[ivtv-devel] [ivtv-users] PVR-350 firmware lock-ups + tips + probs in point form

[Rudy Zijlstra]

Luke McKee wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>
>
>I have a PVR-350 NTSC version and I'm in a PAL country. I have
>over-rided the standard with PAL=M, and in full debug it seems to be
>putting the card in PAL mode. I also use v4l2-control to do this.The
>MSP44xx seems to support pal audio even though it is not listed in the
>module options.
>  
>
I have some strong doubts on whether you can get this to work in  a 
stable way. Not because of any limitation on the main chipset (cx, 
msp,..) but because of the tuner.

NTSC is a 6MHz bandwidth. PAL is either 7 or 8MHz. This means that when 
you use an NTSC tuner in PAL country, you will not capture all the 
signal. Especially on an 8MHz PAL signal you will loose way too much 
information. On a 7MHz you may get lucky and capture enough of the 
signal to get image / sound. I suspect though, that you will most often 
loose out on audio. I suspect the tuner will lock on the video carrier, 
and the audio carrier will at least partly be outside the SAW filter of 
the tuner. On an 8MHz PAL this will certainly be the case.

Using SVHS will work around this problem. What i do not know, is whether 
the only difference between NTSC / PAL version is the tuner, or whether 
the routing on the card is also different. Hans may know this, having 
gone through the code in detail on this.

A different problem you can run into, is that the firmware of the card 
may be making some assumptions. Like that when the tuner is an NTSC, 
then certain combinations are "unexpected" and thus not supported in the 
firmware. This is not so much a concious "not supported" as well as "not 
foreseen to be used". The latest can lead to some very dificult to debug 
problems.

Good luck! (i suspect buying a PAL version will safe you a lot of time 
and effort).


Rudy