[pvrusb2] testing pvrusb2

Thu Nov 9 02:11:00 CST 2006

Here is some more relevant information. I only have one USB device (the
WinTV-PVR-USB2) and I have also tried simply
cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/rec.mpg
and even that dies after a few seconds.

If there are other clues to look for, I would appreciate some hints.

abe

On 11/8/06, Abe Shan <lba777 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> Thanks for your tip. After a couple of trials, I am able to receive images
> and audio using both xawtv and mythtv.
>
> However, the stream resets after every few seconds. And I have to manually
> intervene to get the stream back on. I am not sure why this is happening.
> The /var/log/messages tells me that the driver is reseting the encoder.
>
> My USB device according to lspci is :
> 0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M)
> USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
>         Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.: Unknown device 8089
>         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 201
>         Memory at ee800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
>         Capabilities: <available only to root>
>
> And my CPU is :
> model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.26GHz
> cpu MHz         : 2289.223
>
> And the video card is:
> 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV200
> QW [Radeon 7500] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
>         Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 0f2a
>         Flags: bus master, stepping, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ
> 185
>         Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
>         I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
>         Memory at ef000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
>         Expansion ROM at effe0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
>
> Clearly, I have all the power necessary for running it. I am not sure why
> the driver is not able to get a steady stream. Is there a way to check
> whether the WinTV-PVR-USB2 unit is okay? Are there any tell tale signs that
> I should be looking for? Any suggestions? Ideas? I am running Dapper with
> linux 2.6.18.
>
> thanks!
> abe
>
>
>
>
> On 11/5/06, Mike Isely <isely at isely.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 5 Nov 2006, Abe Shan wrote:
> >
> > > Mike,
> > >
> > > Thanks for the tips.
> > >
> > > To focus the attention on testing pvrusb2, I compiled and tested
> > xawtv-4.x.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, there still seems to be some trouble. Should the
> > encoder
> > > light up when using scantv?
> >
> > It should only light up when actually streaming.  I don't know if scantv
> > attempts to read video data.  (It's been too long since I did this last
> > and I don't remember.)
> >
> >
> > > > scantv
> > > using device "Hauppauge WinTV pvr-usb2"
> > > using input "composite"
> >
> > That's not right.  The input should be the tuner, i.e. "television".
> > There's nothing to "scan" when you're connected to the composite input
> > :-)
> >
> >
> > > using TV norm "NTSC-M"
> > > using frequency table "us-cable"
> > >
> > > Anyway, when I proceed with xawtv, the /var/log/messages registers the
> > > following error.
> > > Nov  5 21:38:59 shafran kernel: [ 1421.470668] pvrusb2: ***WARNING***
> > > device's encoder appears to be stuck (status=000000003)
> > > Nov  5 21:38:59 shafran kernel: [ 1421.470675] pvrusb2: Encoder
> > command:
> > > 0x81
> > > Nov  5 21:38:59 shafran kernel: [ 1421.470677] pvrusb2: Giving up
> > waiting.
> > > It is likely that this is a bad idea...
> > > Nov  5 21:38:59 shafran kernel: [ 1421.470681] pvrusb2: Error recovery
> > > initiatedNov  5 21:38:59 shafran kernel: [ 1421.470683 ] pvrusb2:
> > Retrying
> > > device reconfiguration
> >
> > This is unfortunately not out of the ordinary.  It might not be related
> > to
> > the scanning problem you are having.
> >
> > The pvrusb2 driver executes a sort of a handshake protocol when talking
> > to
> > the encoder chip (the part of the device creating the mpeg2
> > stream).  The
> > protocol involves the driver setting a few shared memory locations then
> > setting some bits in a control register that causes the encoder to
> > execute
> > the requested command.  Some time later the encoder is supposed to
> > finish
> > that command and respond with some status bits, which the pvrusb2 driver
> > will be polling for.  Every once in a while the encoder fails to
> > respond.
> > When that happens you get the message above, after the pvrusb2 driver
> > gives up waiting.  The pvrusb2 driver recovers this situation by
> > resetting
> > the encoder, reloading its firmware, and reinitializing its
> > configuration.
> > The whole sequence takes on the order of a second and except for these
> > log
> > messages would be hardly noticed.  This only seems to happen when
> > streaming is started (not while it is underway) so it never disrupts a
> > running video stream.  Anyway, the driver can usually recover this
> > situation.  Though I don't really like the fact that this happens, I
> > should probably tone down the messages in the log.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Then, when I try to use the 'scan analog' in edit, the program
> > seg-faults.
> > > Have you seen this before?
> >
> > No, I haven't seen a seg-fault during scan.  But I'm running an older
> > snapshot of that program (and it's been a long time since I did a scan)
> > so
> > we might not be doing an apples-apples comparison here.  I'm not going
> > to
> > get a chance to try to reproduce this until at least Tuesday
> > night.  It'd
> > be great if someone else here using xawtv could perhaps chip in here.
> >
> >   -Mike
> >
> >
> > --
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