Pinnacle PCTV TV tuner

sub_pop_culture · 04-26-2003, 01:34 PM

Try as I might, I can't get my above solution to work on Debian Sid. I get crap about kernel versions, etc. I'll keep banging at it and see if it magically works.

This thread's not dead, I'm still working on this.

webmaniac · 05-27-2003, 10:16 AM

Hi,

I've just installed Suse 8.2 and I've got a Pinnacle PCTV Pro card.

The suse installation automatically detected it as a Pinnacle PCTV Studio/Rave card. But when i start any tv application I just see a blue screen.

I've tried several applications, I've installed the new bttv drivers as metioned above, I've downloaded a script from:
http://www.mind.lu/~yg/ftvco/
to cycle to different tuner types to test them.

I've ran the script using card type 52 and 39 (both pinnacle cards)

But I still get the blue screen.
I live in Holland and we have PAL over here I think.

Does any one know some good recources to get my card installed.
I don't have windows installed anymore (I had some errors in the windows register, so i formatted my disk and installed Suse 8.2) so I can't boot windows to watch tv.

sub_pop_culture · 05-27-2003, 11:36 AM

Are you sure that the device is on Cable (as opposed to Composite or S-Video)? In TVTime, right-click on the window to change input methods. I'd also try TVTime if you haven't already. I've had a lot better experience with that than with xawtv or any other application.

Have you looked in dmesg and /var/log/messages for anything odd about the bttv drivers? And are you sure you're loading the modules with the right options. My relavent portion of /etc/modules.conf is as follows:

Code:

alias char-major-81 bttv
options bttv card=39 pll=1 gbuffers=4
options tuner type=33
options msp3400 once=1 simple=1 debug=1
options tvaudio debug=1
post-install bttv modprobe tuner; modprobe videodev
pre-install bttv modprobe msp3400

I have a Pinnacle PCTV (not Pro). Maybe posting some output of dmesg etc will help out. I'm not an expert on all this TV stuff, though I've spent many an hour with it. It'd be nice if someone like the bttv author's were reading this. :\

webmaniac · 05-27-2003, 04:44 PM

tnx for your help,

a question:
I applied the patches to the kernel source, and installed the new bttv module as described in a post above.

Do I need to recompile my kernel after that or will a change in modules.conf do?

I didn't compile my kernel I think. I did recompile my kernel before but not after I applied the patches (linux wouldn't boot with new kernel).

So I might be forgetting some things (still n00b in linux)

I no have a total clean system again, so I'm waiting your answer befor I start installing things again, after the installation i'll send you some snippets from my error logs if things still don't work

sub_pop_culture · 05-27-2003, 07:08 PM

In my experience, compiling and installing the newer bttv drivers won't work right unless you've compiled your kernel from source yourself. This means that if you're using Debian or Red Hat or any other of those distros that use precompiled kernel images, you're going to have to build and install one on your own. I've tried quite a bit to get it to work with one of Debian's prebuilt images, but I do not think its possible. So install a kernel from source, following the normal procedure. Boot it, make sure it works, etc, then you'll be able to build the newer bttv modules and install them as I mention above. Set up the modules.conf file properly, then either reboot, or reload the bttv modules. (What I do is install all the bttv modules during the make menuconfig period of the kernel install. That way, the newer bttv modules can just overwrite the old ones, and make dep will guarrentee that all the necessary modules get compiled.)

That's all I had to do to get things working. I run Gentoo, so source-based stuff is rather easy for me to deal with though.

elleuch_amine · 05-28-2003, 04:04 PM

I'm also using Pinnacle PCTV rave. and I use linux mandrake 9.1. My kernel's version is the 2.4.21. I have exactly the same problem as you sub_pop_culture. Ican't change the channel in xawtv. You have installed bttv 0.7.96. But i have a newst version. I have the 0.7.100. It is automaticilly installed with my mandrake 9.1. and I have the same problem.
When i execute dmesg | grep tv in the console the resulat is :

bttv: driver version 0.7.100 loaded
bttv: using 4 buffers with 2080k (8320k total) for capture
bttv: Host bridge is VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400 AGP] Host Bridge
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 00:06.0, irq: 17, latency: 32, mmio: 0xdddfe000
bttv0: detected: Pinnacle PCTV [card=39], PCI subsystem ID is 11bd:0012
bttv0: using: BT878(Pinnacle PCTV Studio/Ra) [card=39,autodetected]
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: pinnacle/mt: id=4 info="PAL+SECAM / mono" radio=no
bttv0: i2c attach [client=tda9887,ok]
bttv0: using tuner=33
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951)
bttv0: i2c attach [client=MT2032 universal,ok]
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 ... ok
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0

please help me
thank you

sub_pop_culture · 05-28-2003, 04:50 PM

My solution was to get the latest bttv drivers from bytesex.org and install them manually. 2.4.20 is still the latest stable (not sure what Mandrake's doing there with 2.4.21, but still, 0.7.100 is actually older than the latest bttv version. I currently have bttv 0.7.106 installed, and those are able to work fine. Like I mentioned above, I've not ever gotten this to work with a precompiled kernel image, so in order to install the modules seperately, you're going to have to first build and install (and run), a kernel you build from source yourself.

