Once again: D3A and no video...

[laz]

I've just discovered this thread...

I've had a D3A that I have been using routinely with no problems for a year or so (maybe longer?). I have now just been given another D3A (labelled exactly the same as the other one) which I was going to pass on to my brother for use with vomp.

Now that I've tried to test the "newer" one, it boots fine and I get the menus which work fine (the screen dims when I move the cursor up and down on the options menu - not noticed that before the other one does it too now I look!). However, I only get audio on playback or live TV. OSD graphics are still there, though.

I haven't changed any settings and I'm swapping one device directly for the other. I was thinking it was a dud but having read this thread...

I tried rebooting it a few times and one time I got a screen full of red, purple, and black stripes instead of a black screen on playback (menus, etc. still working fine). Next reboot was back to a black screen for video playback!

All of this is with vomp 0.3.0. I'm just about to boot into windross to test the proper software...if I can get that to work with anything else I've got!

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A bit ore testing with vompclient debug mode after reading other threads.

Playing back any recording on the "dodgy" one gives me audio for about 5 s and then silence. During the 5 s of sound, I see lots of Demuxer - +* PTS JUMP *+ 3716485174 48 and  Demuxer - DELETED REFERENCES in vompclient debug output.

After the sound has disappeared, I get lots of alternating:
VDR - Sending KA packet
VDR - Rxd correct KA reply

messages and the odd block of Timers and BoxStack messages.

I can exit "playback" by pressingthe back button, i.e. it hasn't locked up or anything.

Just tried a radio channel and that played back (audio only!) for several minutes without problems.

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More interesting stuff: the above was running vompclient -d

If I playback a recording WITH debug sound stops after about 5 s and the time readout on the OSD never changes from -:--:--

If I playback a recording WITHOUT debug, i.e. straight after booting it, the sounds plays for much longer (10 minutes and counting...) and the OSD time updates almost instantly and counts up as expected.

Not sure whether this is due to heaver load when running with debug or something like that but seems a bit weird!

Another thing I've just noticed...the OSD on the dodgy one is stretched vertically, compared with my other, working one! The Welcome menu is about 14.5 cm high on the dodgy one but only 12 cm high on the working one. I see the same expansion with the recordings menu and also the first Hauppauge boot screen! The vomp-MAC_ADDR.conf files on the vdr server are identical (one file copied over the other).

I'm starting to wonder whether these things are actually as identical as the labelling suggests...the outputs of dmesg are identical for the two boxes (apart from IP address and MAX address bits).

[muellerph]

Another thing I've just noticed...the OSD on the dodgy one is stretched vertically, compared with my other, working one! The Welcome menu is about 14.5 cm high on the dodgy one but only 12 cm high on the working one. I see the same expansion with the recordings menu and also the first Hauppauge boot screen! The vomp-MAC_ADDR.conf files on the vdr server are identical (one file copied over the other).

I'm starting to wonder whether these things are actually as identical as the labelling suggests...the outputs of dmesg are identical for the two boxes (apart from IP address and MAX address bits).

This sounds a bit like the topic:http://www.loggytronic.com/forum/index.php?topic=210.0

[Chris]

Hi laz, thanks for posting.... All I can say is .. Interesting !!

Can you post a full log from the time you press play in the recordings list until it is just printing the alternating KA messages please.

Does it print lots of demuxer pts jump messages every time you try this? I would like to see a log with these messages.

Chris

[laz]

I won't have a chance to do any more testing until the weekend but I will post as much as I can then (well, links to logs, etc.!).

Anything else that you can think I should try? I had my suspicions that they were subtly different internally (chip revisions, etc.?) but nothing different from dmesg on the two boxes. Will take both apart and compare chip numbers!

[laz]

Right...I've just created a couple of log files form the output of vompclient in debug mode:

From the working D3A (currently watching stuff with it as I type this!):
http://www.club-burniston.co.uk/vdr/d3a_debug_working.log

From the non-working D3A (SCART, network, and mains swapped from the working one):
http://www.club-burniston.co.uk/vdr/d3a_debug_novideo.log

I tried to do pretty much the same keypresses on each. I've also added a few comments in the files where I pressed play, stop, etc.

All of this is with vomp 0.3.0, although I have a build environment set up so I am happy to test vompclient patches if you can come up with anything form my logs!

[Chris]

laz, thanks for the log files. Mark has spotted the problem! (We really, really really hope)...

The non-working D3A is reading from the MVP that it is a NTSC model. I just forced mine to NTSC and got audio, and no video.

So, assuming you really are in the UK, add this line to your MVP config file in the [General] section:

Code Select Expand


Override Video Format = PAL


Report back what happens...!

[carsten]

I'm also curious...thought I was stupid when I didn't got it to work...BR Carsten.

[laz]

Aha! Sounds extremely plausible, especially with the expanded OSD I'm seeing...

I am in the UK and my working D3A was bought here. The (currently,,,) non-working one could have been bought anywhere in the world.

I will try forcing PAL later on this evening...

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Yep! Jobs a good'un!

Works fine with that added to the vomp-{MAC}.conf file. Nice to see the feature included!



Keep up the good work!