My MythTV box build diary

Latest stuff on top.

Current Hardware:

• Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo Platinum (MS-7030).
• CPU: AMD Athlon64 2800+ 512kB, Socket 754, Newcastle core.
• Memory: 2x Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 512MB running at 1T 2-3-2-10.
• Video: MSI GeForce4 MX-4000 64MB-64bit (G4MX4000-T64B, MSI Part No:MS-8936-340). Has VGA and TV-OUT(S-Video). Originally I was going to use Sapphire Radeon 9100 which has VGA, DVI, and TV-OUT (S-Video). But I couldn't get the TV-OUT to work in X.
• Capture Card: Two Hauppage WinTV Go (Connexant BT878A).
• Harddrive: Seagate Barracuda PATA 160GB and 200GB.
• Optical: NEC3500 DVD-/+RW, Samsung CDROM.
• Case: Rosewill Value R103A from Newegg.
• Power Supply: Super-Flower Silent TT-520SS 520W. Originally using a Rosewill that came with the case, but I suspected the lock-up problem I'm having is related to a power supply problem but I think it's related to the WinTV Go cards and the snd-b87x drivers.
• Working on a homemade IrDA transceiver. Still gotta pick a Remote.

Software:

• Linux: Fedora Core 3, X86_64.
• MythTV: 0.17.

Links:

• www.fedoraforum.org
• www.mythtv.org
• www.mythtv.info
• wilsonet.com/mythtv
• www.mythtvtalk.com/forum
• http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/

Updates:

Sat 3/19/05 PM -

• I think the backend segfaults I've been experiencing is related to the Win-TV Go cards and the snd-bt87x drivers. At least with kernel 2.6.10_770. With the sound input at TV-Tuner which gives no sound the system seems to be running fine. But with the sound inputs at FM, the backend segfaulted at the end of dual channel recording.

Thu 3/10/05 PM -

• Installed new power supply. For some reason after a reboot the mysql database was screwed up like before. So dropped the database and recreated it. Still getting kernel oops and backend segfault.
• Went back to kernel 2.6.10_760_FC3. This one seems to just lock up the machine after a few hours.

Tue 3/8/05 PM -

• Still fighting backend segfaults. Ran memtest at default BIOS DRAM settings for 30+ passes, no errors. Ran memtest at 1T 2-3-2-10 for 30+ passes, no errors.
• Gotta figure out if I can use XvMC. Use "--verbose playback" on mythfrontend to figure out what's going on.

Mon 3/7/05 PM -

• Backend keeps segfaulting. Usually at the end of a two tuner recording.
• Also getting kernel oops, I think in relation with the bttv driver.
• Somehow with all my messing around the mysql database is giving errors. So I dropped it and recreated it.

Mon 2/28/05 PM -

• Changed capture resolution back to 480x480. At 544x480 and 512x480 the backend was seg-faulting.

Sun 2/27/05 -

• Changed capture resolution from 480x480 to 544x480.
• Recording 1 program puts the CPU at 60%. 2 programs at 80%.

Sat 2/26/05 -

• Worked on the IrDA receiver. Using the Vishay part for now. To get lirc_sir working had to disable /dev/ttyS1. Seems to be receiving the Onkyo remote signals just fine. Will figure out what to do with it later. Right now just have the receiver taped to the side of the case.

Fri 2/25/05 PM -

• Kept getting blank pages with MythWeb. Had to increase memory_limit in /etc/php.ini to 32M. I guess my apache doesn't support php value.
• To play iso files with xine from MythVideo. Create an iso filetype. Then set the player command to something like xine -pfhq --no-splash dvd://%s/.

Thu 2/24/05 PM -

• Installed Windows Myth Filters from dsmyth.sourceforge.net. Opened up the mysql database.
• Installing perl-Video-DVDRip. Had to install gnome-libs 1st since for some reason smart doesn't realize that libgtkxmhtml is provided by gnome-libs.
• Commercials are not getting flagged properly. A lot of lock ups during play back requiring frontend shutdown. Turn off Strict Commercial Detection.

