saa7134 strange problem

There is the problem:

I have recently upgrated my kernel to 2.6.13. I've got the Aver TV GO 007 card which is supported by this kernel. I have managed to get the picture in tvtime.It works just fine, but there is no sound.
O.K. sounds like problem discused in many threads, but this one seems strange.

When I change video source from Television to S-video I get the tv channel sound .
I have already tried:

options saa7134 card=57 tuner=23 oss=1
and
options tda9887 qss=0
in my /etc/modprobe.conf but still the same...no sound on Television source...

Also tried aumix -d /dev/mixer -I and so on...

I use FC3, kernel-2.6.13, AC97 onboard soundcard (it works just fine)

Please help!

With TV, do you have absolutely no sound, or do you have a few seconds of sound and then nothing? I ask because I have the latter, and if you have the same, I'll be interested in the solution

Yves.

I can't see any support for this in the 2.6.12 kernel. If it is really new maybe it is just a bug in the driver. It sounds like you have already done a lot of research at places like

http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Main_Page

and

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134#Audio_Settings

Maybe you would have better luck with the mailing list on the linuxtv page? Otherwise can you use a patch lead to connect the sound card and tv card, or have the manufacturers stopped giving you that option.

You have to use the sound card to output sound. First use headphones to connect to the audio output of the video capture card. If there is sound, connect the loop cable from the video capture card's output to the sound cards Line In connector. Adjust the sound card's mixer. You do not need to specify OSS=1 to get sound, unless you want to record straight from the video capture card, but this is limited to the television input.

When I load up tvtime I use 'tvtime -x /dev/mixer:line'.

Thank you all for your replies..

I have already tried oss=1 and sound on the tuner's output, but there is no sound. So, there must be a problem with tuner's output(i think)...

There is no sound (no that there is for a few seconds), so if you have a solution I will be very grateful...

I am using kernel version 2.6.13 and it outputs sound with out any problems. In my area it uses NTSC and I do not have to use the sound IF decoder. If you are using PAL, first phyiscal look at the card and find a chip with tdaXXXX. Also enable all logs for saa7134 and tuner. For the sound IF decoder, play around the ports. When you run either tvtime, xawtv, or mplayer post what 'v4lctl list' prints.

Electro thank your for your help!

I have recently given up on the AverTv GO 007 card...I have borrowed a Pinnacle PCTV from a friend, which should work just fine....But..it seems that does not work at all...
There is "no signal" tvtime problem, the Aver Tv go 007 at least shows the picture, but pinnacle does not...

this are settings of Pinnacle PCTV stereo card (it's audio works - i think), i will post aver's tommorow

# v4lctl list
attribute | type | current | default | comment
-----------+--------+---------+---------+-------------------------------------
norm | choice | PAL-DK | PAL | PAL PAL-BG PAL-I PAL-DK NTSC SECAM PAL-M PAL-Nc
input | choice | Televis | Televis | Television Composite1 Composite2 S-Video
audio mode | choice | stereo | mono | mono stereo lang1 lang2
bright | int | 128 | 128 | range is 0 => 255
contrast | int | 64 | 68 | range is 0 => 127
color | int | 64 | 64 | range is 0 => 127
hue | int | 0 | 0 | range is -128 => 127
volume | int | 0 | 0 | range is -15 => 15
mute | bool | on | off |
vertical f | bool | off | off |
Invert | bool | off | off |
y offset o | int | 0 | 0 | range is 0 => 128
y offset e | int | 0 | 0 | range is 0 => 128
automute | bool | on | on |

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# dmesg | grep "saa7134"
saa7134[0]: found at 0000:01:07.0, rev: 1, irq: 5, latency: 32, mmio: 0xe9011000saa7134[0]: subsystem: 11bd:002b, board: Pinnacle PCTV Stereo (saa7134) [card=26,autodetected]
saa7134[0]: board init: gpio is 6000
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 00: bd 11 2b 00 f8 f8 1c 00 43 43 a9 1c 55 d2 b2 92
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 10: 00 f0 00 00 ff 20 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 20: 01 40 01 03 03 ff 03 01 08 ff 00 1c ff ff ff ff
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc0 i2c-bus saa7134[0]
tuner: type set to 33 (MT20xx universal) by saa7134[0]
saa7134[0]: registered device video0 [v4l2]
saa7134[0]: registered device vbi0
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 4.500 MHz [last detected]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 4.500 MHz [last detected]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 4.500 MHz [last detected]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 4.500 MHz [last detected]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 6.500 MHz [last detected]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 6.500 MHz [last detected]
[<129e3424>] video_do_ioctl+0x495/0xec0 [saa7134]
[<129e3e5d>] video_ioctl+0xe/0x11 [saa7134]
[<129e2f8f>] video_do_ioctl+0x0/0xec0 [saa7134]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 6.500 MHz [last detected]
[<129e3424>] video_do_ioctl+0x495/0xec0 [saa7134]
[<129e3e5d>] video_ioctl+0xe/0x11 [saa7134]
[<129e2f8f>] video_do_ioctl+0x0/0xec0 [saa7134]
[<129e3424>] video_do_ioctl+0x495/0xec0 [saa7134]
[<129e3e5d>] video_ioctl+0xe/0x11 [saa7134]
[<129e2f8f>] video_do_ioctl+0x0/0xec0 [saa7134]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 6.500 MHz [last detected]

