I had the e-mail below typed and ready to send when I re-read it one last time and realized that while I had tested some of my video cables when I first experienced the problem, I had not tested all of them. I did so and, sure enough, I found a cable that had gone bad. I replaced it with a new one today and - poof! - the system works just fine again.

To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject: dark picture on recordings from PVR-350
Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 18:55:53 -0600

Hi all,

When I am watching live TV or viewing recordings, the picture quality is very dark and somewhat blurry. This behaviour began sometime between May 13 and May 15, because when I bring up a list of recorded programs in MythWeb, the difference in brightness is quite obvious. When I play recordings recorded May 13 or earlier (or any videos, DVDs, etc.) the picture is bright and the quality is superb. If I watch live TV or a program recorded after May 14, the picture is dark and the resolution seems somewhat poor. I have tried plugging my input (a Bell ExpressVu standard def. satellite receiver) directly into the TV rather than through Myth and the picture quality is great.

I am using Fedora Core 4 with a PVR-350 for my input. I did not make any changes to the system; this behaviour seems to have happened on its own. I was previously running version 0.18.2.20051227-1 from atrpms which I installed in early January and made very little modification to the system after that, other than updating the kernel and IVTV drivers to 0.4.3.

The only thing I could find my logs from between May 13 and 15 that was anything other than regular log messages from my system was this:

DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

DB Error (Error in JobQueue::GetJobCmd()):
Query was:
SELECT cmds FROM jobqueue WHERE id = 586;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

DB Error (Error in JobQueue::ChangeJobComment()):
Query was:
UPDATE jobqueue SET comment = '3% Completed @ 37.382 fps.' WHERE id = 586;
Driver error was [2/2002]:
QMYSQL3: Unable to execute query
Database error was:
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

It's my guess that there are settings somewhere related to the channel settings or to recording properties that create the poor quality picture, since I can still playback good quality recordings without any difficulty.

I recently upgraded to the latest *everything* about a week ago but while the system is running solid (including 0.19.20060121-2 from atrpms and the latest IVTV drivers), the picture quality is still terrible. I deleted and recreated the capture card, video sources, and input, but no luck. I have also played with the picture controls with MythTV and the IVTV drivers themselves with no luck. I am beginning to think the only way to solve this problem would be to re-create the entire box from scratch.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to where I might start looking for a resolution to this problem? I've tried searching the lists and Googling but haven't found anyone describing these symptoms yet and I just don't know what to try next.

Thanks,

Derek

--

I am an idiot.