[pvrusb2] saa7115 1-0021: Video signal: bad

[dan]

Mike Isely wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, dan wrote:
>
>   
>> Thanks for the reply...I had read the ref'd page(s)...but as you have 
>> found its hard to write it and its even harder for a stubborn old man to 
>> read it with any degree of comprehension... Thanks for holding my 
>> hand..or as we used to say ''''RTFM""". Off subject but you will 
>> appreciate: My first technical training was; age 18, navy comic books at 
>> naval training center for electronics...This worked as I had no math, 
>> science or knowledge...
>> Second instance; age 26, junior engineer for aerospace co----They 
>> supplied tech writer with 30 years experience to turn my design into 
>> tech manual for air force...Last (recent); age 72,  puppy linux, 
>> mepis....these have built short, concise, location (problem ?) specific 
>> popups with well written, short, descriptive  items that really help 
>> those of us that can't or wont read in the depth you have done for the 
>> driver you built.....This is not a critisism of your documentation, just 
>> to show understanding of your frustration..It would be wonderful of you 
>> could access an old experienced tech writer....but again "that's linux".....
>>
>> I spent the morning reading and trying to get tv working...I tried 
>> kdetv, kmplayer, mplayer, kino..etc. but I have been unable to set it 
>> up(or too lazy to find the setups to set it up). I googled and forumed 
>> and wikied for a easy way to setup mythtv....some referrals to synaptic 
>> appear but my mepis 7 install does not download any mythtv packages. I 
>> downloaded the tarball from mythtv site and one day may try to unball 
>> and compile??? it.
>>     
>
> One significant issue that you can't escape is that the pvrusb2 driver 
> emits an mpeg2 video stream via the V4L API.  In order for an app to use 
> this it has to be able to handle mpeg2.  And there are precious few V4L 
> apps that can do this - just xawtv and mythtv are the only two I know 
> about.  There are some other apps that can also just "read" a random 
> path and decode mpeg2 from that - this is how mplayer can be made to 
> work.  Unfortunately that's about it.
>
> There's a much larger set of video apps that can decode mpeg2 from the 
> DVB API.  But unfortunately this driver doesn't use the DVB API.  I'd 
> like very much to "fix" that issue, and there's been some progress along 
> this line, but DVB is a complex beast and there are some aspects to it 
> (like it really is meant for true digital TV receivers) that may yet 
> scuttle this ability.  I'm still learning however...
>
>
>   
>> Tried mplayer (yes, w/o the kde)....results:
>>
>>     
>
>    [...]
>
> In amongst all that noise (mplayer output is very noisy), I see this:
>
>   
>> MPEG-PS file format detected.
>> VIDEO:  MPEG2  720x480  (aspect 2)  29.970 fps  8000.0 kbps (1000.0 kbyte/s)
>>     
>
>    [...]
>
> So it looks like it worked for you.
>
>   
>> Don't understand what this means or at least at a loss as to what to try.
>>     
>
> mplayer tries to open and do a lot of things, and it gets noisy if 
> certain things don't work.  But it's not fatal.  For example, mplayer 
> will try to talk to LIRC so you can use an IR remote with it, but if it 
> fails to open a channel to LIRC it complains loudly (and then goes on 
> without it).  That's OK.  Another thing is that when you stream a 
> real-time feed like this, there's really no "beginning" to it - mplayer 
> just starts getting data at some point.  So it may take a second or so 
> for mplayer to lock on.  That's ok too.
>
> Did you get a picture with it?  You still might not have since you 
> didn't try to tune the device.  When the driver comes up it will by 
> default first try to tune US broadcast frequency channel 7.  If you have 
> an antenna connected and there *is* a channel 7 in your area then you 
> should have seen something.
>
>   
>>  
>> I am using kernel 2.6.22-1-mepis-smp
>>     
>
> I am unfamiliar with mepis, but assuming they've just repackaged the 
> vanilla 2.6.22 kernel then that should be fine.
>
>
>   
>> It looks like I will have to use mplayer if I get tv...I suspect I have 
>> no tv channels or freq tables spec'd...but don't know what you mean by 
>> using Sysfs to control it..  I looked at your info but cannot figure 
>> what I type at term or ????
>>     
>
> There's another page on the site that talks about sysfs.  See here:
>
> http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/usage.html#sysfs
>
> Basically "Sysfs" in this context is a small directory hierarchy where 
> each file is actually a virtual node that directly controls an aspect of 
> the driver.  By cat'ing files in that area you can inspect driver state 
> and by echo'ing new values into files there you can control driver 
> state.  Look at that page now and see if it makes more sense.
>
> You should also be able to use xawtv, but you're going to have to build 
> it first since you need a 4.x version of it.
>
> Of course, the real use for this driver is mythtv.  I *have* built 
> mythtv from sources in the distant past, but I've long since given up on 
> that particular form of self-torture.  I run Debian here and instead 
> install mythtv from prebuilt Debian packages available at 
> www.debian-multimedia.org.  Since I don't know about mepis, I don't know 
> what packaging style it expects.  But in your shoes I'd probably be 
> hunting around mythtv.org (in addition to perhaps a google search like 
> mepis+mythtv) for some answers.
>
>   -Mike
>
>   
Thanks again and again....
Mepis is debian based and uses synaptic which makes it easier for us 
lazy old ones.....

I do not get video with mplayer, reports error opening video_out device 
(-vo)  It will take me some time to absorb your new info....note; 
kmplayer shows gray then blue screen then it breaks to small narrow 
screen. it also has a console view and configurable ch/freq setup screen 
and may be easier for me to use. I will decide today if I try mythtv or 
continue to try mplayer or compile xawtv.