HD-PVR contrast, hue, saturation, etc.

[troll5501]

So I'm trying out the beta firmware for the HD-PVR (installed via the Windows 1.6.29207 driver install), however the picture looks terrible with the default calibration settings, as discussed in this thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56698

Unfortunately I cannot get Sage to use the modified settings that I put into Sage.properties as suggested by the Windows users. Does anyone know if this should work for Linux?

I can use v4l2-ctl to manually change them but when Sage starts a new recording they go back to the defaults. So Sage seems to know how to change them but it's disregarding the values I put into Sage.properties.

[gplasky]

Did you stop Sage running when you edited the .properties file?

Gerry

[troll5501]

Yes, and Sage seems to be trying to use the new values. From sagetv_0.log:

Wed 8/17 9:36:28.114 [AsyncWatch@31fb8e] V4L:  updateColors0 b=131 c=64 h=16 s=72

So I added some debugging to the hdpvr module to see what it's doing, and I got this:

Aug 17 09:36:28 sagelinux kernel: [125622.092095] hdpvr 1-7:1.0: Setting brightness to 134
Aug 17 09:36:28 sagelinux kernel: [125622.092103] hdpvr 1-7:1.0: Setting contrast to 128
Aug 17 09:36:28 sagelinux kernel: [125622.092108] hdpvr 1-7:1.0: Setting hue to 128
Aug 17 09:36:28 sagelinux kernel: [125622.092113] hdpvr 1-7:1.0: Setting saturation to 128

I'm not sure where the disconnect is. I can "fix" it by hardcoding my values in the module code and rebuilding it, but that's a kludgy solution.

[bcjenkins]

Would you mind posting the patch for "fixing" the driver? I would like to try the new firmware as I have problems in recordings when going from HD -> SD -> HD transmissions on the cable box.

B

[bcjenkins]

Using the Generic Tuner plugin from jpwegas I can run v4l-ctl after a tune.

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --set-ctrl=brightness=128,hue=64,saturation=44,contrast=64,sharpness=96

I would still like to hard code these values and ignore this step.

B

[drewg]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Using the Generic Tuner plugin from jpwegas I can run v4l-ctl after a tune.

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --set-ctrl=brightness=128,hue=64,saturation=44,contrast=64,sharpness=96

I would still like to hard code these values and ignore this step.

B

Ick, I hate having to hard-code things in modules.

Could you guys re-cycle my LD_PRELOAD hook that we used to intercept /dev/dvb recordings and increase the DMX buffer size? Eg, intercept the open(/dev/video..) and and add the appropriate ioctl to set the brightness / hue / etc. I guess this could be a problem if Sage later ioctls bad settings in, but you could also hook ioctl and close, and keep track of the /dev/video file descriptors, and either fixup Sage's ioctls or just skip them.

Drew

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by drewg

Ick, I hate having to hard-code things in modules.

Could you guys re-cycle my LD_PRELOAD hook that we used to intercept /dev/dvb recordings and increase the DMX buffer size? Eg, intercept the open(/dev/video..) and and add the appropriate ioctl to set the brightness / hue / etc. I guess this could be a problem if Sage later ioctls bad settings in, but you could also hook ioctl and close, and keep track of the /dev/video file descriptors, and either fixup Sage's ioctls or just skip them.

Drew

That's Greek to me - could you provide a working example?

B

[drewg]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

That's Greek to me - could you provide a working example?

B

Probably not, since I don't have an HD-PVR.

I've attached the preload code I used before Qian fixed the buffer size issue. What it does is to intercept any calls to open(). It then checks to see if the open was to /dev/dvb/adapter*/dvr0. If it was, it issues a DVB ioctl to set the buffer size.

You'd want to modify the code to look for opens of /dev/video and to issue an ioctl to set the hue/color/etc.

The problem is that if sage later issues a bogus ioctl and resets the color. If that is the case, you'd also need to intercept ioctl, look for the ioctl that changes the color, and either ignore it, or replace the bogus values it is using with the correct values.


Drew

[drewg]

Wait a sec ... could this be a 32 bit bug in the HD-PVR drivers?

To troll5501: Are you using a 64-bit kernel? If yes, what happens if you try to set the color using a 32-bit version of v4l2-ctl? Do you see the same bad color? If so, then the bug is in the driver's handling of ioctls from 32-bit processes.

I *hate* that sagetv is 32-bit for this reason ... using 32-bit apps on 64-bit kernels is almost never tested by anybody.

Drew

[bcjenkins]

There is a patch posted to the Linux Media list addressing this: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-me.../msg38318.html

B

[jchiso]

I recently booted into Windows 8 on my system that runs my Linux server, and did the driver installation (and firmware update) for the HD-PVR. Now when I go back into Linux the encoder settings don't seem to have any effect. When I did a capture in Linux the contrast, brightness, etc. were all off, and I cannot re-set them by editing the Sage.properties file.

It seems that Linux is bypassing these settings and reading from the (new) firmware settings. Anyone know a way to overcome this, and force the Linux server to use a specific calibration set?