[pvrusb2] saa7115 1-0021: Video signal: bad

[dan]

Mike Isely wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, dan wrote:
>
>   
>> I recently installed mepis 7. I have a wintv-pvr-usb2 (29032 rev d158) 
>> box. I use it for simple tv viewing on xp (works great). The box is 
>> connected to cable tv.
>>
>> I cannot get the box working with xawtv, kdetv, tvtime or kmplayer. I 
>> receive the subject line in dmesg and the players report no video. wow!!
>>     
>
> When you receive that message, is it the one you get right when you plug 
> in the device, or are you seeing it when you attempt to stream video?
>
> The dmesg output in your message is clearly the result of plugging in 
> the device (which is as expected).  Those status messages you see in the 
> output are just that - status at that point in time.  At the time when 
> the device is plugged in, it isn't streaming anything so of course the 
> status output from the various chip drivers are all going to indicate no 
> video, no signal, etc.  So if you are seeing "saa7115 1-0021: Video 
> signal:  bad" only when you plug in the device, then it's actually 
> correct in that case and you can ignore it.  If however this is 
> happening when you try to stream video (e.g. run mplayer, run xawtv, 
> etc), then that's a real clue.
>
> Another important bit: tvtime is *never* going to work.  That 
> application requires real-time raw video frames from the hardware, not 
> self-timed compressed video like the pvrusb2-driven devices will emit.  
> So that application is not ever going to work.  However mplayer and 
> xawtv should work (when set up correctly).  I suspect kdetv won't work 
> because (I think) it is looking for a DVB interface and that's not (yet) 
> possible with the V4L-based pvrusb2 driver.  I assume kmplayer is a 
> wrapper around mplayer so whatever is true with mplayer should be true 
> with kmplayer.
>
> There is a page in the pvrusb2 documentation that discusses what apps 
> work and what you may or may not have to do to get them to work.  Since 
> you mentioned tvtime and since that page states that tvtime won't ever 
> work, I have to assume that you haven't seen that page yet.  Here's a 
> direct link:
>
> http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/usage.html#V4L
>
> In particular there is information present on that page which describes 
> how to get mplayer (e.g. can't run it in v4l mode) and xawtv (e.g. has 
> to be built with the correct libraries) to work.  It's entirely possible 
> that you're already doing the right things, but please go back and look 
> at that page.  Confirm that you're setting things up correctly, then if 
> you're still having problems we can dig deeper.  For example, a useful 
> experiment is to separate the RF tuner out of this and to try to stream 
> video from a DVD player, VCR, or a camcorder - if you can get that to 
> work then we'll know that whatever problems are left have to do with the 
> RF tuner.  Conversely, if that doesn't work then we know that there are 
> problem(s) not involving the RF tuner.
>
>    [...]
>
>
>   
>> Apparently the kernel has all the required driver modules and firmware 
>> pre installed ???? or do I need to install? ... If so how?  I downloaded 
>> all from your site but don't know which or what to use...
>>     
>
> Whether or not the kernel has everything depends on the kernel version.  
> But anything 2.6.18 or later should have everything you need.  You can 
> still download and install a pvrusb2 tarball if you want; that will give 
> you later code.  This page of the documentation:
>
> http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/setup.html
>
> talks about what you need to do depending on kernel version and how you 
> are installing the driver.  If you look at this page:
>
> http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/pvrusb2.html
>
> and scroll down towards the end of the "Overview" section you'll see a 
> bit titled "Driver software versions: standalone vs in-V4L vs 
> in-kernel", and it's there where you can find out more about which 
> driver version you might want to use.  Generally these days just using 
> the in-kernel driver is the easiest and that driver is pretty stable.  
> But you still always have the option to install a later driver on top of 
> the kernel, if perhaps you need support for a newer device (not the case 
> for you) or if you want to play with some newer features (which the most 
> recent changes are really all internal anyway).
>
> I know that the pvrusb2 driver documentation is lengthy and somewhat, 
> uh, "deep".  But you have to understand (and I have since learned) that 
> it is a really tough thing to write documentation where it's both easy 
> to find what you're looking for while still at the same time covering 
> all the various corner cases and wierd situations that people have come 
> across.  When I started documenting this it was all a single HTML page.  
> I kept on expanding it as I encountered more things that people would 
> get wrong or that might be problematic.  Eventually that one page just 
> became too hard to follow - the more common information tended to be 
> scattered about, hidden by the corner cases.  What's there now is the 
> result of a big reorganization I had done a while back.  I made one high 
> level page with the most important points, but then pushed the details 
> down to other pages, each referenced appropriately from the top page.  
> The idea is that someone could quickly go through the top page and then 
> link to the specific places where he/she might require more details or 
> answers for his/her specific situation.  It's still not perfect, but the 
> information *is* there.
>
>
>   
>> Also, xawtv output run:
>> :~$ xawtv
>> This is xawtv-3.95.dfsg.1, running on Linux/i686 (2.6.22-1-mepis-smp)
>>     
>
> Hmm, well here's your first problem: The version of xawtv you are using 
> doesn't support mpeg decoding.  It's too old.  The usage page I had 
> mentioned earlier warns about this.  Again, here's the link:
>
> http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/usage.html#V4L
>
> Right there in the second sentence under the "xawtv" category it states:
>
> "Note that anything before version 4 will definitely not work with this 
> since earlier versions did not support mpeg2 decoding."
>
>   
>> /dev/video0 [v4l2]: no overlay support
>> v4l-conf had some trouble, trying to continue anyway
>> Warning: Cannot convert string 
>> "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-*--39-*-*-*-c-*-*-*" to type FontStruct
>> libGL warning: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x4b
>> v4l2: read: rc=294912/size=442368
>>
>>
>> Thanks, and please correct my protocol if needed...... (I have posted to 
>> mepis board with no reply and spent hours on google and reading your info )
>> dan
>>     
>
> First bit of advice: Read the usage page I mentioned earlier.  Then 
> apply what you find, and tell me if things are better after that point.
>
>   -Mike
>
>
>   
Thanks for the reply...I had read the ref'd page(s)...but as you have 
found its hard to write it and its even harder for a stubborn old man to 
read it with any degree of comprehension... Thanks for holding my 
hand..or as we used to say ''''RTFM""". Off subject but you will 
appreciate: My first technical training was; age 18, navy comic books at 
naval training center for electronics...This worked as I had no math, 
science or knowledge...
Second instance; age 26, junior engineer for aerospace co----They 
supplied tech writer with 30 years experience to turn my design into 
tech manual for air force...Last (recent); age 72,  puppy linux, 
mepis....these have built short, concise, location (problem ?) specific 
popups with well written, short, descriptive  items that really help 
those of us that can't or wont read in the depth you have done for the 
driver you built.....This is not a critisism of your documentation, just 
to show understanding of your frustration..It would be wonderful of you 
could access an old experienced tech writer....but again "that's linux".....

