HOWTO: Mandrake 10.1 + ivtv

[carcass]

Ok, so I did urpme kernel-source to remove the old one, then did urpmi kernel-source to get the new one. However, I get:

 

 

.../official/10.1/i586/media/main/kernel-source-2.4.27-0.pre2.1mdk.i586.rpm

 

And:

[root@dhcp071016 mythtv]# uname -r

2.6.8.1-12mdk

 

How can I reconcile these two things? I'm having a really hard time finding the exact source for my kernel version. Should I just update both the kernel and source to the newest versions? If so, how would I go about doing that?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Try using Mandrake's graphical interface to urmpi. You can get to it through drakconf, under "software." Go to the "install software" part, and type "kernel" in the search box.

 

That should return a list of all available kernel-related items that you don't already have installed. Look for the exact kernel source that you want, and check it off and install it.

 

Then go to the software removal part and serach for "kernel" again. Remove any kernel sources that aren't what you want.

Edited March 14, 2005 by carcass

[devries]

I think that means you do have problems with your tuner. Try the patch and see what that gives.

[carcass]

I think that means you do have problems with your tuner. Try the patch and see what that gives.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Interesting...the patch has already been applied by Mandrake, it seems. When I tried to do the patch last night, patch returned an error saying it detected an already-applied patch or a reverse patch. I will try to see whether the code has actually been patched.

 

However, note that my tuner is marked TAPC, and the driver detects a type 39 tuner.

[devries]

Can you try with a vanilla kernel? I have no idea what Mandrake is doing with it's kernels but it could be the problem.

[carcass]

Can you try with a vanilla kernel? I have no idea what Mandrake is doing with it's kernels but it could be the problem.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I'll try it when I get home.

[carcass]

OK, so I haven't tested a vanilla kernel yet but I did do the following:

 

Installed the PVR-250 in another machine in which I have dual-boot win2000 and Mandrake 10.1. I installed the windows drivers and software and the card works perfectly there. So it's not the card hardware.

 

then I performed a scratch install of the ivtv suite on the Mandrake part of that machine, and voila: same problems as my other machine, same exact behavior. so it's not a hardware combination problem.

 

Hence it must be in the drivers or the kernel. I will now move the card back to the original machine and try working with other kernels. I will update this thread as I go so that everybody can benefit from my blundering... :)

[carcass]

OK, so last night I tried out two different kernels: the 2.6.8.1-24mdk that ships with Mandrake 10.1 as an alternate, and 2.6.11.3 from kernel.org. Ivtv gave the same errors with -24mdk as with the -12mdk kernel. After installing 2.6.11.3, I lost the ability to use X11; not sure why. When I reverted to 2.6.8.1-12mdk, I got X11 back, but no love on ivtv. Next round this evening.

[devries]

Strange this.... What does dmesg say? And just to be sure modinfo ivtv? And try loading the modules (ivtv, tuner, msp3400, saa7115, tveeprom) with insmod instead of modprobe.

 

And try the ivtv mailinglists. :)

[carcass]

OK-- so here's what's going on:

 

I got sick of playing with Mandrake 10.1 so I downloaded the (very recently available) 10.2rc1 and did a clean install on the machine of interest.

 

Amazingly enough, the stock ivtv (ivtv-0.2.0-rc3f) that comes with 10.2rc1 will allow video capture from the tuner. The distribution does not include the firmware, so that must be installed. Unfortunately, audio doesn't work, and so far, kdetv and xawtv can't open the tuner device (/dev/vbi). There appears to be some sort of permission problem, although it happens with the root user.

 

for example, kdetv gives the error:

kdetv: WARNING: VBIDecoder: vbi_capture_v4l_new error: Sorry, /dev/vbi0 (Vanilla iTVC15 card) cannot capture any of the requested data services.

kdetv: WARNING: [VBIDecoder::restart()] no permission to access device

kdetv: WARNING: MainWindow::setupInfraRed(): Lirc not available

kdetv: WARNING: SaverControl: Error in DCOP communication. Unable to disable KDE Screensaver.

kdetv: WARNING: ... failed. kdetv likely does not to work with your device and/or your current filter config.

 

scantv gives:

vbi: open failed [/dev/vbi]

open /dev/vbi: Invalid argument

 

Unfortunately, when I do 'mplayer /dev/video', it will run for a random length of time and then hard lock the machine.

 

So I uninstalled the rc3f ivtv and went out and got ivtv-0.2.0-rc3i (latest release). When I built and installed it, I got audio along with my video!! :)

 

The machine still locks after a random time of playing :(

 

But, when I do 'cat /dev/video > somefile.mpg', It will run indefinitely, creating a file that I can then watch with mplayer. This file does not appear to be MPEG compressed, as 5 minutes of video and audio came out to about 450 MB.

