Actually a search of the forum should have turned up lots of info abut exactly that kind of problem. I think I even suggested that you try "the usual cabling fixes". Let me put this as clearly as possible for the next person who finds this thread... Ahem!
WHEN YOU HAVE SIGNAL QUALITY PROBLEMS THE FIRST THING TO CHECK IS YOUR CABLING!
PLEASE SEARCH THE FORUM FOR DETAILS.
BTW - I'm not picking on you Thervey this is just something that needs to be announced at least once a week in a loud and ringing voice.

To set the time and date to 10:29PM April 30th you would run the following as root:

For the average newbie it's probably far easier to do this stuff through the webmin interface.

Definately not bad/cheap cables. Have premium cables. As an aside just to make sure I was at least connecting things correctly/np with cables and such I was able to get PVR functions working fine if I installed winxp and BeyondTV (which I didn't like much but it worked).

Are the coax connections push on or screw on cables? Even the best gold plated, super heavy, ultra pure copper, pseudo-scientific, pseudo-premium, push on cables I ever used, work worse than the ugliest screw on ones. Go figure...

Cable routing is the other big thing to look at. Lift them clear of anything that they're tangled up with, away from the back of the TV, or speakers, or ... Again shocking how much difference a bit of crosstalk can make. If you've ever worked on an auto engine there are specific routing patterns used with the spark plug cables to avoid problems caused by crosstalk.

BTW - This has all been discussed a number of times here just within the last several months. A search of the forum as suggested above would have turned up these suggestions and more...

Point well taken, and I did find various suggestions when I searched the forums. The thing is these same exact cables, connections, hardware work fine in gb-pvr but only static in mythtv.

I'm guessing that the card isn't tuning then which is an entirely different problem. Most likely the wrong tuner type or the wrong frequency set.

Searching the forum, I'm getting almost the exact same issue. Everything works fine and tunes in with XP, but only static with mythTV. I am also having the same issue as thervey where all of my listings are 4 hours off. (I'm also in the eastern timezone) My computer has the correct date and time.

When I run grep tveeprom: /var/log/messages I get this:
root@mythtv:~# grep tveeprom: /var/log/messages
May 5 02:25:44 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: Hauppauge: model = 26032, rev = 199, serial# = 7936916
May 5 02:25:44 mythtv kernel: tveeprom: tuner = <unknown> (idx = 99, type = 0)

My computer specs are:
AMD Athlon 800
384MB RAM
60GB HDD
Hauppauge PVR-150 retail

Thanks in advance!

It's not recognizing the tuner on your PVR-150. You may need to get the latest alpha IVTV drivers and build them. Directions for doing that can be found here or at the wiki (currently in read only mode due to vandalism, probably by some pimple farming script kiddy...).

As for the clock problem, have you restarted the system since fixing the TZ?

I'm trying to follow ralph's post on installing the pvr-500 (and 150) and I can't seem to install the ivtv drivers. I'm able to download and unzip the files, but not run 'make' or 'make install'
Here is the error I keep getting:

root@pvr:/home/mythtv/ivtv-0.3.5w/driver# make
make CONFIG_VIDEO_IVTV=m -C /lib/modules/2.6.11.7-chw-4/build M=/home/mythtv/ivtv-0.3.5w/driver modules
make: *** /lib/modules/2.6.11.7-chw-4/build: No such file or directory. Stop.
make: *** [all] Error 2

I've actually browsed to the /lib/modules/2.6.11.7-chw-4 folder and there appears to be a build file there.

Any help would be great.
Thanks!

BTW I've set my XMLTV offset to +400 and rebooted and am still seeing programs in the listing from 4 hours prior.

Did you untar the kernel source?

-brendan

I had been reading up on that here in the forums. I came across something and attempted to follow these steps:

tar xvfj mythtv-0.18.1.tar.bz2
cd mythtv-0.18
./configure
make mythtv.pro
make

Everything was good up until ./configure
I just got another prompt. I tried 'make mythtv.pro' and it gave me an error.
Is this the correct way to untar the kernel? The reason I ask is because this is the second time I've tried to use the 'make' command and it has failed.

Well I can help with this I know exactly what you problem is..... During the setup set your timezone first then be sure to type in the correct time for your area do not use UTC time for the local time and then redo the input source refilling the database and you will be good.

Thanks for the tip stephencu2004, it was kind of a 'duh' moment when I saw in bright RED "Set your Timezone" Problem solved!

Bit of an update, I reloaded from scratch for the 7th time last evening and followed these directions EXACTLY:
http://www.bitbenderforums.com/~ralpha6 ... mythtv.htm

I then modified the /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv file. I used exactly what jac1d posted here:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... highlight=

which is:
alias char-major-61 lirc_i2c
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
options cx25840 no_black_magic=1
options ivtv ivtv_std=0 tuner=50 tda9887=0 ivtv_debug=1

options cx25840 i2c_enable=1
options saa7127 i2c_enable=-1

install ivtv /sbin/modprobe tuner; /sbin/modprobe msp3400; /sbin/modprobe saa7115; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ivtv
remove ivtv /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ivtv && /sbin/modprobe -r saa7115 && /sbin/modprobe -r msp3400 && /sbin/modprobe -r tuner

I also modified the /etc/init.d/set_ivtv_params as posted by ralph.

Still getting static on all of the channels. Unlike my previous post, however, I didn't have any 'make' errors. Everything seemed to go smoothly.

Are you using the right frequency set?

Have you tried fine tuning the channels?

Are we talking interference on an otherwise tuned picture or just raw noise?

Have you tried to track down and eliminate any sources of signal interference inside or outside of the case?

Is your electric plug properly grounded (a good UPS should show you if your grounding is OK along with being a vital piece of protection for the system)?

Is there a way to check the frequency set?

I have not tried fine tuning the channels...where might I find that?

The channels are just raw noise, no picture. Millions of little white ants racing on black carpet.

I haven't checked for interference, simply because the tuner was working great when I had it hooked up in XP Pro

Yes, I have verified that I have a good ground. Bright red light comes on the power strip if I plug it in stating there is a proper ground.

BTW, don't know if this matters, but I am using the tuner via antenna hookup which is mounted on the roof, so I only have 5 local channels to deal with.

From an xterm or ssh session run mythtv-setup and it's the 3rd page under "General" where you can select the frequency set, there are at least 3 for the US for example.

There are many routes into it, the channel editor under setup, the settings page in the web interface, direct access to the mySQL database, ... The web page is probably the easiest to experiment with. HOWEVER, YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS. This is useful if you've got a couple channels that are a bit funky you're WAY beyond that.

OK, you've got a serious misconfiguration. The obvious things to look at are tuner type (seems OK), the input source (more in a bit), and the frequency set (as above).

Good, that helps eliminate an RF source inside the case.

I'm betting on the frequency set or the input selection then. It's not uncommon for people to do something (or not do anything) when mythtv-setup runs during the second phase of the install that screws these up.

First, given what you said above about using an antenna, make sure you're using the BROADCAST frequency set not the default CABLE frequencies.

Next, make sure that under "Capture Cards" your default input is set to "Tuner 0" or in MythTV 18.1 "Television". and that under "Input Connections" that only Tuner 0/Television is associated with your "Video Source" (really program listings).

BTW - If this solves your problem, you're now in charge of pointing the next newbie at this information.