Wed 2/23/05 PM -

• Commercial Flagging a 1 hr show takes ~30 min.
• Transcoding a 1 hr show takes ~20 min.

Tue 2/22/05 PM -

• At 800x600 TV picture doesn't fill up the entire screen especially horizontally. Tried the overscan adjustments in mythtv, no success. Went back to 1024x768.
• Changed capture resolution to 480x240. At lower horizontal the picture looks grainy.
• Changed commercial flagging to ALL.
• Extra audio buffering already ON.
• Figured out how to adjust dpi. Have to use DisplaySize option in the Monitor section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Tue 2/22/05 AM -

• Need to drop resolution to 800x600.
• Drop Capture resolution to 352x240 (half DVD) or 320x240 (4:3 ratio).
• Change commercial flagging method to ALL.
• Make sure Extra audio buffering is on.
• v0.17 has DPMS support. Probably should try turning on screensaver and adjust blanking.
• Changing screen dpi: put Xft.dpi: 100 in ~/.Xresources. Check font list. Maybe play with DisplaySize in xorg.conf.

Mon 2/21/05 PM -

• Commercial Flagging a 1 hr show takes ~37 min.
• Transcoding a 1 hr show takes ~45 min.

Sat 2/19/05 -

• Didn't have to chmod 444 /etc/asound.state.
• TV setup not stored in ~/.nvidia-settings-rc. Added by hand, didn't work. Maybe there's a bug with TwinView.
• xine and xine-lib from dag doesn't have alsa support. Had to install rpms from freshrpms.net.

Fri 2/18/05 PM -

• Machine up since last night, no issues.
• Installed GPG keys from atrpms.net and dag.wieers.com.
• Installed from atrpms.net:
  • rpm -Uvh fedora-package-config
  • rpm -Uvh fedora-release
  • rpm -Uvh medley-package-config. Probably could have just installed this with --nodeps instead of the fedora-package config.
  • rpm -Uvh python-abi
  • rpm -Uvh python24
  • rpm -Uvh --nodeps yum. Had to use --nodeps cause it complained that it needed /etc/yum.conf even though it's there. I copied it to /etc/yum.conf.orig 1st just in case. This error probably wouldn't be here if I had installed the medley in the 1st place.
  • yum install rpm-python24
  • yum install smart
  • yum install smart-update
  • rpm -Uvh pygtk2-python24
  • yum install smart-gui
• Once again smart --gui wouldn't run.
• First time smart --shell is executed it asked to add dag, base, atrpms, updates-released, and BIOrpms sources. Yes to all.
• Doing "smart upgrade" got nothing. Ooops. Have to do "smart update" to update the package list 1st, then "smart upgrade". 33.1MB worth of updates. Ran upgrade 2nd time, 6 more updates. Ran the 3rd time, 1 more update. Nothing on 4th try.
• Used smart to install the 2 nvidia packages in Jarod's Guide.
• Configured TwinView for now.
• Installed alsa-kmdl and alsa-driver rpms.
• Created /etc/asound.conf from DigitalSoundHowTo.
• Ran smart install mythtv-suite. 67 packages.
• Added /dev/adsp* to the sound group in /etc/security/console.perms.
• Used smart to install lirc-kmdl and lirc rpmgs.
• Turn on mysqld on levels 345
• Downgrade urw-fonts to 2.1-7 and lock this version in smart --gui (for some reason it's running now).
• Ran through basic myth setup. Ran back and front end command line for now.

Thu 2/17/05 PM -

• Ran memtest. No errors on 4 passes.
• Got kernel panic while I was just editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
• Decided to start from scratch. Reinstalling FC3, this time leave Arch Compatibility Support group checked.
  • Added "*.* /dev/tty8" to /etc/syslog.conf.
  • Turn on vncserver, nfs, and httpd services on levels 3, 4, and 5.
  • Ran up2date, 230 updates.

