Mailing List Archive

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Jim Stichnoth <stichnot@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am switching from DirecTV to DISH and started integrating the
> receiver into my MythTV setup.  I have the VIP211 STB, and I use its
> s-video output into the PVR-150.  (Eventually I'll use the component
> output into an HD-PVR.)
>
> Strangely, I'm getting no closed captions in MythTV, but if I connect
> the STB analog output directly to the TV (Vizio VW32L), the captions
> display properly.  I have disabled the STB's rendering of captions.
> PVR-150 captions were just fine from the DirecTV STB.
>
> Any suggestions on what might be wrong, or how to diagnose the
> problem?  For now I'm just letting the STB render the captions, so
> they get "burned in" to the recording.

Let me provide some more details.

My old DirecTV STB delivered good captions over the S-Video connector,
and my PVR-150 was able to decode them, and MythTV was able to display
them.

My new DISH Network STB (VIP211), connected to the same PVR-150 over
S-Video, does not deliver captions to MythTV. I'm hoping to figure
out why.

If I connect the STB directly to the TV via S-Video, the TV displays
the captions properly. Note that I have to disable the VIP211's
direct rendering of captions, and enable CC1 captions on the TV. When
captions are present, the TV is also able to tell me the rating of the
program (e.g., age 7 for SpongeBob and age 13 for Meet the Parents).
I guess that information is also sent in the VBI.

So, if the TV is able to see the captions over S-Video, then why
doesn't the PVR-150 see them? Are there any tools that would help me
diagnose what VBI information the PVR-150 is seeing? I don't like
having to force captions to be burned into the video file.

Jim

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On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 15:06 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Jim Stichnoth <stichnot@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am switching from DirecTV to DISH and started integrating the
> > receiver into my MythTV setup. I have the VIP211 STB, and I use its
> > s-video output into the PVR-150. (Eventually I'll use the component
> > output into an HD-PVR.)
> >
> > Strangely, I'm getting no closed captions in MythTV, but if I connect
> > the STB analog output directly to the TV (Vizio VW32L), the captions
> > display properly. I have disabled the STB's rendering of captions.
> > PVR-150 captions were just fine from the DirecTV STB.
> >
> > Any suggestions on what might be wrong, or how to diagnose the
> > problem? For now I'm just letting the STB render the captions, so
> > they get "burned in" to the recording.
>
> Let me provide some more details.
>
> My old DirecTV STB delivered good captions over the S-Video connector,
> and my PVR-150 was able to decode them, and MythTV was able to display
> them.
>
> My new DISH Network STB (VIP211), connected to the same PVR-150 over
> S-Video, does not deliver captions to MythTV. I'm hoping to figure
> out why.
>
> If I connect the STB directly to the TV via S-Video, the TV displays
> the captions properly. Note that I have to disable the VIP211's
> direct rendering of captions, and enable CC1 captions on the TV. When
> captions are present, the TV is also able to tell me the rating of the
> program (e.g., age 7 for SpongeBob and age 13 for Meet the Parents).
> I guess that information is also sent in the VBI.
>
> So, if the TV is able to see the captions over S-Video, then why
> doesn't the PVR-150 see them? Are there any tools that would help me
> diagnose what VBI information the PVR-150 is seeing? I don't like
> having to force captions to be burned into the video file.


'osc', a test utility that comes with the libzvbi source code, is a
great tool for seeing what the raw VBI lines look like that the PVR-150
is seeing.

See this recent thread for how to use osc with the cx18 driver. It
should be no different than the ivtv driver, except perhaps the ivtv
driver will not need a video capture running at the same time.

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/ivtv/users/39891?page=last

With my STB I have for ATSC to NTSC conversion, only the 2 CC lines in
each frame are inserted in the VBI. Those lines are very clean and all
the other lines are blank.

My PVR-150MCE, which has a CX25843 A/V decoder, is showing VBI just
fine in osc, and closed captioning signals from analog over the air show
up on the proper lines (21 & 284):

$ ~/build/zvbi-0.2.30/test/osc -2 -d /dev/vbi1 -v

See attached GIF.

