hi,

i've been working towards getting R4V2 configured with PVR350 TV-out. no joy so far.

HW setup,
-- compaq small form factor PC, P3 866MHz, 80GB drive
http://akamai.edeal.com/images/catalog1 ... 131257.jpg
(the PC mobo has on-board VGA-out video, id ~ "RIVA TNT2 NV5")
-- PC VGA-out attached to LCD VGA monitor.
-- PVR350, full version w/ grey remote, PCI slot 2
-- PVR350 tuner input fed by broadcast TV antenna (just for testing now)
-- PVR350 composite output feeds TV

SW setup,
-- install R4V2 from CDROM, uneventful. all display on LCD. mythTV grabs listings via XMLTV ok. mythTV environment works fine. BUT no video output from PVR350.
-- followed the tips at
http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-index.php?page=TvOutHowto
results:
- insmod saa7127 enable_output=1 output_select=0 test_image=1 gives color bars on TV OK.
- /usr/local/bin/test_ioctl -u 0x3000 -p 4 gives a full-on snow picture. this is likely due to the fact that the tuner is not set on a valid channel.
- ptune.pl does not work out of the box on R4V2 due to missing perl module dependencies. one i solved via CPAN, one i could not.

Digging deeper,
-- from http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=697 i learned that R4V2 may assign the incorrect minor numbers to /dev/fb1. tried that, no joy.

ok let me stop there before i screw up further.

i like the sound of this, 1HR to PVR350 TV-out:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/ma ... ost=109916

but i think that i am missing some part of the R4V2 picture. namely: What post-install configuration needs to be done in order to get TV-out up and running?
should it "just work"?
should i have to modify /etc/V11/XFConfig-4 with the contents of /etc/X11/XFConfig.pvr350-tvout.sample? (my PVR350 PCI is "02:09.0")
should i have to modify the contents of /etc/modules.conf?

i guess all of my questions wrap around the fact that the HOWTO's are written as if you are installing from scratch, and in contrast i'm not sure where R4V2 leaves off and you have to pick up manually.

any help would be appreciated. i will summarize with a KnoppMyth R4V2 PVR-350 TV-out HOWTO...

jim

Ok, just been there, done that, pulling my hair and thrashing around.
Finally, I seem to have everything pulled together.
This is using a PVR-350 using TV-out in PAL (Switzerland).

I repeat, this is for PAL systems! I can only guess what would be different otherwise.

The steps from the default R4V2 installation, as I can reconstruct them:

0) Start your knoppmyth machine. Go to another console: CTRL-ALT-F1

1) Setup the devices

- Find out your tuner type:

Then, tail /var/log/messages for the type "...(idx=... type=28)"

- Edit /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv


2) Make the appropriate modifications to /etc/sysconfig/ivtv/cfg-0 (probably only for PAL)


If you are a PAL user: the script that load this file is INCORRECT for PAL users! It doesn't handle the height and width parameters correctly. I have modified it as follows:




2) Set up X

- Find out your device's fb number

You should see something like "fb1: iTVC15 TV out frame buffer device"
(or fb0, or fb#).

- Modify your XF86Config-4 file to include the following:
(tip: I made a copy of my original file, named XF86Config-4.PC and created a new XF86Config-4.PAL. I then copy either one to XF86Config-4 to switch back and forth).

FOR NTSC:



FOR PAL:


3) Reboot. Watch for error messages
My TV out first resets (green), then it goes bezerk for a while, then it become black (once the PAL parameters are set). For NTSC it's probably ok right away, since it's the default.

4) Run mythtv-setup completely, answering yes and yes and going through all the config steps (if you didn't have channels already properly set up).
In my case, I had to do some manual tweaking, since there is no grabber for Switzerland. I downloaded and installed tv_grab_fr, and had to fix a couple of bugs because it wasn't taking the config file into account.
Run mythfilldatabase --manual

5) Reboot again

6) Now, if all is well, and I didn't forget some steps, you should be in business.

Additional links I found useful (I collected information from all of them, sometimes they are contradictory):
http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/Nov-2003/msg00122.html
http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-print.php?page=TvOutPal
http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough

Good luck. Hope this helps.
Now, I still have to get my remote working, and a bunch of other little things.

Cheers,
Laurent[/code]

Hi,

as Laurant was very fast I add something for the remote.

First please verify what ivtv version is with r4v2.
You need ivtv-0.1.9. Don't use at this moment
the 0.2 branch.

