TV Tuner Woes

robfromraleigh · Post by **robfromraleigh** » Tue Jun 01, 2010 1:37 am

Hello,

I am new to Linux Mint and hope that my problem is an easy fix. I have a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 (model 1128) (as shown on the box it came in) that I cannot seem to get working in Mint 9 (Isadora_amd64). I have tried both MeTV and Kaffeine to no avail. Here is what happens with each:

MeTV: "There are no digital tuner devices available"

Kaffeine: I was able to perform an ATSC channel scan and got some channels in my area. However, when I went to watch TV, I got an error message that, unfortunately, I thought I copied into memory but I see now that I did not.

According to Hauppauge, the HVR-1800 is supported in Linux 2.26.25. (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/linux.html)

My uname -a gives the following result, which leads me to think I should be okay:
2.6.32-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 16 08:09:38 UTC 2010 x86_6

I have followed a lot of different instructions from other forums, including creating a v4l-dvb folder and issuing a lot of commands there I did not understand (from the Hauppauge website). Now since doing that, I cannot even get Kaffeine to scan channels. Thus, I appear to have made things worse.

I used this card both under Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.10 without too many issues. I do not recall having this much trouble installing under Ubuntu 9.10, but maybe I was lucky that day. I should mention this is a PCI-Express card. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!

Also, as a side question, what is the best United States HDTV antenna channel scanner? It seems like almost every program I download and install to Linux, I am disappointed that ATSC scanning is not supported. I do recall under Ubuntu 9.10 that Kaffeine was the only application I could successfully scan channels with.

rocknerd · Post by **rocknerd** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 5:17 pm

I am in the same boat. I am running LM9 Isadora AMD64. I purchased a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250 because looking at:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/C ... PCIe_Cards

I read that:" It is supported under Linux since kernel 2.6.27." I am a little confused on the software to use. I am under the impression that VLC can pull it off, but no success so far. I don't pretend to have a fix but the link below may help you?

http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showt ... ?t=1253199

rocknerd.

DrHu · Post by **DrHu** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:45 pm

It's too late now that you bought/own it

This is the place to check, if you have concerns about Linux support for Tv Tuner/capture cards..
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Video_capture_card
--and unless it is really offering something more than a TV screen on a computer, what difference does it make to get a card with more bells and whistles..

rocknerd · Post by **rocknerd** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:18 pm

Thanks for the recommendation. You have more stars than me, DrHu, so allow me to pick your brains again...

I looked in the software manager (I'm not ready to leave my training wheels behind yet!) and there is a grocery list that comes up when I type in keyword: "Myth". What am I looking for? Mythbuntu desktop? MythTV client and server? (Idea: mark main packages with one icon and use a different one for optional modules) The functionality I am looking for is record video from the tuner card, change channels and maybe program our favorite shows a la VCR/DVR style.

rocknerd

DrHu · Post by **DrHu** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:44 pm

rocknerd wrote:I looked in the software manager (I'm not ready to leave my training wheels behind yet!) and there is a grocery list that comes up when I type in keyword: "Myth". What am I looking for? Mythbuntu desktop? MythTV client and server? (Idea: mark main packages with one icon and use a different one for optional modules) The functionality I am looking for is record video from the tuner card, change channels and maybe program our favorite shows a la VCR/DVR style.rocknerd

..there is a grocery list that comes up when I type in keyword: "Myth".
True, but you don't need them all, they are like extensions or plug-ins or extras included with many software projects in the FOSS world (Firefox and its extensions is I guess the most familiar type), same her Myth as a base, and then which extensions do you want to use or use a packaged system (myth + preselected extension types, and example being the mythbuntu system)

The base software is for TV or media streaming for Linux (TV like, but includes pictures, audio and other media data, if you want it). It is basically a media center made with OSS software, there are also some commercial offshoots which follow that style (that is, most of them), so that the interface looks like the control center in Linux, with the few elections needed: audio(music), video(TV shows, movies), photographs(personal, digital images) and so on..
MythTV

MythTV implements the following PVR features, and more, with a
unified graphical interface:
- Preselected combination types (myth + extensions and an easier to use setup)
  The other types are pre-configured or packaged OS and software
  --such as..Mythbuntu-diskless server environment with DHCP server
  - Installs a complete Mythbuntu-diskless server environment
    consisting of the mythbuntu-diskless-server package and a DHCP server
    Canonical does not provide updates for mythbuntu-diskless-server-standalone. Some updates may be provided by the Ubuntu community.

