MythTV General Discussion and Support

[HyDrA]

Yeah I don't imagine it's their biggest priority.

Hmm I wonder how hard it'd be to implement myself...

[dave-]

I've just finished setting up the idle scripts for when the backend is not doing anything. Be nice if you could increase the max idle wait beyond 2hrs.

Seems pointless having the machine turn on around 4pm then off and on again around 7pm. An idle time of 4hrs would be good as it would prevent multiple startups in the evenings which probably use more power than idling for an hour or 2.

The myth-setup gui doesn't allow greater than 120mins, can it be edited via mysql or another means? If not I'll just get my idle script to monitor a dummy process to trick the idle status.

[kizzav]

I bought my first Asus MyCinema U3100 Mini from Computer Target 6-7 months ago. Tried to get one today, they don't stock it anymore. However, they said they might be able to order it in via a supplier.

Me thinks this model has been dying for a while now.

[hollstar]

I'd be interested to know what hardware people are using in conjunction with Plasma TV's?

At the moment I only have a standard monitor cable connected to my Panasonic plasma and have a few display problems. I intend on toying with S-Video over the coming days to see how that compares. In short the image appears to be in a 16:9 format, however it has large lines at the top and bottom.

In the long term, what is the best TV-Out method? I assume HDMI?

[HyDrA]

HDMI is the way to go I've found, far easier to set up in my experience! You can pick up some pretty cheap HDMI cables from Jaycar, as long as it's short you should be OK.

[hollstar]

Originally Posted by HyDrA

HDMI is the way to go I've found, far easier to set up in my experience! You can pick up some pretty cheap HDMI cables from Jaycar, as long as it's short you should be OK.

Have you had an issues with audio over the HDMI cable? Can I also ask what card your using?

I don't know about anyone else, but finding clear and concise information on graphics cards and how people have configured them seems to be hard to come by?

[HyDrA]

Yes I did have problems initially, but it's not too hard to get things working.

I'm using a GT220, Ubuntu 10.10 (which has ALSA 1.0.23 by default), and a 7.1 surround system with HDMI switching.

Ended up adding this to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=0 probe_mask=0xffff,0xfff2

Set up the HDMI audio in the GUI audio config, ensured it was not muted using alsamixer and then scanned for audio devices in MythTV (0.24).

The HD movies I have seem to have 5.1, haven't seen any with 7.1 yet But the 5.1 Dolby passthrough works fine.

[kizzav]

Originally Posted by hollstar

I'd be interested to know what hardware people are using in conjunction with Plasma TV's?

At the moment I only have a standard monitor cable connected to my Panasonic plasma and have a few display problems. I intend on toying with S-Video over the coming days to see how that compares. In short the image appears to be in a 16:9 format, however it has large lines at the top and bottom.

In the long term, what is the best TV-Out method? I assume HDMI?

I wouldn't even bother with anything else. S-Video is basically composite video only (yellow RCA), with a different termination.

Waste of time trying it on a Plasma.

VGA would be a minimum requirement. Anything else (eg: DVI, HDMI) is the better way to go.

Originally Posted by HyDrA

HDMI is the way to go I've found, far easier to set up in my experience! You can pick up some pretty cheap HDMI cables from Jaycar, as long as it's short you should be OK.

Jaycar Cat No# WV7914 = $9.95
Other Jaycar HDMI cables...

[Oblong Cheese]

Originally Posted by hollstar

Have you had an issues with audio over the HDMI cable? Can I also ask what card your using?

I don't know about anyone else, but finding clear and concise information on graphics cards and how people have configured them seems to be hard to come by?

Graphics cards are one of those things these days that really don't need much configuration. As long as you have an nVidia chipset card with HDMI out, you just need to install their binary blob kernel driver and everything else "just works" normally.

I personally use an nVidia 9400GT with an HDMI cable (video only). Sometimes your television needs to have "overscan" disabled so when you give it a 1080p signal from a graphics card it doesn't cut off the edges.

[HyRax1]

Originally Posted by kizzav

I wouldn't even bother with anything else. S-Video is basically composite video only (yellow RCA), with a different termination.

Not quite - S-Video has a composite black and white video signal but with the luminance and chroma signals sent on separate wires, thus providing a significantly crisper and more vibrant picture with nearly no colour bleed than composite alone. This was awesome back in the early 90's if you could afford an S-Video capable telly.

Originally Posted by kizzav

Waste of time trying it on a Plasma.

Anything less than Component Video or VGA is a waste of time on any relatively modern television now.

