Thursday, May 17, 2007
Crashing
My system seems to be rather unstable lately. I think I have tracked it down to something in the display chain. Either the nvidia drivers, or the nvidia card (integrated) itself. The system can record for hours on end, and I can watch dvds (from the dvd) and movies (stored on the hd) with no problems. However, as soon as I try to watch something in HD, I get kernel oops' that seem to start at the nvidia drivers, and cascade to everything else. I have to reboot to heal it. I have tested the memory extensively (memtest86+ for over an hour), and gone back to the previous driver. No luck. I guess it could have something to do with the kernel. I am not sure whether my next step will be to buy a standalone card, or to upgrade to feisty. Both have their pros and cons. But not being able to watch any hd stuff is getting old fast.
New HD
I installed a new hard drive (500gb samsung sata) a few weeks ago. Rather than install an SVN of mythtv (for StorageGroups), I decided to just put all my recordings on the new drive, and keep everything else (system (incl db), music, movies, pictures, etc) on the 250gb drive.
I haven't been watching tv much lately (it's spring!), so needless to say, I quickly filled that up too, and started archiving stuff over to the 250. Which is also now full. I started transcoding just about everything down to 540p (mpeg4), which still looks great, just not quite as great. And rather than the 6-8gb/hr, it only takes up about 1.2gb/hr. I am going to have a lot of catching up to do :-)
I still think I am going to pick up another 500gb drive though. I will have to get creative with my mounting, as my case only has two harddrive spots. I am thinking I can attach it to the lid of the case using some string or rubber bands (to keep the vibrations down). At which point I will need StorageGroups.
I haven't been watching tv much lately (it's spring!), so needless to say, I quickly filled that up too, and started archiving stuff over to the 250. Which is also now full. I started transcoding just about everything down to 540p (mpeg4), which still looks great, just not quite as great. And rather than the 6-8gb/hr, it only takes up about 1.2gb/hr. I am going to have a lot of catching up to do :-)
I still think I am going to pick up another 500gb drive though. I will have to get creative with my mounting, as my case only has two harddrive spots. I am thinking I can attach it to the lid of the case using some string or rubber bands (to keep the vibrations down). At which point I will need StorageGroups.
Friday, February 9, 2007
ACPI Wakeup/Shutdown
I finally got ACPI wakeup and shutdown working. I was motivated by my latest electricity bill (I try to be as green as possible, but money certainly is quite a functional motivator).
After fiddling with MythWelcome for a few days, I had to abandon it. At first I was getting the fairly common "Could not connect to backend" errors when the system would first start up. I fixed that by delaying the kdm auto-login. But that just made things worse. Well, I think it rather exposed a deeper problem. Whenever MythWelcome tries to connect to the backend, the backend loses both tuners and exits. The error message is pretty vague and I haven't bothered looking into it more (debugging, etc). Instead I just dropped the MythWelcome idea and configured the acpi wakeup stuff right in the backend. Of course, then I ran into a ton of permissions problems. After combining the advice from a few different sources, I finally got it to work.
What I would like to do now is have the backend pop up an alert when it is going to shut down and ask if I want to keep it up. It would have a one minute timeout or something similar. That would give me an opportunity to restart the frontend, x, kdm or something along those lines.
And then my next project is to get Amarok working with the remote control. I like it better than the mythmusic thing. I found a nice sample lirc config somewhere that I can use as a guide.
After fiddling with MythWelcome for a few days, I had to abandon it. At first I was getting the fairly common "Could not connect to backend" errors when the system would first start up. I fixed that by delaying the kdm auto-login. But that just made things worse. Well, I think it rather exposed a deeper problem. Whenever MythWelcome tries to connect to the backend, the backend loses both tuners and exits. The error message is pretty vague and I haven't bothered looking into it more (debugging, etc). Instead I just dropped the MythWelcome idea and configured the acpi wakeup stuff right in the backend. Of course, then I ran into a ton of permissions problems. After combining the advice from a few different sources, I finally got it to work.
