it would be a good idea to provide more info -- what is your hardware configuration, what version of knoppmyth do you have installed, what video-driver / video-driver-version are you using, what is your output device and what type of transmission are you recording? ie: Hidef, standard def, etc.

Marc

hey thanks alot, calling it tearing already made it heaps easier to find what i was after, many thanks
i do have another question i just purchased a pioneer 50inch plasma (PDP-506HDG)
here's the weird part under the using HDMI input there is a note saying PC SIGNALS ARE OUT OF CORRESPONDENCE does this mean i cant use that input, my VGA input says its no acceptable or some @#$@ aswell, is it possible for a plasma to not accept PC signals? or am i reading this wrong
thanks again,

Bizkit:

Are you saying that your TV set displays these error messages? If so, then your modeline is probably not configured properly and you are generating a signal that is not compatible with your TV set. If you're not familiar with modelines, they are a lot of posts in the forum that talk about them. Search for "modeline".

Marc

cheers marc, yeah i think your right, im slowly getting to the bottom of this

Bizkit, looks like you're doing a good job of sorting through the issues. Some more resources you may find helpful:

The knoppmyth wiki has many articles that are very helpful: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/

An article that discusses modelines and provides some good samples for starting points: http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto ... ation.html

modeline database at mythtv wiki: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Modeline_Database

Marc

thanks again marc, i think my DVI output is not activated, strange thing is if i connect a monitor(PC) it shows startup and turns off when the backend starts, doing the same on my plasma shows nothing, even though the HDMI port is turned on, im going to do some more testing with another PC and monitor to isolate it before i assum things(that only ever gets me in trouble) just to let you know my tearing was due to me not having sync to vblank turned on properly, learn something new

ok so im further again WOOHOO
now i got the DVI on by changing crt,tv to DFP i dont see the startup stuff but who cares. Now my next step....
my menu is in full screen, but going into viewing TV it is cropped(black bars top and bottom) and the video/audio is very erratic not smooth and flowing? what could my solution be, do i need to create a modeline? or are there myth settings ive missed?

Need more info about your configuration -- what video card, what driver, what driver version, what version of knoppmyth...

ok after a needed break im back into it, Im running R5C7 with 1 pvr-150 and a twinhahn digital card, output though a Leadtek PX7300GS with the latest nvidia drivers(im not sure what number it is again). Like i said earlier my menu looks great but the Video output looks like its set to widescreen or something? and once again its very choppy. Where can i find the driver versions for my cards? or other info i might need

Bizkit, I need more info to help. What processor are you using & how much memory? What resolution is the video you are playing back? 1920x1280? 1280x720? 720x480?

In the meantime, check the followng in settings->TV->playback

1. In settings->TV->playback make sure that OpenGL vertical sync is not selected.

2a. Try selecting libmpeg2 to reduce your cpu utilization. If you need to deinterlace, use "linear blend" for now, as that use the least CPU.

2b. As an alternative to libmpeg2, your can try XVMC. If you use this and need to deinterlace, use bob2x deinterlace.

3. What playing back a video, remote log into your machine and run "top" and check to see what your CPU utilization is running at. Are you maxing out? How much is idle

Marc

Marc, Processor is an Intel Pentium D 805 on an Intel D945PVS mainboard, memory is Kingston DDR II 667 1GB

I will need to check the Open GL bit not sure on that one, but in regards to the interlacing etc, ive tried alomost all combinations, i definatly need to deinterlace because its far worse if i dont

my video playback im not sure on, its HD free to air and i have an analouge Pay TV subscription, what would be my easiest way of seeing my playback resolution?

i'll try the top command, but im fairly convinced this shouldnt be a problem, its a new machine and i dont see any real "overworking" problems

Thank you so much for your help so far marc!!

Bizkit:

Pentium D 805 is 2.66 ghz dual core. Depending on what you are doing, it may not be enough.

In terms of the video -- if your recordings are HD, they are either 1920x1280 interlaced or 1280x720 progressive scan. Since you seem to need to deinterlace, I suspect it is 1920x1280. Depending on various other factors, 2.66 ghz may be a problem.

When you run "top" you will need to look at more than the idle time. The idle time will show 50% idle if you have a single process that is CPU starved because it is maxing out 1 core while the other core goes idle. Look to see if any single process is hitting utilization in the high 90's. I really suspect you are CPU bound.

In your TV playback settings have you tried using libmpeg2? This setting is separate from the deinterlacing mode you select. More importantly, try "standard XVMC" with deinterlace mode of "bob2x". If XVMC is working for you, your CPU utilization will drop dramatically.

Marc

Marc, are you sure its dual core? i thought i bought a pc built without but you do seem to know what your talking about so Hmm
here is the top readout not much use going on here?, i did turn off the openGL setting in my nvidia-settings just need to re-activate the dvi output to test it

top - 20:22:19 up 9:02, 2 users, load average: 0.68, 0.45, 0.40
Tasks: 94 total, 1 running, 93 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 10.9% us, 2.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 67.8% id, 1.5% wa, 0.2% hi, 17.2% si
Mem: 1031356k total, 1015648k used, 15708k free, 10192k buffers
Swap: 248996k total, 0k used, 248996k free, 769136k cached

i would still love to know how to set/find/observe the video resolution, im sure the video is played back in an incorrect ratio(i am assuming this ratio doesnt effect the UI)

again thanks

Hey Marc.

I helped Bizkit build this box. I just want to mention I'm running the same Myth on a 1.7GHz Wilamette (Yes - the first one with RDRAM even), and I have none of the problems he is seeing. My playback is extremely smooth. Also, we're in Australia here. very rarely do our recording here get anywhere near 1920x1280 (unfortunately). There are some exceptions to this rule. The ABC shows episodes of "The Glasshouse" that high, and recently I recorded "The Naked Gun 33 1/3" at that resolution but they really are the exception. Most shows - get ready for this - have a horizontal resolution no more than 576. I hope you're sitting down when youre reading this. Itr's true. Here in Australia they call 576 a high def resolution. Believe it or not.

The box should be easily capable of doing this. Even using one of the cores (considering the PVR-150 is hardware encoded and using stuff all CPU). I'm not sure whether Knoppmyth is SMP enabled, and maybe if it isn't it should be and maybe we can check and load an SMP kernel on it, it really should be able to say use one core for grabbing the program stream, and use the other for playing it back.

Even if it doesn't do this though, the 805 really should be enough from my (OK, only 12 month) experience. You should also be aware I was recoding HD with a 1.3GHz Willamette before I aquired the 1.7GHz box.

Bizkit has been at my place and seen my set up - it plays really smooth and beautifully.

I haven't been to his place yet to see what he means, but I think we need to consider looking at other avenues than raw CPU power, as from the crappy box that I am running as a comparison, his should easily be able to cope.

I'm even only running a 5200 GPU. A lot worse than he has.

From what he's trying to explain it may be something to do with an aspect ratio problem? He says:

I think the mplayer command may need the monitoraspect 16:9 added to it, as I had to do. I cannot remember whether we did this. I can tell you we USED to use the s-video out and he used to tell his TV to stretch it to 16:9. At the time we knew this was wrong but it worked. Now ofcourse he's sending the signal through DVI to a new plasma, this this will not work any more. He need to tell mplayer to send the signal in 16:9 mode.

Am I off-base here? What do you think?

Regards,
Ramrunner.