I have been searching to find out what is causing this problem, and i can't seem to do it. The problem I think is that the tuner on the PVR250 is a different one than most. I have not even been able to find information on it specifically.

I peeled back the sticker on the tuner, and the information on the small white sticker was as follows:
tcl2002n-5a
2k4 002

The main Sticker says this:
ntsc/ntsc-j
32062
revb185


Is this tuner supported? Any ideas how to make this happen?

Any suggestions are welcome at this point!!

Thanks in advance,
Stu

Hello

You correctly identified the issue, it is a new LG electronics tuner I believe. Did a little reseach on the web and found the following link

http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/Sep-2004/msg00211.html

Basically it mentions changing the card type in IVTV

I'd recommend that you recompile IVTV and edit to change the following

options ivtv card=85 type=39
options ivtv tuner=39

These steps are courtesty of TazzyTazzy, XSecrets, and Cesman

You can find a new version of IVTV here

http://67.18.1.101/~ckennedy/ivtv/

These directions are for ivtv-0.1.10-pre2-ck106u.tgz but you will need something newer since the Tuner was not supported until just recently by IVTV.

1) cd /usr/src
2) tar xvfj linux-2.4.25-chw.tar.bz2
3) cd /usr/local/lib/ivtv/
4) mv driver/ driver.old
5) Download the ivtv 106u version to something like /usr/local/src/
6) Extract it (tar zxvf ivtv-0.1.10-pre2-ck106u.tgz)
6) go inside the ivtv download folder you just untar'd
7) copy the driver folder cp -a driver/ /usr/local/lib/ivtv/
cd /usr/local/lib/ivtv/driver/
9) make clean
10) make install
11) if you get a warning, about deleting the msp3400.0 file, do it...or just rename it with something like:
mv /lib/modules/2.4.25-chw/kernel/drivers/media/video/msp3400.o
/lib/modules/2.4.25-chw/kernel/drivers/media/video/msp3400.o.old
12) vi /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv
- I forget the actual contents. But it's something like (i'll try to edit this post tonight after I look it up).
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-61 lirc_i2c
options ivtv card=85 type=39
options tuner type=39
options msp3400 once=1 simple=1
add below ivtv msp3400 saa7115 tuner
add above ivtv lirc_dev lirc_i2c

13) update-modules
14) depmod
15) reboot. Do <ctrl><alt><f1> and log back in as root.
16) lsmod | grep ivtv
You should see about three lines. If so, goto step 19. IF you don't, do "modprobe ivtv | less"
Carefully look for any errors. Take your time and go line-by line. Look for anything that says undefined, or unknown. Look for type 85 card. Maybe unknown id's of 0016, 4009, etc. I can't stress this enough. Carefully read that output line by line.
17) lsmod | grep ivtv
1 If you see three lines, your good to go Goto step 19
19) Flip back to mythtv <Ctrl-alt-f7>. Try the tuner. If it works.
20) Reboot regardless if it worked or not.
21) If it worked before rebooting, and now it doesn't add a line to
/etc/modules with a line "ivtv" by itself. I'm not sure of the placement yet. I have mine on the bottom. I get a few warnings on boot, but it works. Can maybe move this up some.
22) If never worked before that reboot. Sorry, i don't know. I'm a noobie.
Some suggestions: Try an ivtv driver later than 106u - that was the driver released the day i setup my box. It appears a new driver is released every day.


Good Luck

Great!!

So now I have the most important of my three problems taken care of. I used the release candidate d, and it seems to be working.

My two remaining issues are the sound and TV out.

The TV out seems to be a pretty standard problem, and I am not sure if the card is even supported by linux. The controller is an ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro 215GP (rev 5c) card. It has an S-video and a composite out that work in command line mode, but seem to go weird in X.

The motherboard has onboard audio, but for some reason the only sound I can get to come out is the onboard speaker. I am sure this one is something simple...
The audio controller i see in the lspci list is Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio.

Any suggestions on these two things?

