Getting TV Card to work is proving to be troublesome

Tommo · 03-27-2007, 07:37 PM

Hi there, I am having a spot of bother trying to get my tv card to work. I am on Debian Etch (Kernel: 2.6.18-4-686).

Code:

tommo@tomsbox:~$ lspci | grep video
03:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)

I have done a fair bit of searching on google about this and read that i should install ivtv module. I did this with module assistant:

Code:

module-assistant auto-install ivtv

And lsmod gives:

Code:

tommo@tomsbox:~$ lsmod | grep ivtv
ivtv                  155344  0
firmware_class          9600  2 cx25840,ivtv
i2c_algo_bit            8424  1 ivtv
cx2341x                10308  1 ivtv
tveeprom               13840  1 ivtv
i2c_core               19680  7 wm8775,cx25840,tuner,ivtv,i2c_algo_bit,tveeprom,i2c_i801
videodev               21120  1 ivtv
v4l1_compat            12036  2 ivtv,videodev
v4l2_common            20448  5 cx25840,tuner,ivtv,cx2341x,videodev

I also downloaded some firmware, unpacked and moved it to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
(this was also something i came across while searching on google)

I guess I am a tad lost now, I have tried just firing up tvtime with no luck:

Code:

tommo@tomsbox:~$ tvtime
Running tvtime 1.0.2.
Reading configuration from /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml
Reading configuration from /home/tommo/.tvtime/tvtime.xml
/home/tommo/.tvtime/stationlist.xml: No existing PAL station list "custom".
videoinput: Card failed to allocate capture buffers: Invalid argument

tvtime does start but just says:

ivtv: invalid argument
cannot open capture device /dev/video0

Sorry to bombard you with all this information, but I'm unsure as what to do. Thanks for any help

IBall · 03-27-2007, 08:01 PM

Does /dev/video0 exist? What are the permissions on /dev/video0?

Maybe try as root.

--Ian

Tommo · 03-27-2007, 08:08 PM

Well /dev/video0 was 660 (crw-rw----) so i changed it to 777. Still no luck.

almatic · 03-27-2007, 08:24 PM

1) post the output of 'dmesg | grep ivtv'
2) afaik tvtime is not able to process mpeg streams such as your card delivers, because it does not have a decoder.
Try mplayer instead.
mplayer -vf pp=lb /dev/video0

edit: a few more things I noticed

3) the firmware should go to /lib/firmware, not /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
4) are you aware that debian brings precompiled ivtv modules for it's kernels. Look for ivtv with aptitude (firmware is not included though).

Tommo · 03-27-2007, 09:06 PM

Thanks for the reply. Here is the dmesg output:

Code:

ivtv:  ==================== START INIT IVTV ====================
ivtv:  version 0.8.2 (tagged release) loading
ivtv:  Linux version: 2.6.18-4-686 SMP mod_unload 686 REGPARM gcc-4.1
ivtv:  In case of problems please include the debug info between
ivtv:  the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines, along with
ivtv:  any module options, when mailing the ivtv-users mailinglist.
ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
ivtv0: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (262144 bytes)
ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
tuner 1-0043: chip found @ 0x86 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
tuner 1-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
cx25840 1-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
wm8775 1-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
ivtv0: Encoder revision: 0x02060039
ivtv0 warning: Encoder Firmware can be buggy, use version 0x02040011, 0x02040024  or 0x02050032.
ivtv0: Registered device video0 for encoder MPEG
ivtv0: Registered device video32 for encoder YUV
ivtv0: Registered device vbi0 for encoder VBI
ivtv0: Registered device video24 for encoder PCM audio
ivtv0: Registered device radio0 for encoder radio
ivtv0: Initialized Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, card #0
ivtv:  ====================  END INIT IVTV  ====================

Before delving into your third and fourth suggestions, the mplayer command seemed to bring something up, just static though.

Also, mplayer tv://1 command brings up blank green screen with no audio. I guess I'm getting closer. Any further help/directions you could give me? Thank you very much

almatic · 03-27-2007, 09:21 PM

all correct in your dmesg output, this should work. Use the ivtv-tune command to selct channels (ivtv-tune -h gives you some info on how to use that). It depends on how you cabled the beast and where you live. Are you connected to a sat-receiver ? cable-receiver ? via composite or antenna cable ?
Do a little trial and error until you find something.

Tommo · 03-28-2007, 08:15 AM

OK, thank you very much for your help.

I have an antenna cable connected to the computer. I havn't as yet, been able to get it working. I tried ivtv-tune -c 1 to tune channel one, then tried mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:channel=1 pvr:// but it's not giving any useful output. I know it works the way i have it set up as it worked fine on Windows XP.

almatic · 03-28-2007, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tommo

mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:channel=1 pvr://

this is not correct command as it expects a digital input from dvb cards, you have an analogue card providing an mpeg stream. Please use the command I posted above. It should at least give you "snow". That means you have signal from your card, just set the wrong channel.

You say you have installed the card in windows. Try the following: Boot windows and open wintv2000 application. Then write down what channel(s) it uses. Let's say it shows 'cable-74'. Then, under linux try the following command:

ivtv-tune -tus-cable -c74 -d/dev/video0

Please also try the neighbor channels as wintv does not use the exact same frequencies I think. So if it shows cable-74, try -c50 to -c90 or so.

Don't be confused by the 'us-cable' table. If you are, for example, connected to an analogue sat-receiver, the localized frequency tables do not apply to you, you just have to find the correct frequency.
For example, I'm from germany, using an analogue sat-receiver with a pvr350 and this here works for me:

ivtv-tune -tus-cable -c88 -d/dev/video0

I then use the remote control of the sat-receiver to switch channels.

Tommo · 04-01-2007, 05:19 PM

Thanks for the clarification, i wasn't sure whether I could use us-cable as I am situated in the UK.

Anyway, got it working. I eventually hooked my antenna up to my tv to see which frequencies it found. Then I used to -f flag to set a frequency for a channel.

Code:

ivtv-tune -t us-cable -f 471.25 -c4

then:

Code:

mplayer -vf pp=lb /dev/video0

So thank you very much almatic.