And others also pre-packaged in order to help eliminate the mythTV setups needed by users

MythTV takes a lot of setup., which is why most people will want to use a prepackaged system

And of course, there are many commercial products in this category, hardware + software solutions, such as
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20050630/sl ... -shifting/
http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingbox

If you go with a custom MythTV setup..what is needed.
http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php

rocknerd · Post by **rocknerd** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 2:48 pm

I don't know if robfromraleigh still has his ears on, but this is what I have done so far to get the tuner card to work You may need different card numbers. # indicates comments so you can put what you want or omit:

1-In Terminal, type:
sudo gedit /etc/modules

then I added the lines at the bottom:
# Tuner card kernel module device driver
bttv

save the file.
2-Then type:
gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

(This file was blank) and add a lines:
# Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250
options cx23885 card=20

save the file. Restart PC. Now if I type dmesg
I get:
...
[ 11.674882] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 11.677679] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 11.680732] cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
[ 11.681169] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 11.681276] CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:2259, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1255 [card=20,insmod option]
...
and so much more. So it looks like the PC now recognizes the card. So all is need now (I hope) is software to watch TV. I have settled on Me TV. It does what I want and was fairly easy to setup. I was hoping VLC would work, but I read it does not work with this card.

rocknerd

robfromraleigh · Post by **robfromraleigh** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 10:53 pm

Yes, I am still here hoping against hope I can get this thing to work again. For some reason, I don't recall having these problems under Ubuntu 9.04. Maybe I was just lucky?

I tried your suggestion, and I get the following as part of dmesg on my system:

[ 20.196890] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 20.197610] HDA Intel 0000:01:05.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
[ 20.197633] HDA Intel 0000:01:05.1: setting latency timer to 64
[ 20.457140] cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
[ 20.457600] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 20.457649] CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:7801, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1255 [card=20,insmod option]
[ 20.475021] bttv: driver version 0.9.18 loaded
[ 20.475024] bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
[ 20.606838] tveeprom 2-0050: Hauppauge model 78521, rev C1E9, serial# 3283340
[ 20.606841] tveeprom 2-0050: MAC address is 00:0d:fe:32:19:8c
[ 20.606843] tveeprom 2-0050: tuner model is Philips 18271_8295 (idx 149, type 54)
[ 20.606846] tveeprom 2-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) ATSC/DVB Digital (eeprom 0x88)
[ 20.606848] tveeprom 2-0050: audio processor is CX23887 (idx 42)
[ 20.606849] tveeprom 2-0050: decoder processor is CX23887 (idx 37)
[ 20.606851] tveeprom 2-0050: has radio
[ 20.606852] cx23885[0]: hauppauge eeprom: model=78521
[ 20.606855] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[ 20.606860] cx23885[0]: cx23885 based dvb card
[ 21.051185] cx23885[0]: frontend initialization failed
[ 21.051190] cx23885_dvb_register() dvb_register failed err = -1
[ 21.051192] cx23885_dev_setup() Failed to register dvb on VID_C
[ 21.051195] cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xb1
[ 21.051203] cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:02:00.0, rev: 15, irq: 16, latency: 0, mmio: 0xfd800000

Neither Myth backend setup nor Kaffeine can "talk" to my card correctly. I appreciate your help, but am still living in the land of frustration. As a Linux newbie, I am still learning how to do things with drivers I could do in Windows with my eyes closed. So please forgive my ignorance in not knowing how to formulate the right question.