Thanks again for all of the great information.

/Stuart

You'll be hard pressed to get TV Out working with an ATI card.

A search of the forums might reveal something. Failing that you can search the MythTV Users mailing list archive at http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/.

The easiest solution is probably a cheap Nvidia FX5200 based card. It's certainly the well trodden path around here, with lots of people who can share their /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 files and other configuration and setup information.

Any good cheap suggestions?

Stu

I regards to the sound problem. I have a Compaq Deskpro EN that has onboard Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio. I messed with it for a while and then just decided to go to Comp USA and get a $15 Prowler 4.1 DSP 4.1 (MD-PS4) 4 channel PCI sound card with a $15 rebate. It works fine and I think that the same card is on sale at Office Max this week. You might want to check it out since I think the ad expires Saturday. That was the best move because Debian detected the PCI card right out of the box....For a video Card I agree with tjc that NVIDIA is the way to go.

Good Luck

The real problem with all this is that I am limited to 2 PCI slots in the box that I have. I am obvioulsy using one for capture...So I have to pick my battle and buy the easy solution for one, and find a way to do it in software for the other.
Which battle do you think would be easier to fight? Or are there any dual purpose cards out there? I've never seen one, but I never looked very hard (especially not hard enough to know if it will work in Debian).

/Stu

Go to NewEgg or PriceGrabber and use their search tools. A search of the forums here can also be very productive when you're wondering if and how well a particular piece of hardware works. Set an upper price bound of $65 with DVI and TV out, and you should find at least 4-5 options. If you look at the pictures at NewEgg, particularly of the backs of the boards, you'll notice that most of them look alike because they are fairly straightforward clones of the NVidia reference designs. I recommend looking for the DVI output because it seems to go along with all the reports I've seen of high quality TV Out.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/

http://www.newegg.com/app/manufact.asp?catalog=48&DEPA=1

Can you give a better description of your hardware. What kind of motherboard? What kind of machine? .....

I think I will be looking for a TV out card...

If I can't get the onboard audio to work, has anyone had any luck with external USB audio cards? Or any other suggestions?

/Stu

I pulled an old IBM NetVista machine.

Model 6648-LAU (PIII 733 with 512MB RAM).
The Motherboard is an IBM 06P2525.

Like I said, I dropped an ATI 3D Rage Pro 215GP in for my TV out...just because I had it laying around.

Only 2 total PCI slots available. 2 USBs are on the back as well.

Well that tells me that it's one of a relatively small number of SFF boxes, since most of them have 1 AGP and 1 PCI. So from other clues (built in ATI graphics) it almost has to be the Pundit-R. If you searched the forum you should have found this: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2173 and realized that the poor sod had a truly horrible time of it.

Sorry, I might have misled you. The graphics card is not built in. The box has a riser card that gives 2 PCI slots. It is in the second PCI slot.

I don't really plan to keep this hardware for too long. I just need to get it working well enough to get the wife hooked on it so I can convince her I should spend a little more money to make the system "right."

/Stu[/quote]

Generally to use a box with very limited slots for this kind of application you need to have most of the amenitites built into the motherboard. The list of things you need for a viable standalone PVR is something like this:

- well supported sound
- video with supported TV Out
- a supported tuner card
- some kind of remote (or wireless keyboard)
- some kind of networking (to get listings)
- a good sized HD with working DMA
- Enough CPU and memory to encode/decode/buffer/...

Many folks add to that list:

- a DVD drive

You can get away without TV Out if you're willing to watch your recordings on a monitor, or a remote if you've got a long enough keyboard cable.

Like I siad, i plan to build a better box once I have sold the concept to my wife. For now, I just need to get it going so that I can do that.

I am still stuck with the TV-out issue and the sound. From the research i have done, I have resigned to the fact that I will have to buy a new TV out card (nVidia...), so what I am still trying to peg out is if anyone can offer ideas on how to get the onboard sound working, or if there is USB (1.0) sound that is supported.

/Stu