Using “Designed for …” hardware with Linux was always a pain. Vendor support suggests to “use software from CD”, and check if card is properly installed “by clicking on My Computer, and then …”. And then I explained that I’m running Linux. I was told that Linux is not supported and card is not prepared to work with it.
I have tested some bttv “card=” parameter options and I realized that none of them works properly. With most of them I was unable to tune to any TV station, with other there was no sound and radio does not work with any of them.
I have finally installed this card into borrowed Windows box and use BtSpy to investigate Windows drivers. Card in Windows was correctly detected and system requested drivers from CD. After installing them and rebooting proprietary software was able to scan television channels and radio stations. I run BtSpy and followed each step it proposed. Here is its report:
### BtSpy Report ### General information: Name: PixelView PlayTV Pro PV-BT878P+9X Chip: Bt878 , Rev: 0x00 Subsystem: 0x00000000 Vendor: Gammagraphx, Inc. Values to MUTE audio: Mute_GPOE : 0x00003f Mute_GPDATA: 0x000028 Has TV Tuner: Yes TV_Mux : 2 TV_GPOE : 0x00003f TV_GPDATA: 0x000021 Number of Composite Ins: 1 Composite in #1 Composite1_Mux : 3 Composite1_GPOE : 0x00003f Composite1_GPDATA: 0x000023 Has SVideo: Yes SVideo_Mux : 1 SVideo_GPOE : 0x00003f SVideo_GPDATA: 0x000023 Has Radio: Yes Radio_GPOE : 0x00003f Radio_GPDATA: 0x000020
Bttv driver
After reading very helpful bttv documentation I find proper configuration.
Just create /etc/modprobe.d/bttv with this contents:
options bttv card=70 tuner=38 radio=1 gpiomask=0x3F audiomux=33,32,35,35,40 # address of tuner should be detected automatically, # if it fails uncomment next line # options tuner addr=0x61
GPIO mask and audiomux values comes from report (they are converted from hex to decimal). My card have no NICAM decoder and cannot work with card=72. Using addr=0x61 option is need only with older bttv driver and disables radio.
Television
Now, we are ready to search for TV stations. Install scantv package and run:
$ scantv -C /dev/vbi0
When it find station you will see message similar to:
E5 (175.25 MHz): TVP Katowice [TVP Katowice] channel = E5 E6 (182.25 MHz): ??? [unknown (E6)] channel = E6
Watch TV with TvTime or XawTV (both available as Debian packages).
Teletext
Install AleVT set channel with XawTV or TvTime and run AleVT with command:
$ alevt -finetune auto -charset latin-2 -vbi /dev/vbi0
Radio
Install radio package and search for radio stations running:
radio -c /dev/radio0 -i
When it find station you will see:
[Stations] baseline at 6.10 Station 0: 89.15 MHz - 7.00 89150000=scan-0 Station 1: 90.05 MHz - 7.00 90050000=scan-1 Station 2: 90.60 MHz - 7.00
You may also try XMMS plugin fmradio.
Remote control
Use kernel 2.6, module ir_kbd_gpio and LIRC with this configuration file (/etc/lirc/lircd.conf):
# Please make this file available to others # by sending it to <[email protected]> # # this config file was automatically generated # using lirc-0.7.0(any) on Thr Mar 22 19:08:32 2006 # # contributed by Krzysztof Burghardt <[email protected]> # # brand: PixelView PlayTV Pro PV-BT878P+9X # model no. of remote control: PlayTV Pro remote control # devices being controlled by this remote: TV card receiver # begin remote name pixelview bits 16 eps 30 aeps 100 one 0 0 zero 0 0 pre_data_bits 16 pre_data 0x8001 gap 149906 toggle_bit 0 begin codes POWER 0x0000000000000074 ZOOM 0x0000000000000174 SCAN 0x00000000000000D9 TV_FM 0x0000000000000182 VOL_UP 0x0000000000000073 VOL_DOWN 0x0000000000000072 CH_UP 0x0000000000000192 CH_DOWN 0x0000000000000193 MUTE 0x0000000000000071 SOURCE 0x000000000000018B LOOP 0x0000000000000166 UP_100 0x0000000000000195 1 0x000000000000004F 2 0x0000000000000050 3 0x0000000000000051 4 0x000000000000004B 5 0x000000000000004C 6 0x000000000000004D 7 0x0000000000000047 8 0x0000000000000048 9 0x0000000000000049 UP 0x0000000000000111 DOWN 0x0000000000000110 FUNCTION 0x0000000000000162 RESET 0x0000000000000163 FREEZE 0x0000000000000080 end codes end remote
This thread is very informative and has helped me solve a problem I have been working on for days.
Without this thread I think I would have given up hope of ever getting sound with tv card.
Thank you!!!