One thing I will say: Looking at the chips on the card itself, they have "cx23417" and "cx24227" written on them. Does that make any difference? Also, does it matter that above dmesg reply references a HVR-1255 when I have the HVR-1800?

rocknerd · Post by **rocknerd** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:17 pm

In terminal, before my card was working I typed:
Dmesg

...
[ 11.596890] cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
[ 11.605367] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 11.605373] cx23885[0]: Your board isn't known (yet) to the driver.
[ 11.605374] cx23885[0]: Try to pick one of the existing card configs via
[ 11.605374] cx23885[0]: card=<n> insmod option. Updating to the latest
[ 11.605375] cx23885[0]: version might help as well.
[ 11.605377] cx23885[0]: Here is a list of valid choices for the card=<n> insmod option:
[ 11.605378] cx23885[0]: card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
[ 11.605379] cx23885[0]: card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800lp
[ 11.605381] cx23885[0]: card=2 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800
[ 11.605382] cx23885[0]: card=3 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250
…

I got something like above. If your card is 1800, you need to change 20 for 2. So type:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

and change line to:

# Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800
options cx23885 card=2

Save file. Restart PC. Card should now work. I just now realized I put 20 for mine and it works, but it should really be 3 (oops)

rocknerd

robfromraleigh · Post by **robfromraleigh** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:14 pm

Rocknerd,

You are a nerd and you rock!

Things are much better than they were, but still not perfect. Kaffeine and MythTV were able to find my card and scan for channels correctly. When I reboot, I am able to watch TV once in either program. But when I close out the program and go back in, Kaffeine tells me that there is no tuner card and MythTV simply shows a black screen for about 3 seconds and then exits back to the frontend setup screen. For a while, I was having Myth problems with active inputs, but I remembered to get rid of 127.0.0.1 and replaced it for my LAN IP address, which fixed that problem.

I am at a loss why I am having such problems on this machine. I am beginning to suspect my motherboard is doing something weird with interrupts or something. Any further ideas?

I also have to ask--how did you know that changing that setting to "2" would do the trick? Is there a book that explains this stuff somewhere? I would love to see MythTV for Dummies as it looks like it has a lot of features, although intimidating at first. For example, when I was configuring directories, I made a typo at one point. When I went to exit, it asked me if I:
a) Wanted to fix the problem (recommended) -or-
b) I know what I am doing

Option b reminded me that I do NOT know what I am doing!

rocknerd · Post by **rocknerd** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:37 pm

For the record, I'm level 1 so this could be the blind leading the blind...

I tried #3 for my card as it should be, but it did not work. Me-TV reported no tuner card found. So I went back to #20 which is not exactly my model. I would recommend you search (http://www.google.com/linux) for your card and see if there is not an alternate number you need to put in. You could also try one by one and see which one is the best. Below is the rundown I pulled from my screen.

rocknerd

[ 11.605378] cx23885[0]: card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
[ 11.605379] cx23885[0]: card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800lp
[ 11.605381] cx23885[0]: card=2 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800
[ 11.605382] cx23885[0]: card=3 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250
[ 11.605383] cx23885[0]: card=4 -> DViCO FusionHDTV5 Express
[ 11.605384] cx23885[0]: card=5 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1500Q
[ 11.605385] cx23885[0]: card=6 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1500
[ 11.605387] cx23885[0]: card=7 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1200
[ 11.605388] cx23885[0]: card=8 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1700
[ 11.605389] cx23885[0]: card=9 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1400
[ 11.605390] cx23885[0]: card=10 -> DViCO FusionHDTV7 Dual Express
[ 11.605391] cx23885[0]: card=11 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Express
[ 11.605393] cx23885[0]: card=12 -> Leadtek Winfast PxDVR3200 H
[ 11.605394] cx23885[0]: card=13 -> Compro VideoMate E650F
[ 11.605395] cx23885[0]: card=14 -> TurboSight TBS 6920
[ 11.605396] cx23885[0]: card=15 -> TeVii S470
[ 11.605397] cx23885[0]: card=16 -> DVBWorld DVB-S2 2005
[ 11.605399] cx23885[0]: card=17 -> NetUP Dual DVB-S2 CI
[ 11.605400] cx23885[0]: card=18 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1270
[ 11.605401] cx23885[0]: card=19 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1275
[ 11.605402] cx23885[0]: card=20 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1255
[ 11.605403] cx23885[0]: card=21 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1210
[ 11.605405] cx23885[0]: card=22 -> Mygica X8506 DMB-TH
[ 11.605406] cx23885[0]: card=23 -> Magic-Pro ProHDTV Extreme 2
[ 11.605407] cx23885[0]: card=24 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1850
[ 11.605408] cx23885[0]: card=25 -> Compro VideoMate E800

robfromraleigh · Post by **robfromraleigh** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:35 pm

Update: It appears that it is something that MythTV does to my card to make it not work with the other programs once Myth is open. I am now to the point where I can open and close Kaffeine and MeTV as many times as I want and the TV still works. The command line utility "scan" was most helpful in building a channels.conf file for MeTV. Being from Raleigh, which is home to Red Hat, I would have thought there would be a pre-programmed channels.conf I could download and was dismayed that was not the case. Ah well...it was easy enough to scan, although I like Kaffeine's built-in scanner better.

