Hello forum,

I have been trying for months to record video under Linux (Mandriva 2006) but I always have to go to Windows XP to get the job done. If it were not for my inability to record video under Linux, I would have no reason to go back to Windows ever. I want to make Linux my only operating system.

I have two video capture cards, both with Conexant CX 23880 chipsets. One is a Turtle Beach PCI Advantage Pro without a tuner and the other one is an ATI TV Wonder Pro with a tuner. I am mainly interested in the ATI TV Wonder Pro at this time. I can watch TV with either card, either using the composite input or the television tuner input (TV Wonder Pro).

The video recording software I am presently working with is Zapping because it gives me more input choices directly from the graphical interface than any other video recording software I have seen yet. I also can watch TV either from the composite input or the tuner input with very good quality.

My main concern is the fact that I'm not sure if the bttv driver is working which is supposed to be part of the Linux kernel. If I use dmesg in a terminal window, this is what I get for the TV Wonder Pro card:

Linux video capture interface: v1.00
cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.4 loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
cx88[0]: subsystem: 1002:00f8, board: ATI TV Wonder Pro [card=4,autodetected]
cx88[0]/0: found at 0000:00:0f.0, rev: 5, irq: 18, latency: 32, mmio: 0xee000000
tuner (ivtv): chip found at addr 0xc0 i2c-bus cx88[0]
All bytes are equal. It is not a TEA5767
tuner: type set to 44 (Philips 4 in 1 (ATI TV Wonder Pro/Conexant)) by cx88[0]
tda9885/6/7: (ivtv) chip found @ 0x86
cx88[0]/0: registered device video0 [v4l2]
cx88[0]/0: registered device vbi0
tuner: switching to v4l2


If I type modprobe -v bttv in a terminal window, this is what I get:

[root@localhost roy]# modprobe -v bttv
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/i2c/i2c-core.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/media/video/btcx-risc.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/media/video/v4l2-common.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/i2c/algos/i2c-algo-bit.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/base/firmware_class.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/media/video/video-buf.ko.gz
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/kernel/drivers/media/video/bttv.ko.gz

If I type ivtv-detect in a terminal window, this is what I get:

[root@localhost roy]# ivtv-detect
driver: cx8800-0.0.4
card: ATI TV Wonder Pro, bus info PCI:0000:00:0f.0
/dev/v4l/video0: YUV encoding (links: /dev/video, /dev/video0)
/dev/v4l/vbi0: VBI encoding (links: /dev/vbi, /dev/vbi0)


I have ivtv installed on my system because I used to have a Hauppauge 150 capture card in my computer but I have since removed it so I left ivtv on my computer.

So, in conclusion, my main questions would be:

1) Why can't I capture video?
2) Are the bttv drivers installed and working?
3) Are there any possible conflicts between bttv and ivtv since ivtv has nothing to do with bttv as far as I know.

Anybody's input would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks much in advance,
Roy

You might benefit from the Gatos project. It is available at gatos.sourceforge.net. The project consists of several separate modules that provide drivers for ATI hardware on Linux.