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WinTv Nova-T - Setup Guide for R5A16 (UK Specific)
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Author:  parkinpants [ Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:00 pm ]
Post subject:  WinTv Nova-T - Setup Guide for R5A16 (UK Specific)

Note: Why bother following this guide when most of it is now taken care of following the release of R5A22? - I suggest you go and download it.

Guide for R5A22
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... 7860#37860

This is a walkthrough guide for setting up a Hauppage WinTv Nova-T. The guide is specific to UK users running Knoppmyth R5A16 so there will be slight differences for others. Please add any comments, suggestions or easier methods because as it stands it's still a bit of a ballache to set up all the XMLTV ID's.

Stage 1 - Sort The Kernel Out
Stage 2 - Setup The Tuner
Stage 3 - Setup Remote Control
Stage 4 - Optional: Grab tv guide from the air rather than internet

Stage 1 - Sort The Kernel Out

Obtain and Configure The Kernel

You need to either:

A) patch the existing 2.6.11.7-chw-2 kernel, or
B) compile a later kernel, either 2.6.12 or 2.6.13

I went for a new 2.6.13 stock kernel.

Code:
1. # cd /usr/src
2. # wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.13.tar.bz2
3. # tar xvjf linux-2.6.13.tar.bz2
4. # rm linux
5. # ln -s linux-2.6.13 linux (creates a symbolic link to the new source)
6. # cd linux
7. # make menuconfig


8. Go down to ‘device drivers --> multimedia devices --> video for linux’
9. Select (M) for everything under 'Video for linux’, ‘Digital Video roadcasting Devices’ (and any sub sections)
10. Make sure ‘Connexant 2388x’ & ‘DVB support for cx2388x’ are selected (M)
11. Remove anything you don’t want (N)
12. Save and Exit

Compile and install the new kernel
Code:
13. # make
14. # make modules_install
15. # make install
16. # nano /etc/lilo.conf


scroll down and change the reference to the kernel image from:

/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11.9-chw-2, to
/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.13

Code:
17. # lilo
18. # reboot
19. # nano /proc/version (to check it is running the new kernel)


Stage 2 - Setting Up The Tuner

First of all make sure you have a decent aerial plugged into the Tv card. A strong signal is required for digital terrestial so hopefully your aerial is on the roof and set up correctly. Use this website to check what channels you can expect to receive in your area.

http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/coverage.html

I also heard a theory that if you scan for some channels at a time that they're not being broadcast (i.e. BBC3 and BBC4) then they will not be picked up. In any case I haven't got BBC3 and BBC4 yet.

Scanning For Transport Frequencies

First we need to make sure that mythbackend isn’t denying access to the TV card.

Code:
1.   # ps –A
2.   # kill -XXXX (where XXXX is the process id of ‘mythbackend’)


Now you need to know the name of your local transmitter. For example mine is ‘Winter Hill’ in Lancashire. Check on these websites if unsure:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/transmit ... ndex.shtml, or
http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/transmitters.html

Code:
3.   # cd /usr/local/share/dvb/dvb-t/
4.   # dvbscan uk-WinterHill | tee freeviewchannels.conf
5.   # nano freeviewchannels.conf


Make sure that this file has a block of data saved in it. You will notice that each frequency carries approximately 5-10 channels. My region found 6 different transports in total. You will need to refer to these settings later.

Check this link to see what channels you should expect in your areas:
http://www.freeview.co.uk/whatson/index.html

Configure Tv Card In MythTv Setup

Code:
1.  # mythtv-setup (from an X-Term window)


2. Select ‘General’ settings and make the following changes:

Set ‘TV Mode’ to ‘PAL’

Set ‘VBI Format’ to ‘PAL Teletext’


Set ‘Channel Frequency Table’ to ‘europe-west’

3. Select ‘Capture Cards’.

Select ‘New Capture Card’”
Go up to ‘Card Type’ and change it to ‘Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB).

You should now see that the Nova-T is detected. If you see the ‘device busy’ error on this screen you must kill the backend in order to scan for channels. To solve, simply repeat steps 1 & 2 at the beginning of the guide. Note that you will lose access to the Nova-T card every time you reboot.

4. Select ‘Video Sources’

Select ‘New Video Source’
For ‘Video Source Name’ type ‘RadioTimesUK’
For ‘XMLTV Listings Grabber’ select ‘UK-Alternative’.