TV's these days are cheap. Even a baseline chop-shop brand from China you've never heard of with HDMI input is going to have a better picture than an older good-quality plasma that has nothing better than S-Video going into it, so there's no excuse for those even on an extreme budget to not be able to get a half-decent setup these days.

[hollstar]

The only reason I wanted to try the S-Video was because of the framing on the VGA. Is their any way to ensure the recording method MythTV uses is in the best resolution/quality?

[HyRax1]

Originally Posted by hollstar

The only reason I wanted to try the S-Video was because of the framing on the VGA. Is their any way to ensure the recording method MythTV uses is in the best resolution/quality?

MythTV records in the original quality/resolution as received from the TV network in question. All it does is dump the stream. There is absolutely no processing done.

When you play it back, MythTV may resize the video being played to fit the display in question, ie: scale down 1080p to fit a 1280x800 laptop display, or scale up 576i to fit the vertical space of a 1080p display, etc. This is done on the fly, however. No changes are made to the source material.

The only post-processing MythTV will ever do is if you schedule transcoding jobs to convert the recorded programs into something your iPhone or iPad or iDog or iCat can use.

If you are getting a black frame around your VGA image (making the image appear smaller than the real estate of the screen itself), then that is a fault of the TV and its internal scaler. Look for any overscanning options present in your TV's setup.

[kizzav]

Originally Posted by HyRax1

Not quite - S-Video has a composite black and white video signal but with the luminance and chroma signals sent on separate wires, thus providing a significantly crisper and more vibrant picture with nearly no colour bleed than composite alone. This was awesome back in the early 90's if you could afford an S-Video capable telly.


Anything less than Component Video or VGA is a waste of time on any relatively modern television now.

TV's these days are cheap. Even a baseline chop-shop brand from China you've never heard of with HDMI input is going to have a better picture than an older good-quality plasma that has nothing better than S-Video going into it, so there's no excuse for those even on an extreme budget to not be able to get a half-decent setup these days.

My point was, using S-Video... on a plasma? Defeats the purpose of having a Plasma.

I use component on my Xbox 360 Elite. Still get HD resolutions, but in analogue signal. Long story short, original 360 died (years after already being sent away for repair), bought an Elite. Elite comes with composite cable only, stuck with my component cable from old 360 (cbf playing/changing cables).

I tried HDMI at one stage, had lip syncing issues, stayed with component. Not too much of a difference in picture quality/clarity. Plus, I could still use my RCA terminated, amplified speakers without further stuffing around.

Originally Posted by HyRax1

Look for any overscanning options present in your TV's setup.

Or overscan settings in the control panel of the GFX card.


On a side note, is there a specific way to installing firmware for an unsupported USB tuner?

I've got a KWorld USB DVB-T DVB-T 395UR. The linux.org wiki states that it's been supported since the 2.6.29 kernel. I'm running 2.6.32-27-generic.

[Oblong Cheese]

Originally Posted by kizzav

On a side note, is there a specific way to installing firmware for an unsupported USB tuner?

I've got a KWorld USB DVB-T DVB-T 395UR. The linux.org wiki states that it's been supported since the 2.6.29 kernel. I'm running 2.6.32-27-generic.

Yeah, you'll need to find the .bin file for the firmware and put it into the location your distro looks for such files when it attempts to load firmware for unknown devices. Where that is will depend on your distro.

[RILEYP]

Originally Posted by kizzav

On a side note, is there a specific way to installing firmware for an unsupported USB tuner?

I've got a KWorld USB DVB-T DVB-T 395UR. The linux.org wiki states that it's been supported since the 2.6.29 kernel. I'm running 2.6.32-27-generic.

If your running ubuntu then the firmware file can be placed in /lib/firmware
I think (not certain) that that tuner has the afatech 9013 or 9015 chipset. You could try the firmware files I have linked to above in my post on the leadtek gold usb. To load a new firmware into your tuner you must first remove/rename the original firmware file that has been loaded and then ensure the new firmware has been loaded by looking in dmesg. Because a usb tuner has a small amount of memory in it is possible to unplug a tuner with a old firmware loaded and replug it after replacing the firmware file and for it to reload the old firmware! So just make sure in dmseg your proposed firmware file has been loaded before deciding that that firmware is no good.
Eg the latest firmware file for the afatech af9013/15 driver is v4.91 this firmware however makes the leadtek gold tuner take 3 - 4 minutes to lock on a channel but fixes the remote polling problem. (It is thus useless) the v4.65 firmware however works fine and gets lock in seconds but has a remote polling issue. I use a ms remote/receiver like everyone else so its not an issue for me.
cheers rileyp