I'm almost home free, but not quite there. If anyone has any further suggestions, let me know. Since I am partially working, I'm not going to spend much more time fiddling with this since I can get by now. However, I must say that TV cards is one area where Linux could use some improvement in ease-of-installation. This may not be Linux's fault, however, as I blame the card makers for not specifying Linux compatibility or offering any support. Why can't they be more like HP with its great printer driver set for Linux? I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to install a network-based Officejet on Linux Mint!

robfromraleigh · Post by **robfromraleigh** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:37 pm

Rocknerd,

I don't know how one goes up in levels, but I would vote to promote you to level 2. Your suggestion enabled me to make a quantum leap forward in my issue!

I, on the other hand, am clearly still at level 1....

--RobFromRaleigh

decalguy · Post by **decalguy** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:37 pm

I don't know if this will help you guys or not but this is my dmesg from my Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800 which works really well with TVTime, Me-Tv and Kaffeine.

Code: Select all

12.763255] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[   13.125420] cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
[   13.125511] cx23885 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   13.125605] CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:7801, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1800 [card=2,autodetected]
[   13.313666] tveeprom 0-0050: Hauppauge model 78521, rev C1E9, serial# 3343494
[   13.313669] tveeprom 0-0050: MAC address is 00-0D-FE-33-04-86
[   13.313671] tveeprom 0-0050: tuner model is Philips 18271_8295 (idx 149, type 54)
[   13.313673] tveeprom 0-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) ATSC/DVB Digital (eeprom 0x88)
[   13.313675] tveeprom 0-0050: audio processor is CX23887 (idx 42)
[   13.313677] tveeprom 0-0050: decoder processor is CX23887 (idx 37)
[   13.313679] tveeprom 0-0050: has radio
[   13.313680] cx23885[0]: hauppauge eeprom: model=78521
[   13.504693] cx25840 2-0044: cx25  0-21 found @ 0x88 (cx23885[0])
[   13.508840] cx25840 2-0044: firmware: requesting v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw
[   13.526668] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel'
[   13.527161] Registered led device: rt73usb-phy0::radio
[   13.527177] Registered led device: rt73usb-phy0::assoc
[   13.527193] Registered led device: rt73usb-phy0::quality
[   13.527752] usbcore: registered new interface driver rt73usb
[   13.862152]   alloc irq_desc for 22 on node 0
[   13.862154]   alloc kstat_irqs on node 0
[   13.862161] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
[   13.862209] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   14.126756] hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC1200, trying auto-probe from BIOS...
[   14.127007] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/input/input6
[   14.549015] cx25840 2-0044: loaded v4l-cx23885-avcore-01.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
[   15.029513] tuner 1-0042: chip found @ 0x84 (cx23885[0])
[   15.080951] tda829x 1-0042: could not clearly identify tuner address, defaulting to 60
[   15.606864] tda18271 1-0060: creating new instance
[   18.800397] tda829x 1-0042: type set to tda8295+18271
[   20.370437] cx23885[0]/0: registered device video0 [v4l2]
[   21.864307] cx23885[0]: registered device video1 [mpeg]
[   21.864311] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[   21.864314] cx23885[0]: cx23885 based dvb card
[   21.981755] MT2131: successfully identified at address 0x61
[   21.983410] DVB: registering new adapter (cx23885[0])
[   21.983413] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Samsung S5H1409 QAM/8VSB Frontend)...
[   21.983666] cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xb1
[   21.983678] cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:03:00.0, rev: 15, irq: 17, latency: 0, mmio: 0xf9e00000
[   21.983684] cx23885 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

Mike

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