Today I checked AmiTV after I installed AOS 4 latest update.

The Windows pops up but remains black!
Shell windows output data when I switch channels with cursor keys!

Any idea?

Thx

Last edited by mbilla on 21-Mar-2006 at 09:52 PM.
Last edited by mbilla on 21-Mar-2006 at 09:51 PM.

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Here's the log output:

8.RAM Disk:> amitv
AmiTV 27/01/05.
Found Bt878-based WinTV card 0x109e 0x36e!
Configured Bt878.
Locked OK!
Device capabilities: 3.
Device initialised OK!
Interrupt status is 0x20c133f.
Locating EEPROM on Bt878....I2C returned 0x0.
Tuner Found at 0xa0!
Interrupt status is 0x20c133f.
Locating tuner on Bt878....I2C returned 0xff.
Not found at 0xc0.
Locating tuner on Bt878....I2C returned 0x7a.
Tuner Found at 0xc2!
Added interrupt 16 with result 1.
Interrupt status is 0x30c133f.
Vendor ID is 0x0.
Setting Bt878 input.
Current Status is 0xb4.
Input device: 0x1b.
Width: 768. Height: 576.
HDelay: 0x78 VDelay: 0x16,
Program being created at 0x0x226ad80.
Created 3468 instructions.
Sent I2C command 0xc21fe28f.
I2C done! i=0x0
I2C bytes 0x1fe2 written.
Sent I2C command 0xc28e308f.
I2C done! i=0x3d3
I2C bytes 0x8e30 written.
Output enable is 0x0x8ffff00.
Interrupt shows DMA controller is disabled.
Interrupt shows bad RISC code encountered.
Interrupt shows a FIFO overrun - dropping DWORDS.

_________________
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Connect your Amigas ...
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@mbilla

Sorry for somewhat hijacking your thread as i can't help you with your problem, but seeing
that your AmiTV version is fairly old (january 2005) and as we didn't hear anything from the
author since a very long time... i just wonder, if that thing is still in development? Is the
author still around?

Oh, and regarding your problem.. that's probably only solvable if the author provides a
new version.. since Jan 2005 a lot of things have changed in OS4, so i'm not really surprised
some programs need to get a bit reworked..

_________________
Regards, Cyborg.
AmigaOS4 development team member

"In the beginning was CAOS.."
-- Andy Finkel, 1988 (ViewPort article, Oct. 1993)

@Cyborg

This will be one neat piece of software for AOS4 if it works out.

ace

@acefnq

Right... if is the magic word here..

I did a quick search and found a (very old) thread where Spirantho (the author of AmiTV) talked
about having problems with DMA.. sg2 (the OS4 DMA guru ) offered to help, but at least in
public Spirantho never responded to him... if he still has DMA problems he really should
talk to sg2!

There were also already a couple of other threads and polls where people were asking
about AmiTV, but during my quick look I couldn't find any answer of him.. so i take it as he
really has given up and isn't interested in TV cards on OS4 anymore.. though he last visited
aw.net on Mar 20th, so if someone would write him a PM or EMail (address in his profile),
maybe he could enlight us a bit..

Last edited by Cyborg on 23-Mar-2006 at 07:19 AM.

_________________
Regards, Cyborg.
AmigaOS4 development team member

"In the beginning was CAOS.."
-- Andy Finkel, 1988 (ViewPort article, Oct. 1993)

Hi,

Is it really that long since I started on this? Crikey....

Yeah, I've not worked on it for a while, simply because I got tired of the machine always crashing out of my control - it made the development painful and the result useless, which is kind of a dampener on your enthusiasm. Suffice it to say though my A1 still has 2 TV cards in it. :)

I need to try it again now with PR4, I've just not got round to it, as I'm not convinced it's going to be any different. I don't know why the old version would break, though... I'm sure I tried an old version when I got PR4 and it worked...ish.

