I had an old Win TV PCI card working w/ a KnoppMyth installation (release 3 I believe; kernel version is 2.4.21-xfs if that helps) and recently bought a PVR 250 MCE (has an FM tuner, no remote, OEM). The card is a 32552 Rev B123. There is only an MPEG encoder (i.e. its not one of the 250's that have a decoder as well), a Conexant CX23416-12. The card works fine on Windows w/ Hauppauge drivers / apps.

I was able to get the card somewhat working w/ the CVS version of ivtv (downloaded them on 4/17), using the following in /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv :

alias char-major-81 videodev
options ivtv debug=1 cardtype=2
options tuner type=2
options msp3400 once=1 simple=1
add below ivtv msp3400 saa7115 tuner

I reran mythtv-setup deleting the information for the previous card, etc... If I watch live TV using the default recording profile (480x480 MPEG2-PS, bitrate 4500-6000), I get no sound, and the video seems to be slightly speeding up, then slowing down, then the picture freezes and I need to kill the frontend process from the command line. Using other values for LiveTV recording profiles didn't help. All other mythtv modules (music, videos, etc...) outside of recording/watching TV working fine as before.

Also, I wasn't sure if the saa7115 module was for a decoder chip, so I removed that from the ivtv file above, but when I rebooted, I went to watch live TV all I got was black.

System is a Celeron 1.3Ghz socket 370, the MB is a Biostar with a VIA chipset. Video is onboard, signal gets to TV through an old AverKey box. DMA is turned on for the single UDMA66 HDD. Also in the box is a SB Live! soundcard. I don't think that ventilation/heat is a problem.

Happy to add any other relevant info but wanted to see if anyone had some ideas.

Thanks.

sorry, i don't mean to hijack your thread but which pvr-250 has both the encoder and decoder?

Just something I gathered from here:
http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=pvr_card_id_guide_2

Technically, I guess the page states that the card I referred to is similar to, but is not a 250MCE, but close enough for government work, I guess. No worries about hijacking the thread. Sorry for the confusion.

I found this on http://ivtv.sourceforge.net/FAQ.html#_jump04

PVR350 - This card has hardware encoding and decoding capabilities. It is based on the iTVC15 / CX23415 chip and has a TV output. There is a heatsink on the cx23415 chip and there are two DRAM chips on the board.
PVR250 rev1 - This card is similar to the PVR350 but it is missing the video decoder chip that drives the TV output. Despite this, it is still based on the same encoder / decoder chip as the PVR350 and has hardware decoding capabilities.
PVR250 rev2 - Unlike the previous cards, this one has no hardware decoding ability and therefore no TV output. This card uses a CX23416 chip which is a cut down encode only version, has no heatsink and there is only one DRAM chip on board.

So.....my question is: How do I enable support for the decoding function of my card....I do have a rev 1 card - at least the output of lspci says:

00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc: Unknown device 0016 (rev 01)

I am using a Nvidia GeForce2 GTS for display with the VGA output hooked up to a High Def wide screen TV - works great, but if I record and playback at the same time, the video slows down occasionally. I am using a 1 Ghz P4....I know....probably borderline for that anyway, but I am thinking that if I can enable this decode function on the PVR-250 then my problems will be solved.

Alternatively, maybe I could get better performance by running XVMC?
I have tried running the install-i586-lx, but it complains that the .deb file is missing - my understanding is that I would run that first and then run install-nvidia.sh?

Thanks,

Jim

That is a question for the ivtv developers. Last I knew, support wasn't planned.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!