I bought a Hauppauge HVR-1250 TV capture card.

The dmesg and syslog logs indicate the kernel found the card (CX23885 chip). The cx23885, dvb_core, dvb_pll, mt2131, s5h1409, tveeprom , videobuf_core, videobuf_dma_sg, and videobuf_dvb modules loaded automatically.

The card more than likely is available and ready to go. My challenge is I have not yet strung my coax to my office.

So how to nominally test the card?

I have a digital camera that I connected to the TV card's S-Video port (through a composite to S-Video connector). I know the camera output works with the TV. Sure would be nice to test that input port on the TV card, but my first test with the camera and --- nothing.

I have an old VHS recorder sitting on the shelf I could use temporarily to test the RF input.

I'm using Slackware 12.1 (soon to be 12.2 ). Installed related multimedia software includes xine, mplayer, kaffeine, kdetv, tvtime. I have not yet tried to tackle the mountain commonly known as mythtv.

I'm not concerned about every bell and whistle at this point. For now I'll be happy with some straightforward basic tests --- a basic punch list of simple tests.

I do not have a /dev/video device node. Should I?

What next?

Thanks again.

Hi Woodsman!
Just some basic tips (although I have a completely different tv-card)
- make yourself a member of the video group
- yes, you should be seeing a /dev/video0 device. I needed to make mine with:
- I also needed to mess around with a /etc/modprobe.d/capture file to set the options for my card, but your card might / will be different
- use tvtime or xawtv, both are nice packages to view either TV or input from a VCR / Camcorder. I never tried anything else.

It has been ages since I installed my card, but I remember something about v4l
I have the notes somewhere in a file... I'll try to find them.

I verified that before installing the card .

Huh. Are you saying udev won't do this? Well, I'll try that.

There is a /etc/udev/rules.d/40-video.rules on my system....

My primary problem so far seems to be no /dev/video device node. TVTime complains about that.

I just connected the old VHS player to the card and nothing. I'll give the mknod idea whirl. If udev doesn't do this on-the-fly, then I presume have to insert these commands in rc.local? Or am I supposed to create some of my own udev rules?

I think I am okay there. When I compiled the kernel I specifically ensured all the video stuff was enabled because I knew I was going to get a TV card.... Yup, I just checked my kernel config and v4l2 is built-in.

Do I need to load the ivtv module? I have a bunch of new modules loading automatically, but not that one.

Also I need to research this message in the logs:

tveeprom 2-0050: Encountered bad packet header [ff]. Corrupt or not a Hauppauge eeprom.

Okay, I think the error messages are related to the card not having any analog signal driver support. Which means --- and I knew this when I bought the card --- my testing with the VHS player won't work. I'm still burned out from troubleshooting VirtualBox.

That means the composite input does not work either.

I bought the card primarily because of the low prices and wanting to start recording digital TV. I guess I'll just have to push forward and get the coax strung to test the card.

Would be nice to have those inputs but analog TV soon will be joining the dodo bird. If the kernel devs do not provide analog support in the next several months I'll have to buy an older analog card to convert VHS tapes to DVD.

Anyway, I'm curious why there is no /dev/video device node when I boot. Or does this node get created only after detecting an actual TV input?

Well, like I said, it has been ages since I installed my card, maybe it even was before udev...
I found in my original notes that I had to create the device node.

My card is one of these very cheap PixelPro boards. Reasonable quality for little money.
I had to mess around with the options in the /etc/modprobe.d/capture file but in the end it worked well to watch analog TV from a small antenna and even capture old tapes from the VCR.

The plot thickens!

I ran my coax cable and verified I have a signal using an old VHS recorder. The analog channels look fine on tape. Ah. Now I have a good connection. I move the cable to the computer capture card.

I'm a wee bit slow sometimes. As I mentioned, there are is no analog driver support for the card. I knew that when I bought the card. Analog support is "real soon now" and I decided based upon that information I could live without analog for a while. Analog TV is going bye-bye around here in a few months anyway. I would like analog to transfer VHS to DVD, but that is a project for when analog driver support arrives, or I can buy a used analog capture card.

So finally I start using my grey matter. No analog support. . . . No analog support. . . . No analog support. . . . Well, that means no /dev/video0 device node!

I need to focus solely on receiving digital TV signals.

I fire up xine. Yup, there's that DVB button I never used. Error. Huh? No channel.conf file? What is that?

I fire up Kaffeine. Whoa! Something is happening! Kaffeine saw the device node at /dev/dvb/adapter0 and seems to want to receive TV signals. But there are no ATSC lists for my rural boondocks area.

Surf, surf, surf.

Apparently I need to download the dvb-utils package so I can scan for signals. That is next on my list. MythTV can scan too but that is a project for another day.

Then I have to redirect the dvb-utils information into ~/.xine/channel.conf.

Then I learn to migrate that data to Kaffeine.

Then learn to reconfigure tvtime and kdetv to not look for /dev/video.

Yup, this stuff is user-friendly. Not!

If anybody is interested I posted the entire story at my web site.