ok, I have been trying to get my tuner card to work in linux and thus far have had no luck.

im trying kdetv and tvtime and i cant get any picture and its showing as no signal on all channels

I am pretty new to linux so working in the terminal and such is still pretty new to me so try to talk to me like im a noob, lol

I read the sticky in the forum, so hopefully this stuff will help me get a good response and a solution

the lspci showed this as my card

00:0c.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7133 Video Broadcast De coder (rev d0)

this is the descript in Hard Drake

Identification
Vendor: ‎Philips Semiconductors

Description: ‎SAA7135HL Multi Media Capture Device

Media class: ‎MULTIMEDIA_OTHER

Connection
Bus: ‎PCI

Bus PCI #: ‎0

PCI device #: ‎12

PCI function #: ‎0

Vendor ID: ‎4401

Device ID: ‎28979

Sub vendor ID: ‎4401

Sub device ID: ‎0

Misc
Module: ‎saa7134

Running 2.6.12-12mdk Kernel in Mandriva 2006

I see lots having similar problems but I never can seem to ring a solution out of the posts, so please try to help me

There's a guide at http://gentoo-wiki.com/index.php?title=HARDWARE_saa7134 but it doesn't look like the easiest thing to work through.

looks like pretty much what i need, too bad i dont understand much of anything in it

I'm not sure it will help you further, but I have a page about my saa7134-base TV tuner on my web site (link below)... For best results, in addition to what I write there, I also had to force all existing standards to the settings of my (French) standard in the saa7134 kernel source code, in order to keep the sound right.

Yves.

anyone care to help me to udnerstand or point me somewhere that will?

The saa7134 module is a little tricky to get it to work. I recommend only using tvtime for best results. Using xawtv is useless with this card although its utilities like v4lctl is useful when using mencoder to capture videos. First, try selecting Composite or S-Video in tvtime. Of course you need to connect the card to some source like a VCR or DVD player. If you see a video, you will have to specify a tuner. If you do not see a video, then you have to remove the module and specify a card ID. To remove the module type 'modprobe -r saa7134 tuner videodev' as root. If your card is not listed in CARDLIST.saa7134 under the directory Documentation in kernel source directory, you will have to do trial and error to find the card ID that works best for your card. To specify the card ID, you have to run 'modprobe saa7134 card=X' as root. You will have to do 'modprobe -r saa7134 tuner videodev' every time that the card does not work. Sometimes tvtime needs to be loaded a few times to get it to work. After you see video on either Composite or S-Video, you can then move on to specifying the tuner ID. Like the card ID, it is a trial and error. The list of tuners are in CARDLIST.tuner under the same directory that you found CARDLIST.saa7134. When you load up saa7134 module you have to include the card ID and tuner ID. The syntax will be 'modprobe saa7134 card=X tuner=Y'.

Newbie or not you still have to read the man pages and understand the syntax of almost every program.

HINTS RECORDING WITH SAA7134:
Use 422p as the outfmt so it captures 16 bit color instead of yv12 which only gives you 12 bit color. Unfortunately, there is no 24 bit color captures. You can only use mencoder for recording. To give an example what I mean. Compare the following commands.

mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=704:height=480:outfmt=422p:fps=59.94 -vf scale=-1:-1:1:0:0.33:0.33,format=422p,swapuv,yuy2
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=704:height=480:outfmt=yv12:fps=59.94 -vf scale=-1:-1:1:0:0.33:0.33,yuy2

mencoder does not make compatible huffyuv, so I suggest using ffv1 and then use transcode to re-encode it to huffyuv. transcode does a lot better making compatible huffyuv video codec.