Also be sure you have lirc-0.7.0pre2.
[Which is included in r4v2 if I recall right]

Unpack ivtv it in /usr/src/modules
cd driver;make clean; make all; make install
cd ../util;make clean;make all;make install

In the util dir there are two lircd.conf files, the
gray works for my remote.

Copy this to /etc, restart lircd or reboot.

You should get something like this in /var/log/messages:

kernel: i2c-core.o: driver i2c ir driver registered.
kernel: lirc_i2c: chip found @ 0x18 (Hauppauge IR)
kernel: i2c-core.o: client [Hauppauge IR] registered to adapter [ivtv i2c driver #0](pos. 4).
kernel: lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin:sample_rate: 10

PS: if you modify /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv don't forget to call update-modules.

_________________
cu,
dev

Hi,

one more for Laurant.

You could try http://home.t-online.de/home/stefan-siegl/tvtoday.html
The new version works perfect.

This might give you the listings without the need to fix tv_grab_fr.

_________________
cu,
dev

ivtv 0.1.9 is included w/ R4V2. If he specified that he had a remote, this will install MythTV w/ native LIRC. From the docs:

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

folks,

thanks for all of the hints. so far today i've made some good progress. currently my PVR350 video out is "somewhat working". i say this because i can now get TV out BUT BUT BUT there are alternating black and white horizontal lines, approx 30-40 pixels high, and the full width of the TV, overlaying the now tuned picture. any ideas what causes this?

i have one other aspect that i need to get clued in on. as noted above, my PC has VGA-out and a PVR-350. eventually, once i am all set up, i would like to divorce the PC from the VGA monitor and run it "headless" in the sense the only available display is the TV. but right now, when i boot into KnoppMyth, the MythTV environment appears on the VGA display ONLY. in other words, if i didn't have the VGA display hooked up, i wouldn't be able to navigate within MythTV. at what point an via what method do i wean the machine off of the VGA output?

thanks again,
jim

yes, i specified during the install via the "i686 modules" dialog that i had a LIRC remote -- and subsequently my PVR350 gray remote has cooperated fully. or, as full as i can tell so far...

jim

Since I am the one to have claimed the KnoppMyth with PVR 350 output in under an hour title, I feel it's appropriate to let everyone in on how I did it.

First, I found out through testing that the ivtv included with R4V2 does not include support for the PVR 350 framebuffer, for some reason. At least, I couldn't get it to work no matter what /dev/fb I specified (modprobe ivtv-fb also errored out of the box). So I downloaded a fresh (release version) copy of ivtv 0.1.9 from:

http://twtelecom.dl.sourceforge.net/sou ... 1.9.tar.gz

I compiled it the way dev describes: simply enter the ivtv directory and:
cd driver;make clean; make; make install
cd ../util;make clean; make; make install

(although for the "utils" directory, I manually cp'd the compiled programs to /usr/local/bin rather than doing a "make install" ... the programs were test_ioctl, ivtvfbctl, ivtvplay, and mpegindex)

From there, I basically followed the TVOutHowto from the ivtv wiki. It is located at:

http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-index.php?page=TvOutHowto

It will tell you just what to put in your XFree86 config files, your /etc config files... it basically covers the whole process of setting up the PVR 350 to be an output device perfectly.

I see you are trying to lose your dependence on the VGA of your motherboard/video card. Near the end of the TVOutHowTo is the information you put into XF86Config-4 -- what it took me a while to realize is that essentially this is ALL you need in that file. Add everything there to your XF86Config-4 file, and then comment out the old section that starts with "Section "SeverLayout"" (the section that is in there now before you started working with the TVOutHowTo). Section ServerLayout is the part of XF86Config-4 that tells X what hardware/screens to use. Right now, my Section ServerLayout is just as it is in the TVOutHowTo, with maybe a modification or two to match my settings for mouse and keyboard. This makes it so X only uses the 350's framebuffer, and completely ignores your onboard VGA.

From here, you are good to go. This is all I had to do to get KnoppMyth up and running perfectly with my 350 -- the only other "modifications" I ended up doing was adjusting, within MythTV, the screen resolution so that it didn't overscan as much. I think this is a regular MythTV procedure for most people, 350 or not, though. I'm guessing this will vary for most TVs, but mine is currently set at 632 (GUI width) by 432 (GUI height), with an offset of 45 (X) and 24 (Y). This is almost perfect for my TV screen.

from http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-index.php?page=TvOutHowto



Modify 'fb1' to your framebuffer device.

But I don't think that call is needed with mythtv.

