[vdr] Recent breakage of DVB subtitles with dxr3

[Mika Iisakkila]

Quick data points with Finnish YLE DVB subtitles, using a dxr3:

1.7.22: everything works
(never tried versions between here, because I was stuck with a 2.6 kernel
back then)
1.7.25: subtitles are almost black and thus illegible
1.7.26: same thing
1.7.27: colours OK, but during live programming, maybe one of every 20
subtitles shows at all, and are about half the correct size. Same thing
when viewing recordings made with this version - when I replay old
recordings, all subtitles seem to get displayed.

vdr-dxr3-plugin version 0.2.13 from here:
http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-dxr3/files

em8300 drivers from here (cloned on March 17th, I think):
hg clone http://dxr3.hg.sourceforge.net:8000/hgroot/dxr3/em8300 dxr3

System Ubuntu Oneiric, kernel 3.0.0-17 from Ubuntu sources (but
recompiled by myself, because those nice folks at Ubuntu had to turn
OSS support off in the kernel, preventing the em8300 drivers from
working)

--mika

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

Post by Mika Iisakkila
1.7.22: everything works
(never tried versions between here, because I was stuck with a 2.6 kernel
back then)
1.7.25: subtitles are almost black and thus illegible
1.7.26: same thing
1.7.27: colours OK, but during live programming, maybe one of every 20
subtitles shows at all, and are about half the correct size. Same thing
when viewing recordings made with this version - when I replay old
recordings, all subtitles seem to get displayed.
http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-dxr3/files
hg clone http://dxr3.hg.sourceforge.net:8000/hgroot/dxr3/em8300 dxr3
System Ubuntu Oneiric, kernel 3.0.0-17 from Ubuntu sources (but
recompiled by myself, because those nice folks at Ubuntu had to turn
OSS support off in the kernel, preventing the em8300 drivers from
working)

I remember using alsa with em8300 already years ago? Was I dreaming? :)

-- Pasi

[Mika Iisakkila]

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
I remember using alsa with em8300 already years ago? Was I dreaming? :)

Perhaps you were using ALSA years ago. As far as I understand, the
audio layer options in the em8300 drivers are a no-op nowadays and
it will always try to use register_sound_dsp() etc and these will
fail without OSS support in the kernel.

Or what do I know, every time I upgrade my VDR installation I spend
an hour googling dead links and obscure mailing list archives for
what the "current" version of the drivers might be, and then another
half an hour finding out how & where to download it. Perhaps there
is a recent ALSA-only em8300 driver somewhere...

OSS support was gone in Ubuntu Maverick:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/579300

...and I had to do system upgrades Lucid -> Maverick -> Natty ->
Oneiric to get a 3.0 kernel so I could try the newer VDRs, and
only then found out the em8300 drivers wouldn't load.

Anyway, until there's a proper fix for the subtitles, I'm going to
stay at .22 because it simply works for me, and the new style YLE
subtitles actually look a lot better with the dxr3. The old
subtitles always were fat and ugly compared to how they looked
on deviced that had a proper alpha channel, or whatever the culprit
with dxr3 is.

--mika

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

Post by Mika Iisakkila

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
I remember using alsa with em8300 already years ago? Was I dreaming? :)

Perhaps you were using ALSA years ago. As far as I understand, the
audio layer options in the em8300 drivers are a no-op nowadays and
it will always try to use register_sound_dsp() etc and these will
fail without OSS support in the kernel.

"The default audio mode of the em8300 device support utilities and kernel modules (em8300 and kmod-em8300-* packages) has changed from OSS to ALSA to follow upstream."

So yeah, there shouldn't be need for OSS support in the kernel.

-- Pasi

Post by Mika Iisakkila
Or what do I know, every time I upgrade my VDR installation I spend
an hour googling dead links and obscure mailing list archives for
what the "current" version of the drivers might be, and then another
half an hour finding out how & where to download it. Perhaps there
is a recent ALSA-only em8300 driver somewhere...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/579300
...and I had to do system upgrades Lucid -> Maverick -> Natty ->
Oneiric to get a 3.0 kernel so I could try the newer VDRs, and
only then found out the em8300 drivers wouldn't load.
Anyway, until there's a proper fix for the subtitles, I'm going to
stay at .22 because it simply works for me, and the new style YLE
subtitles actually look a lot better with the dxr3. The old
subtitles always were fat and ugly compared to how they looked
on deviced that had a proper alpha channel, or whatever the culprit
with dxr3 is.
--mika
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[Mika Iisakkila]

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
The default audio mode of the em8300 device support utilities and kernel modules (em8300 and kmod-em8300-* packages) has changed from OSS to ALSA to follow upstream

I googled your quote. Apparently it is from some Fedora release note
from 2007 and I don't think it will help me a bit with an Ubuntu
kernel from 2012, as the driver project has been forked, patched
and merged a number of times after that.