Regards,
Andy

> Jim

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 15:06 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
>> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Jim Stichnoth <stichnot@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I am switching from DirecTV to DISH and started integrating the
>> > receiver into my MythTV setup.  I have the VIP211 STB, and I use its
>> > s-video output into the PVR-150.  (Eventually I'll use the component
>> > output into an HD-PVR.)
>> >
>> > Strangely, I'm getting no closed captions in MythTV, but if I connect
>> > the STB analog output directly to the TV (Vizio VW32L), the captions
>> > display properly.  I have disabled the STB's rendering of captions.
>> > PVR-150 captions were just fine from the DirecTV STB.
>> >
>> > Any suggestions on what might be wrong, or how to diagnose the
>> > problem?  For now I'm just letting the STB render the captions, so
>> > they get "burned in" to the recording.
>>
>> Let me provide some more details.
>>
>> My old DirecTV STB delivered good captions over the S-Video connector,
>> and my PVR-150 was able to decode them, and MythTV was able to display
>> them.
>>
>> My new DISH Network STB (VIP211), connected to the same PVR-150 over
>> S-Video, does not deliver captions to MythTV.  I'm hoping to figure
>> out why.
>>
>> If I connect the STB directly to the TV via S-Video, the TV displays
>> the captions properly.  Note that I have to disable the VIP211's
>> direct rendering of captions, and enable CC1 captions on the TV.  When
>> captions are present, the TV is also able to tell me the rating of the
>> program (e.g., age 7 for SpongeBob and age 13 for Meet the Parents).
>> I guess that information is also sent in the VBI.
>>
>> So, if the TV is able to see the captions over S-Video, then why
>> doesn't the PVR-150 see them?  Are there any tools that would help me
>> diagnose what VBI information the PVR-150 is seeing?  I don't like
>> having to force captions to be burned into the video file.
>
>
> 'osc', a test utility that comes with the libzvbi source code, is a
> great tool for seeing what the raw VBI lines look like that the PVR-150
> is seeing.
>
> See this recent thread for how to use osc with the cx18 driver.  It
> should be no different than the ivtv driver, except perhaps the ivtv
> driver will not need a video capture running at the same time.
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/ivtv/users/39891?page=last
>
> With my STB I have for ATSC to NTSC conversion, only the 2 CC lines in
> each frame are inserted in the VBI.  Those lines are very clean and all
> the other lines are blank.
>
> My  PVR-150MCE, which has a CX25843 A/V decoder, is showing VBI just
> fine in osc, and closed captioning signals from analog over the air show
> up on the proper lines (21 & 284):
>
> $ ~/build/zvbi-0.2.30/test/osc -2 -d /dev/vbi1 -v
>
> See attached GIF.
>
> Regards,
> Andy

Thanks Andy, that is very helpful.

Here is what dmesg says about my card:
ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.1.0
ivtv0: Initializing card #0
ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)

I ran osc, and it looks like the DISH VIP211 is inserting 2 very clean
lines in the VBI with the rest blank.

When I try to examine the raw VBI data (zvbi-ntsc-cc --cc -d
/dev/vbi0), I get good caption text. This is consistent with what
shows up on a direct TV connection.

When I try to examine sliced VBI data (v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0
--set-fmt-sliced-vbi=cc ; zvbi-ntsc-cc -S --cc -d /dev/vbi0), I get
nothing at all. No errors, no warnings, no cc text printed. Just no
activity/output until I kill it.

If I try either of these zbi-ntsc-cc commands while a MythTV capture
is going on, I get a series of messages "VBI read timeout (ignored)".
In addition, running with the -S option gives an initial error
message: "VIDIOC_S_FMT failed: Device or resource busy." I suppose
that confirms that MythTV is actively looking at the vbi device.

So it looks to me like the driver is having troubles with the sliced
VBI. Any suggestions on diagnosing this?

