[mythtvnz] DVB drivers location and .zst compression

[Curtis Walker]

On Wed, 21 May 2025, 14:54 Paul, <paulgir at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 2025-05-21 14:34, Curtis Walker wrote:
>
> I had an issue with the saa7164 firmware in 2011....maybe some of what
> worked for me back then will work for you now?
> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=126229
>
> I run Arch linux, latest updates & kernel (6.14.6), with no such issues,
> thankfully.
>
> Good luck!
>
> On Wed, 21 May 2025 at 14:28, Paul <paulgir at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 2025-05-21 13:55, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> > On Wed, 21 May 2025 10:54:09 +1200, you wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 2025-05-21 10:41, Curtis Walker wrote:
>> >>> On Wed, 21 May 2025 at 10:19, Paul <paulgir at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>      Hi
>> >>>
>> >>>      I have been seeing minor artifacts (pixellation) , mainly after
>> >>>      skipping forward during playback.
>> >>>
>> >>>      Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-2200Back in my installation of MythTV on
>> >>>      Xubuntu 16.04 I saw a similar effect because one piece of
>> firmware
>> >>>      (nxp7164-2010-03-10.1.fw) for
>> >>>
>> >>>      my Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-2200 was not in    /lib/firmware/'current
>> >>>      kernal'  , so I was checking the locations of the relevant
>> >>>      firmware and I see  /lib/firmware/'current kernal' no longer
>> >>>
>> >>>      exists.
>> >>>
>> >>>       The HVR-2200 drivers:   v4l-saa7164-1.0.2.fw      ;
>> >>>      v4l-saa7164-1.0.3.fw     ;     cp dvb-fe-tda10048-1.0.fw
>>  and
>> >>>       nxp7164-2010-03-10.1.fw    are currently all in
>> >>>
>> >>>      /lib/firmware.
>> >>>
>> >>>      The other thing I noticed is that all the firmware is Zstandard
>> >>>      compressed and the 4 HVR-2200 files with .fw extensions are
>> >>>      described in the Thunar file manager as "unknown".
>> >>>
>> >>>      Do I need to compress these files and convert them to .fw.zst
>> >>>      extensions  like all the others or are these ok as is?
>> >>>
>> >>>      Regards
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> I may have missed it, but what distro are you currently using?
>> >> Hi  , in recent weeks I went from 20.04 to 24.04 via 22.04 and to
>> MythTV
>> >> version 35
>> > I had a look at my /lib/firmware directory and it looks like the new
>> > standard in Ubuntu 24.04 is to compress all the .fw files.  I have a
>> > lot of .fw.zst files - it looks like most of the .fw files that are
>> > coming from current 24.04 packages are zst compressed.  But in the
>> > dmesg output, I can still see .fw files being loaded, so it is not
>> > necessary to go around compressing your other .fw files.
>> >
>> > Not all drivers report loading their firmware files, but it always
>> > pays to check occasionally to see what is happening at boot time. Take
>> > a look at the output of:
>> >
>> > dmesg | grep "\.fw"
>> >
>> > If it is a long time since the last boot, there may no longer be any
>> > boot messages in the dmesg output, so if possible check soon after a
>> > boot.
>> >
>> > I have never actually heard of there being a /lib/firmware/'current
>> > kernel' directory.  I have always put the firmware in /lib/firmware or
>> > an appropriate subdirectory of /lib/firmware.
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > mythtvnz mailing list
>> > mythtvnz at lists.ourshack.com
>> > https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
>> > Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/
>>
>>
>> /lib/firmware/'current kernel'   Probably dated back to 12.04 or 16.04 .
>> I used to have to copy NXP7164_2010-03-10.1.fw to /lib/firmware/'current
>> kernel'  after kernel updates , or I would get intermittent pixellation in
>> recordings.
>> After 20.04 I no longer need to do that. That's probably when
>> /lib/firmware/'current kernel' ceased to exist.
>>
>> The output of dmesg | grep "\.fw" :
>>
>> [    6.047781] saa7164_downloadfirmware() Waiting for firmware upload
>> (NXP7164-2010-03-10.1.fw)
>> [   22.767075] tda10048_firmware_upload: waiting for firmware upload
>> (dvb-fe-tda10048-1.0.fw)...
>> [   28.488814] tda10048_firmware_upload: waiting for firmware upload
>> (dvb-fe-tda10048-1.0.fw)...
>>
>> My system boots for recordings and then shuts down
>>
>> I compressed the four firmware files to see if it makes any difference.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtvnz mailing list
>> mythtvnz at lists.ourshack.com
>> https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
>> Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtvnz mailing listmythtvnz at lists.ourshack.comhttps://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
> Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/
>
> Thanks
>
> That is the same procedure I used in 12.04
>
> Apart from the brief pixellation after skipping forward during replay
> there are no other problems and both HVR tuners work and come on-line fast.
>
> There may be an entirely different cause for the pixellation. I just
> looked at the HVR firmware because that was a similar effect over a decade
> ago.
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtvnz mailing list
> mythtvnz at lists.ourshack.com
> https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/mythtvnz
> Archives http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/mythtvnz/


Heh. I remember upgrading my cabling and installing a new, stronger roof
antenna before finding it out was a driver/firmware issue causing
pixellation for the good old saa7164.



>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ourshack.com/pipermail/mythtvnz/attachments/20250521/52b2edd3/attachment.html>