_________________
cu,
dev

actually, this problem was resolved by reading the following post
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=697

see the last entry from wlemmers.

ps
clay, your ServerLayout info was just the ticket, everything is now where it should be when it should be... tnx again for the email. and yes, you have the 1HR award.

status: i have eveything working, sort of. PVR350 TV-out is in black and white. HOWEVER, i think that i have played with way too much configuration stuff in the last couple of hours, and a fresh install is in order. with the info gained from your responses i think i can go directly to where i want to go. and, yes, i'll write down what i did.

jim

I think I encountered this early on with the line (from /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv)


Switching to output_select=2 brought color.

Go figure. Since then, I have reverted to 0, and I have color. So, I don't really get it, that's what you call experimentation... Worth a try though.

Laurent

folks,

i'm back with a couple more comments...

i had everything pretty much working, except for a few pesky yet cripling problems. foremost was that after around 10-15 minutes, TV-out on the PVR350 would just stop. the output of tail -f /var/log/messages reported, among other things,
ivtv: DMA error. Stream 0. Result=0x00000002
and
mythtv ivtv: ivtv_dec_timeout: starting...

i realized that this was NOT a knoppmyth issue and had more to do with the ivtv drivers than anything else. so i perused the ivtv mail lists and found that a few follks are working on tweaked versions of ivtv to address these and other problems. for example, chris kennedy's version here:
http://kmos.org/~ckennedy/ivtv/

i installed chris's patched version of ivtv and restarted everything up. oh oh. now there was no PVR350 TV-out at all. but it seemed like the driver had initialized (i get a green screen for a second when that happens) and there were no error messages in the dmesg output on my console FB. hmmmm. just on a lark i pressed "OK" twice on my happague remote, and low and behold there was TV-out!!! and it would run and run and run forever (or at least about 8 hours now).

NOTE: in order to compile chris's ivtv version under KnoppMyth (debian) you'll need to know this:
http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/Feb-2004/msg00461.html

so the problem i had now is that there was NO X outout using chris's ivtv driver. TV-out stability, from what i can tell, is very much improved. but i can't see MythTV GUI output, and that puts sort of a damper on things.

i continued reading the ivtv list, and found that some work is going to deal with the no X on PVR350 TV-out problem, and gosh darn there is a fix for that as well (actually a "custom" fb driver for X via ivtv):
http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/Feb-2004/msg00419.html
you may also be interested in this link:
http://membres.lycos.fr/badzzzz/

anyway, once these ivtv fixes are applied and the ivtvfb driver is used, all this seems to be running OK. for now.

regards,
jim


ps
by the way, not being debian-fluent, i had to hunt a bit to learn how to configure ntpd under knoppmyth. this page has all of the info you need:
http://www.metaconsultancy.com/whitepapers/setup.htm

for people in PAL land I think that currently the X driver from Matthias Badaire seems to be the best solution.

I have it running for a few days now with a vanilla ivtv0.1.9 and since
this morning the new driver with his already patched ivtv0.1.9a.

Up to now no real problems, no aborted records, OSD is working
everythere, mplayer works,...
[small update below...]

Just follow the install instructions on the page http://membres.lycos.fr/badzzzz/
and it's up and running within minutes.

In addition you might need to comment out the load "fbdevhw" in XF86Config-4.
http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/current/msg00493.html

But as my box with the new X driver just freezed while
running live tv it might be better to stick with the old
Xdriver http://www.poptix.net/ivtv/current/msg00419.html
and a vanilla ivtv0.1.9.

_________________
cu,
dev

i forgot to mention... if you are wondering how to update ivtv using the latest source code from the links above, see this post:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=223

jim

folks,

just a quick update, EVERYTHING WORKS! i can watch, record, view the program guide overlay, etc etc etc and i'm sold: MythTV is the shizznit!

a big thumbs up to the folks working hard on KnoppMyth, MythTV, IVTV, and everyone else who made this all possible -- you guys rock.

jim

ps
"EVERYTHING" meaning:
KnoppMyth R4V2 + ivtv-0.1.9-ck-vbi-41-osdstream from chris kennedy (see post above) + ivtvdev from matthias badaire (see post above). once you have those pieces in place and you sort out your XFree config, all is well with TV-out on the PVR350. yes, i hope it gets easier in the future but it was a good learning experience.

pps
i have a few more tweaks (i would like to migrate the PVR-350 from composite out to S-video out, and i need to tweak my GUI screen size to better match my TV.) any hints on the fixing the former or optimizing the latter appreciated. every time i try to go S-video i end up with black and white output or it's just plain hosed up.