Strange behavior of the "Live TV" function with 10.04

[seth]

 
Hi all. I have recently been finding myself using MythTV less and simply watching the "LiveTV <insert device here>" streams lately.
Here is what I have set up:
I have 2 Dish Network receivers
Receiver 1 - using codeset 1 - hooked into the first s-video/white/red of a PVR500 card.
Receiver 2 - using codeset 2 - hooked into the second or daughter card s-video/white/red of the PVR500.

Now when I select LiveTV-SAT-1 I can see the streaming image of the first receiver no problem. Whatever remote I am using works swimmingly.
But....when I try to watch the second receiver, all I get is a black screen.

Now when I use MythTV, both receivers function well. So it is not a connection issue.

I am wondering where I can look to see why the stream from the second receiver is not playing?

Any insight as to where to start digging would be greatly appreciated.

When the Dish PVR I have direct connected to my Living Room TV is recording two events, the wife might like to watch something while I am watching Game of Thrones, and this would cause a great deal of angst, as I am hopelessly addicted to that show. If she fires up MythTV while I am watching a LiveTV stream from the effective Tuner 1 in my setup, I would lose Game of Thrones, and she would take over the tuner. And she hardly ever uses MythTV so this would be a bad thing.


Thanks in Advance, and as always,
Best regards,

Seth

[JaseP]

I'm not sure I follow,... Isn't your Live TV playback in LinuxMCE 10.04 being routed through the MythTV frontend???
If it is, then MythTV might not be configured properly to grab the next available tuner...

Otherwise,  I was unaware of any other Live TV playback capabilities.

[golgoj4]

I'm not sure I follow,... Isn't your Live TV playback in LinuxMCE 10.04 being routed through the MythTV frontend???
If it is, then MythTV might not be configured properly to grab the next available tuner...

Otherwise,  I was unaware of any other Live TV playback capabilities.

Thats not how the system works. Try learning 1st? Especially before just responding with no useful information. It doesnt help the person nor the project.

Anyways Seth,

Have you double checked the pipes for the device to make sure the live tv path is defined? It should be as myth uses it too, but I have experienced device data dropping before. I have a similar setup with 2 directv boxes using codeset 1/2 respectively. Is there no sound in addition to no picture?

Let us know her or drop by IRC, no mans Game of Thrones episodes should be under threat!
-golgoj4

[seth]

 

Good call golgoj4!

I went in and looked. the first tuner (device 99) has variables defined in pipes.
However we see here that the second tuner (device 100) does not.

See images below.

I will set the second tuner pipes to look like the first, and post back my results. Have to wait a few to reload the router, family is busy utilizing the system at the moment.

Thanks, and Best Regards,

Seth

[Marie.O]

Damn those users... 

[JaseP]

Thats not how the system works. Try learning 1st? Especially before just responding with no useful information. It doesnt help the person nor the project.

Sorry,... It had been a couple of days since his post,... and I (mostly) wanted to keep the thread alive. 

But, in my defense, there really isn't a good reference on the wiki to learn quite how everything fits together,  and I hadn't realized that TV playback wasn't directly through MythTV until I found this...

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/MythTV#Programmer.27s_Guide

I'll be happy to help edit the wiki (for organization & whatnot) once I get a better handle on how the system fits together.

BTW - After reading the wiki article linked above, I have what I hope is a somewhat related question.  How does the Live TV wrapper handle picking which tuner to use, and how does it keep that job from colliding with MythTV scheduled jobs (honoring MythTV settings?!?!)

[seth]

 
Update. By changing the pipes on device #100, I now have streaming to LiveTV SAT -2.

Was a simple thing to resolve. Sometimes I think too hard when it comes to figuring this system out.

@JaseP,
 When a tuner is detected, in my case I have 2 cards, well, one PVR500 which shows up as 2 PVR150s, when you go through initial Sarah time, you can assign receivers to different inputs on any identified cards. When you do this, Sarah creates a "LiveTV < insert name of device >" for each instance.

So after I added my Dish Network receivers, controlled by USB-UIRT on Core, during the setup wizard, when she says "Are there any pieces of AV equipment you wish to use" or something like that, I assign receiver 1 to the first card in my system, and receiver 2 to the second. This causes her to generate a media scenario for a particular MD or, if you click the button to make it available to all MDs, a scenario for each on every MD Media menu. The system however also asks if you want to use them for PVR. So she also rolls them into MythTV or VDR. So not only do you have the TV option on the media menu, but also an option for every piece of AV equipment you define during setup.

If that helps clear things up.

Thanks again for making me stop thinking so hard golgoj4.

Best regards to All,

Seth

[JaseP]

@ Seth,

So in a system like yours, you've got the tuners in the cards either bringing in TV from the antenna/cable, as well as the cable/satellite providers boxes coming in through analog inputs of the card(s) and those tuners controlled by IR or serial,... right?!?!

Live TV instances are created for each, whereby a wrapper around MythTV's libraries are used to control the TV viewing instances,... If I got that right?!?!

How does LinuxMCE go about picking which tuner to use for playback, when multiple tuners are available? I know it is using MythTV's databases (at least in my setup with two dual tuner HDhomeruns), because the channel left in the last instance is always set to that channel on (one of the) input configuration in MythTV. But again, how is it deciding which configured tuner to use?

And, if I were to run out of tuners (say 3 of four tuners on LiveTV a fourth recording, and someone wants another instance of LiveTV or scheduled recording),  how does LinuxMCE handle the conflict?  Does it rely on the settings for MythTV?  Or, does it have it's own conflict resolution database?

[seth]

@ JaseP

No. the LiveTV devices are separate from MythTV. That is why the wife using MythTV on tuner 1 to watch something was the initial issue.

My system is as follows:

2 Dish receivers
2 PVR inputs ( svideo, white, red )

Now. the above resources are used for two different functions.

Function 1: First choices in setup menu
After creating the SAT-1 and SAT-2 AV devices, you go through the setup wizard. Those devices show up  as AV equipment on that screen. The next screen is the Input screen.
There I have listed:
svideo PVR500 card 1
svideo PVR500 card 2
as well as the Composite ( yellow wire ) and the coax

I choose the first svideo PVR500 card 1 and connect it to SAT-1 and make it available to all MD's
then i choose the second svideo PVR500 card 2 and connect it to SAT-2 and make it available to all MD's.

Once this part is completed, If I were to exit the wizard, Media menu Items would be generated for:
LiveTV SAT-1
LiveTV SAT-2

This is completely separate from MythTV.

Function 2 - second choices in setup menu
Now if I were to continue the setup wizard past the above point, then the next windows would ask me for the PVR information.
Here I choose:
SAT-1 controlled by USB-UIRT core for the first tuner it sees
SAT-2 controlled by USB-UIRT core for the second tuner it sees.

Now both the live, non time-shifted SAT-1/2 feeds have an entry
and
I can also use the TV option and get access to time-shifted SAT-1/2.

My problem was, If I was watching LiveTV SAT-1, and the wife fired up MythTV, my screen would go away, and she would take SAT-1 away from me, or rather MythTV would.

The two are not connected.

My issue was SAT-2 pipes were not complete, so LiveTV SAT-2 was just producing a black screen, no audio/video, not unlike if MythTV were to take over that tuner card.

And that in the end fixed me up.

If I remember tonight, I will take a screenshot of my Media Menus, and show you what I am referring to.

Best Regards,

Seth