Does R5A12 support FireWire out of the box?

that depends on what definition of "support" you want to use.
yes out of the box firewire is working. By using my previously compiled 6200ch.c I can use firewire to control my motorola 6200 cable box to change channels, and such. This is a 60 second setup with A12 and works well.

Now, if by support you mean firewire capture. Ummmm. I have yet to get this to function. Someone else here may have more ideas, and check the mythtv mailing list, but for me time has not permitted extensive working in getting this functioning. There are more pressing A12 issues IMHO.

Thanks for the reply wififun. I have a motorola 6200 that I'd like to record from. I've gone through the steps outlined in the install documents without success. I'm not trying to capture from a DV cam or any other source. I wish to capture SD and HD from comcast %; )

Could you please tell me more about how to setup 6200ch.c to control a 6200 under R5A12? Thanks for your time.

Basic setup:
Grab the myth source code or a modified 6200ch.c file from the mythtv mailing list archives.
Compile the 6200ch.c
or use a pre built binary. The directions are in the readme file with the .c file.

I chmod +x 6200ch and put it in /usr/bin
Setup the input connection for the svideo input in mythtv-setup. In my case the zap2it listings for adelphia in my area has the basic and digital cable, so I set them both up on my account. I connect the basic cable to the tuner inputs and the digital to the one svideo input. I have it setup so that the lower non digital channels are tuned via the pvr card, and the digital channels above 70 are tuned via /usr/bin/6200ch.
Once done, go watch tv. Tune to the digital channels, and premium channels and watch the magic work. Via fire wire 6200ch send the commands to the cable box, and myth changes the input source to svideo. It happens very seamlessly. There are times when it hiccups and does goes to 36 when it should go to 306, but by and large it works well. This allows me to access all the other channels on at least one of the tuners. You can tweak the tuner priority to make the one with the cable box access have be used for live tv unless needed to recored from one of those channels. good luck

Thank you for the setup description. Have you had success recording the stream over firewire rather than using s-video? Perhaps I'm confused, but from your post, it seems that you're using the s-video connection to record standard definition from your 6200?

I've used my PowerBook to record SD/HD .ts files over firewire. I'm hoping to integrate and automate the experience with myth on my mini-itx.

I know that there is supposedly support for recording the video stream over firewire in mythtv 0.17, but I have not heard of anyone successfully (or trying all that hard for that matter) on knoppmyth. I'm sure it's possible, but you will be breaking new ground and won't have a nice easy walkthrough. Your best source of information and support will be the mythtv mailing lists. I know people there claim to have made this work on various distributions.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I have not gotten the firewire capture to work. Only channel changing. I too was able to do it with my powerbook. I used this to make sure the FW port even worked on the 6200 box. The lastest version of myth seems to have the beginnings (if not all) of firewire capture, but it has not yet worked for me. The only real reason for this would be for the HD content, as the captured files are HUGE.

I'm having a little trouble with the 6200ch binary. I followed the instructions for setting it up in myth-setup using firewire as an input. When I try to change the channel as root:

root@mythtv:/usr/src# 6200ch -v 2
rom1394_1 warning: read failed: 0x0000fffff0000414
rom1394_1 error: invalid root directory length
node 1: vendor_id = 0x00000000 model_id = 0x00000000
node 2: vendor_id = 0x0000023c model_id = 0x00000000
Could not find Motorola DCT-6200 on the 1394 bus.


When I try to change as mythtv:

mythtv@mythtv:~$ 6200ch -v 2
Couldn't get 1394 handle: Permission denied
Is ieee1394, driver, and raw1394 loaded?

When I try to change the channel in myth, the channel just doesn't change. I don't see anything in the mythtv logs:

Starting up as the master server.
2005-03-28 11:14:31.471 mythbackend: MythBackend started as master server
2005-03-28 11:14:32.717 FireWire: external channel changer only supported at this time.
2005-03-28 11:14:32.731 mythbackend version: 0.17.20050130-1 www.mythtv.org
2005-03-28 11:14:32.732 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
2005-03-28 11:14:34.730 Reschedule requested for id -1.
2005-03-28 11:14:34.744 Scheduled 0 items in 0.0 = 0.01 match + 0.00 place
2005-03-28 11:14:34.747 scheduler: Scheduled items
2005-03-28 11:14:34.752 Seem to be woken up by USER
2005-03-28 11:14:42.733 mythbackend: Running housekeeping thread
2005-03-28 11:22:48.334 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:22:48.335 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 0)
2005-03-28 11:22:48.355 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:22:48.356 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 1)
2005-03-28 11:25:57.773 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:25:57.776 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 0)
2005-03-28 11:25:57.809 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:25:57.811 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 1)
2005-03-28 11:25:57.821 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:25:57.823 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 0)
2005-03-28 11:25:57.859 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2005-03-28 11:25:57.861 adding: mythtv as a client (events: 0)
2005-03-28 11:25:57.870 adding: mythtv as a remote ringbuffer
2005-03-28 11:25:57.880 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
2005-03-28 11:27:26.889 Changing from WatchingLiveTV to None

_________________
Freddyman
Knoppmyth r5a12
Shuttle AB60N mobo (Intel 865PE chipset)
P4 2.8ghz
512MB PC 3200 RAM (paired 2X256MB corsair)
GeforceMX 4400 with tv out
PVR-350
PVR-250
linuxHDTV
AirToPC
Creative Audigy 5.1

Not being much of a developer, I may only be able to help a bit, but here goes.
lets start with the simple. Did you compile this yourself, or down load a binary? If you compiled it, and it was successful, then you had all the necessary firewire libs. I know this was a nightmare the first time I did it, and the reason I keep using the binary I made the first time.
Next you can try shutting down, unplugging the firewire cable from the comp, (not the 6200) then after it is all back up, plug the device in and see if the there is a log entry for this (I can't recall where this would show up, but if someone does please post it.)
Now try your 6200ch -v 2 command and see what is returned. I read a few places about different firewire devices and linux, and the proper order for plugging things in to get the bugs worked out.
As for permissions for the mythtv user...

chown root:mythtv /dev/raw1394

should do the trick

Thanks for the info. I did compile it myself. I know that the system sees the motorola because I can run gscanbus and it sees it.

I guess my problem lies with possible compile issues where I didn't set things right. I know from gscanbus that I'm using port 1 not port 0, but I can't tell which node I'm using. Does anyone know of any good command line tools to troubleshoot this?

_________________
Freddyman
Knoppmyth r5a12
Shuttle AB60N mobo (Intel 865PE chipset)
P4 2.8ghz
512MB PC 3200 RAM (paired 2X256MB corsair)
GeforceMX 4400 with tv out
PVR-350
PVR-250
linuxHDTV
AirToPC
Creative Audigy 5.1