Hi There,

I have got KnoppMyth installed, and outputting to my TV, but I have run into a few issues that I am unable to figure out, and could not find the aswers to on the Forums. Some of these may be MythTV-related (as opposed to KnppMyth-related), but hopefully you are able to help me out with *some* of them

Here is what I have:

Video: PVR-250, Matrox G400 (for TV-Out)
KnoppMyth: R4V5
CPU: 1.3GHZ
RAM: 512MB

KnoppMyth installed fine, and mostly everything works okay. Here are ths issues I have run into:

1 TV Output is "skewed": I was able to get the TV Out working by downloading and installing the "Matrox Power Desk" and setting up the TV display that way (800x600). It looks like the gray "background" KnoppMyth screen is okay, but when KnoppMyth actually loads, it's a little "off-kilter", or rather, it's almost as is 800x600 is too big. I was able to get the G400 to output using the framebuffer at 720x576 a *long* time ago (I think that is a PAL specification, though I am in North America), and it fit perfectly on my screen. I would prefer to use the framebuffer again, but have since lost my instructions for doing it. I have tried to follow some of the posts on thr MythTV and KnoppMyth lists and forums, but just cannot seem to get it to work (when I get to where I use the 'matroxset' commands, I am told that '/dev/fb0' and '/dev/fb1' do not exist, even though all the proper modules are loaded). I have seen references to the G200-HOWTO which many people have said got them to get the G400 working, but I have been unable to find it. Any pointers (or links to the G200-HOWTO) would be greatly appreciated

2. Blue screen: When I try to watch television or watch a recorded program, all I get on my TV is a blue screen. I loaded the tveeprom module, and it tells me that the tuner type is 8. I set the tuner type to 8, and rebooted. 'dmesg' indicated it was on tuner type 8. I still get a blue screen. The funny thing, however, is that while I get a blue screen on the TV, the picture and sound (both from watching TV and a recording) show up up on the monitor I have hooked up to the PVR. When I used Matrox Power Desk to configure the G400 output, I set it for "clone". I am not sure this is the problem, but it's the only thing I can think of

3. Previously Recorded Material: I have previously-recorded material (mpegs, MP#s, etc.) that I put into what I thought were their proper directories: MP3s in '/myth/music' and the MPEGS in '/myth/video', but when I try to watch or listen to them, nothing shows up in Myth. I have tried restarting the MythTV (both fronted and backend), and even rbooting the entire machine, but still nothing.

Any help, advice, pointrs, URLS, etc. would be greatly appreciated in sorting out the above.

Silk

2) this problem is indicative of the display you are trying to watch on not having xv or it not working properly, which is quite possibly because of your clone setup. I know twinview in nvidia will only do xv on one screen, and by default that is the crt, probably the same type of thing happening here.

on another note, do you have the matrox hal and drivers loaded? I know you said you have the powerdesk, but that will run with the open source drivers too. But If I remember you need the matrox drivers to do tvout and multiple monitor etc. but it has been a LONG time since I did anything with matrox.

3)you will need to go to the section I think it's manage data or something like that, sorry not in front of my box and they changed the menus recently. For the video you go to the video manager, and it will parse the dir and then it will show up. For the music I think you will find a search for music option somewhere in there.

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

Xsecrets

1) if by skewed you mean still a rectangle but too big for the screen then mythtv has options under
setup -> appearance
These allow you to place and scale the gui to your screen, it then resizes everything to look nice.

Alright, I will try doing it with the TV as the only display, and see if that gives me the proper output on the TV.

For others who may be using the G400: How are you getting MythTV to display out to the TV.



I do, yes. They are the "Beta 3" drivers, or something like that, which will run on XFree86 v4.3 (the older drivers probably would have worked as well, but officially, they were written for XFree86 v.41 and v4.2, according to their documentation)



Alright, I will look for that. Thank you. Is this available from the web interface as well?

TIA,

Silk

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. As I said, the "gray background" with the KnoppMyth logo, etc. seems to fix the screen perfectly, but the MythTV itself seems justa tad too big.



Hrm, I don't recall seeing that, but I will definately take another look, as I am by no means an expert on all the options available under the interface 9though i have been through all of them at lwast a couple times, but mostly skimming through).

Thanks for the tip! Now to just get rid of that blue screen that shows up when i am trying to watch TV or a recorded program, and we'll be off to the races!

TIA,

Silk

Also check that when/after you copied the files, you corrected the ownership and permissions... They should be owned by the mythtv user and readable at the very least by that user. Many people do this kind of thing as root and the files and/or directories end up inaccessible to the frontend running as mythtv.

Hi all,

I am still getting a blue screen on the TV output when either watching TV or watching a recorded program. However, I get a perfect picture on the monitor.

I configured the G400 using the "Power Desk" utility, and set it to clone, as it was the only option that seemed to work to display MythTV on the TV screen properly.

I guess my questions are this:

1. Is anyone using a G400 with MythTV with TV output under X11. If so, would it be possible to post your whole XF86Config-4 file?

2. Is anyone using the G400 with MythTV output using framebuffer instead of X11? If so, what steps do you take to get that setup properly?

I appreciate your help. TIA!

Silk

so if you completely disconnect the monitor and then reboot with only the tv connected you still can't get a picture on the tv?

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

Xsecrets

That is correct; I still get just a blue screen. What if I set the monitor setup in "Power Desk" to only one "head" then have the monitor disconnected, as opposed to it's current setup of "clone"?

Silk

Nope, that did not work either; I just got a nice black screen And I tried commenting out the "Screen 1" stuff from XF86Config-4, and leaving just the "Screen 2" (TV) stuff, but that did do much either; in fact, the X Server would just keep crashing

Silk

I have a little additional information, which may be of help...

> I am currently running:
>
> MythTV v0.16
> Hauppage PVR-250
> Matrox G400 (dual head) -> TVOut

This is not the card that can hook up to the blue "breakout box", though I do have one of those cards also (I was musing about using it as a second recording source). Is it by any chance the G400 card with the blue breakout box that people are able to get up and running? Will the "Matrox Power Desk" tool still work with this card?

TIA,

Silk

well you probably don't need to comment out screen1 stuff you need to change it to say the same as screen2 did before.

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

Xsecrets

Hi All,

I finally have the second head of my Matrox Dual Head outputting to TV, and it all works rather nicely. I just have to make a few minor tweaks, I think, but all in all, not too bad.

I have posted my "recipe" in the "Howto" section of this forum, if anyone feels it may be useful to them. I plan on adding it (after some editing) to the MythTV Wiki as well.

Thanks for all the help.

Silk