Can't watch analogue TV with the ATI TV Wonder 600

TheJooomes · 10-23-2022, 06:53 PM

I use Void Linux 5.19. I got digital TV working all fine with kaffeine. Now I want to digitize some tapes from my analogue VCR.

I tell VLC to play "TV - analog", set it to /dev/video1 as that's the ATI device, set Video standard to "NTSC", and frequency to 61000 kHz for channel 3. The scrub bar just has an orange thing bounce back and fourth for a few minutes until VLC just stops doing anything productive.

I don't really know what I'm doing and this page isn't really helping, nor are the various forum posts around the internet about TV tuner devices on Linux.

biker_rat · 10-24-2022, 08:30 AM

Mess around with v4l2-ctl to see what is going on. You did install the firmware? You can also look at kernel logs to see the driver loading process for the card. You can use modinfo on the modules that load for the card to see if there are any options to toggle. To quote the tv show The Mandalorian : "this is the way."

TheJooomes · 10-25-2022, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biker_rat

Mess around with v4l2-ctl to see what is going on. You did install the firmware? You can also look at kernel logs to see the driver loading process for the card. You can use modinfo on the modules that load for the card to see if there are any options to toggle. To quote the tv show The Mandalorian : "this is the way."

I'm having a hard time figuring out v4l2-ctl, but I'm able to get qv4l2 to preview an analogue video stream by setting the correct frequency. The image is really shakey, low quality, and without audio. Still, no media player can play it though, and the sox commands on the wiki don't play audio, even though the correct alsa device is being used.

I did install the firmware package, linux-firmware-dvb.

The driver is em28xx and it seems pretty successful.

Code:

2022-10-26T00:52:34.87637 kern.info: [ 1306.647349] rc rc0: lirc_dev: driver em28xx registered at minor = 0, scancode receiver, no transmitter
2022-10-26T00:52:34.87646 kern.info: [ 1306.647476] input: AMD ATI TV Wonder HD 600 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-5/1-5:1.0/rc/rc0/input21
2022-10-26T00:52:34.87649 kern.info: [ 1306.647578] em28xx 1-5:1.0: Input extension successfully initialized

I don't see anything that looks like options. But then again, I've never used modinfo before. https://pastebin.com/Q46njr4k

rokytnji · 10-25-2022, 11:00 PM

Code:

 any options to toggle

Code:

disable_usb_speed_check:override min bandwidth requirement of 480M bps (int)

I'm no expert but sounds like a hint to me. So no idea how to , edit/comment out, usb speed check.

biker_rat · 10-26-2022, 04:38 AM

If that's all the loading messages in the kernel, it looks like maybe only the infared remote control loaded. Did you load the Steve Toth firmware file cited on that page you link to by following the directions there? Also your card looks like the one in the picture on that page? Look at the alsa devices in alsamixer and see if anything from the tv card is there. v4l2-ctl not that hard. There are a lot of help files. You will mainly be concerned with -l, -L,-c. -C , -d -D--list-devices. You want to find out what devices are available, what controls you can toggle and if audio is your problem - make sure your audio input on the card is toggled correctly.If picture is fuzzy the tuner might be off a little & minor frequency adjustment should be possible or perhaps the tv standard is off a bit and there is a better one to toggle. With analog tv , might never look super clear.