When you click ‘Finish’ it will now appear to get stuck at 50%. This is because the UK XMLTV Grabber doesn’t run in the frontend yet. Consequently you need to press ‘Alt+Tab’ to see the terminal window. Don’t waste your time adding the channels manually here, however you do need to add at least one channel so just type ‘FIVE’, press ENTER and then press ‘.’ to finish. This will create the following file:

/home/mythtv/.mythtv/RadioTimesUK.xmltv

5. Select ‘Input Connections’

Select ‘DVB’
For the ‘Video Source’ select RadioTimesUK

6. Select ‘Channel Editor’

Select ‘Advanced'
Select ‘Add Transport’

Transport Settings

You now need to add and configure 6 different transports. You will need to refer back to the freeviewchannels.conf file. You may find it easiest to keep switching to and from a console (CTRL ALT F1).

Code:
# nano /usr/local/dvb/dvb-t/tv_grab_uk_rt/freeviewchannels.conf


I think that these values are always the same (for UK).

Bandwidth: 8MHz
Inversion: AUTO
Trans: 2K
Hierachy: none
Guard Interval: 1_32

These values vary for each transport. Make sure you get these right or you might get 'choppy' viewing on certain channels. The first FEC value in the .conf file is the LP and the second FEC value is the HP.

Frequency: e.g. 7512666015
Constellation: e.g. QAM_16
LP: e.g. FEC_2_3
HP: e.g. FEC 1_2

7. Select ‘Scan for Channels’
8. Change the ‘Scan Type’ to ‘Scan Existing Transports’ and then select ‘Next’

You should hopefully see it scanning for channels and adding them to the list.

Setup the XMLTV file

The XMLTV file below is used by ‘mythfilldatabase’ in order to obtain program information from the internet.

/home/mythtv/.mythtv/RadioTimesUK.xmltv

One way or another this file needs to look something like this:

channel idealworld.tv
channel itn.co.uk
channel itv2.itv.co.uk
channel itv3.itv.co.uk
… etc

The easiest way would be to ‘copy and paste’ the full channel list from the sample XMLTV file at the end of this guide. You will of course need to edit it for your channel preferences. Personally I would do this from a Windows PC using ‘Putty’. Alternatively if you want to edit it manually:

Code:
1.  # cd /
2.  # find | grep tv_grab 


The output should show you where to find your XMLTV files, mine was in /usr/share.

Code:
3. # cd /usr/share/xmltv/tv_grab_uk_RadioTimesUK
4. # tv_grab_uk_rt --list-channels > channels.list
5. # uk_grab_tv_rt --list-channels | grep -i 'channel id' >RadioTimesUK.xmltv
6. # cp RadioTimesUK.xmltv /home/mythtv/.mythtv/
7. # nano /home/mythtv/.mythtv/RadioTimesUK.xmltv

8. Have fun editing the file to reflect which channels you want.

Synchronise With Channel Editor

You will have gathered that, for example, the XMLTV ID name for ITV2 is ‘itv2.itv.co.uk’. The ID’s you have set in the XMLTV file need to correspond with those in the ‘Channel Editor’ in Mythtv Setup:

Code:
1.   # mythtv-setup

2. Select ‘Channel Editor’
3. Select each channel individually and make sure that the appropriate XMLTV ID name is set. If not, have fun entering them all manually.

Finally…

Code:
# mythfilldatabase



This should take a few minutes to download a weeks worth of tv guide listings.


Code:
# reboot


Select ‘Watch Tv’ and hope for the best.

Stage 3 - Setup Remote Control

You may have noticed that Hauppage remote works but with limited functionality (i.e. the BACK button amongst others doesn't work!). To solve:

Option 1 - Fresh Install of Lirc

Code:
# cd /usr/src
# wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/lirc/lirc-0.7.2.tar.bz2
# tar xpvjf lirc-0.7.2.tar.bz2
# cd lirc-0.7.2
# ./configure


Select Driver configuration, Other, Linux input layer (/dev/input/eventX)
Save & Exit

Code:
# ./configure.sh
# make
# make install


Now to identify which event number your IR port on the Tv card is assigned to:

Code:
# cat /dev/input/event0


Press the back key on the remote and see if it displays any gibberish. If not, try again changing it to event1, event 2 or event3

If none of these work then you might have too many input devices plugged in. If so, you need to create an event 4,5, or 6.

Code:
# nano /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh


To get it to work automatically on bootup add this to the bottom of the file, then save & exit. You need to change X to the event number that worked for you in the previous step.

