IVTV: PAL/SECAM support broken in 0.24

[Dominique Corbex <domcox@…>]

Last week, I updated my mythbuntu based system from 9.04 to 10.04LTS (9.04 → 9.10 → 10.04LTS).

In the process MythTV was upgraded from 0.21 to 0.24.

Everything went flawlessy except that after reboot, I was surprised to discover a broken video. Sound was ok; but video was now mainly red and jerky.

First, I stopped mythtv-backend and unloaded/loaded ivtv modules:

$ sudo modprobe -r ivtv cx25840 tuner tea5767 tda8290 tda9887 wm8775 tuner_simple
$ sudo modprobe ivtv

and then tuned an existing channel (I live in France, analog system is secam-l)

$ ivtv-tune -t france -c 33 -d/dev/video0

good, video was back.

Then I made a simple comparison of both setup with:

$ v4l2-ctl --log-status

mythtv-backend stopped and ivtv modules unloaded/reloaded:

   [ 4914.991477] ivtv0: GPIO status: DIR=0xdf00 OUT=0x26f3 IN=0x17f7
   [ 4914.994835] cx25840 2-0044: Video signal:              present
   [ 4914.994842] cx25840 2-0044: Detected format:           SECAM
   [ 4914.994848] cx25840 2-0044: Specified standard:        SECAM
   [ 4914.994854] cx25840 2-0044: Specified video input:     Composite 7

mythtv-backend:

   [ 3061.987682] ivtv0: GPIO status: DIR=0xdf01 OUT=0x26f3 IN=0x17f7
   [ 3061.991072] cx25840 2-0044: Video signal:              present
   [ 3061.991079] cx25840 2-0044: Detected format:           NTSC-M
   [ 3061.991085] cx25840 2-0044: Specified standard:        SECAM
   [ 3061.991091] cx25840 2-0044: Specified video input:     Composite 7

it seems that MythTV sticks to NTSC. Stopping mythtv-backend and try to tune manually changes nothing.

But if I force secam:

$ v4l2-ctl -s secam-l -d 0
$ ivtv-tune -t france -c 33 -d/dev/video0

video is back.

I guess something went wrong about IVTV control in MythTV between 0.21 and 0.24 version.

It seems people using PAL TV standard are facing the same trouble:

​http://www.mail-archive.com/ivtv-users@ivtvdriver.org/msg09824.html

A workaround is to write a small script for tuning an ivtv device, and use it as an external channel command in mythtv-setup.

[Kenni Lund [kenni a kelu dot dk]]

Dominique, it looks like a local problem on your system. Michael T. Dean has posted a suggestion to you on the mythtv-dev mailing list. Please test if it solves your issue.

[domcox <domcox@…>]

Today, I made several tests, and ended by this:

1. Deleted all video sources by using the "Delete all video sources" button
2. Deleted all capture cards by using the "Delete all capture cards" button
3. Reboot (unload/load ivtv driver)
4. Recreated video sources
5. Recreated channels
6. Recreated capture cards
7. Recreated input connections

But video is still gone.

It was first reported on the French forum after an upgrade to MythTV-0.23.

It's just a minor annoyance, analog TV will be closed down in France before the end of the year, most people have already made the switch to DVB-T.

I'm maybe one of the last guys running MythTV with an IVTV card in SECAM-L mode, and I have a workaround by using a small script, so...

[sphery]

Dominique, please shut down all your MythTV frontends and backends, delete all occurences of TVFormat from your settings table:

mysql -umythtv -p mythconverg -e "DELETE FROM settings WHERE value = 'TVFormat';"

and then start mythtv-setup (on any host) and set the "TV Format" setting (under "Locale Settings" in the General setup area) to the appropriate value for your area. Then retry MythTV's video. If it still doesn't work, please re-try the procedure you used above to clear your video sources/capture cards and reconfigure capture cards, video sources, input connections, and channels.

I think your upgrade from 0.21-fixes to 0.24 resulted in your TV Format setting getting "corrupted" (you may have multiple values where there should be only one global value or have data in the setting that's no longer valid, so it falls back to the default of NTSC). Similar issues were reported to happen on some upgrades from 0.21, but no one ever identified what caused the breakage.

If this fixes the issue, please let us know. Thanks.

[sphery]

(sorry, didn't mean to provide info)

[robertm]

No response.