 

So, I'm way better off than I was before except for the following problems:

 

/dev/vbi cannot be connected to by tuner programs

for some reason the system locks up when viewing the /dev/video device directly with mplayer

Perhaps other problems that I haven't encountered yet.

 

I can't use freevo to test because the 10.2rc1 has a badly broken freevo installation (many perl modules are missing) 10.1 had this issue as well.

 

Any insights on my new problems? Thanks for your help so far!

Edited March 20, 2005 by carcass

[devries]

I'm still using 10.1 so I can't be of much help here. Just some general information

 

If it is a permission problem, open a console, login as root and type: chmod 666 /dev/vbi

 

The stream is encoded as MPEG2 (that is to say digital video). Encoded is not the same as compressed. The only reason why you would want to compress a videofile is when size is an issue (sharing across the internet, fitting on CDrom etcetc). Otherwise you would wat to have as high quality as possible and that's MPEG2 (the same as goes on a DVD)

 

If you're willing to experiment with perl you can install missing parts manually:

Open a console, log in as root and type: perl -MCPAN -e shell

 

That will get you a cpan prompt. Now type: install <Perl aplet you need> (it might not work because it's case sensitive. Just read the errors and adjust the spelling)

 

Last try playing the stream with xine. :)

 

Good luck.

[carcass]

OK, so it's been a while but I got my tuner working, and freevo installed.

 

What finally worked for me:

 

kernel: 2.6.11-6mdk

ivtv: 0.3.2p

 

It will run all night with no problem. One thing I did notice however is that the longer it runs, the longer the delay between tuning a new channel and seeing the new channel. I suspect this is because I am using a software decoder and it's just not keeping up with the stream and hence mplayer is buffering a lot.

 

I had some problems that may be related to the NVIDIA kernel module, but I can't trace them to ground. It may not be NVIDIA at all.

 

It still doesn't work with kdetv, xawtv, or tvtime, but I don't care, because I can watch TV

using 'mplayer /dev/video'.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot get mplayer tv:// to work at all. I get a green screen. mplayer complains about not being able to do teh ioctl operation and then exits. Xine does not work in this capacity either.

 

Hence, I'm still unable to use freevo to watch or record TV.

 

Can anyone point me to a good resource on getting mplayer or xine to tune tv channels?

 

I am also interested in finding a good way to get mplayer or xine to interface with my NVIDIA hardware MPEG-2 decoder. Also some resources on using the NVIDIA tv-out that I have...I destroyed my X setup a week ago trying to make it work and it took a couple of days to get back to life.

 

If anyone has any questions about my setup or how I made the tuner work so far, please ask; I'm grateful for the help I've received here so far and am glad to help others out.

[devries]

If mplayer works freevo works :) (it uses mplayer to play the stream)

 

TV_SETTINGS  = 'pal television europe-west /dev/video0'

TV_VCR_SETTINGS = 'pal television europe-west /dev/video0'

 

From my local_conf.py

 

Tuning: just get the frequency list from your cable provider and put the correct values in the local_conf.py

 

Twinview. For the TV you need a twinview setup. Use this site to generate the code: http://www.sorgonet.com/linux/nv-online/

 

Good luck.

[flarefox]

I can't even get the driver to install correctly. I followed the instructions and got it from thacs rpms and everything, but when I add ivtv to my modprobe and cat, there's the error you taked about with the solve of modprobe -r ivtv. The difference here is, once I do that, I get the same error above that it doesn't exist. I thought it might be my kernel, so I recompiled (first time, I tried many times to get it to work right) but when I try to boot into that kernel, it complains that it has no init and that I need to pass something to it in init=, but I don't know what to pass to it. Can you help me at all? I think I have version 2 of the card. I can't get the firmware except through thacs because it cant' fine the temp directory it wants to install in and I have no clue how to fix it....

[devries]

Did you type 'make reload' in the drivers folder? Post the errors here. (forget about compiling a new kernel. It's not neccesary unless you have got a cord with the new tuner.)

[flarefox]

Did you type 'make reload' in the drivers folder? Post the errors here. (forget about compiling a new kernel. It's not neccesary unless you have got a cord with the new tuner.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

ok, here are the errors I get then. :) Any help you can give me is very appreciated!

 

[root@localhost driver]# depmod -ae; modprobe ivtv

[root@localhost driver]# exit

exit

bash-2.05b$ cat /dev/vi

video video0 video24 video32

bash-2.05b$ cat /dev/video0

cat: /dev/video0: Input/output error

bash-2.05b$ su

[root@localhost utils]# modprobe -r ivtv

[root@localhost utils]# make reload

make: *** No rule to make target `reload'. Stop.

[root@localhost utils]#