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Dual HVR-1600, jumps every 67 frames with S-video input MPEG

 

 

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bill at drjproperties

Nov 14, 2008, 12:17 AM

Post #1 of 3 (1113 views)
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Dual HVR-1600, jumps every 67 frames with S-video input MPEG

I am building a new box for use at my school as an event recorder and

video server. I used two HVR-1600 cards. The system is Knoppmyth R5.5.
The installation went fine and I downloaded the latest ivtv driver and
cx18 firmware.

I had to boost the vmalloc to 256mb for both cards (4gb total in system.)

I am only using the S-video input so far. I can view and record on both
cards.

Problem is that when recording or watching live TV through the s-video
port, every 67 frames, it jumps ahead the equivalent of one to two
frames. It isn't dropped frames, it is a jump forward - it is like the
67 frames are recording a smidge too slow, and at the 67th frame it
jumps 2/30ths of a second to catch up (not sure that's what is
happening, but that describes it.) It is noticeable watching live TV,
and it is on the recordings. It jumps every 67 frames like clockwork (I
ran through recordings frame by frame.)

It affects both cards on S-video. Don't know if it applies to over the
air because I have no over the air inputs yet - will work on it
tomorrow. Can't tell if it is the card, or the software.

If I run "cat /dev/video0 | mplayer -" it sends the output directly to
the screen with no other processing, but it is so choppy I can't tell if
the problem is present without Myth or not.

I tried searching the archives and didn't find anything (however, there
are about 250 threads titled "HVR-1600 problem" that I just couldn't go
through to figure out whether the problem was relevant.)

-B



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awalls at radix

Nov 14, 2008, 7:21 AM

Post #2 of 3 (1045 views)
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Re: Dual HVR-1600, jumps every 67 frames with S-video input MPEG [In reply to]

On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 01:17 -0700, Bill McWilliams wrote:
> I am building a new box for use at my school as an event recorder and
>
> video server. I used two HVR-1600 cards. The system is Knoppmyth R5.5.
> The installation went fine and I downloaded the latest ivtv driver and
> cx18 firmware.

I assume you mean *cx18* driver and cx18 firmware. :)


> I had to boost the vmalloc to 256mb for both cards (4gb total in system.)

vmalloc address space used for the CX23418's 64 MB I/O mappings is
different than real physical memory allocation. You're only allocating
the virtual memory page table entries (which are rather small and
waiting to be used) to access the CX23418's memory and registers that
exist across the PCI bus from your CPU, an not allocating actual 64 MB
chunks of system RAM.

Other things that use vmalloc address space *can* consume system RAM:
the machine code for loadable modules (e.g. cx18.ko) and DMA buffers
(e.g. the default ~2 MB of MPEG buffers used to transfer video from the
CX23418)


> I am only using the S-video input so far. I can view and record on both
> cards.
>
> Problem is that when recording or watching live TV through the s-video
> port, every 67 frames, it jumps ahead the equivalent of one to two
> frames. It isn't dropped frames, it is a jump forward - it is like the
> 67 frames are recording a smidge too slow, and at the 67th frame it
> jumps 2/30ths of a second to catch up (not sure that's what is
> happening, but that describes it.) It is noticeable watching live TV,
> and it is on the recordings. It jumps every 67 frames like clockwork (I
> ran through recordings frame by frame.)

Thanks for the investigation. BTW, what tools are you using to analyze
the video?


> It affects both cards on S-video. Don't know if it applies to over the
> air because I have no over the air inputs yet - will work on it
> tomorrow. Can't tell if it is the card, or the software.

I know what it is. It's the driver. The cx18 driver falls behind in
processing the mailbox command from the Encoder.

The problem is the current driver doesn't bother to check that the
encoder has timed out a mailbox that the encoder tried to send to the
driver. So sometimes the encoder has moved on and is changing the
mailbox it sends to us, at the same time we're trying to process the
mailbox. This causes us to sometimes miss buffers the encoder tried to
send to the driver. Ooops... :P

The frequency of the problem really gets exacerbated by simultaneous
analog & digital capture.

I know what has to be done. I'm working the problem. I'll announce
when I have something worth testing.


> If I run "cat /dev/video0 | mplayer -" it sends the output directly to
> the screen with no other processing, but it is so choppy I can't tell if
> the problem is present without Myth or not.

For unbuffered playback, the MPEG TS (as opposed to the default MPEG PS)
for analog capture is a little smoother for me:

$ v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 -c stream_type=1

Mplayer can do buffered playback, so presentation is smoother:

$ mplayer /dev/video0 -cache 8192

MythTV always does buffered playback.


Regards,
Andy

> -B



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bill at drjproperties

Nov 14, 2008, 11:48 PM

Post #3 of 3 (1027 views)
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Re: Dual HVR-1600, jumps every 67 frames with S-video input MPEG [In reply to]

Thanks Andy!

> Thanks for the investigation. BTW, what tools are you using to analyze
> the video?

Just frame by frame using MythTV's built in video edit function.

>
>> It affects both cards on S-video. Don't know if it applies to over the
>> air because I have no over the air inputs yet - will work on it
>> tomorrow. Can't tell if it is the card, or the software.

It only affects the S-video input. It seems to affect it the same when
recording from S-video on both cards simultaneously. No better, no worse.
So 67 frames whether one or both are recording S-video.

It DOES NOT seem to exhibit the problem recording or viewing analog cable
on either card. And if you record S-video on one card, and cable TV on
the other, the problem exists in the S-video recording and not in the
cable recording.

I plugged the s-video into a DVD-R unit and it shows smooth (just to rule
out the feed.)

Also, the problem is very apperant with a lot of motion, but most of the
recordings are speeches at podiums, so you don't really notice much.
Audio is fine.

> Mplayer can do buffered playback, so presentation is smoother:
>
> $ mplayer /dev/video0 -cache 8192

When I pipe it directly into mplayer, it exhibits the same problem with
S-video. Still fine with analog cable input.



> I know what has to be done. I'm working the problem. I'll announce
> when I have something worth testing.

Good man (or woman)! I'll be glad to assist with testing beta drivers.
The unit isn't in production yet, so I can mess with it and break it to my
heart's content - and nuke and reinstall if necessary.




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