Cd-writing and tv watching
 

Hi;

I just installed slack on my pc a few days ago and got most everything working but need help with 2 things (i've only been using linux a few months now).

1. CD-Writing
I recently compiled the 2.6 kernel which says that I no longer need scsi-emulation to burn cd's (both audio and data). Well after I compiled I went on the net to find out how to do so (burn a cd) and almost all the documentation is pre 2.5/2.6 and required scsi emulation. I tried guessing and burning a cd manually using this command:
cdrecord -v speed=20 dev/dev/hdb -audio -pad track1 track2 ...
But all i get is a cd with the right amount of tracks but with garbage on each track.
(I use the pad paramater cause cdrecord yells at me saying several tracks are not a multiple of 2352). I've never burned a cd in linux, either audio or data. Can anyone help me with this one.
(I have an ide cdrw drive and runnign kernel 2.6.7) (tldp cd-writing howto is old)

2. TV watching
I got mplayer up and running for all types of stuff including movies, music, dvd's, and vcd's but it is not working with my tv card. In fact it seems my tv card is not being recognized by the system at all.
As directed by this site, I included the following in my kernel (Actually included, not modules):
Multimedia Devices → Video for Linux
Multimedia Devices → Video for Linux → BT848 video for Linux
Character Devices → I2C support → I2C support
Character Devices → I2C support → I2C bit-banging interfaces

I checked to see if the card is detected on statup with dmesg, and found out it is not. Also here is the entry in lspci for the card:
00:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant: Unknown device 8800 (rev 05)
Subsystem: LeadTek Research Inc.: Unknown device 6613
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2

When I try to watch tv with the command:
mplayer -tv driver=v4l:norm=ntsc:channel=3:chanlist=us-cable:width=352:height=240 tv://
I get the following error message:
Playing tv://.
TV detected! ;-)
No such driver: v4l

I have also tried replacing v4l with v4l2 and bttv, both of which display a similar message
Anyone got any ideas? (Im using a Leadtek winfast expert tv card which works in windows).

Thanks everone, all comments suggestions and ideas are all welcome!

For CD Burning, if you're using a GUI, try K3b (www.k3b.org/) a good graphical frontend for all the CD burning commandline tools. Newer versions of it support 2.6 non-scsi burning and it can even set up permissions properly.

Thanks misterflibble, I'll check it out, though I am still interrested in how to go about burning cd's from the command line.

A bit of a update. I noticed while reconfiguring/compliling mplayer that it said video4linux and video4linux2 were not detected, so I forced enabled these by using the command:
./configure --enable-gui --enable-v4l --enable-v4l2
After all was compiled and installed I ran:
mplayer -tv driver=v4l:norm=ntsc:channel=3:chanlist=us-cable:width=352:height=240 tv://
and got the following error;
Playing tv://.
TV detected! ;-)
Selected driver: v4l
name: Video 4 Linux input
author: Alex Beregszaszi
comment: under development
unable to open '/dev/video0': No such file or directory

So Im thinking that this is not a problem with mplayer but a problem with my system not properly detecting my tv tuner. (see above). Is there any way that I can manually do this (eg maybe link /dev/video0 to my tv tuner pci card)?

Thanks alot!

Something just occurred to me with regard to the Tv problem. The fact that the driver loaded with no errors and detected its capabilities means that the system detected your video card and the 'Unknown' part is just because it doesn't know the name. Checking my /dev/ listings, I noticed that /dev/video0 (and its symbolic link /dev/video) belong to the user group video, which has full permissions, and all other users have no permissions. Try adding yourself to video,.

once again thxs misterflibble for the help. But the thing is that there exists not device video, or video0 or what have you in the /dev video directory. I got no idea what to do. Thx!

OK, *this* time I think I have it....;) In kernel 2.6.7 there's an option under 'video for linux' for the Conexant 2388x....the module name is cx8800...which seems pretty close to what lspci reports.

once again thxs misterflibble for the help. But the thing is that there exists not device video, or video0 or what have you in the /dev video directory. I got no idea what to do. Thx!

BTW, while you're mucking around with the kernel, make sure you have bt87x Audio Capture under Sound->Alsa->PCI Devices, if this is one of those cards that can capture sound.

cool, i will try enabling cx8800 in my next build. Thx for all the help!

kernel is compiling.....

Thanks for all the help misterflibble, it really is all appreciated. If you need help in the future, feel free to ask me (though I cant guarantee a correct answer, i will try though :) )

still not working right, but closer though.

I enabled the Conexant driver as you suggested, and recompiled/installed. Upon startup lspci still says that it cant determine the pci device, but the entry /dev/video0 has been added. When I run mplayer, I get the following error that repeats itself infinetly times untill i kill it:
ioctl mcapture failed: Invalid argument

Also the mplayer window pops up but all it displays is a green screen. Any ideas?

Thanks alot!

I found several threads elsewhere that seem to have similar problems (with no resolutions), and it stems from v4l and v4l2. I tried the exact same command you used with my until-now-unused saa7134 tuner and I can get a green screen to popup (I don't have anything handy to connect up to it now so I don't know if it's working). If I substitute v4l2 in for v4l, I get an endless stream of ioctl errors, but they're different from yours, and this is despite the fact that I have the v4l2 module loaded along with the v4l1 compatibality module. Have you tried xawtv or tvtime?

misterflibble;

I have downloaded xawtv, and am going to install it (as soon as I can figure out how to direct it to install to the directory of my choice). What program do you use to watch tv? I will post my results soon.

As always, thx a whole lot! :)

I installed xawtv to no avail :( I launch xawtv with a multitude of paramaters but all that happens is that it comes up with a blank (black) screen with "???" in the top bar. I try changing the channels but the screen remains the same. Grrr.

I launched my xawtv without any paramaters, and it comes up a black screen also with ???. Then hitting 'O' gives a configuration screen, where I can choose the input, format, etc. I've managed to get a picture in from my GameCube this way. Tvtime also works well for me. Granted, I don't have a tuner so all I'm getting is the composite1 signal. What does dmesg say now with regards to the new Conexant driver?