I'll gladly receive a current, relevant reference that will tell
me how to use the em8300 drivers on current Ubuntu without
recompiling the kernel. It takes 18(!) hours of CPU time on my
VDR box.

Also, can we try and discuss the subtitling problem as well?

--mika

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

Post by Mika Iisakkila

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
The default audio mode of the em8300 device support utilities and kernel modules (em8300 and kmod-em8300-* packages) has changed from OSS to ALSA to follow upstream

I googled your quote. Apparently it is from some Fedora release note
from 2007 and I don't think it will help me a bit with an Ubuntu
kernel from 2012, as the driver project has been forked, patched
and merged a number of times after that.

Yep, it was from Fedora. You could always check the Fedora src.rpm
for any extra patches they might have there..

Post by Mika Iisakkila
I'll gladly receive a current, relevant reference that will tell
me how to use the em8300 drivers on current Ubuntu without
recompiling the kernel. It takes 18(!) hours of CPU time on my
VDR box.

I think your best bet is to post to dxr3-***@lists.sourceforge.net
mailinglist, I think all (most) the em8300 developers are there..

Post by Mika Iisakkila
Also, can we try and discuss the subtitling problem as well?

Sorry I can't really help with that..

-- Pasi

[Mika Iisakkila]

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
Yep, it was from Fedora. You could always check the Fedora src.rpm
for any extra patches they might have there..

Post by Mika Iisakkila
I'll gladly receive a current, relevant reference that will tell
me how to use the em8300 drivers on current Ubuntu without
recompiling the kernel. It takes 18(!) hours of CPU time on my
VDR box.

mailinglist, I think all (most) the em8300 developers are there..

Well, I googled a bit more, and it seems the actual problem is
in dxr3-plugin, not the drivers. The plugin is only able to
use OSS (as of Dec.2008, anyway). I'm not willing to waste time
fighting with semi-functional compatibility layers, so I'll just
keep using my own kernel. Next time I'll configure out all the
unneeded junk before compiling, though :D

--mika

[Marc]

Post by Mika Iisakkila
Well, I googled a bit more, and it seems the actual problem is
in dxr3-plugin, not the drivers. The plugin is only able to
use OSS (as of Dec.2008, anyway). I'm not willing to waste time
fighting with semi-functional compatibility layers, so I'll just
keep using my own kernel. Next time I'll configure out all the
unneeded junk before compiling, though :D

Why don't you cross-compile your kernel on a faster computer ?

Marc.

[Mika Iisakkila]

Post by Marc
Why don't you cross-compile your kernel on a faster computer ?

Because I don't really have any with a suitable distribution
installed. And once it takes more than 15 minutes, it's pretty
much the same difference if it's two or six or ten hours...
I'm not going to compile it again until I'm forced to.
I ran 2.6.15 from 2006 until last October!

--mika

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

Post by Mika Iisakkila

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
Yep, it was from Fedora. You could always check the Fedora src.rpm
for any extra patches they might have there..

Post by Mika Iisakkila
I'll gladly receive a current, relevant reference that will tell
me how to use the em8300 drivers on current Ubuntu without
recompiling the kernel. It takes 18(!) hours of CPU time on my
VDR box.

mailinglist, I think all (most) the em8300 developers are there..

Well, I googled a bit more, and it seems the actual problem is
in dxr3-plugin, not the drivers. The plugin is only able to
use OSS (as of Dec.2008, anyway). I'm not willing to waste time
fighting with semi-functional compatibility layers, so I'll just
keep using my own kernel. Next time I'll configure out all the
unneeded junk before compiling, though :D

I'm pretty sure there is drx3-plugin version with ALSA support aswell!

-- Pasi

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen

Post by Mika Iisakkila

Post by Pasi Kärkkäinen
Yep, it was from Fedora. You could always check the Fedora src.rpm
for any extra patches they might have there..

Post by Mika Iisakkila
I'll gladly receive a current, relevant reference that will tell
me how to use the em8300 drivers on current Ubuntu without
recompiling the kernel. It takes 18(!) hours of CPU time on my
VDR box.

mailinglist, I think all (most) the em8300 developers are there..

Well, I googled a bit more, and it seems the actual problem is
in dxr3-plugin, not the drivers. The plugin is only able to
use OSS (as of Dec.2008, anyway). I'm not willing to waste time
fighting with semi-functional compatibility layers, so I'll just
keep using my own kernel. Next time I'll configure out all the
unneeded junk before compiling, though :D

I'm pretty sure there is drx3-plugin version with ALSA support aswell!

Yep, see dxr3plugin-users mailinglist archives for more information:

"[Dxr3plugin-users] [PATCH] Switch to the ALSA audio interface":
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=21665465

-- Pasi