Code:
/usr/local/sbin/lircd --device="/dev/input/eventX" /etc/lirc/lircd.conf


Finally you need to replace the following files:
Code:
/home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc
/etc/lirc/lircd.conf


You will find samples to replace them with on this guide:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6089

Your Remote Control should now be setup. One final tip: I recommend putting a mirror behind your mythbox to reflect the signal off. This means you can hide the clumsy IR sensor behind the mythbox where it will be out of sight.

Option 2 - Reconfigure Lirc

Haven't tried this method myself but it came from:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6089

# lirc-reconfig.sh

This lists the Linux event device to change. You also need to change the device in hardware.conf (if I translated Nermander correctly).

Stage 4 - Optional: Grab tv guide from the air rather than internet

I haven't set this up myself yet but someone has added to my guide at this site:
http://www.flexion.org/site/index.php?g ... Page&id=42


Sample XMLTV File

I have jumbled this around to put the channels into some kind of order in light of my personal viewing preferences and available channels.

channel north-west.bbc1.bbc.co.uk
channel north-west.bbc2.bbc.co.uk
channel granadatv.co.uk
channel channel4.com
channel channel5.co.uk

channel choice.bbc.co.uk
channel knowledge.bbc.co.uk

channel itv2.itv.co.uk
channel itv3.itv.co.uk

channel e4.channel4.com
channel plus-1.e4.channel4.com

channel sky-news.sky.com
channel itn.co.uk
channel news-24.bbc.co.uk
channel news.sports.sky.com

channel ukhistory.tv

channel the-hits.emap.com
channel tmf.nl

channel ftn.tv
channel men.granadatv.co.uk
channel cbbc.bbc.co.uk
channel cbeebies.bbc.co.uk
channel abc1.disney.com
channel ukbrightideas.tv
channel utvlive.com

channel bid-up.tv
channel price-drop.tv
channel qvcuk.com

channel communitychannel.org
channel idealworld.tv
channel travel.sky.co.uk
channel tvtravelshop.co.uk

channel C1942.radiotimes.com
channel C1951.radiotimes.com
channel C1956.radiotimes.com

Diagnostics

I get a Black Screen when I select ‘Watch TV’ ???

Check the ‘starting channel’ set in Channel Sources. If this is set to a bad channel then this can cause it to crash.
Check the settings you entered for the ‘transports’. If one has an incorrect frequency this may cause it to crash.
Check that you have permission to access the tv tuner. If necessary change the permissions by doing:

# cd /dev/dvb/adapter0
# chmod 777 XXXX (where XXXX is drv0, net0, frontend0 etc)


I get 'choppy' viewing performance


Check the settings for each transport. If you left settings on AUTO rather than the values in the .conf file this can cause choppy viewing.

Make sure you are using a decent aerial, digital tv requires a strong signal.... mutilated coat hangers will not suffice.

Error messages
Code:
nano /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log


Useful Links

http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/u ... /ukdvb.php
http://www.linuxtv.org/
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5827&
http://www.ethics-gradient.net/myth/mythdvb.html

Author:  mad_paddler [ Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:23 am ]
Post subject: 

Excellent! I was going to make a guide from my notes but looks like you've covered nearly everything :)

May I suggest you add a section for getting the remote to work?

I wrote a messy guide on it here: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6089

nermander made a couple of notes on it: patch no longer needed for 2.6.13, instead of installing lirc, can be reconfigured using: lirc-reconfig.sh

Author:  virusbcn [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:15 am ]
Post subject: 

Great doc, it helped the European users.
I read and i have followed this document and when i reboot after upgrade kernel, i lost the network, i don't make ping.
I'm a newbye and i don't know, any help, please !!!
I upgrade to the last kernel 2.6.13.2 and my nic is a 3Com 3c905B

Author:  parkinpants [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:12 am ]
Post subject:  network loss

Hi,

Yeh, I also lost my network card (PCMCIA Cardbus using ndiswrapper)
Another thing I lost was XvMC for my VIA m/b.

As a temporary measure you can revert back to the old kernel by editing the kernel path in /etc/lilo.conf and re-running it. This will of course mean that DVB doesn't work and is a pain in the ass to keep switching.

My error message is something about 'error finding flags: no such device'

I had a look through the options in the kernel configurations but couldn't see anything that wasn't enabled by default (PCMCIA drivers for example).

My best bet is that we need to re-install ndiswrapper, or maybe DHCP. However perhaps someone more experienced can shed some light before we go on a wild goose chase?

Author:  mad_paddler [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:41 am ]
Post subject: 

Only thing i can suggest is looking in /boot and comparing

config-2.6.11.9-chw-2 (the old kernel config)
with
config-2.6.13 (your new one)

maybe somewhere a vital kernel option is disabled?

