Okay, I'm completely new to Linux and it's taken me a couple of days just to figure out how to install the Nvidia drivers so that I could see anything after KnoppMyth boots.
So, I went through the setup screens and then selected "Watch TV"... blank screen -- no sound! Hmmmmm. Read through the forums and search with google. Found instructions on how to use xterm to rerun the MythTv-setup and and went slower with selecting all the settings. I mostly stuck with the default settings but I did make sure I selected "MPEG-2 Encoder Card (PVR 250, PVR 350)" under the Capture Card setup screen. All the channel stuff seemed to go okay and I even managed to get all the channel info to flow in properly from the account I setup with Zap2It.com.
But, and it's a big but... when I go to the Input Connections setup screen it's just blank. There is no way to select any type of input and I think that's why I'm getting a blank screen when trying to watch tv.

My setup is:
Athlon 1800+
MSI Nforce2 mATX mobo
512 mb PC3200
Using on-board video out to tv (similar to Geforce 4 440, I think)
200gig WD HD
Pioneer DVD-rom
Hauppauge PVR-250
Chaintech AV-710 sound card (uses the VIA Envy 24PT chipset)

TV source is a ExpressVu satellite dish using the S-video output from the dish receiver to the PVR-250 and sound into the PVR-250 as well (is that correct or should I have gone to the input on the sound card?).
The install seemed to have gone fine and I'm sure when I try to watch closely when it boots that it finds and installs a driver for the PVR-250 card.
I am fighting my way through this and would appreciate any help for a complete Linux novice.
TIA...

in the mythtv-setup when you create the card, does it give you options like composite svideo tuner0 etc? if not the driver is either not loaded or didn't recognize your card. if it does then they should show up in the input connections screen as well. If you are using the R5alpa then you will need to tell it to load ivtv. it's covered in the R5 install documentation.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks for the quick reply... now to really show my lack of skill with Linux. After exiting the MythTV frontend, at the desktop, the wallpaper says Knoppmyth with a stylized R5 below it. I was sure that I downloaded R4V5 back on Feb 14th... what's the quickest way to determine the revision of my install?
Thanks for the patience.

Okay, found this under the System Status page in MythTV....

Listing Status = Myth version:0.16.20040906-1

That's about all I could find that points to a verison of any kind...

I'm going to take a crack at updating the ivtv driver and see what happens. There was no option like composite, svideo or tuner0 that I could see when I created the card. Leads me to beleive that the driver update is worth a shot.

Please keep that good info coming... thanks!

Of course this is only in R5...

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Okay, last thing I did last night was to update to the R5A10 edition of KnoppMyth. Managed to get things back to where I was with the previous install... no blank screen on boot, configured the capture card but still no inputs to select under the input selection screen.... just a blank page.
I haven't yet run the ivtv driver so that mythtv can find the inputs (I'll be needing S-Video for my setup) as my family is now up and they don't tolerate me mucking with the system and hogging the tv while they are wanting to watch something... so, I'm in a holding pattern until tongiht.
Thanks for all the help so far...

Try going to an alternate console (crtl-alt-f1) and doing:

That should output whether your ivtv module is runing or not. If not do this:

If that worked, to make ivtv load every time you reboot do this:

After that you should be able to run mythtv-setup from a shell and setup your input devices.

_________________
The only thing I know is that I don't know.

Thanks simusphere!!! I can now select svideo as an input and my satellite reciever shows up there when configured. Now, a new problem... when I went to the "Watch TV" screen the picture comes up but it's black and white and the motion freezes after 2 or 3 seconds and locks there... then mythtv backs out of the screen on it's own to the main mythtv menu.
I'm going to be doing a lot of research and reading tonight to see what I can find out about this myself but quick tips are very welcome....

Another update to my problem... the black and white screen with the freezing picture seems to be cured by unplugging the audio jack from the PVR-250 card and plugging it into the soundcard. Now I have a colour picture that looks great (aside from a small overscan problem that I'll work on later) and doesn't freeze. But, I still have no sound from the Envy24 based chipset sound card.
I have done a quick search but most of the sound problem hits in the forum seem to be related to either on-board nForce or AC97 implementations. I've done a quick google search for the install instructions for the Envy based cards (ice1712 driver required from what I can tell) using ALSA but it all seems to be related to a full on Linux user install and no mention of this type of setup ie: mythtv or knoppmyth.

Can you hear audio while using a cd in in the cd player? Select the listen to music option on the mythtv interface.

_________________
The only thing I know is that I don't know.

I tried that... no go. The cd player pulled up the name of the cd and the song list pretty quick... but no sound at all. Either from my main speakers which I have plugged into the spdif connection or the tv that I have running from the line out analogue output of the sound card.
One interesting thing though... when I power on the system or reboot there is a little thump from my sound systems speakers when it boot early in the boot sequence but then all is quiet.

if the sound is not plugged from your set top box into your pvr250 you will never have sound on tv as the pvr card takes the sound and the video and mux's them together in the mpeg2 stream.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Okay, new update on the ongoing sound problem...
I found an asound.state file that someone had optimized for the A710 Envy 24 based sound card to utilized S/PDIF outputs on the card in Linux. Put that file in the /etc directory and ran the "alsactl restore" command then rebooted. After selecting audio device (/dev/adsp) in the audio setup of mythtv I can now hear music when playing a cd via my home surround system's optical input but still not through my tv set (which is fed by analogue line-out on the A710 soundcard).
The downside is that I still can't hear any tv sound when I select "watch tv". I've tried plugging the audio feed from my satellite receiver into either the sound input on the PVR-250 or the line-in on the Chaintech soundcard... neither result in any audio from the tv feed.
Before I had no sound at all I thought that it must be me not knowing how to set up the soundcard under Linux but now that I can play cds on the box I'm wondering if it is a setting that I'm too dense to see is wrong.
Still needing help...

two things look for the checkbox in the settings about use internal volume controls and uncheck it. second look for the box about pass ac3 content and check it. That should get you sound through your spdif connection. not sure if you can do both spdif and analog at the same time.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks for the tips Xsecrets... unchecking the setting about use internal volume controls worked... I now have sound from live tv. The other setting about pass ac3 content doesn't seem to affect the s/pdif output... it works with it both checked or unchecked.
According to this other forum I found that had a ton of info about my particular sound card (Chaintech A710 Envy 24 based.. this was where I found the file and instructions that enabled the s/pdif out) enabling s/pdif out using their instructions allows use of both s/pdif and line out at the same time. They also say that this is only possible under Linux... Windows users don't have both these outputs available at the same time. Now, they were talking about use under Linux and not referring to MythTV so maybe the way the sound selection is handled under MythTV prevents both at the same time but I can't get any analogue sound out from the card at all... if I change to /dev/dsp or /dev/dsp0 or 1 or 2 or 3.... none of them work at all. I think I'm messing up something in the Linux settings... maybe in alsamixer, I'm too new at Linux to be sure.
Thanks for all the help...