Arch Linux

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Hi All,

Hoping someone here can help me with a little problem i've found after upgrading to 'Noodle'.

After upgrade and switching to hwd from hotplug the bttv driver seems to be loaded okay for my Leadtek Winfast XP and i can see and hear TV using tvtime as before, (had to alsaconf after upgrade to get sound from my soundblaster live but otherwise ok).

My problem comes when i use the following command to try and capture TV:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -vf crop=760:568,pp=lb -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vqscale=6.1:vbitrate=2000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=80 -o output.avi tv://

I've been uisng this command perfectly well up unitl this weekend when i took the plunge and upgraded. Since then i can capture the video from the TV card but the resulting capture never has any sound???

Prior to the upgrade i would have to adjust my volumes manually via the gnome volume control, lowering my master and PCM feeds and upping the Line and Capture options in the capture sections. This was to ensure the volume on my captures was not too loud, but it makes no difference now as i get no audio fullstop..

[edit]
For the record i have not upgraded mplayer to the latest version due to incompatibility with other scripts i use. The version i'm using is: MPlayer 1.0pre6-3.4.3.

I might try and upgrade this incase its an mplayer prob with the rest of the system, which maybe fixed in the current version.
[edit]

I suspect this is a problem caused by udev or a missing device and or rights issue, but unfortunately after hours of slaving i have not made any headway and i'm not sure where to go from here. I was hoping someone maybe able to explain whats happening and perhaps offer a solution.

Its as if mencoder is trying to get the audio from the wrong feed or  something???

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Spitbyte
PS: I have removed and reinstalled alsa and also reconfigured several times using alsaconf.

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Thanks for the repy. I installed mplayer-cvs as you suggested but i still get no sound when capturing TV

In the time between posts, i have removed my soundblaster live, and tried capturing via my onboard sound, but this did not work either (tvtime is fine again, piping sound from line-in as it should). I just can;t get mplayer to capture the sound.

This occured after my upgrade to noodle and the new hardware detection (hwd), so i'm convinced that some necessary file/module/device is not being loaded/created as it was with hotplug and thats why mplayer can't grab the sound.

Of course i have no idea what this might be as i'm not a guru, so if someone could give me some instructions just to help me check to see if all thats required is loaded appropriately i'd be very grateful.

Looking forward to helpful comments

Regards

Spitbyte

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Spitbyte, 
First of all, a little technicality: "Upgrade to Noodle" really means very little.  See http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … highlight= for details.

Secondly, try putting MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes" in your rc.conf and removing "hwd" from your DAEMONS array.  See if that helps; it's yet another hardware autoload solution called "hwdetect" and it's built into the initscripts.

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Hi Cerebral,

Point taken about the rolling release. I get that.

I was never referring to Noodle in that way really, just trying to give people i rough idea of how up to date my PC is with Arch, as prior to the day i upgraded, i was a good few months behind. Hence the upgrade was quite big and in hindsight if i had upgraded incrementally then the source of my woe would be easier to identify and resolve.

That being said, i chose to wait to avoid any packages that may have probs, i've read the 'noodle' post and i understand that the snapshot is no more stable than current, but it would not be logical to release a cd ISO with broken packages so this nformed my decision to proceed with my upgrade at this time.

I have just tried what you suggested and hwdetect does not cure the problem either.

Any other ideas?? (This is frustrating)

Regards

Spitbyte

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Well, there's a quick way to test if it's a permissions problem: does it run correctly as root user?

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Well, there's a quick way to test if it's a permissions problem: does it run correctly as root user?

Nope, it does exactly the same as root. So i guess its not a permission related problem. Thanks for the idea though

I've just found this site:

http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/TVCapture_98

and played with the amixer commands.

I have the capture options exactly as they say, save for the ID is 68. I have tried all the options 1 thru 7 and can't get an audio stream on any. (ive also adjusted volume levels)

I also noticed that there was a separate option in the full amixer listing (amixer controls) for Line playback. Out of curiosity i ran tvtime and then adjusted the volume of the Line playback option via amixer and this lowers the volume that tvtime is using.

This is interesting as i thought tvtime was using the capture channel for audio, it obviously is not and thats why i can get a feed with tvtime and not with mencoder.

So my TV card must be okay as i'm definately getting sound from it to my soundcard. The issue looks to lie with the soundcard. However, i've tried capture on my onboard sound and this does not work either. What are the chances of both sound chips failing, unlikely me thinks.

So again, i'm coming back to the idea that something has not been loaded that allows capture????

Also, if i try and watch tv via mplayer (mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=768:height=576:outfmt=yuy2 -vf pp=lb), then i get no sound. I'm trying to work out how to specify to mplayer which audio source to use but i'm getting lost in the man page a little (sooooooo many options ), i believe tvtime (as per man page) uses '/dev/mixer:line' as its default feed and this works, so i've just got to try and work out how to define this within the mplayer command to see if i can get sound.

My next step after this would be to see if i can route the line playback feed to mencoder for capturing ????

I dunno if i'm getting anywhere, but i'll soldier on. Please help if you can

Regards

Spitbyte

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Some more info after experimenting:

I now have the audio feed from the TV card going into my soundcard's MIC socket and tvtime is working okay with this aswell.

When tvtime is running sound is present at a normal volume, when i close tvtime i can still hear a very low whisper of the audio from the tv card in the background, moving the mic slider does not increase this audio which i find a bit strange.

I also played with the audio when tvtime was running and found i could easily turn on/off the sound using the amixer commands:

amixer -c 0 cset numid=55 1 (on)
amixer -c 0 cset numid=55 0 (off)

The sound goes off and on as the mic channel is muted, as you'd expect. However, if i try and repeat this process when tvtime is not running. I get no feed again

I don't understand why one application can manipulate the mixer and sound without issue but another cannot.

Now i'm really confused .....

Spitbyte

sven

Member

Registered: 2005-02-01

Posts: 311

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

I also had the same kind of problem and this fixed it: v4lctl volume mute off - I can hear the tv sound and then I am applying the mencoder command and I will have the sound in recording. I have Avermedia Studio TV card. v4lctl is part of xawtv package.

EDIT: I am usually using KDE's mixer and I have connected my tv card to line in. So I have to click on the "red"button at line in slider part to get the sound transferred to sound card.

Spitbyte

Member

Registered: 2005-10-29

Posts: 13

Re: Help! - Problem with TV capture following Noodle upgrade

Thanks sven. I will try your suggestion. Appreciate the response

SB