By the way, the output of osc looks like it might be useful, here it is:
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:vbi_capture_v4l2k_new: Try to open V4L2 2.6 VBI
device, libzvbi interface rev.
$Id: io-v4l2k.c,v 1.49 2008/02/19 00:35:20 mschimek Exp $.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:vbi_capture_v4l2k_new: Opened /dev/vbi0.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:vbi_capture_v4l2k_new: /dev/vbi0 (Hauppauge WinTV
PVR-150) is a v4l2 vbi device,
driver ivtv, version 0x00010100.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:vbi_capture_v4l2k_new: Using read interface.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_get_videostd: Current scanning system is 525.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Querying current vbi parameters...
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: ...success.
libzvbi:print_vfmt: VBI capture parameters supported:
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Attempt to set vbi capture parameters.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000001 (Teletext System B 625 Level 1.5) requires videostd_set
0x1, have 0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000003 (Teletext System B, 625) requires videostd_set 0x1, have
0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000004 (Video Program System) requires videostd_set 0x1, have 0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000400 (Wide Screen Signalling 625) requires videostd_set 0x1,
have 0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000008 (Closed Caption 625, field 1) requires videostd_set 0x1,
have 0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x00000010 (Closed Caption 625, field 2) requires videostd_set 0x1,
have 0x0.
libzvbi:sampling_par:_vbi_sampling_par_from_services_log: Service
0x20000000 (VBI 625) requires videostd_set 0x1, have 0x0.
libzvbi:print_vfmt: VBI capture parameters requested:
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Successfully set vbi capture parameters.
libzvbi:print_vfmt: VBI capture parameters granted:
libzvbi:raw_decoder:vbi3_raw_decoder_add_services: No services to add.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Nyquist check passed.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Request decoding of services
0x40000060, strict level 0.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_update_services: Will capture services
0x00000060, added 0x60 commit=1.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:v4l2_read_alloc: Capture buffer allocated.
libzvbi:io-v4l2k:vbi_capture_v4l2k_new: Successfully opened /dev/vbi0
(Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150).

Jim

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On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 08:54 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:

> > 'osc', a test utility that comes with the libzvbi source code, is a
> > great tool for seeing what the raw VBI lines look like that the PVR-150
> > is seeing.
> >
> > See this recent thread for how to use osc with the cx18 driver. It
> > should be no different than the ivtv driver, except perhaps the ivtv
> > driver will not need a video capture running at the same time.
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/ivtv/users/39891?page=last
> >
> > With my STB I have for ATSC to NTSC conversion, only the 2 CC lines in
> > each frame are inserted in the VBI. Those lines are very clean and all
> > the other lines are blank.
> >
> > My PVR-150MCE, which has a CX25843 A/V decoder, is showing VBI just
> > fine in osc, and closed captioning signals from analog over the air show
> > up on the proper lines (21 & 284):
> >
> > $ ~/build/zvbi-0.2.30/test/osc -2 -d /dev/vbi1 -v
> >
> > See attached GIF.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Andy
>
> Thanks Andy, that is very helpful.
>
> Here is what dmesg says about my card:
> ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.1.0
> ivtv0: Initializing card #0
> ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)

Do you know what A/V decoder your board has: CX25843, MSPnnn, SAAnnnn,
etc.?


> I ran osc, and it looks like the DISH VIP211 is inserting 2 very clean
> lines in the VBI with the rest blank.
>
> When I try to examine the raw VBI data (zvbi-ntsc-cc --cc -d
> /dev/vbi0), I get good caption text. This is consistent with what
> shows up on a direct TV connection.

That's consistent with STB's. OK, so raw VBI capture and software
decoding of CC works.

What lines did osc say the CC waveforms were on?


> When I try to examine sliced VBI data (v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0
> --set-fmt-sliced-vbi=cc ; zvbi-ntsc-cc -S --cc -d /dev/vbi0), I get
> nothing at all. No errors, no warnings, no cc text printed. Just no
> activity/output until I kill it.
>
> If I try either of these zbi-ntsc-cc commands while a MythTV capture
> is going on, I get a series of messages "VBI read timeout (ignored)".
> In addition, running with the -S option gives an initial error
> message: "VIDIOC_S_FMT failed: Device or resource busy." I suppose
> that confirms that MythTV is actively looking at the vbi device.
>
> So it looks to me like the driver is having troubles with the sliced
> VBI. Any suggestions on diagnosing this?

Nope. I'll have to test with my PVR-150MCE. If I can't reproduce the
problem, I'll come up with suggestions.

It looks like the VBI slicer in the CX25843 (if that's what you have) is
not being set up properly, or the lines aren't being captured and
decoded properly.

I just fixed this for the cx18 driver for NTSC and am going to fix it
for PAL this weekend (hopefully).


Once I fix that, I'll try to look at the cx25840 module and ivtv module
next weekend. The cx18's integrated A/V decoder is very much like a
CX25843. What I would do will fix cx25840 and ivtv, but it might break
sliced VBI in ivtv for other digitizers, or break sliced VBI for chips
that do sliced VBI with a CX2584x.


Hans,

Does any other v4l module apart from ivtv use the cx25840 module for
sliced VBI?


Regards,
Andy




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On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 08:54 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
>> Thanks Andy, that is very helpful.
>>
>> Here is what dmesg says about my card:
>> ivtv:  Start initialization, version 1.1.0
>> ivtv0: Initializing card #0
>> ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
>
> Do you know what A/V decoder your board has: CX25843, MSPnnn, SAAnnnn,
> etc.?

I would guess CS25843, based on /var/log/messages:
May 9 10:19:55 mythmaster kernel: tveeprom 1-0050: audio processor is
CX25843 (idx 37)
May 9 10:19:55 mythmaster kernel: tveeprom 1-0050: decoder processor
is CX25843 (idx 30)
May 9 10:19:55 mythmaster kernel: cx25840 1-0044: cx25843-24 found @
0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)

>> I ran osc, and it looks like the DISH VIP211 is inserting 2 very clean
>> lines in the VBI with the rest blank.
>>
>> When I try to examine the raw VBI data (zvbi-ntsc-cc --cc -d
>> /dev/vbi0), I get good caption text.  This is consistent with what
>> shows up on a direct TV connection.
>
> That's consistent with STB's.  OK, so raw VBI capture and software
> decoding of CC works.
>
> What lines did osc say the CC waveforms were on?

"Row 11 Line 21" and "Row 23 Line 284". All others are blank.

>> When I try to examine sliced VBI data (v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0
>> --set-fmt-sliced-vbi=cc ; zvbi-ntsc-cc -S --cc -d /dev/vbi0), I get
>> nothing at all.  No errors, no warnings, no cc text printed.  Just no
>> activity/output until I kill it.
>>
>> If I try either of these zbi-ntsc-cc commands while a MythTV capture
>> is going on, I get a series of messages "VBI read timeout (ignored)".
>> In addition, running with the -S option gives an initial error
>> message: "VIDIOC_S_FMT failed: Device or resource busy."  I suppose
>> that confirms that MythTV is actively looking at the vbi device.
>>
>> So it looks to me like the driver is having troubles with the sliced
>> VBI.  Any suggestions on diagnosing this?
>
> Nope.  I'll have to test with my PVR-150MCE.   If I can't reproduce the
> problem, I'll come up with suggestions.
>
> It looks like the VBI slicer in the CX25843 (if that's what you have) is
> not being set up properly, or the lines aren't being captured and
> decoded properly.

Not that I know anything, but I would guess the latter since the VBI
slicer seemed to work perfectly with the old STB on the same S-video
input.

> I just fixed this for the cx18 driver for NTSC and am going to fix it
> for PAL this weekend (hopefully).
>
>
> Once I fix that, I'll try to look at the cx25840 module and ivtv module
> next weekend.  The cx18's integrated A/V decoder is very much like a
> CX25843.  What I would do will fix cx25840 and ivtv, but it might break
> sliced VBI in ivtv for other digitizers, or break sliced VBI for chips
> that do sliced VBI with a CX2584x.

Out of curiosity, is there a discussion thread about the fix you're
talking about?

Jim

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On Saturday 09 May 2009 19:39:37 Andy Walls wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 08:54 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> > On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:
> > > 'osc', a test utility that comes with the libzvbi source code, is a
> > > great tool for seeing what the raw VBI lines look like that the
> > > PVR-150 is seeing.
> > >
> > > See this recent thread for how to use osc with the cx18 driver. It
> > > should be no different than the ivtv driver, except perhaps the ivtv
> > > driver will not need a video capture running at the same time.
> > >
> > > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/ivtv/users/39891?page=last
> > >
> > > With my STB I have for ATSC to NTSC conversion, only the 2 CC lines
> > > in each frame are inserted in the VBI. Those lines are very clean
> > > and all the other lines are blank.
> > >
> > > My PVR-150MCE, which has a CX25843 A/V decoder, is showing VBI just
> > > fine in osc, and closed captioning signals from analog over the air
> > > show up on the proper lines (21 & 284):
> > >
> > > $ ~/build/zvbi-0.2.30/test/osc -2 -d /dev/vbi1 -v
> > >
> > > See attached GIF.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Andy
> >
> > Thanks Andy, that is very helpful.
> >
> > Here is what dmesg says about my card:
> > ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.1.0

