0. Plug a DVB card into your PC. I have used an AVerTV DVB-T, and a Twinhan VisionPlus DVB-T

1. Install KnoppMythR4V3 or V4

Some commands need to be done as root. Instead of logging as root, use the sudo command. To allow sudo access, though, you need to be root for a while:


2. Install DVB drivers

** Option 1: Keep 2.4 kernel, compile and load DVB modules

The DVB kernel drivers need the kernel source code before they will compile.

Now, on KnoppMythR4V3, there is one error that needs correcting:

Get a tarball of the DVB drivers, and if necessary, the firmware for your card:

Start with the drivers:

Assuming this builds cleanly (in my case it did, but output an error about not having firmware for an av7110), you can try loading the modules:

In my case, there were errors from four modules (probably because the devices that are trying to talk to are not plugged into my computer), but the other fifteen or so did load. The lsmod command will list them, and the dmesg command may list extra information. However, this script does not load all of the modules that were compiled, and in my case, didn't load the one for my AverTV DVB-T card, so I had to:

Once you are satisfied that the drivers can talk to your card, you can install them:

Note that with linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1, you will also need to do:

This creates the directory /dev/dvb/adapter0 containing some device nodes, which the device drivers use as their interface to DVB client software like MythTV.



** Option 2: Manually upgrade to a 2.6 kernel (which already contains DVB drivers)

Get a tarball of a 2.6 kernel (e.g. linux-2.6.3.tar.bz2)

Copy config from current kernel:

Use as basis for new kernel:

(be sure to turn on DVB support - both the core and drivers for your card)

Get new version of module tools, copy somewhere

Change /proc/ksyms to /proc/kallsyms in these files?:
/etc/init.d/modutils
/etc/init.d/nfs-common

(select your newly built kernel in LILO, and then watch the boot continue?)

After reboot (if your DVB driver was built as a module):

should load the drivers (lsmod and dmesg will tell you what did and didn't work). Note that the first module is used to talk to the card, and the second is for the frontend (the little tin can that actually does the tuning). Many DVB cards are like this.

If your card and driver needs firmware, you might need to do something like:

and reboot


** Option 3: Automatically upgrade to a 2.6 kernel

You need to be networked for this (I wasn't, which is why I documented the other two options first).

There are some kernels that you can get from the Debian upgrade servers which _may_ support DVB devices. I have not been able to successfully download these yet, so they may not work, but this is how to do it.



3. [optional] Test the card

To test the card, we need the dvb-apps. Copy a tarball somewhere, then:

If it finds any channels, it is probably working


4. [if DVB drivers built as modules] Add modules to startup



5. Add DVB to MythTV.

Running mythtv-setup and adding a DVB card helpfully says "Recompile with DVB-Support"

Untar the mythtv src tarball that cesman has so usefully included:

or, on R4V4:




After that, MythTV knows about DVB cards. mythtv-setup should list info about the DVB card you have added, and after it exits should say:

2004-03-05 10:13:42 DVB#0 StatusMonitor Starting

__________________________________________________________________________________

Note: errors in the DVB stream will cause problems in mythtv, so make sure your signal is good and strong.

The backend will eventually crash when viewing a bad DVB stream. This patch (from Kenneth) should stop these crashes:

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

Nigel;

thought I would reply incase you thought all your hardwork had gone unnnoticed.

I had previously tried and failed both the approaches you describe, and it was great (but frustrating) to see from your how to why it haddnt worked for me.

Your HOW-To made it clear where I had gone wrong;

2.4 ) The need to change the link to the build directory to build the drivers

2.6) I didnt know how to "make" the mythtv source (hadnt come across qmake), so had to go for a standard apt-get mythtv install.

That got me a a working 2.6 install, but tried your 2.4 procedure for intrest and it worked for me !

I have a twinhan card, so I needed dvb-bt8xx.o and dst.o

Thanks for writing up what you did.

Thanks for the great guide!

I'm trying to install Technotrend DVB-C, but the module building fails.

sudo ./insmod.sh debug gives the following message:
"./dvb-ttpci.o: unresolved symbol crc32_le"

Holger @ linuxtv.org commented to a similar problem followingly: "hmmm, look as if your kernel config in /usr/src/linux/.config does not matches the running kernel." I'm total newbie with linux, but sounds like a dead end here.

Any insight? Gotta try 2.6 tomorrow...

Perhaps copying config-2.4.25-chw in /boot to /usr/src/linux/.config...

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Thanks, I'll try that tonite!

I didn't get any errors relating to crc32_le, but you may be trying to compile a different version of the DVB drivers (I tried 1.1.0 and 1.1.1).

The .config that cesman refers to has this line near the end:
CONFIG_CRC32=m

which says the kernel was built with this code as a module. If you look at your install, /lib/modules/2.4.25-chw/kernel/lib contains crc32.o, so that does in fact match reality.

I suspect this is a problem in the DVB Makefiles. It is trying to pull that crc code in from a library instead of a loaded kernel module.

You said the module building fails. What was the actual error?

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

I tried both 1.1.0 and 1.1.1, same problem occured with both.

I had the corresponding firmware file from linuxtv.org in /build_2.4 -subfolder, other than that I've followed the instructions to the letter.

Edit: I'd guess, that you probably did not get the error message while loading, the firmware was not in the subfolder, and thus the building of dvb-ttpci fails alltogether.

I was unclear, module building does not fail, the module just fails to load with the mentioned error message. Drivers for some other cards load/unload without a problem.

I have also the CI-module+Conax CAM in my HTPC, if that matters (I doubt it does).

(empty post)

I decided to give a shot to the Metzlerbros driver (http://www.metzlerbros.org/dvb/), and make doesn't give any error messages, and the modules are loaded! I just hope I added the right modules to /etc/modules
(ttpci-eeprom
saa7146_vv
saa7146
dvb-core
video-buf
v412-common
v411-compat
videodev)
but I think I'll find out after I have finished recompiling MythTV.

Edit: No luck...

OK. If modules complain at load time, I think it is because their source code does not list the dependency on the module.

You could try "modprobe crc32" before loading the ttpci module to see if that resolves the mossing symbol.

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

Yes! This did the trick! Thank you x 5M!

One step forward...

After adding DVB support to MythTV the card is not visible in mythtv-setup. Lsmod lists the corresponding module loaded - though (unused).

If lsmod and dmesg show that the modules loaded OK, then try compiling linuxtv-dvb-apps and running the scan utility. If it can open and use the DVB drivers (i.e. if it finds channels), then a DVB-enabled libmythtv library should find the card, too.

A thought - does the directory /dev/dvb/adapter0 exist? If not, you forgot to do a "make install" in the DVB drivers directory (as a last step, it makes those device directories)

P.S. You mentioned the lists of modules in /etc/modules. I think your list is a little bit long! Loading ttpci-eeprom will also load the modules that it depends on (in my case, loading sp887x also loads dvb-core, which I think loads bttv, loading dvb-bt8xx loads bt878, which in turn loads dvb-core, et cetera).

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

Yes, I noticed now dvb-ttpci loads successfully all the other modules are loaded automatically.

I did do "sudo make install" in "/usr/src/linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1/build-2.4", modules are copied to /lib/modules/2.4.24-chw/misc/" but there is no directory dvb under /dev/...

Edit: I got /dev/dvb/adapter0 by manually running MAKEDEV-DVB.sh but still no adapter found in mythtv-setup...

Silly question maybe, but if I go for option 2 from where should I download the kernel?
linux-2.6.3.tar.bz2?
/Regards
/Henrik