[vdr] softdevice and DirectFB with Matrox G450

[Tony Houghton <h@realh.co.uk>]

I've just installed a Matrox G450 with the intention of using the
softdevice plugin, but I can't get it to work. There is no sound and the
picture is just white dashes flickering on a black background. I'm using
VDR 1.3.17-6.ds and softdevice 0.0.8.

I select the plugin with -P"softdevice -vo dfb:mgatv". I only found out
about the -vo by happening on it in this mailing list; why is softdevice
almost completely undocumented? I also tried -ao alsa and -ao oss to see
if that would at least get sound working, but they didn't. In
/etc/directfbrc I have:

matrox-crtc2
matrox-tv-standard=pal
mode=720x576
depth=32
memcpy=mmxext
no-graphics-vt
no-vt-switching
no-vt-switch

The last 3 options are supposed to stop DirectFB applications from
needing root privileges, but they don't work (nor for MPlayer). So I had
to reverse the deb's run_as_root patch to make it start at all.

I had to get rid of the poison pragmas to be able to compile softdevice:
libdirectfb or DFB++ use thread-unsafe functions. Could that be a cause
of the problem? Anyway, here's VDR's output:

[video] /home/tony # LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.21 vdr --video=/video --config=/var/lib/vdr --lib=/usr/lib/vdr/plugins/ -P"softdevice -vo dfb:mgatv" -Premote
[softdevice] processing args
[softdevice]   argv [0] = softdevice
[softdevice]   argv [1] = -vo
[softdevice] initializing Plugin
[softdevice] Initializing Video Out
[softdevice] ffmpeg version(0.4.9-pre1) build(4718)
[dfb] init
(*) DirectFB/Config: Parsing config file '/etc/directfbrc'.

       ---------------------- DirectFB v0.9.21 ---------------------
             (c) 2000-2002  convergence integrated media GmbH
             (c) 2002-2004  convergence GmbH
        -----------------------------------------------------------

(*) DirectFB/Core: Single Application Core. (2005-01-07 18:35)
(*) Direct/Memcpy: Forced to use MMXEXT optimized memcpy()
(*) Direct/Thread: Running 'PS/2 Input' (INPUT, 1054)...
 (!!!)  *** UNIMPLEMENTED [fusion_reactor_set_lock] *** [reactor.c:802]
(*) DirectFB/Input: IMPS/2 Mouse 1.0 (Convergence GmbH)
(*) Direct/Thread: Running 'Keyboard Input' (INPUT, 1055)...
(*) DirectFB/Input: Keyboard 0.9 (convergence integrated media GmbH)
(*) DirectFB/Genefx: MMX detected and enabled
(*) DirectFB/Graphics: Matrox G450 0.7 (convergence integrated media GmbH)
(*) DirectFB/Core/WM: Default 0.2 (Convergence GmbH)
[dfb] RAM: 16777216 bytes
[dfb] Accellerated Functions: FillRectange DrawRectange DrawLine FillTriangle Blit StretchBlit All
[dfb] Drawing Flags: Blend
[dfb] Surface Blitting Flags: BlendAlpha BlendColorAlpha Colorize SrcColorkey Deinterlace
[dfb] Supported video Modes are: 768x576@32 640x480@32 640x480@32 800x600@32 720x576@32
[dfb] Enumeratig display Layers
Layer 0 FBDev Primary Layer  Type: graphics
  Caps: brightness contrast saturation surface
Layer 1 Matrox Backend Scaler  Type: graphics picture video
  Caps: brightness contrast deinterlacing dst_colorkey screen_location surface
Layer 2 Matrox CRTC2 Layer  Type: graphics picture video
  Caps: brightness contrast flicker_filtering hue saturation surface
[dfb] width = 720, height = 576
[dfb] got fmt = 0x00418c04 bpp = 32
[dfb] Using this layer for OSD: (FBDev Primary Layer - [720x576])
osdSurface::
 - videoonly
 - flipping
videoSurface::
 - videoonly
[dfb] Configuring CooperativeLevel for Overlay
[dfb] Configuring ColorKeying
[dfb] Configuring CooperativeLevel for OSD
[dfb] Using this layer for OSD: FBDev Primary Layer
[dfb] Using this layer for Video out: Matrox CRTC2 Layer
[dfb] (re)configuring Videolayer to 720 x 576 (720x576)
[dfb] creating new surface
[dfb] (re)configured 0x00200806
[softdevice] Video Out seems to be OK
[softdevice] Initializing Audio Out
[softdevice] Audio out seems to be OK
[softdevice] A/V devices initialized, now initializing MPEG2 Decoder
cSoftDevice::MakePrimaryDevice

-- 
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk