TV Tuner card (saa7134) - good picture, no sound

frenchn00b · 09-16-2007, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stedevil

First thing, just to keep you from being confused, forget anything you read about saa7134-alsa, you wont need it for anything.

Continuing, you are using the built in sound on the MotherBoard and it's based on the Intel Azalia HDA which needs the snd-hda-intel alsa module loaded with the correct board option.

First thing to check, do you even see a CD-channel in your sound mixer? If yes, make sure it's unmuted and volume turned up. If this doesnt work or you dont even have a CD control slider, auto detection of your sound "card" failed and you need to unload and reload the snd-hda-intel module with the correct options. Possibly you might also need to get the latest 1.1.15rc2 ALSA drivers.

I happen to have the links for how to do this in Ubuntu (should be similar in Debian) since I just did the same a few days ago on my new MB with Realtek ACL883 sound (snd-hda-intel driver as well).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto

sudo modprobe -v snd-hda-intel model=3stack-6ch-dig
with above lates ALSA fixed my quiet CD-in, but you need to verify your soundchip and find the right board option for you.

Let me know if you need further help or not.

Concerning the cd, I noted a slight differences with kmuto kernel, but cannot know exactly.
In this kernel 2.6.26.5 sthg, I have CD and ANALOG that are unmuted (sudo alsamixer). When I boot the pc with kmuto, then, tvtime works great sound + video; that means that the alsa is well installed. kernel So, last kernels are missing something 2.6.26.6?

So, the modules that you meant, I did: sudo modprobe -v snd-hda-intel model=3stack-6ch-dig then tvtime -d /dev/video1 and still no sound.
I cannot watch SpongeBob SquarePants, it's of no fun without sound

From: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto, they just say to update alsa, and get apt-get a kernel. That precompiled kernels are not working either from Debian.
cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
Codec: Analog Devices AD1988
I didnt touch to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base & options snd-hda-intel probe_mask=1 as it is complicated.

The situation is like this since 3-4 months. I tried all kind of compilations of kernels. I am lucky that at least the pc could be installed with Debian.

Just the Tv would be sufficient, but ...

For kernel compiling, I am using this wonderful script (I reply y y y most cases to include the modules (btw ipw2100,I am not sure they are made well, ... anyhow) : http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...owtocompile.sh
then reboot, then , sh NVDIA .... bla.sh and I get X11 with nvidia & xinerama. I can tell you that this looks easy but for frenchn00b, it's/was very very complicate and lot of time consuming ...

You could update the script for handling the PINNACLE Card with the newer kernels (buggy maybe?), that would be greatly marvellous !

kmuto config kernel with sound for pinnacle

Adds-on Info: my dmesg is giving this:

Quote:

Linux video capture interface: v1.00
saa7130/34: v4l2 driver version 0.2.12 loaded
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:09.0[A] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
saa7134[0]: found at 0000:00:09.0, rev: 1, irq: 5, latency: 32, mmio: 0xef001000
saa7134[0]: subsystem: 11bd:002b, board: Pinnacle PCTV Stereo (saa7134) [card=26,autodetected]
saa7134[0]: board init: gpio is 0
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 00 19 0e 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 53 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: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc0 i2c-bus saa7134[0]
tuner: type set to 33 (MT20xx universal) by saa7134[0]
tuner: microtune: companycode=3cbf part=42 rev=2f
tuner: microtune MT2050 found, OK
tda9887: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tda9885/6/7: chip found @ 0x86
saa7134[0]: registered device video0 [v4l2]
saa7134[0]: registered device vbi0
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]

Stedevil · 09-16-2007, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electro

Maybe I should save up for Jungo WinDriver, so I can reverse engineer better code for this card and others.

Have you thought about starting up eg a paypal account and get people interested in someone doing that work to help you out with the costs? I for one would pass a few bucks for sure to help sponsor such a project.

Quote:

If 704 horizontal is rescaled to 720 or 768, it will be stretched.

No, since at least for PAL the pixels are not square but anamorphic, just like eg a DVD. As a comparison a PAL DVD is encoded as 720x576 but is always supposed to be viewed as 768x576 since the pixels are not square. Viewing a PAL DVD as 720x576 will make it look squashed from the sides exactly the same way as looking at 704x576 PAL TV saa713x will look squashed from the sides.

Again, I have no experience of how this chip handles NTCS content so everything I say should be taken as valid only for PAL.

Quote:

IMHO, you are not gaining anything capturing higher than 640 for the horizontal for this card.

You are wrong on two points here.
1) PAL has higher resolution then NTSC, so even if your assumption would hold true it wouldnt in any case cover the PAL case.

2) The saa713x chip is getting an analogue input. It then does a A/D conversion, in the PAL case ending up with a 704x576 digital image. From this point on the image IS 704x576 (anamorphic 4:3) and if you record it to only eg 640 you ARE doing a downsampling from the original available resolution.

Quote:

Also capturing using yv12 (about 4096 different colors) wastes a lot of color information.

MP3s are also wasting a lot of sound info to end up with a much smaller filesize where the size drop if done correctly hugely overshadows the drop in quality. This is done by applying mathematical algorithms to compensate for "flaws" in the human perception of hearing.

yv12 to a large part takes advantage of similar knowledge of the "flaws" in human visual perception to make a comparatively huge compression with little real life actual image quality degradation.

Sure, it would be better quality to do a full RGB24 (or even RGB48), but would the gain in filesize really warrant this? By the same standard we should record all audio to WAV since everything mp3/AAC/etc does is the exact same only for the Audio instead of the picture.

Quote:

I suggest use your nVidia TV out to output NTSC to the card.

Exactly why should I do that? Also I assume it would require me to download some NTSC material of the net. Since it's a well known fact that NTSC is vastly inferior to PAL in image quality I usually try to go out of my way to find PAL content if I accidentally bump into some NTSC content.

Quote:

It is actually the software of the card, not my motherboard or other hardware. The software of the saa7134 module is poor and it is still poor since it has not got any changes since 2.6.10.

Im not going to fight about the driver being poor. You are clearly my superior when it comes to knowing the insides of that driver. But it still seems weird for me that same code and same hardware only intermittently can be autodetected. I would have guessed that autodetection either works or it doesnt. Also, for reference, for me autodetection always worked/works, both in my new and my old system.

Stedevil · 09-16-2007, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frenchn00b

cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec
Codec: Analog Devices AD1988

So, the modules that you meant, I did: sudo modprobe -v snd-hda-intel model=3stack-6ch-dig

Nonono, as clearly described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto
you need to use the options available for your HDA implementation, AD1988.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alsa-driver-1.0.15rc2/alsa-kernel/Documentation/ALSA-Configuration.txt

AD1988
6stack 6-jack
6stack-dig ditto with SPDIF
3stack 3-jack
3stack-dig ditto with SPDIF
laptop 3-jack with hp-jack automute
laptop-dig ditto with SPDIF
auto auto-config reading BIOS (default)

Additionally, since you are compiling your own kernels, make sure to NOT compile any sound drivers into the kernel. In fact dont even compile them as modules. Get everything (drivers, libs and tools) from the official ALSA webpage. Otherwise you might end up with different versions of drivers/libs/tools which can lead to weird behavior.

However seeing your have weird messages in dmesg from your TVcard regarding sound, maybe we need to continue investigating what is actually the culpit for you
a) Sound drivers
b) TVcard drivers
c) Both

Easiest would probably be if you have a CD/DVD-rom that has an internal audio out. If you can get a normal CD playing music via the cable directly to the soundcard then we rule out 2 of those options.

frenchn00b · 09-16-2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stedevil

Nonono, as clearly described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto
you need to use the options available for your HDA implementation, AD1988.

Additionally, since you are compiling your own kernels, make sure to NOT compile any sound drivers into the kernel. In fact dont even compile them as modules. Get everything (drivers, libs and tools) from the official ALSA webpage. Otherwise you might end up with different versions of drivers/libs/tools which can lead to weird behavior.

However seeing your have weird messages in dmesg from your TVcard regarding sound, maybe we need to continue investigating what is actually the culpit for you
a) Sound drivers
b) TVcard drivers
c) Both

Easiest would probably be if you have a CD/DVD-rom that has an internal audio out. If you can get a normal CD playing music via the cable directly to the soundcard then we rule out 2 of those options.

I am lost rather, uff,

you meant that I compiled to much modules. Then in my previous script, is there a way to exclude them for getting the right modules. (Sorry that I am not better in informatic (and a lot ...))
Concerning cd music, there is no cable from the cdplayer hardware to the motherboard, and it can play music anyhow with totem...

Stedevil · 09-16-2007, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frenchn00b

I am lost rather, uff,

you meant that I compiled to much modules. Then in my previous script, is there a way to exclude them for getting the right modules. (Sorry that I am not better in informatic (and a lot ...))

Im not sure I understand why you are even messing with building your own config scripts that just accepts all defaults when the kernel comes with a really nice GUI for setting things up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menuconfig

It not only groups things in a sensible way, it also has helptext for what everything does and what any modules are called.

Quote:

Concerning cd music, there is no cable from the cdplayer hardware to the motherboard, and it can play music anyhow with totem...

Yes, it's playing it through the IDE cable. What Im saying is connect a cable from CD-in on MB to audio out on CD/DVD. You should be able to mute PCM and still hear music from the CD and control the volume via the CD-slider.

frenchn00b · 09-16-2007, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stedevil

Im not sure I understand why you are even messing with building your own config scripts that just accepts all defaults when the kernel comes with a really nice GUI for setting things up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menuconfig

It not only groups things in a sensible way, it also has helptext for what everything does and what any modules are called.

Yes, it's playing it through the IDE cable. What Im saying is connect a cable from CD-in on MB to audio out on CD/DVD. You should be able to mute PCM and still hear music from the CD and control the volume via the CD-slider.

ahhhh I understand now !!

Quote:

es, it's playing it through the IDE cable. What Im saying is connect a cable from CD-in on MB to audio out on CD/DVD. You should be able to mute PCM and still hear music from the CD and control the volume via the CD-slider.

kernel:
I used a lot this menuconfig, and tried sooo many things with it. So much even copied modules from kmuto from his kernel, to 2.6.26.6 before compiling kernel. Played around with config.

I guess I tried all possibilites.
With menuconfig, I guess just >ESC<>ESC< then save,and wait 20min to have it compiled. no configuration give best resutls since you are usre you get all modules, and do not mess up ... am I right ? :newbies:

Stedevil · 09-16-2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frenchn00b

no configuration give best resutls since you are usre you get all modules, and do not mess up ... am I right ?

No.
As I already said, biggest mess you can get is if you have different versions of ALSA libs, tools and drivers.

The HDA-Intel driver is still so new that it gets improvements and new boards added almost dayly, so you dont want to use eg a 1-3 months old version that comes with your kernel and, again, you dont want different version drivers mixed with your ALSA libs. That is just setting your self up for some extra headache.

Eg right now I'm assisting one of the programmers for hda-intel to make my brand new ASUS M2A-VM HDMI motherboard be correctly autodetected as well as get 4 & 6-channel mode working as it should. We already managed to get 2-channel autodetection to work correctly with a special patch ontop of just released this week 1.0.15rc2 and it will probably be in .15 final. But we are still trying to track down and fix the 4 & 6 channel issue. But no kernel out there today will have drivers working with my boards CD-in, period. They are just too old to have the necessary patches.

In short, since you have relatively new hardware that has a high development pace in driversupport, sticking with default kernel drivers is probably a bad choice. Even more so since you HAVE a problem with missing sound.

Electro · 09-16-2007, 05:40 PM

It is best to compile the kernel with out ALSA and OSS modules, but leave sound support (soundcore) as a module. I use Gentoo and the alsa-drivers ebuild file requires to not have ALSA or OSS set by the kernel. Though mixing different ALSA modules will not hurt anything because ALSA modules goes in the same directory, so the new modules will over write the old modules.

I suggest do not mess around with on-board sound because the quality is crap. Buy a PCI sound card like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (OEM) or Turtle Beach Riviera. These two should be the easiest to setup for both playback and recording.

DAE or Digital Audio Extraction rips the data from an audio CD and the computer processes it to output to the sound card. An audio cable or SPDIF cable from the CD/DVD drive is not needed. The Linux library that does this is named cdda. Many Linux programs now uses this library, but only if the package maintainer includes the feature during compile time.

What page are we on because I think we are jumping pages from saa7134 problems to a sound card problem. If you also have sound card problem please create another thread.

BTW, this thread is three (3) years old, so it might be best to create two different threads. One for sound card and other for saa7134 problems.

frenchn00b · 09-16-2007, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electro

It is best to compile the kernel with out ALSA and OSS modules, but leave sound support (soundcore) as a module. I use Gentoo and the alsa-drivers ebuild file requires to not have ALSA or OSS set by the kernel. Though mixing different ALSA modules will not hurt anything because ALSA modules goes in the same directory, so the new modules will over write the old modules.

I suggest do not mess around with on-board sound because the quality is crap. Buy a PCI sound card like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (OEM) or Turtle Beach Riviera. These two should be the easiest to setup for both playback and recording.

DAE or Digital Audio Extraction rips the data from an audio CD and the computer processes it to output to the sound card. An audio cable or SPDIF cable from the CD/DVD drive is not needed. The Linux library that does this is named cdda. Many Linux programs now uses this library, but only if the package maintainer includes the feature during compile time.

What page are we on because I think we are jumping pages from saa7134 problems to a sound card problem. If you also have sound card problem please create another thread.

BTW, this thread is three (3) years old, so it might be best to create two different threads. One for sound card and other for saa7134 problems.

I think its perfect to have this thread. All informations are in there. It was very useful thread for me, at the beginning.

Concerning the alsa and oss, I even did not have idea that I compiled modules of alsa and oss in there, but that's right now I recall. So, if I understand well the only solution is to recompile the kernel (or use (hardware) cable tricks due to linux kernel & problems).
I'd rather compile at first try, since above we have experts that can help a lot.

The thing is that from : http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134

Code:

ux Kernel Configuration: Device Drivers

  Multimedia devices  --->
    <M> Video For Linux (config: CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV, module: videodev)
      Video For Linux  --->
        <M> Philips SAA7134 support (config: CONFIG_VIDEO_SAA7134, module: saa7134)

You will also need the i2c_core module loaded in your kernel.
Linux Kernel Configuration: Device Drivers

  I2C support  --->
    <M> I2C support (config: CONFIG_I2C, module: i2c_core)
    < >   I2C device interface

For kernel 2.6.18:
Linux Kernel Configuration: Device Drivers

  Multimedia devices  --->
     <M> Video For Linux
  Video Capture Adapters  ---> 
     <M> Philips SAA7134 support
     <M>   Philips SAA7134 DMA audio support

and the i2c_core module for 2.6.18 kernel
Linux Kernel Configuration: Device Drivers

 I2C support  ---> 
     <M> I2C support

are already by defaults in the new kernels eg. :
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kern...6.22.6.tar.bz2
Am I right ?

Concerning this:

Quote:

#!/bin/sh
sox -c 2 -s -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp2 -t ossdsp -w -r 32000 /dev/dsp &
tvtime --mixer=/dev/mixer

cm
wait tvtime
t=`pidof sox`;
kill $t;
amixer -c 0 sset PCM 80%,80% unmute

In the kmuto kernel, backported, there was just no need of this. It was already working, and just :
tvtime can give sound + video perfectly with tvtime.

So, headers are for something:
here are the headers / please find the kmuto headers here
(I looked like hell and could never find anything ) :
http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...-mtu-kmuto.txt
and here the modules of kmuto kernel : http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...so_content.txt
http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/website/kmuto/boot/
(I liked a lot this kernel since it's the only one that could give me video + sound)

Thanks a lot ; Without you, linux will never have any sound ever with this pinnacle I'd guess
(no cable trick considered) !

Cheers !!
Nota: Concerning compiling, I am ready to make any tries with modules alsa, oss ...
( with newbie level understanding)

Booboo · 10-18-2007, 01:06 PM

hi there boys and girls!
i did not read all the messages but i taught i'l share my experience about how i made my tv card working
on the box that came with the card is written "V-STREAM STUDIO TV Terminator" and is recognized as saa7134 card
after some research on linuxquestions and googleing around the following works for me :
press Ctrl+Alt+F1
login as root
rmmod saa7134 card=65 tuner=54
modprobe saa7134 card=65 tuner=54
logout
press Ctrl+Alt+F7
and start using the card
i had some some sound problems to!
i have a stereo jack stuck in the tv cards ass
on the other end of the wire is also a jack that is stuck in "line in" hole from the soundcard
so it should work!
i started kmix (using KDE) searched for "line in" control then activated it razed up the volume on it and everything was going nice tv+sound !

that's it

i hope that this will help someone
if not just ignore me

P.S.
I'we forgoten to tell you that i'm runing Fedora 7(if anyone would care)

dkm_rkl · 11-24-2007, 07:06 AM

Hello everybody,
i was able to get sound with my pinacle pctv card in tvtime after upgrading the kernel to 2.6.10 fedora core2 and i upgraded the tvtime programme to 1.0.2. as per indian standard i choosed PAL-DK. now both picture and sound are great and i really enjoy watching tv with tvtime.Thank you all.

dkm

frenchn00b · 11-25-2007, 05:55 AM

Hi guys,
Linux Debian Etch
My present kernel: 2.6.23.1 (solo compiled)
Tvtime:

Code:

tvtime --version
Running tvtime 1.0.2.

Result: No sound in tvtime. Video in tvtime.
(still to be better)

wild_oscar · 01-14-2008, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stedevil

Gosh, people here are really trying to make things more difficult then they have to be. I have been using my saa7134 board for years without problems, both in Gentoo and now lately in Ubuntu (7.04).

I wrote a very simple guide to follow here a while back http://gentoo-wiki.com/Saa7134_quick_guide

ONLY use/refer to the full Gentoo wiki guide if you fail along the way with my quick guide. Your head will be spinning from the overload of (usually not needed) info otherwise.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134

And keep it simple, use Mplayer in command line to get things working and not some fancy specialized TV software that hides half the important feedback you might actually need to figure out any problems.

Also, remember that if you are trying to use DMA sound (instead of a cable to soundcard) from a saa7134 you will have to use 32KHz sampling sound. I guess that is where things go wrong for some of you.

Some further good reading
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Saa7134-alsa
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Transcode
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index...aa713x_devices

Are these instructions still valid in Ubuntu 7.10?
I am connecting my tv card to the cd-in, but the sound is, although present, very low.

I don't have any controller for the cd-in in my alsamixer or gnome-volume-manager.

I do have an alsa mixer sound device called SAA7134 (with a line-in, line-in 2 and video controller), but the controllers don't seem to produce any effect (muting line-in 2 does reduce the sound a bit, without muting it).

Because I'm quite illiterate in kernel changes, I'm asking this because I'm not sure how to revert the instructions if they don't work or break any other sound that is now working correctly...

frenchn00b · 01-20-2008, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wild_oscar

Are these instructions still valid in Ubuntu 7.10?
I am connecting my tv card to the cd-in, but the sound is, although present, very low.

I don't have any controller for the cd-in in my alsamixer or gnome-volume-manager.

I do have an alsa mixer sound device called SAA7134 (with a line-in, line-in 2 and video controller), but the controllers don't seem to produce any effect (muting line-in 2 does reduce the sound a bit, without muting it).

Because I'm quite illiterate in kernel changes, I'm asking this because I'm not sure how to revert the instructions if they don't work or break any other sound that is now working correctly...

I made a script that straightforward compile the kernel for you, you just have to reply few questions... http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...owtocompile.sh

Compiling will not help that much if you do not read above the hints given above ...

wild_oscar · 01-21-2008, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frenchn00b

I made a script that straightforward compile the kernel for you, you just have to reply few questions... http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...owtocompile.sh

Compiling will not help that much if you do not read above the hints given above ...

I solved the issue by reading the instructions here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto,

and adding this line

Quote:

options snd-hda-intel model=MODEL

to the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.