What I would like to do now is have the backend pop up an alert when it is going to shut down and ask if I want to keep it up. It would have a one minute timeout or something similar. That would give me an opportunity to restart the frontend, x, kdm or something along those lines.
And then my next project is to get Amarok working with the remote control. I like it better than the mythmusic thing. I found a nice sample lirc config somewhere that I can use as a guide.
Friday, February 2, 2007
HDHomeRun
I installed an HDHomeRun tonight. It was extremely easy and fast. Hook up the cables and point the input config at it. The Myth backend was down for maybe 3 minutes. I am watching live-tv on it now and it seems to be of similar quality to the pchdtv.
I am noticing a little more 'tearing'.. but that may just have been the commercial I was watching (can't ff past them in live tv :-). Oddly enough, it seems that a lot more of the commercials on at this time (1:30am) are in HD, or at least in widescreen format.
A quick check of the upcoming recordings and it looks like the first recording to use the new tuner will be on Monday. I must say, I am pretty excited.
I played around with the PiP a little bit. While it looked nice, the PiP screen was rather jumpy and studdered a good bit. Rather similar to how HD played all the time when I had the slower processor.. yet top said I still had about 30% cpu sitting idle. Who knows. It certainly isn't a critical feature. More of just a 'wow, look at this' thing, and for that, a studdering picture is just fine :-)
I am noticing a little more 'tearing'.. but that may just have been the commercial I was watching (can't ff past them in live tv :-). Oddly enough, it seems that a lot more of the commercials on at this time (1:30am) are in HD, or at least in widescreen format.
A quick check of the upcoming recordings and it looks like the first recording to use the new tuner will be on Monday. I must say, I am pretty excited.
I played around with the PiP a little bit. While it looked nice, the PiP screen was rather jumpy and studdered a good bit. Rather similar to how HD played all the time when I had the slower processor.. yet top said I still had about 30% cpu sitting idle. Who knows. It certainly isn't a critical feature. More of just a 'wow, look at this' thing, and for that, a studdering picture is just fine :-)
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
UseEvents option
For the past few months my system had been struggling to keep up with both 720p and 1080i broadcasts. I was using Linear deinterlacing and the standard decoder. Not always the highest of quality, but it played smoothly. Still, the processor was always in the high 90s. Not a lot of room for error.
Recently there were a couple of threads in the mailing list with people reporting much-reduced processor time with a new (to the 9000 series I think) nvidia x-driver option called 'UseEvents'.
A week or so ago, I added this option and it reduced my processor usage to the mid 40s. After enabling Bob deinterlacing and the ffmpeg decoder, my usage is up around 60-70%. And the best part: the picture looks fantastic. Very smooth, very very few artifacts or tearing.
Good stuff.
Now if only they would get the edid to recognize the output from my tv so I could output real 1080i, it might look even better.
Recently there were a couple of threads in the mailing list with people reporting much-reduced processor time with a new (to the 9000 series I think) nvidia x-driver option called 'UseEvents'.
A week or so ago, I added this option and it reduced my processor usage to the mid 40s. After enabling Bob deinterlacing and the ffmpeg decoder, my usage is up around 60-70%. And the best part: the picture looks fantastic. Very smooth, very very few artifacts or tearing.
Good stuff.
Now if only they would get the edid to recognize the output from my tv so I could output real 1080i, it might look even better.
New Home
Previously I was just updating (infrequently as of late) a website hosted by Google Page Creator. This (blogspot) seems like a more appropriate venue, and with the domain feature and all the cool customizations, I decided to make the switch.
While most of the posts here will be about my myth system(and the endless tinkering needed to keep it happy), I will also be posting about anything techy that suits my fancy.
While most of the posts here will be about my myth system(and the endless tinkering needed to keep it happy), I will also be posting about anything techy that suits my fancy.
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