[pvrusb2] state of the driver

[Mike Isely]

Just to let everyone know, here's what is currently going on with the 
driver:

1. I've fixed a problem that caused video scaling problems with 24xxx 
model devices.  Symptoms included stretched / distorted video, loss of 
color, and vertical "color pinstripes" in the image.

2. I've fixed another problem that caused similar video scaling problems 
with HVR-1950 devices.

3. I've also tweaked things in regards to #1 and #2 above so that the 
fix is coherent with the video standard in use - this had never 
previously been the case.  I suspect, but I can't prove, that this might 
clean up some of the "slop" at the top of the video image (where you 
might see VBI data).  I can't prove this because broadcast TV doesn't 
exist where I live anymore and I'm not a cable subscriber.  (I can still 
test analog TV however using an RF modulator so don't worry about that.)

The stuff above is enough to release another snapshot, however first:

4. I'd like to further investigate the audio dropout problem reported a 
few weeks ago on 29xxx devices.  The problem there is that with a 
sub-device enabled pvrusb2 driver configuration, the audio goes away 
when switching from radio to tv mode, only for the older 29xxx devices 
(those using the msp3400+saa7115 chip combination).  I've already done 
some further digging on this tonight, but it requires more time.  The 
technique I used to smoke out issues #1 and #2 above should work on this 
problem as well.

5. There are some possible compilation warnings I need to knock out, and 
there's minor issue with routing scheme handling that I want to clean 
up.  (It's just housekeeping.)

6. I'd also like to get some traction on a reported kernel oops when the 
PVR2_TRACE_STATE debug flag is on - if only to make sure this isn't a 
lurking widespread issue.  So far I can't seem able to reproduce this 
problem.  (Has anyone else tried the driver in Fedora 11?)

7. Several people have reported these messages: "s5h1411_readreg: 
readreg error (ret == -5)".  Right now I can't reproduce this one 
either, however I think I know one of the reasons why, which will take a 
few more days to sort out.

I'm out of time tonight to work futher on this.  I won't get another 
chance to pick up on this again until probably Friday night.  This week 
is looking to be a real bear for me.  However I'm assuming that since we 
have an easy workaround for #1 and #2 above (use 720 for the horizontal 
resolution) that a few more days won't kill anyone here...  I'll let you 
all know of course when there's a new snapshot ready.

  -Mike

p.s.

I know several months ago there was a discussion for a means to finally 
get uncompressed video capture going.  I haven't forgotten about it - 
and I still have all the notes from that.  But I'm sorry, I just haven't 
had a chance yet to make any serious headway on a solid, proper 
implementation for that.  But I am keeping this one in mind.


-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ isely (dot) net
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