Thu 2/17/05 AM -

• Fighting a lock up problem. Last night the box stopped responding, could be after or during recording on both cards. I could still ping it but that's about it.
• Backed off on the DRAM settings to 2T 3-3-3-10 (all Auto except for the 10). Only running one mythfrontend (exited from the one in the VNC session).

Wed 2/16/05 PM -

• Installed NVidia card. Installed driver rpms from atrpms. Worked without too much problems. Running at 1024x768 for now.
• A 30 min recording takes 1.6-1.7G in RTjpeg. About 380-390M after transcoding to MPEG4.
• Had to chmod 444 asound.state to keep alsactl store from setting the capture sources to "TV Tuner", they needed to be FM for some reason.

Tue 2/15/05 PM -

• Swapped tuner cards around. The one with the Phillips tuner is sensitive to RFI from the other one with the Temic tuner.
• Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers (also called /etc/kde/kdm/Xservers) to add -dpi 100. Oops, doesn't work. Looks like the Radeon driver is overriding this. I'll wait until I'm using the NVidia card.

Tue 2/15/05 AM -

• Good reference for LIRC and IrDA: www.turbobit.com/lirc.html.

Mon 2/14/05 PM -

• Success with the snd-bt87x driver! Using /dev/adsp* (i.e. analog) device. Needed pcm.bt87x and ctl.bt87x entries in /etc/asound.conf. Just the ALSA portion in /etc/modules.conf (snd-card-1 snd-bt87x). During one of the permutations I swore I tried /dev/dsp*(i.e. digital device) and it worked, but then I couldn't get it to repeat.
• For some reason "alsactl store" was giving me a Segmentation fault. Reinstalled all rpms with alsa in ther name (with rpm -Uvh --force). One of them, can't remember which one, complained about libasound which wasn't even installed. So I installed it. Seems to be working now. Noticed the same thing Jarod saw, the "alsactl restore" feature is not working.
• For the second WinTV GO card, I didn't have to add anything to the Linux portion. Just had to run mythtvsetup to setup the new capture card and connection for it.
• Set up a few test recording events, some using both capture cards, some to capture all showing of a show.

Mon 2/14/05 AM -

• Reading more on snd-bt87x and btaudio. So btaudio is an OSS driver while snd-bt87x is an ALSA driver but has support for OSS API. Given that, using snd-bt87x, in /etc/modules.conf I have to set up the complete OSS/Free section. Also looks like with my WinTV Go card (there are various versions with the same model name) I have to use analog output, doesn't look like the digital chip is there (e.g. MS34xx, scan through dmesg).

Sun 2/13/05 -

• Gave up on btaudio.
• Changed directory structure to follow KnoppMyth method.
• Performed some automation stuff.
• Recording a show takes 40% of CPU.
• Watching a recorded show takes 15% of CPU.
• Turned on Automatic Commercial skipping in Playback. Seems to work well in the couple of shows I had recorded.
• Need a working lm_sensors. Wanna see what CPU temp is. Just had to run sensors-detect as root and started lm_sensors in init.d. Then can run sensors.
• Ripping some DVDs. Quality: Perfect - no transcoding, Excellent/Good/Medium - rip+transcode.
• Working on snd_bt87x. If I want to put 2 capture cards I need to get sound through the PCI bus. No luck. I don't think my WinTV Go can route sound through PCI.

Sat 2/12/05 -

• http://www.realh.co.uk/linux_tv_howto/
• http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Configuring_TV_out
• Gave up on ATI. Ordered MSI G4MX4000-T64B.
• uninstalled ATI driver.
• Working on sound. The DigitalSoundHowTo at mythtv.info worked great. Using digital-hw as default in .asoundrc.
• Flashed BIOS from 1.4 to 1.5. Got rid of "powernow-k8: BIOS error - no PSB" during boot up.
• Tried smart install mythtv-suite. Complained about mythmusic. Had to do rpm -Uvh --nodeps of mythmusic from atrpms.net. Then retrid mythtv-suite, 59 packages.
• Need to install GPG key for DAG RPMs.
• Added /dev/adsp to sound group in /etc/security/console.perms.
• Worked with ALSA:default as output device and digital-hw as mixer device.
• Major pieces seem to work.
• Had to add -ac hwac3 to the mplayer command for DVD.
• Thinking btaudio
• Recorded a couple of TV shows as tests.

