[vdr] Re: vdr at dbox2

[Holger Waechtler <holger@qanu.de>]

Carsten Koch wrote:
> Alexander Olk wrote:
>
> > If somebody is interested...
> >
> > vdr works on the dbox2. You can find the diff at cvs.tuxbox.org in
> > cdk/Patches (the diff also includes the remote plugin and a special
> > dbox2 plugin, which handles dbox2 cam access, lcd support and dbox2 game
> > plugins...).
>
>
> When Alexander wrote the above to this list on June 16th, 2003, I
> thought: "What a great idea! a silent complete VDR box for the price
> of a DVB card!".
>
> What I did not know was, that "vdr works on the dbox2" only means you
> can start vdr and use it for zapping (which you can already do under
> neutrino). In particular, Alexander's VDR cannot play back NFS-mounted
> VDR recordings, which is the main purpose I had in mind.
>
> I extended Alexander's patch and I got playback to work, but I am not
> happy with it. So far, I have observed at least the following problems:
>
> 1) Some VDR recordings play back just fine - for a while.
>    I have watched some VDR recordings without problems for a while.
>    After ~15 or 20 minutes of playback, the playback starts to
>    have glitches. Stopping and re-starting playback sometimes
>    helps, sometimes only rebooting the dbox helps.
>    Reminds me of the old days when you had to reload the DVB driver
>    for VDR to work properly.  ;-)
>
> 2) Some VDR recordings crashed VDR immediately with a segfault.
>    I tried running VDR under gdb, but gdb crashes on startup. :-(
>    I tried getting a core file, but the busybox shell does not
>    seem to support that feature. :-(
For development you can use a powerpc-debian image over NFS-root, that
makes debugging much easier. There were a few tweaks required in the
libc a while ago, I don't know whether they are still required.

>    I put code into VDR that catches the segfault and sleeps long
>    enough so I can attach the debugger to the running process.
>    Strangely enough, with that code in, VDR never hits the
>    signal catch routine!
sounds like a heisenbug.

> 3) The DVB driver on the dbox does not provide the necessary functions
>    for any of the trick modes (Fast Forward, Fast Reverse, Slow Motion).
>
> 4) After a +- one minute skip, very often playback does not
>    resume properly. Stopping and restarting playback with the
>    blue button sometimes helps.
>
> In summary:
>   My current VDR version on the dbox can do playbacks - if you are
>   very patient and forgiving.
>   It does not have the stability of VDR on a PC.
>   Some work is required on the dbox DVB driver. That would take me
>   a very long time, as I have no experience in that area.
>   I have given up and ordered a silent barebone PC system to
>   replace my dbox2 (anyone want to buy a dbox2 from me?).
>   I will offer my current version of the patch to the tuxbox folks.
>   Maybe somebody else wants to pick up where I gave up?
maybe you can ask the dbox2 people for help, especially obi has a lot of
experience in this area - you can also ask him on the linux-dvb mailing
list.

Holger




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