Anyway, the other reason is that AmithlonTV seems a much more complete solution than what I've got so it seemed a bit silly to be tearing my hair out when someone else had done it already. Having said that, of course, I'm not aware of great progress there either, and it's not OS4 native, is it? I did offer to help the author with an OS4 build to combine efforts but he declined.

So I've not quite given up, I just haven't worked on it for a while, as a program which crashes your machine solid whenever the signal drops is no good to anybody, and I'm not entirely sure the PCI or interrupts system are working as they should anyway because it's been a nightmare trying to get the TV card to behave as I'd expect (for instance, DMAing doesn't seem to be fast enough for the frame buffer size for some weeeird reason, resulting in artifacting and strange lines and stuff, or alternatively a low frame rate).

Exactly how many people want me to continue work on AmiTV actively again? I would have pointed people towards AmithlonTV but that doesn't seem to be the wanted solution. I need to know because I need to upgrade my version of GoldEd! :)

Edit: Oh, the other thing I was waiting for was the Amy'05 - as that has a completely different PCI bus I'm hoping it won't have the same problems. But maybe PR4 will fix it anyway...

Last edited by Spirantho on 23-Mar-2006 at 09:47 AM.

@Spirantho

I want you to keep working. If you've got a PayPal account, i'll even donate. Hows that?

_________________
Playstation Network ID: xeron6

@Spirantho

Thanks for your status update. Very much appreciated!

If you just search aw.net for "AmiTV" you'll find a lot of people wanting it rather than
AmithlonTV.

Anyway, if you still experience problems with DMA, don't hesitate and ask... especially
sg2, who is somewhat a guru for DMA stuff on OS4 and who already offered you his help
back when you first talked about the problems..

Oh, and while you are at it, what about support for DVB tuners later?

_________________
Regards, Cyborg.
AmigaOS4 development team member

"In the beginning was CAOS.."
-- Andy Finkel, 1988 (ViewPort article, Oct. 1993)

Quote:

Added interrupt 16 with result 1. Interrupt status is 0x30c133f. ... Interrupt shows DMA controller is disabled. Interrupt shows bad RISC code encountered. Interrupt shows a FIFO overrun - dropping DWORDS.

I just wonder how there can be an interrupt number "16", when the interrupt controller on the AmigaOne (i8259) has only interrupts 0 to 15 and all PCI interrupts are normally routed to interrupts 7, 9,10 and 11 (and 5 for USB).

On the other side, I don't know how OS4 handles interrupts or if this is the real hardware interrupt number.

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- A1 Linux support -

@Spirantho


Please continue work on AMITV !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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@xeron

Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately I have a conscience. :)

I can't guarantee a finished product and I don't know how long it'll take to get anything really worthwhile... but thanks for the offer!

@Spirantho

I don't really have room in my A1 for a TV card, but it's an app that I'd like to have as a possibility when it's time for an upgrade.
And I've also seen people moaning about it, so I hope you'll be motivated to keep at it - and if you run into problems you can't handle, just give a shout out and perhaps someone has an idea about what to do or who to contact

@Spirantho

Yes, I think that it is good idea to continue work

Though if it is imposibble to get work, anyone should not stress too much about it.

Are you been contacted with devs ?

I got pretty strange behaviour with pre3. with ati7000 and additional eth card everythin worked fine. With 9250 eth1 stopped to work. With upd4 all is ok. And I suspected IRQ thingy.

So if these have something to do with your strange behaviour, it could be solvable. If not, cant help

@All
We should make list about active coding projects, and use paypal for all active development ?

Last edited by mlehto on 23-Mar-2006 at 02:07 PM.

@Spirantho

> Exactly how many people want me to continue work on AmiTV actively again?
> I would have pointed people towards AmithlonTV but that doesn't seem to
> be the wanted solution. I need to know because I need to upgrade my
> version of GoldEd! :)

I think having something like AmiTV is very important for OS4. I've tried both AmiTV and AmithlonTV. AmithlonTV freezes instantly, AmiTV freezes after a couple of minutes. So AmiTV is much better already (at least in my case). Please continue development of AmiTV.

