PcHDTV HD5500

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Revision as of 03:16, 26 October 2009 by Murdock (Talk | contribs)

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Intro

Original contribution adapted from "Installation Issues" forum post Re: My LinuxMCE Problems.)

I (chuckfox) currently have the latest beta (at February 03, 2008, 04:43:53 am 0710b3) running as a hybrid with a PCHDTV-5500 installed.

Additional contribution by/on (--Ray 05:12, 5 March 2009 (CET)). I was able to install and run the pcHDTV-5500 on LinuxMCE 0710. There is a very minor (but noticeable) degradation in picture quality when compared to directly connecting the coaxial cable to my TV.

Hardware

Cheap ECS MOBO + intel dual core + 1 gig mem + 120gig PATA hard drive + PCHDTV-5500

ASUS M3N78-EM + AMD dual core + 1G mem + 80G SATA HD + pcHDTV 5500 (--Ray 05:05, 5 March 2009 (CET))

Installation

Load Appropriate Modules

Please note: before trying to add the cx88-dvb module, verify if your system doesn't have it loaded already. You do this by entering 

 lsmod |grep cx88

on a terminal to see if the module is loaded already. You should see something like this: 

 cx88_dvb               16772  1
 cx88_vp3054_i2c         4608  1 cx88_dvb
 dvb_pll                15492  2 cx88_dvb
 video_buf_dvb           7812  1 cx88_dvb
 cx8800                 34944  0
  1. After a fresh install I navigate to the KDE desktop, then open up a terminal to add a line to /etc/modules to load the cx88-dvb module on startup.
    Here's the line to type into the terminal to bring the file up for modification.
    kate /etc/modules
    This will bring up /etc/modules which is mostly empty. Add the line below on a new line and save the file.
    cx88-dvb
  2. After saving the file go to settings and click on MythTV Backend Setup -mythtv-setup.
    This may get you a dialog box that will tell you that you need to be added to a user group(Not sure of the exact wording here).
    Click OK. At this point reboot your machine. (You can use "sudo reboot" without the quotes, at the command line.)

Setup MythTV

  1. After reboot navigate to the KDE desktop, go to Settings and click on MythTV Backend Setup -mythtv-setup.
    You should be able to enter mythtvsetup at this point and set up capture cards.
  2. Select Capture cards
    1. On Card type: You want to pick DVB DTV capture card(v3.x) NOT pcHDTV DTV capture card(w/V4L drivers).
    2. Select Finish
    3. You should see a capture card [DVB:0] listed.
  3. From the main menu, select Video sources.
    1. I have two video sources, one is Digital and one is analog. I subscribe to SchedulesDirect to grab the channel data. To confirm account access and retrieval of channel lineup, you may select the "Retrieve Lineups" button.
    2. For both sources, the Channel frequency table is set to us-cable. (I'm not sure about the PCHDTV-3000, but the 5500 has digital and analog tuners).
    3. Select Finish
    4. You should see your video sources listed.
  4. From the main menu, select Input connections. I set up two connections Digital and analog.
    Digital: choose [DVB:0](DVBInput) -> Digital
    1. On the Video source: Select the digital video source you created earlier.
    2. Click scan for channels.
      1. Select; Scan type: full scan; Frequency table: Cable (you may have to try several frequencies to confirm a lock); ATSC Modulation: Cable (QAM-256) [If you are connected to cable, otherwise pick the one that applies to you]; on Channel Separator: I like the period to separate channels and Minimal Updates as the last option.
    Click next and you should see Scan progress with a mostly(hopefully) full signal meter. Let the scan finish and move on to the analog channels.
    Analog: choose [V4L:dev/video0](Televison) ->analog
    1. Add the analog video source you created earlier. Same process as digital, only scan for Cable instead of Cable High. This scan should run a lot quicker.
  5. After both scans I click Fetch channels from listing source, to add the channel data.
  6. This should get your card working if there are no other conflicts.

Here are some things that caught me up along the way.

  1. The admin password for the latest beta is linuxmce. You will need to input this a few times, it took me a few minutes of RTFM to find this one.
  2. For some reason when exiting myth backend setup the dialog box that asks if I would like to run mythfilldatabase, would not run mythfilldatabase when clicking OK. To resolve this, open a command line and type sudo mythfilldatabase to run the program.

Troubleshooting

Key files for troubleshooting: 

 /dev/dsp* <-- These are device files for analog audio
 /dev/dvb/* <-- digital tuner adapter info
 /dev/vbi* <--analog tuner files

Ensure more than just your audio output entry is listed, you need to have an audio entry for your tuner.

Example: 

cat /proc/asound/cards  
0 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                     HDA NVidia at 0xf9f78000 irq 22
1 [CX8801         ]: CX88x - Conexant CX8801
                     Conexant CX8801 at 0xfc000000

Sound quality issues on myth front end??

If you have analog sound related issues, ensure that 48000 is set BOTH at the mythtv-setup-->capture cards--->v4l AND on the myth front end (which seems to default to 32000) to get there, it's in Recording Profiles -> Software Encoders -> LiveTV, then just set up the encoding options, audio is on the second page.


Video Skipping - prebuffer errors on mythfrontend log file

Myth frontend log files continually had the following: 

 NVP: prebuffering pause

Starting out the issue presented itself 1 in 5 launches of the mythfrontend - watch live tv.

1. Modified each mythtv frontend to use the OSS devices vs the ALSA, both the Mixer (/dev/mixer) and the output (/dev/dsp)

  • Impact - Issue presented itself 1 in 8 times

2. Set the pci latency from the default of 64 to 128

  • Impact - Issue presented itself 1 in 16 times

3. Set the pci latency from 128 to 248 (sample syntax below)

  • Impact - Issue has not yet resurfaced - tested 25 times
setpci -v -s 01:06.0 latency_timer=F8 #<-- the value must be in hex
setpci -v -s 01:06.1 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:06.2 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:06.4 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:07.0 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:07.1 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:07.2 latency_timer=F8
setpci -v -s 01:07.4 latency_timer=F8


Just like to note that I got this working on LinuxMCE for my PCHDTV HD-3000, and I just reseated all cards, after a dustbunny blow-out and did a clean install of beta4 and followed these instruction exactly. Just about everything on the digital side appears to be working flawlessly, but upon first inspection I don't see analog to be working but the spec page for it says it has it: Edit (by Thoth) [1]
Made a new page (stub) for the PcHDTV HD3000, pointing out the instructions here (for the time being). --Zaerc 13:29, 20 May 2008 (PDT)
Added Troubleshooting section --Murdock 7/28/09
Updated troubleshooting for myth sound Murdock 7/29/09
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