On Sun, 25 Jan 2009, Alex Betis wrote: > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Hans Werner <HWerner4@xxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Hans Werner <HWerner4@xxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > If you have a stb0899 device, don't forget to add "-k 3". > > > > Oh. Can someone say what's different about the stb0899 here, > > > > and how -k 3 helps ? > > > stb0899 driver (or maybe the chip?) has some buffers inside that are not > > > reset between tunnings. > > > In that case messages from *previous* channel will arrive after the > > > tunning > > > to new channel is complete. > > > Those messages will create a big mess in the results, such as channels > > > without names, duplicate channels on different transponders. > > > -k option specifies how many messages should be ignored before processing > > > it. I couldn't think of a more elegant way to ignore messages from > > > previously tuned channel. I use "-k 3" by myself, but after playing > > around > > > with "-k 2" saw that its also working. "-k 1" was still not enough. > > OK, thanks, I will check if I see that problem. Which card(s) > > did you see this with? > I'm aware only about Twinhan 1041 and TT-3200 based stb0899 cards. Both have > the same problem. This may be going typically off-topic, but I do experience similar artifacts with some STV0299 cards (looks superficially alike; I don't know), which I'll toss out here just for giggles. It turns out I have three if not four such stv0299 cards, and I either experience `scan' difficulties or recording issues, or nothing. First off, for reference: a PCI SkyStar2 card that gets priority for recordings, using a 2.6.14-ish kernel that I'm in the long slow process of planning to update on that production machine. When making two recordings separated by time from the same transponder, often the second recording will have a few video frames left over from the previous recording. This appears in my quality-control as video frames with differing timestamps as well as errors when run through `mplayer' video codec ffmpeg12, but timing data remains intact (I can `dd' away the first second or more and get a flawless partial transport stream). This is not a problem when I switch between transponders to make the second recording. And it can be many hours between recordings from the same transponder, yet the leftover data still remains. I've never noticed that this affects `scan' which changes transponders; that in itself seems to be enough to lose the buffered data. This is only a minor concern as the first few frames of confused data are almost certainly disposable, as a fraction of a second in the padding leading up to the content of interest. As exhibit number two, where I have had problems with regular `scan' seeing data from the previous transponder and causing problems getting current data, another stv0299-based device, the Opera-1 USB-connected tuner. I have *never* seen any recordings made from this device contain frames from an earlier tuning session, though. As far as `scan' tuning goes, I would regularly see previous ``phantom'' channels appearing, combined with zero-value PIDs for channels on the intended current transponder. At least until recently; my latest scans have been flawless, either due to hacks I added to that `scan' or to kernel updates on that test machine. Exhibit C, m'lud, will be -- again on the 2.6.14-ish kernel machine, but this time connected via USB 1.1 -- an early Nova-S device. Apart from bandwidth issues due to the usb1 interface, I've never noticed problems with stale packets when recording from either the same or a different transponder. I do have other issues which may be due to the age of the kernel, but `scan' also has not had problems. Now with exhibit IV, again I see problems similar to those experienced with leftover packets, but which appear to be compounded by the internal mangling of the transport stream components into a proprietary- yet-open delivery stream. This device is the ttusb- dec DEC3000-s, of unknown-based-on-kernel-code heritage, though I may have taken it apart long ago and written the results on a long-since hidden drive. This device is connected via USB1, and is incapable of delivering more than an MPEG2 video and mp2 audio stream to a recording, making it useless for multiple audio, teletext, AC3, H.264, or PMT tables to start. It also internally converts the transport stream into the PVA format, with side-effects such as that the timestamps do not match the original transport stream components, cycling after some 40 000 secs rather than the 90 000-ish seconds delivered in the streams from other devices. Recordings from this device all-too-often would have timing problems as well as leftover data from a previous recording. (Whether from same or different transponder, I cannot say. I added a hack-workaround to my recordings to tune briefly a different txp, then tune back. Sometimes it worked. Often with high load, nothing could help.) Sometimes the timing would be based on the leftover video data and would increase linearly from that, being well out-of-step with the audio timing. Other times the video data timing would be stuck at a non-increasing value. Obviously this caused major problems with utilities like `mplayer' which try to skew the presentation of the data until the timestamps match; other applications could better (though not perfectly) handle some data with botched timestamps and at least display a watchable video with consistent sub-second audio offset. Yet, a few recordings from this device would have the video data totally corrupt and unrecoverable without great and pointless effort. Anyway, the timing issues even when correctly recorded as partial transport streams cause problems seeking with `mplayer' at times, so basically I limit any use of this device nowadays to audio recordings where timing doesn't matter after being stripped to a simple mp2 file, and even then, often this device can't recover from a temporary loss of a quality signal (heavy rainstorm, half a metre of snow on the LNB) so, well, yeah. Use of `scan' was made using this device in the distant past; I neither remember blatant problems nor obvious successes other than issues with one particular device with the BSkyB Open-dedicated transponders. It generally works recording radio unless it's somehow half-bricked itself needing a power-off, but due to the timing issues and occasional botched video recording, I've avoided using it for anything else for quite a few months now. This device is used regularly to record audio, and due to the nature of its tuning, I generally need to specify an unused PID as video, lest a previously- used video PID carry over to a different transponder (or the same) and add many times over the bulk to the recording. Not so much an issue since I've avoided it for video recordings... I've had a few cases recently where due to whatever reason (power failure, use of `kill'), the previous recording from this device has not been closed cleanly. The next recording made, then has several seconds worth of leftover audio. Often this will precede the desired audio at a different bitrate. In order to skip the stale data, I'll need to `dd' the file with a `skip=' parameter, else my player will fail to detect the change. For audio recordings the last few which have had this problem have been coarsely ``fixed'' by a value of `skip=1200', with transport stream frame blocksize `bs=188'. Whether this value transfers to video, I cannot say. Generally I prefer to lob off the minutes worth of padding I provide to accommodate programme over-/under-running and similar last-minute changes, than to worry about an uninteresting stream. The lower bandwidth of audio makes a tweak of 100 TS frames more meaningful and easier to handle. As a side note that eventually, as part of my slow progress in updating the 2.6.14-ish machine to the requirements of today's Real World (use of flash storage via USB for the entire OS has successfully passed the one-month-without-panic mark and is now poised for widespread adoption), I've also noticed that at least with the .14-ish kernel, and perhaps on the test machine with .18-era, I have not been able to get this plus the other USB1 device to coëxist and simultaneously function via the same bus, getting a panic when using both devices simultaneously. I intend to verify this with a far-more-recent kernel before complaining loudly. Note that in general, shared use of a USB1 port should not cause me problems, as I've pretty much limited use of my USB1 devices to lower-bandwidth radio streams, or to a handful of channels whose bandwidth never approaches that of DVD-quality; that is, generally non-german-public-broadcasters. Wow, I'm able to talk about nothing for minutes on end. Too bad I can't type so fast and spend the remaining time coding something useful... barry bouwsma scum -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-media" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