I spent the morning reading and trying to get tv working...I tried 
kdetv, kmplayer, mplayer, kino..etc. but I have been unable to set it 
up(or too lazy to find the setups to set it up). I googled and forumed 
and wikied for a easy way to setup mythtv....some referrals to synaptic 
appear but my mepis 7 install does not download any mythtv packages. I 
downloaded the tarball from mythtv site and one day may try to unball 
and compile??? it.

Tried mplayer (yes, w/o the kde)....results:

~$ mplayer /dev/video0
MPlayer 1.0rc1-4.1.2-DFSG-free (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz (Family: 15, Model: 2, Stepping: 9)
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote 
control.

Playing /dev/video0.
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: avisynth.dll, 
/usr/lib/codecs/avisynth.dll, /usr/lib/win32/avisynth.dll, 
/usr/local/lib/win32/avisynth.dll
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
Cannot seek backward in linear streams!
Seek failed
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO:  MPEG2  720x480  (aspect 2)  29.970 fps  8000.0 kbps (1000.0 kbyte/s)
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] This driver only supports the 3Dfx Banshee, Voodoo3 and 
Voodoo 5.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed :(
Opening video decoder: [libmpeg2] MPEG 1/2 Video decoder libmpeg2-v0.4.0b
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm: libmpeg2 (MPEG-1 or 2 (libmpeg2))
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 224.0 kbit/14.58% (ratio: 28000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
==========================================================================
AO: [oss] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 720x480 => 720x540 Planar YV12
No bind found for key 'c'.                         %  8% 180.0% 6 0
A:   7.2 V:   2.6 A-V:  4.540 ct: -0.019  54/ 54 22%  4% 357.6% 43 0

MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: decode_audio

that was <ctl <c.....

Don't understand what this means or at least at a loss as to what to try.
 
I am using kernel 2.6.22-1-mepis-smp

It looks like I will have to use mplayer if I get tv...I suspect I have 
no tv channels or freq tables spec'd...but don't know what you mean by 
using Sysfs to control it..  I looked at your info but cannot figure 
what I type at term or ????

dan