Hi, and thanks for your time.

I've found an older Hauppauge 250, successfully avoiding the unfortunate model 980. Please note the other hardware particulars in my sig. Everything works except the monitor (using a Hitachi 21" CRT) goes black when I try to watch TV. Audio is fine.

I've also tried upgrading to the latest nVidia driver and the latest ivtv. Same result.

In case it is useful, here is the out put from

cat /var/log/messages | grep ivtv

Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ==================== START INIT IVTV ====================
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: version 0.3.6 (o) loading
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Linux version: 2.6.11.9-chw-2 SMP preempt 586 gcc-3.3
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: In case of problems please include the debug info
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: between the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines when
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: mailing the ivtv-devel mailinglist.
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Autodetected WinTV PVR 250 card
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Found an iTVC16 based chip
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Unreasonably low latency timer, setting to 64 (was 32)
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: XXX PCI device: 0x01e0 vendor: 0x10de
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: tuner: chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus ivtv i2c driver #0
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: ivtv: i2c attach [client=(tuner unset),ok]
Jul 27 01:44:35 overturetv kernel: msp34xx: ivtv version
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: i2c attach [client=MSP3448W-A2,ok]
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: saa7115: starting probe for adapter ivtv i2c driver #0 (0x10005)
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: i2c attach [client=saa7115[50],ok]
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: i2c attach [client=tveeprom[50],ok]
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Tuner Type 8, Tuner formats 0x00001000, Radio: yes, Model 0x00893496, Revision 0x00000000
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: NTSC tuner detected
Jul 27 01:44:36 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Radio detected
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Encoder revision: 0x02040011
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Configuring WinTV PVR 250 card with 5 streams
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, streamtype 0 minor 0
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Create DMA stream 0 using 128 32768 byte buffers 0 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, streamtype 1 minor 32
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Create DMA stream 1 using 194 10800 byte buffers 0 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, streamtype 2 minor 224
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Create DMA stream 2 using 240 8736 byte buffers 0 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, streamtype 3 minor 24
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Create DMA stream 3 using 455 4608 byte buffers 0 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, streamtype 4 minor 64
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Create stream 4
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setting Tuner 8
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: tuner: type set to 8 (Temic NTSC (4036 FY5)) by ivtv i2c driver #0
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setting audio matrix to input 3, output 1
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Switching standard to NTSC.
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ivtv_enc_thread: pid = 2734, itv = 0xe11ea820
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ivtv_enc_vbi_thread: pid = 2735, itv = 0xe11ea820
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Initialized WinTV PVR 250, card #0
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ==================== END INIT IVTV ====================
Jul 27 01:44:37 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setting audio matrix to input 1, output 1
Jul 27 01:44:40 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setting audio matrix to input 1, output 1
Jul 27 01:45:39 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ivtv ioctl: Buggy application set embed mode to 4 which is way out of range
Jul 27 01:45:39 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Allocate DMA stream 0 using 128 32768 byte buffers 4194304 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:45:39 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Allocate DMA stream 2 using 240 8736 byte buffers 2097152 kbytes total
Jul 27 01:45:39 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setup VBI API header 0x0000bd06 pkts 1 buffs 48 ln 2 sz 64
Jul 27 01:45:39 overturetv kernel: ivtv: Setup VBI start 0x0018ea04 frames 48 fpi 1 lines 0x000000f1
Jul 27 01:45:40 overturetv kernel: ivtv: VBI insertion started
Jul 27 01:46:24 overturetv kernel: ivtv: ENC: Sleep timeout interrupted.
Jul 27 01:46:24 overturetv kernel: ivtv: close stopping embedded VBI capture

_________________
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
MSI K7N2 Delta2 ATX w/FX5200 AGP video
2X256MB PC3200 RAM
Maxtor 250GB drive (master on IDE 1)
Pioneer DVR-109 (master on IDE 2)
Antec Overture II ATX case with 330watts
Hauppauge 250 in PCI slot 2

Any particular reason that you're using "0.3.6o" rather than "0.2.0rc3j" ?

Also, what are you using for a video driver, and have you got your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 set up correctly? It'll help if you can lay your hands on a "known good" sample mpeg-2 file to test playback with... Just drop it in the /myth/video directory and choose the menu option to get it to check for new stuff...