This is quite old. Sliced VBI was broken for quite some time and it wasn't
fixed until ivtv version 1.3 if I'm not mistaken. I recommend upgrading to
a newer kernel first (from memory: 2.6.26 or up).

> > ivtv0: Initializing card #0
> > ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
>
> Do you know what A/V decoder your board has: CX25843, MSPnnn, SAAnnnn,
> etc.?
>
> > I ran osc, and it looks like the DISH VIP211 is inserting 2 very clean
> > lines in the VBI with the rest blank.
> >
> > When I try to examine the raw VBI data (zvbi-ntsc-cc --cc -d
> > /dev/vbi0), I get good caption text. This is consistent with what
> > shows up on a direct TV connection.
>
> That's consistent with STB's. OK, so raw VBI capture and software
> decoding of CC works.
>
> What lines did osc say the CC waveforms were on?
>
> > When I try to examine sliced VBI data (v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0
> > --set-fmt-sliced-vbi=cc ; zvbi-ntsc-cc -S --cc -d /dev/vbi0), I get
> > nothing at all. No errors, no warnings, no cc text printed. Just no
> > activity/output until I kill it.
> >
> > If I try either of these zbi-ntsc-cc commands while a MythTV capture
> > is going on, I get a series of messages "VBI read timeout (ignored)".
> > In addition, running with the -S option gives an initial error
> > message: "VIDIOC_S_FMT failed: Device or resource busy." I suppose
> > that confirms that MythTV is actively looking at the vbi device.
> >
> > So it looks to me like the driver is having troubles with the sliced
> > VBI. Any suggestions on diagnosing this?
>
> Nope. I'll have to test with my PVR-150MCE. If I can't reproduce the
> problem, I'll come up with suggestions.
>
> It looks like the VBI slicer in the CX25843 (if that's what you have) is
> not being set up properly, or the lines aren't being captured and
> decoded properly.
>
> I just fixed this for the cx18 driver for NTSC and am going to fix it
> for PAL this weekend (hopefully).
>
>
> Once I fix that, I'll try to look at the cx25840 module and ivtv module
> next weekend. The cx18's integrated A/V decoder is very much like a
> CX25843. What I would do will fix cx25840 and ivtv, but it might break
> sliced VBI in ivtv for other digitizers, or break sliced VBI for chips
> that do sliced VBI with a CX2584x.
>
>
> Hans,
>
> Does any other v4l module apart from ivtv use the cx25840 module for
> sliced VBI?

I don't think so. I believe ivtv is the only one.

Regards,

Hans


--
Hans Verkuil - video4linux developer - sponsored by TANDBERG Telecom

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On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:44 AM, Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> > Here is what dmesg says about my card:
>> > ivtv:  Start initialization, version 1.1.0
>
> This is quite old. Sliced VBI was broken for quite some time and it wasn't
> fixed until ivtv version 1.3 if I'm not mistaken. I recommend upgrading to
> a newer kernel first (from memory: 2.6.26 or up).

FWIW, I just tried the same experiments with a test install of
MythDora 10.21 (kernel 2.6.27.9-159, ivtv 1.4.0), with the same
results -- raw VBI has good captions, sliced VBI has nothing.

Thanks,

Jim

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On Sun, 2009-05-10 at 08:03 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:44 AM, Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >> > Here is what dmesg says about my card:
> >> > ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.1.0
> >
> > This is quite old. Sliced VBI was broken for quite some time and it wasn't
> > fixed until ivtv version 1.3 if I'm not mistaken. I recommend upgrading to
> > a newer kernel first (from memory: 2.6.26 or up).
>
> FWIW, I just tried the same experiments with a test install of
> MythDora 10.21 (kernel 2.6.27.9-159, ivtv 1.4.0), with the same
> results -- raw VBI has good captions, sliced VBI has nothing.