Kind regards,

Dennis

@Spirantho

I would definitely like to see AmiTV developed further. I hate having to wait 5 minutes + for my A1 to boot into Linux. Sometimes Linux freezes on the way, meaning I have to reboot and wait longer. It would be nice if I could watch TV in AOS4 (no more waiting).

AmithlonTV freezes instantly on my system. Part of the problem is probably that I am using an indoor antenna and AmithlonTV defaults to a channel with no signal. In Linux, I can get it to start with a selected channel, thereby avoiding this problem.

Just for reference, with overlay enabled, the tv tuner doesn't crash Linux on my machine when there is no valid TV signal (unfortunately, the overlay display is mangled). Without overlay, it crashes the machine if no valid signal is present. So whatever problems exist, both operating systems have trouble. Still, even if the system is overloaded with interrupts/DMA transfers,, there should be a method of dealing with it gracefully, rather than locking up the whole machine. Hopefully the AOS4 team will find a solution.

Hans

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@Hans
Quote:

Hans wrote: @Spirantho Just for reference, with overlay enabled, the tv tuner doesn't crash Linux on my machine when there is no valid TV signal (unfortunately, the overlay display is mangled). Without overlay, it crashes the machine if no valid signal is present. So whatever problems exist, both operating systems have trouble. Still, even if the system is overloaded with interrupts/DMA transfers,, there should be a method of dealing with it gracefully, rather than locking up the whole machine. Hopefully the AOS4 team will find a solution.

Ah, good, that saves me some time - I was going to have to install Linux to see what happened!

That pretty much confirms what I thought - that the problem is in the BIOS - or else what I feared - that the problem is in the hardware itself.

To be honest I think it's in the hardware - which is why I was (and still am) waiting for the Amy '05. This also means no matter what I do I will never be able to make a properly working program, hence why no development!

@Spirantho

Please continue your work with AmiTV

_________________
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@Spirantho

Please don't give up

_________________
ikir

@Spirantho

When we get overlay support you should be able to get it working. Using it with overlay was how I managed to find all valid channels in the first place.

In the meantime, would it be possible to disable the syncing interrupt for a short period after a sync interrupt has occurred (maybe disabled for half a field or something like that)? I'm assuming that this interrupt is being triggered like crazy when there's no signal and causing the system to fall over. So, forcing a delay between one interrupt and the next may help, if it is feasible. Actually, there may be multiple interrupt types that need to be disabled. I haven't really looked at the BT878 documentation so I don't know how involved it would be.

I would be very disappointed if the hardware actually locked up due to interrupt/DMA overload. That would mean that there's a serious design defect. It should at least trigger some sort of error signal that the OS could respond to. That way it would be possible to clear the error condition and restart the trashed DMA transfers.

Either way, it would be great if you could get AmiTV working, even if it locks up occasionally. Once I'm tuned in to a channel, I can watch ok, even without overlay. I can assure you that the signal I'm getting is not that clean.

@all

Has anyone else used BT878 based TV cards in their A1 with low quality TV signals? Either in AOS4 or Linux. It would be worth getting feedback from more people to make sure the behaviour I described above isn't due to a bad Linux setup.

Hans

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@Hans

Ok, I don't know if this applies to the BT848 as well, but I've noticed that the BT878 has a "VIA Chipset compatibility bit" (EN_VFX) in the device control register. This is supposed to deal with pci-bus issues in VIA chipsets due to their incorrect PCI implementation. Random lockups with VIA chipsets is also mentioned in the BTWinCap project's changelog. Looking at their code, they enable this bit if a VIA chipset is present. Somewhere on their pages they also suggest updating the VIA chipset drivers to the latest ones from VIA as they contain workarounds for hardware issues. Obviously we can't update our drivers as VIA's drivers are not for the Amiga. However, this does suggest that there may be a solution after all (at least for BT878/879 based tv-tuners).

Hopefully this compatibility bit will make a difference on the A1.

Hans

_________________
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