You may well just need to reinstall stuff, everytime I've upgraded the kernel I've had to reinstall the nvidia drivers...

Author:  virusbcn [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:17 pm ]
Post subject: 

I think have one option to load menuconfig with config to the old kernel.
Anybody remember ???

Author:  declanh [ Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:33 am ]
Post subject: 

Here is the dvbscan for Divis Northern Ireland which I had to 'hand craft' for the Nova T.
Dont think you will find this anywhere else on the net so i thought i would post it here, in case its of help to someone else.
Great guide by the way parkinpants - if only I had this 1 month ago I could probably have cut alot of pain from the learning curve.
Code:
#Northern Ireland - Divis (dkh)
# T freq bw fec_hi fec_lo mod transmission-mode guard-interval hierarchy
#Mux 1::Channel 29::Frequency 538Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 16QAM - CR 3/4
T 538000000 8Mhz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
#Mux 2::Channel 33::Frequency 570Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 64QAM - CR 2/3
T 570000000 8Mhz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
#Mux A::Channel 23::Frequency 490Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 64QAM - CR 2/3
T 489834000 8Mhz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
#Mux B::Channel 26::Frequency 514Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 16QAM - CR 3/4
T 513834000 8Mhz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
#Mux C::Channel 48::Frequency 690Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 16QAM - CR 3/4
T 690000000 8Mhz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
#Mux D::Channel 34::Frequency 578Mhz::Mode 2K - 1/32 - 16QAM - CR 3/4
T 578166000 8Mhz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE

Author:  parkinpants [ Wed Oct 05, 2005 2:21 am ]
Post subject:  BBC3 and BBC4

thanks guys,

Once i get my hands on a remote I will follow and rewrite that other post into a guide aswell.

Does anyone know the XMLTV ID's for BBC3 and BBC4 ?

still struggling...

Author:  parkinpants [ Wed Oct 05, 2005 3:14 am ]
Post subject:  Loss of wireless card

Ok,

For those who lost their wireless cards I think that reinstalling ndiswrapper is the solution:

Download the latest version of the ndiswrapper sources from:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper

(or use wget if you have an alternative internet source)

# ln -s /usr/src/linux-6.13 /lib/modules/6.13/build
# cd /usr/src
# wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourcefo ... rc4.tar.gz
# tar zxvf ndiswrapper-version.tar.gz
# cd ndiswrapper-version.
# make distclean
# make
# make install

Re-install Windows Driver
# ndiswrapper -e XXXXX
# ndiswrapper -i XXXXX

Note: This is a white lie as it doesn't actually work for me. I have always had trouble with ndiswrapper and so I had to revert to this older version to get it working:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/ ... rig.tar.gz

Author:  mad_paddler [ Wed Oct 05, 2005 4:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC3 and BBC4

parkinpants wrote:
thanks guys,

Once i get my hands on a remote I will follow and rewrite that other post into a guide aswell.

Does anyone know the XMLTV ID's for BBC3 and BBC4 ?

still struggling...


choice.bbc.co.uk - bbc3?
knowledge.bbc.co.uk - bbc4?

might be the other way round though... ;)

Author:  parkinpants [ Wed Oct 12, 2005 12:31 pm ]
Post subject:  TV_GRAB_DVB

Rather than use internet connection for tv listings you can grab the information from the air in true digi-box form. I haven't got this going myself yet but came across this:

http://www.flexion.org/site/index.php?g ... Page&id=42

It's basically a copy & paste of my guide and a my wiki contribution:
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=DVBHowTo

However towards the end the author has added some useful looking notes on setting up the tv_grab_dvb. Unfortunately the author didn't want to add/link this to my guide... naughty boy Martin! :(

Author:  remix_88 [ Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:55 am ]
Post subject: 

Hi,

I have just seen this post. I am Martin, Flexion.Org is my site. I do post references to everything that I find useful when putting together my own crib sheets. You can find all the MythTV reference links on my main Linux PVR article page, including a link to your original posting on this forum :-)

http://www.flexion.org/site/index.php?g ... Page&id=12

I am also in the habbit of moving articles off my site to more relevant wikis once I am happy that what I have merged together is accurate and of use to a wider audience and not just myself. My site is primarily a dumping ground for my own reference.

As for the OTA EPG database insertion, my little hack does work, but I think this functionality is built into MythTV it if is re-compiled with the "--enable-dvb-eit" option. To get the program guide from the EPG you have to enable OTA in the MythTV-Setup options under Channel Editor, once you have recompiled MythTV with the EIT support. I haven't actually tried this myself yet.

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