Jim,

Before I go mucking around with the cx25840 driver, could you run the
following steps to see if they make things better:

1. For your test install, get and build the latest ivtv and cx25840
drivers from

http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb/archive/tip.tar.bz2

Unpack, 'make menuconfig', 'make', 'make install' (as root), 'make
unload' (as root) and run 'modprobe ivtv'

The make menuconfig is optional, make sure you leave the
CONFIG_V4L_ADV_DBG (IIRC) enabled.

You also may want to build the v4l-dbg utility that's under v4l2-apps,
since the steps that follow assume the latest version.


2. Start up an S-Video capture with Sliced VBI.


3. Verify, as root (note you may have to use something other
than /dev/video1 - that's just where my PVR-150 card is):

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -S
host0: cx23416 revision 0x00000000
i2c 0x1b: wm8775 revision 0x00000000
i2c 0x44: cx25843 revision 0x00008433

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -g 0x104
ioctl: VIDIOC_DBG_G_REGISTER
Register 0x00000104 = 0h (0d 00000000b)

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -g 0x105
ioctl: VIDIOC_DBG_G_REGISTER
Register 0x00000105 = dch (220d 11011100b)

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -g 0x106
ioctl: VIDIOC_DBG_G_REGISTER
Register 0x00000106 = 4h (4d 00000100b)


4. Then turn off the impedance boost for the Luma signal:

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -s 0x106 0x00

And wait for your app to play through it's current buffered up video to
see if the change gives you VBI back.



5. If not, then check the Automatic variable gain amplifier setting for
the luma signal:

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -g 0x488
ioctl: VIDIOC_DBG_G_REGISTER
Register 0x00000488 = 17h (23d 00010111b)

The top of scale is 0x3f, so if it's greater than 0x37 or so, then turn
on the extra 12 dB of gain for the Luma signal:

# v4l2-dbg -d /dev/video1 -c cx25840 -s 0x104 0x1

and again wait for the app to play through it's currently buffered up
video to see if you get sliced VBI back.


6. If that still doesn't work, try the different combinations of having
the extra 12 dB of gain on or off and the impedeance boost on or off.


That will tell me if it's CX25843 analog front end problem. If it's not
that, then we'll have to look somewhere else. BTW, the CX2584x
datasheet is available from dl.ivtvdriver.org if you care to see what
the registers mean.

Regards,
Andy


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On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 4:27 AM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:

> Jim,
>
> Before I go mucking around with the cx25840 driver, could you run the
> following steps to see if they make things better:
>

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the detailed instructions. It may take a couple of days before I
can try it out since it is the "production" machine. This certainly sounds
plausible as a way of explaining why a different STB would make it stop
working.

Jim

On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 07:22 -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 4:27 AM, Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net> wrote:
>
> Jim,
>
>
> Before I go mucking around with the cx25840 driver, could you
> run the
> following steps to see if they make things better:
>
>
> Hi Andy,
>
>
> Thanks for the detailed instructions. It may take a couple of days
> before I can try it out since it is the "production" machine.

Take your time.


> This certainly sounds plausible as a way of explaining why a
> different STB would make it stop working.

It's one way for sure. I recall that you said the tuner and another box
was working.

Aside from analog signal processing, some other wild speculation I have
is:

2. The STB isn't putting out the proper parity bits for the CC data.
The cx25840 driver software will drop things on the floor with bad
parity. A TV set might not care.

3. Maybe there's some funny new encoding of CC being output by the new
STB that the cx25840 slicer isn't programmed to look for.

4. The CC data is on the wrong line from the STB.

5. The horizontal timings is the cx25840 driver are ever so slightly
off off, but it shouldn't make a difference. Maybe for this STB, it
actually does.


I'll probably ask for some *raw* vbi data files of a few seconds each
(check with osc that raw VBI is being captured and then kill osc and do
a cat /dev/vbi > foo.vbi) for a known good source and then the STB
source. Differential analysis of the raw VBI samples is the most
deterministic way of figuring out what's going on.


Regards,
Andy



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