[mythtvnz] DVB drivers location and .zst compression

Paul paulgir at gmail.com
Wed May 21 04:39:28 BST 2025


On 2025-05-21 15:29, Curtis Walker wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.
>>         >
>>         >
>>         > _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>         /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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>
>     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.
>
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>
>
> 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.
>
>
>     I think I had a HDHomerun by then , so I quickly eliminated the
>     possibility that it was a signal problem.
>
Your symptoms looked exactly the same as mine back then - after 20~30 
mins of playback I would get pixellation:

"The additional firmware is for the RF modulator in the card - 
specifically, the tda10048. Without this, it SEEMS to work fine, until 
you get otherwise inexplicable pixellation. I hope this info saves 
someone else a week's work and several dollars in trialling 
new/different aerial connectors and attenuators!"

Pretty much what I saw.
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