[vdr] AW: Re: EPG scan cause high load and AC3 drop outs

["Christian Jacobsen" <christian.jacobsen@stageholding.de>]

Hallo Klaus, Hello List,

> >>        don't know if the subject is caused by the new DVB
> >> driver (e.g. 2003-03-18 aka RC2) ... and/or by VDR 1.1.25.
> >>
> >> Nevertheelss I've reports with users of the bitstreamout
> >> plugin together with multiple DVB cards and running EPG
> >> scan.  Such a scan causes an interrupted data stream to
> >> the plugin with _more_ than 32 ms.  Don't know if the
> >> new module parameter for the dvb-ttpci module (av7110)
> >>
> >>        hw_sections=0
> >>
> >> would help (I can not test this without a second card).

Did not help :(

> >> Beside this the thread of eit.c shouldn't cause this high
> >> load reported to me (which may one source of the interrupted
> >> data stream).
> >>
> >> @Klaus:  Do you have similar reports? And what can be done?
>
> For the moment I suggest setting the EPG scan timeout to 0,
> which disables the EPG scan. I have already fixed this one (I hope ;-)
> but since there was only so little changed I didn't release a new version.
> I can do so tonight...
>

First of alle thanks for fixing the EPG high-load error :)

But unfortunatly that is not the only problem. When I set EPG to 0 with
1.1.25 I still have "timeouts" with the bitstreamout plugin.

The easiest way I have found to reproduce sound-droputs is to Delete a
recording. (I don't know how big they have to be - when I did that it was
with recordings of 1:30 Hour or bigger.)
And then switch to Pro7 - after a while the files are really deleted and
that causes the sound to drop for short moment.
When watching Pro7 I have sound-dropouts every 4-20 min. The same happens
when replaying AC3 recordings. Yesterday watching a recording I had the
first dropout after 23 min, the next 7 min. later and so on.
What I don't understand is why there is no errors in the syslog or from VDR
!?
Extept two errors that I had yesterday - see below !

I have stopped everything that came into my mind what was running in the
background. But as I have tested a lot of things (60 or more hours) I am
pretty sure that it is not Linux. It is VDR, DVB oder bitstreamout.

It seems to me that VDR does something which interrupts the Sound stream to
bitstreamout. As I mentioned deleting a recording is one thing, I have got
no idea what else is done in the background !?

I have also tried 1.1.26 with 18.03.03 and hw_sections=0 and it did not
help. I also tried before that to set EPG to 0 and use --device=0 that did
not help either. Maybe becase the Driver still is loaded for both cards !?

Is it possible to create some kind of Buffer (maybe on/off switchable in
settings) for Audio/Video so that small timeouts won't do such interupts ?


I just had an Idea - could it be that this is caused because I have got ac
CI rev. 1.4 (IIRC) attached to the DVB-s and no CAM in it ?
Could it be that VDR (and previous DVB/Firmware) on a regular basis tries to
see if there now is a CAM there and that is causing the timeout problem ?

I dont think it is related to the new ll-software (CAM) as I have the same
problem with 1.1.20 with a DVB driver from 1.11.02.


Another thing I have noticed. The DVB Driver uses videodev.o, input.o and
evdev.o of the current installed kernel. Could it be that I need a newer
kernel ?
At the moment I have got the standard 2.4.18 kernel of Suse 8.0


Here are Two errors I have found in my syslog yesterday :

kernel CommandRequest timeout waiting for COMMAND to complete
kernel StopHWFilter error

They seem to come from av7110.c (at least the last one).
Both errors came at the same time and I belive I was replaying a recording.
Unfortunatly I don't have the log here. If it is important I will send it
tonight. When this error occured I had no Sound-dropouts. VDR 1.1.25 + DVB
1.0.0-pre2 + bitstreamout-plugin


Here is my Configuration :
Suse 8.0 pro (standard default kernel)
ALSA 0.90rc6 (with alsa-patch from bitstreamout 0.42g)
VDR 1.1.25 with DVB 1.0.0-pre2
VDR 1.1.20 with DVB 01.11.02
VDR 1.1.26 with DVB 18.03.03 (hw_sections=0)
Bitstreamout-0.42 - 0.44
1 DVB-s rev. 1.3 with CI attached but no CAM inserted.
1 WinTV Nova-s

Greetings
Christian



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