Check the tuner output in dmesg. Make sure you have a line like the following:

Code:

tuner: chip found @ 0xc0

This means the tuner module found a tuner chip, and is able to load it properly. This is what was causing me to see a channel, but not change them.

elleuch_amine · 05-29-2003, 03:25 AM

thank you for you help.
I have the line about the tunner

mesg | grep tuner
bttv0: using tuner=33
tuner: probing bt848 #0 i2c adapter [id=0x10005]
tuner: chip found @ 0xc0
tuner: type set to 33 (MT2032 universal)

The problem is that I don't know how to compile the kernel and so I don't know how to install a module before compling the kernel.
if you can help me I will be gracefull for u

sub_pop_culture · 05-29-2003, 11:23 AM

Try googling for a basic kernel installation howto. Gentoo's got a good description on installing a kernel (although a lot of their instruction is distro specific stuff). The gist of it is:

Code:

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make menuconfig
# make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install
# cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot

Then set up the bootloader (either grub or lilo) to boot the new image, and you're good to go.
Its not exactly easy, but once you get the hang of it, its not too hard either.

sub_pop_culture · 01-17-2004, 01:55 AM

Okay, been a while, and I'm now trying to get the bttv drivers to work under Fedora Core 1. I don't have any more tuner issues, like I had in the past. Now, I can't for the life of me get audio output. No sound. I've checked my cables in Windows, and sound works, so its something with my Linux set-up. I have an Audigy2, using ALSA drivers, but there doesn't seem to be any hidden channels muted or anything. I might have my module configuration set up wrong though.
Has this problem ever been encountered before?

robthebob · 04-02-2004, 03:05 PM

Just wondering if you are still having the no audio problem? My card seems to work perfectly under 2.6.2 slackware with the latest bttv drivers. I fiddled around a bit, and my dmesg shows it finding an audio chip, which it then loads a module for, but to no avail:

Quote:

bttv: driver version 0.9.12 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 0000:00:0e.0, irq: 17, latency: 32, mmio: 0xe7000000
bttv0: detected: Pinnacle PCTV [card=39], PCI subsystem ID is 11bd:0012
bttv0: using: Pinnacle PCTV Studio/Rave [card=39,autodetected]
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00ffffff [init]
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: pinnacle/mt: id=1 info="PAL / mono" radio=no
bttv0: using tuner=33
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951),ta8874z
tda9887: chip found @ 0x86
tuner: chip found @ 0xc0
tuner: type set to 33 (MT20xx universal)
tuner: microtune: companycode=4d54 part=04 rev=04
tuner: microtune MT2032 found, OK
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 . ok

lsmod:

Quote:

Module Size Used by
tuner 17924 0
tda9887 7168 0
tvaudio 22336 0
bttv 141088 0
video_buf 21696 1 bttv
btcx_risc 4868 1 bttv
agpgart 32840 0
i2c_viapro 6028 0
asb100 23104 0
i2c_sensor 2944 1 asb100
snd_cmipci 29592 3
snd_opl3_lib 11264 1 snd_cmipci
snd_hwdep 10048 1 snd_opl3_lib
snd_mpu401_uart 7808 1 snd_cmipci
snd_rawmidi 26048 1 snd_mpu401_uart
fglrx 206724 9

Any help much appreciated

gerhard.pauls · 04-17-2004, 08:31 AM

I had similar problems. Everything seemed fine, modules were loaded, card detected, i could watch tv using tvtime, but xawtv only displayed a blue screen. With option "-noxv" it worked.
Good luck

noWareSystems · 10-27-2005, 06:40 AM

Maybe you should try some of the frontends made for MPlayer. MPlayer is the very best multimedia stuff, and with some nice frontend (there's a lot on http://www.mplayerhq.hu) you can easily capture to almost all formats and you can watch TV during it (even other channels). Give it a try.

robthebob · 10-27-2005, 06:46 AM

Solution:

One of the modules needs a "pal=i" option. I believe it's tuner, but play around

akademik · 01-18-2006, 06:34 AM

I hope somebody can help me. I use Pinnacle PCTV Stereo tuner. In my country (Russia) all tv-channels show in SECAM-D/K, but i can't do the right tune of my card. All configurations with different values of "tuner" and "type" of bttv didn't solve the problem... Of course, i can see tv in PAL mode, but it's not compatible with SECAM-D/K and i see only black and white picture with noise... I hope there are people here who have right configuration files to show me. SECAM-D/K is in use in almost all post-soviet countries.

P.S. Tuner has no defects, in windows is see right picture (but it's after installation of special Russian patch from original software box)

P.P.S. Here is my config:
###################################################
alias char-major-81 bttv
options bttv card=39 pll=1
options tuner type=3 debug=1
post-install bttv modprobe tuner; modprobe videodev
###################################################