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i use: options saa7134 card=26 tuner=5 in modprobe.conf

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# /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (different version?) (rev c1)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 0 (rev c1)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 4 (rev c1)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 3 (rev c1)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 2 (rev c1)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 5 (rev c1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 ISA Bridge (rev a4)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce2 SMBus (MCP) (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AC97 Audio Controler (MCP) (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 External PCI Bridge (rev a3)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce2 IDE (rev a2)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (rev c1)
01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:07.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7134 (rev 01)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] (rev 01)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it possible that the TvTime setting are wrong? They are vthe same as with Aver card were.

XawTv also doesn't work...

thanks again for your help!

I spent a solid week on setting up the AverTV 007 FM Plus issue and here's what I learned:
* You need at least kernel versoin 2.6.13 OR you need to install a patch for 2.6.12
* This card only works with DMA audio meaning that:
* You must run a sound application to route audio from the card to your speakers.

Modprobe the 2.6.13 version of the saa7134 module with card=57 oss=1. Probably don't
need to use the tuner option as the card has an eeprom. I don't.

Start up tvtime. If you see no picture make sure the tvnorm and frequency tables are properly configured. In my dorm I don't see or hear anything unless i have the us-cable-hrc frequency table set.

Then in another terminal you run
$ play -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1

If you hear no sound, and assuming that your sound setup is otherwise properly configured in the first plac, start up yet another terminal and run:
$ aumix -d /dev/mixer1

change the recoding device to line 1 by selecting it and pressing space a few times. then change it back to video. if you screw around with this long enough you should get sound. once you do you'll notice that it is OUT OF SYNC by a second or so, becuase it takes time for the audio to make its way through DMA buffers and whatnot. This is only a problem for live tv watching. If you record it it works fine. See aumix man page for info on automating this...

There may be a workaround for this if you use a low-latency audio system like the jack audio system...i didn't bother. Instead I installed mythtv which works for livetv because it is a time-shifting PVR -- i.e. it records everything to disk and plays back the video stream. this is so you can have pause/rewind capability. Also it can do crazy things like download tv listings, schedule recordings, run emulators, games, web browsers, fellate you, etc.

I had some initial problems with mythv because it kept screwing up mixer settings on the card, so you wouldn't hear any audio. I have since learned that you need to use v4lctl (installed with xawtv i believe) to turn automuting off on the card like this:
$ v4lctl setattr automute off
$ v4lctl setattr mute off

i modified the /etc/init.d/mythbackend script so that these commands are run just before the mythtv backend starts. i also found that shutting down unencessary applications and turning audio compression off in mythtv seems to have alleviated clicky audio sometimes experienced which I suspect is caused by buffer underruns and the computer not being able to handle the load. I'm gonna throw some more ram in there and see if it helps. Setting up mythtv is kindof a chore and I realize that most people are not going to find this to be an adequate solution. You might look into Kaffeine or freevo to see if they are any easier.


I found the following pages helpful:
http://www.wlug.org.nz/TvTunerCards
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134#Audio_Settings

The saa7134 module does not support PCM output well. I suggest finding another video capture card that is based on saa713x and it has a line out jack. Buying cheap cards like Aver TV GO 007 will not work well.

You could make a fifo device and have mencoder save it to that. Then use mplayer, VLC, xine, or other players to play back the fifo device. I suggest using mpeg1 or mpeg2 for the video codec. You will see a few seconds of delay.

IMHO, the programmer for the saa7134 module f*ck up the PCM audio. I have to still fix the VBI lines in kernel 2.6.13 even though they said it is fixed for NTSC. Still it can not process VBI in real time. I do not have the time or the knowledge to fix the PCM audio output of the module. I'm sorry that I am ranting, but you should spend more time and money finding a video capture card that has line out to connect to the sound card's line in jack.