Building a Linux PVR Part I - MythTV Setup and Install
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 3, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
IvyTV (continued)
Supposedly, our tuner card is working correctly. We can quickly check to see if everything went OK by using the utilities included with the ivtv drivers and also by checking the /var/log/messages log. Our log reveals something like this:Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: ivtv: Found an iTVC16 based chip
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: (0) scl=1, sda=1
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: (1) scl=1, sda=0
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: (2) scl=1, sda=1
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: (3) scl=0, sda=1
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: (4) scl=1, sda=1
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: i2c-algo-bit.o: ivtv i2c driver #0 passed test.
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: tuner: chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus ivtv i2c driver #0
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: tuner: type set to 2 (Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles)) by insmod option
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: msp34xx: init: chip=MSP3448W-A2 +nicam +simple +radio
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: msp3410: daemon started
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: saa7114.c: starting probe for adapter ivtv i2c driver #0 (0x10005)
Sep 2 13:31:36 linux kernel: saa7114.c: detecting saa7114 client on address 0x42
dmesg also reports success:
# dmesg | tail
[<c013569b>] sys_init_module+0xeb/0x1e0
[<c0107dc9>] sysenter_past_esp+0x52/0x79
ivtv: No mem on buf alloc!
ivtv: Buffer alloc failed!
ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, minor 0
ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, minor 32
ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, minor 224
ivtv: Registered v4l2 device, minor 24
ivtv: loaded
Linux finally sees a v4l2 (video 4 linux) device. Note: YAST will not see the card. In order to run the utility packages from ivtv, particularly the tuner script, we needed to install perl and a few dependencies. All of these dependencies can be handled by YAST with the exception of:
perl-Video-ivtv-0.12-1.noarch.rpm (right click to download)
perl-Video-Frequencies-0.03-1.noarch.rpm (right click to download)
We pulled both of these RPMs off ATRPMs.net, but we have included them in the review in case you have difficulty locating them. The ptune-ui.pl utility allows us to change the channels easily for testing our PVR card.
Click to enlarge.
Using the quick and dirty method to capture video, we pulled a few seconds of broadcast to test how well our device was working.
# cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/test.mpg
If we play this test.mpg back with Kaffeine (or some other player), we will get an mpeg2 stream. So far, so good. We used MPlayer to pull a single frame out of the stream, which can be seen below:
# mplayer -frames 1 -vo jpeg outdir=/tmp:quality=100 test.mpg
Click to enlarge.
Keen observers will note that this image is non-interlaced - something that we will discuss later in our analysis.
Just getting SuSE install and ivtv to play nicely took two hours; our total time for installation right now is at 2.25 hours. Opting for a different distribution that supports the PVR card natively would have been a better idea, but we have already gone this far...
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shiftomnimega - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Looking forward to part 2.Brazen - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
No win32 distribution for MythTV :(skeptic - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Try the Knoppmyth distribution. IMHO it is the best and easiest to use. Total install time for me was around 20 minutes and I had previously unsuccessfully fumbled around with mythtv on red hat.My setup uses the Huappauge PVR 350 card which has a whole set of issues when attempting to get the tv-out on the card to work, but man the quality was actually better than on my TIVO. One month after I had it working I called up TIVO and cancelled - it felt so good. I have been running knoppmyth for over 6 months now and its fantastic.
reboos - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Thank you for the article.Aquila76 - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
From Page 2: "Originally, we had scheduled to run all of our testes with the Hauppage WinTV Go card"Let me know how your testes run after that! ;>)
Seriously though, great article. Interesting that there's only a $60 savings (up front) for the Linux PVR over the WinMCE box. Tells you the cost of WinMCE is actually pretty cheap! If only they'd make it available for purchase, but they probably won't because of DMCA or something.
Kishkumen - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Nice article. I've been a fan of MythTV for quite some time and have enjoyed experimenting with it. The biggest detriment to my full time usage has been a lack of viable Linux HDTV drivers for my particular card based upon the Teralogic TL880 chipset. However, I look forward to becoming more involved with it as more HDTV capture cards with good Linux support become available.Adul - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
Kris, nice article. I am glad you wrote it. Now I want to build my own :DResh - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link
It's late. I was about to go to bed when I saw this article. I leapt with glee! After a quick skim, I can't say that I saw any discussion of how SuSE dealt with the TV-Out. Did it work? Were you using TV-out during this whole process. Some explanation in this area would be great, either as an update, or as the opening to Part II.Looking foward to reading it, and the follow-up, in detail.
I love AT! :)