[MPlayer-users] Re: mplayer audio from TV line???

[Jonathan Rogers]

Erik Slagter wrote:
> How about a memory leak in de tv card grabber device driver?

Why would you suspect that? I've never seen this behavior except when 
reading and playing digital audio simultaneously, something I just 
started experimenting with. I've had the BT878 based card for a year and 
a half.

I can't rule it out, but I have no reason for suspecting it. The problem 
could be an interaction between the video and audio device. Right now, 
I'm doing the audio with ecasound, but tvtime isn't running. If I don't 
get any weird behavior after hours of this, I'll suspect a weird 
interaction.

> 
> I think monitoring memory usage is still very interesting. The behaviour
> you mention sounds very familiar to me. The machine becomes unresponsive
> because it is swapping all of the time.

I can't rule that out, but I really don't that think that's what's 
happening. Unlike the times I've run out of memory, this problem is 
instanteous. It start instantly and stops instantly.

> 
> BTW I think it may be wise to reboot after such a near-crash. You never
> know what areas of system memory have become corrupt.

If there's a serious kernel memory corruption bug, then I'd agree. It's 
not like I got a kernel panic or even strange kernel messages. I like to 
assume Linux can handle something until it's proven that it can't. It's 
the opposite of the Windoze mentality, where you have to tread lightly 
and hope you aren't pushing the machine too hard. Yes, I get in trouble 
sometimes because I push something too hard on Linux, but that's how I 
learn the limits of the system.

Jonathan Rogers