Fri 2/11/05 PM -

• Messing around with TVOUT. No success.

Fri 2/11/05 AM -

• Maybe I need to try recompile the ATI driver now that I've installed libstdc++.so.5.
• Check fps in glxgears and fgl_glxgears.
• CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart xorg.
• www.fedorafaq.org.
• Wished I'd seen this yesterday http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32300
• http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33762649
• http://www.stanford.edu/~fenn/linux/radeon.shtml

Thu 2/10/05 PM -

• After reading atrpms-users mailing list archives, tried installing smartpm again:
  • Did rpm -Uvh on medley-package-config (needed --force), fedora-release, python-abi, yum, python24 on packages from atrpms.net.
  • Then "yum install" on rpm-python24, smart, and smart-update.
  • Then rpm -Uvh pygtk2-python24 (for some reason yum install didn't find it).
  • Then yum install smart-gui.
• "smart --gui" won't run. Complained "System has no support for gtk python interface". "smart --shell" works fine.
• Tried installing ATI driver ver. 8.8.25:
  • Downloaded rpm from ATI.
  • Tried --nodeps to override libstdc++.so.5 errors, complained about conflict with Mesa-libGL.
  • Uninstalled Mesa-libGL with --nodeps (3 packages, 2 GL and 1 GLU) per ATI info.
  • Tried to install the driver again, got agppart pci error, found http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=660. Applied the patch.
  • Module loaded OK after reboot. fglrxinfo still shows Mesa. glxgears ran, but fgl_glxgears doesn't. TV-OUT hosed. Messed around with a few settings, no luck.
  • Uninstall and reinstall the ATI rpm. Reinstalled Mesa-libGL packages.
  • Didn't uninstall Mesa-libGL this time. Used rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force.
  • Had to install libstdc++-3.3.3-7 to get libstdc++.so.5. Funny, I didn't see anybody else reporting having to do this ???
  • http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33800812 was useful.
  • http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=22 was useful also.
  • Using external agpgart. Didn't find agpgart module though; is it built into the kernel in FC3?
  • fglrxinfo showed I'm using ATI driver now and fgl_glxgears ran as expected.
  • TV-OUT still hosed, got an output but looked like sync is incorrect.

Wed 2/9/05 PM -

• Tried resolving dependency errors on smartpm. Created /etc/smart dir and file, no luck. Installed with --nodeps. Tried installing smart-gui, got more dependency errors. Tried to install one of them, up2date wouldn't start. Oh Oh.
• Reinstalled Fedora Core 3. Again, didn't install Compatibility Support group. 219 updates through up2date.

Wed 2/9/05 AM -

• More research on LIRC. Looks like I can also use Agilent's IR transceiver. Models HSDL-3003,3005,3000,3612 looks suitable.

Tue 2/8/05 PM -

• Got my 15 case fans, installed 2.
• Two more updates from up2date, cups stuff.
• Still got dependency errors trying to install smartpm; looks like python stuff.
• Trying to resolve dependencies using yum. Using rpmfind.net it looks like the updates are available in Fedora Core Development. Activated fedora-devel.repo in /etc/yum.repo.d (enabled=1). Ran "yum update rpm", a whole bunch of packages needed updating. Got packages unsigned error, turned off gpgcheck. Got new and old perl files conflicted. Giving up on yum.
• Trying up2date. Turn on the updates-testing and development sources in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources. Updated rpm-python.
• Tried smartpm again, still complained about 3 things, /etc/smart,/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/rpmmodule.so, and /usr/lib64/smart/distro.py.
• Looks like I will have to try up2date. Or try to work around the 3 files error.