Hi, and thanks. Yes, as I mentioned, one of the things I tried is upgrading ivtv, since other posters have said this helped them. If this is going to mess things up, I can do a reinstall. It doesn't really take long.

Regarding, editing XF86Config-4, I had read in the instructions that this is only necessary if you're hooking it up to a TV, but I haven't done that yet. If this is wrong, how do I proceed?

Last time I posted, you also mentioned I should try logging the front end, and I've done so this time. Here is the output:

2005-07-27 03:38:45.524 New DB connection, total: 1
Total desktop width=1024, height=768, numscreens=1
2005-07-27 03:38:45.528 Using screen 0, 1024x768 at 0,0
2005-07-27 03:38:45.531 mythfrontend version: 0.18.1.20050510-1 www.mythtv.org
2005-07-27 03:38:45.531 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
2005-07-27 03:38:45.658 Switching to square mode (blue)
mythtv: could not connect to socket
mythtv: Connection refused
lirc_init failed for mythtv, see preceding messages
2005-07-27 03:38:45.920 Joystick disabled.
2005-07-27 03:38:45.941 Registering Internal as a media playback plugin.
2005-07-27 03:38:45.955 Registering MythDVD DVD Media Handler as a media handler
2005-07-27 03:38:45.956 Registering MythDVD VCD Media Handler as a media handler
2005-07-27 03:38:46.477 Registering MythMusic Media Handler as a media handler
SIP listening on IP Address 192.168.0.80:5060 NAT address 192.168.0.80
SIP: Cannot register; proxy, username or password not set
2005-07-27 03:38:51.442 New DB connection, total: 2
2005-07-27 03:38:51.461 Connecting to backend server: 192.168.0.80:6543 (try 1 of 5)
2005-07-27 03:38:51.469 Using protocol version 15
2005-07-27 03:38:51.499 Using protocol version 15
2005-07-27 03:38:56.598 Opening audio device '/dev/dsp'.
2005-07-27 03:38:56.598 Opening OSS audio device '/dev/dsp'.
2005-07-27 03:38:56.675 Using XV port 53
2005-07-27 03:38:56.852 Using realtime priority.
2005-07-27 03:38:56.871 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2005-07-27 03:38:57.608 Video timing method: USleep with busy wait
2005-07-27 03:38:58.235 prebuffering pause
2005-07-27 03:39:02.900 Timed out waiting for free video buffers.
2005-07-27 03:39:05.115 Timed out waiting for free video buffers.
2005-07-27 03:39:07.325 Timed out waiting for free video buffers.
2005-07-27 03:39:09.538 Timed out waiting for free video buffers.

and on and on...

_________________
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
MSI K7N2 Delta2 ATX w/FX5200 AGP video
2X256MB PC3200 RAM
Maxtor 250GB drive (master on IDE 1)
Pioneer DVR-109 (master on IDE 2)
Antec Overture II ATX case with 330watts
Hauppauge 250 in PCI slot 2

Those socket errors make it look like one of your server daemons isn't running. Most likley mysql or mythbackend, although possibly lircd. Whoops! DEFINITELY lirc...

This is also definitely bad... Although I don't recall the cause off the top of my head. A search using that error message (require all terms!) here, and over in the MythTV Users mailing list archive should turn up the answer however.

As for the X config. You don't need to monkey with the sync, modes, or such with a monitor, but you will still want to switch from the nv driver to the nvidia driver. It works much better for video playback using the Xv extension. Search around here for install-nvidia-7174-debian.sh for more detail. There may also be certain options you want to turn off to avodi problems. See any of the numerous samples posted in the forums.

Thanks. I rebuilt it, and then all I had to do was change nv to nvidia in the Config file.

After several weeks, it actually works. However, I'm seeing a little stuttering. I've seen this mentioned in the forums and am searching now.

Thanks again.

_________________
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
MSI K7N2 Delta2 ATX w/FX5200 AGP video
2X256MB PC3200 RAM
Maxtor 250GB drive (master on IDE 1)
Pioneer DVR-109 (master on IDE 2)
Antec Overture II ATX case with 330watts
Hauppauge 250 in PCI slot 2