Tue 2/8/05 AM -

• Got the downloaded packages installed and rebooted before I had to leave for work. All fine so far.
• Did some research into LIRC. Found out that you CAN actually use the IrDA port on the motherboard. Just need to build some hardware for it. Inspired by Dschen Reinecke's site (www.infraredport.com), I am planning to use Vishay's IR transceiver model TFDU4100. Just as soon as I can get some samples ;-).

Mon 2/7/05 PM -

• Got my 160GB Seagate drive today. Damn FedEx still has my case fans. They didn't even ring the doorbell and yet claimed that there's nobody home. Anyways ...
• After an uneventful HD swap (took Maxtor 30GB out, put Seagate 160GB in), OK I so forgot to reconnect the cables the 1st time and as as a result had to go into BIOS and pick which HD to boot from (hey this is a good option to have), reinstalled Fedora one more time.
• Partition scheme: 100MB for /boot, 1023MB for swap, 10GB for /, and the rest (almost 350GB) in an LVM for /video.
• This time didn't install the Arch Compatibility Support package. Long story short, apt still doesn't work because multilibs still installed. Reading the forum messages linked in Jarod's Guide, looks like Axel Thimm (the atrpms guy) suggested either yum or smartpm. Preferrable the latest smartpm, I think. So, attempted to install latest smartpm, complained about a whole bunch of python things; need newer version it looks like. Sh*t! OK, so maybe I'll just use up2date through RHN 1st.
• Got up to date in one pass; 215 updates. Took a few hours though. The last thing I did before going to bed is to start the package downloads. I included updates to the kernel, kernel-utils, and kdebase which were excluded by default.

Sun 2/6/05 - SuperBowl Sunday!

• Moved the NEC3500 burner from the external enclosure into SM and put the Samsung CDROM to SS. Put the Verbatim CD Burner into the external enclosure.
• Installed one of the Hauppage WinTV Go card. Got Xaw working without any problems. Still using Knoppix 3.7.
• Played around with sound. Have to use alsa=intel8x0 with Knoppix. Not sure how the S/PDIF out is supposed to work.
• Played around with TV-OUT. Can't get it to work under X.
• Installed Windows XP 64 beta hoping I can then install the drivers MSI provided on CD; no such luck, the setup program doesn't recognize WinXP64.
• Burned the Fedora Core3 X86_64 DVD. Starts installing and playing around. Following Jarod's Guide. Just like he says, the apt install portion is an issue. Trying to figure out what multilib is.

Sat 2/5/05 -

• Swapped memory with my Dell SC400 box which is running at DDR 166 anyway. No errors at DDR200 and now I have 1GB on the box! Tweaked timing to (CAS-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) 2-3-2-10 at 1T. Anandtech says 10 is the optimum to tRAS

Fri 2/4/05 PM -

• What the hell did I do this night. I know I spent a few hours on the thing.

Thu 2/3/05 PM -

• Burned knoppix 3.7 iso to CD. Ethernet controller recognized now. Cool, kinda, unfortunately this means I can't use KnoppMyth.
• Decided to run memtest. Oh oh, errors in Test#5; Block move. Damn Kingston and their ValueRAM, or I hope that's the problem and not something else. Slowing the memory clock to 166 got rid of the errors.

Wed 2/2/05 PM -

• Got the mobo and cpu today. Started building the box. Took me roughly an hour and a half to get the major components in. Fired it up and whoohoo seems to be running.
• Got the 30GB Maxtor as PM, the 200GB Seagate as PS, and the Samsung CDROM as SM.
• Booted Knoppix no prob. although the ethernet controller is not recognized. After a quick google, it looks like the nforce3 gigabit controller is not supported till kernel 2.6.9. Good thing I have knoppix 3.7 iso already downloaded.

khartojo(at)freeshell(dot)org