CX88 Blackbird Drivers

What is it?

The IVTV project contains drivers for several PVR cards with hardware MPEG encoding, such as the Hauppauge PVR-250. However, there are many newer generation PVR cards, such as the PVR-250MC, that are based on the "Blackbird" reference design by Connexant, which aren't supported by ivtv. These drivers are for those cards.

The main Video4Linux and CX88 project is http://linux.bytesex.org/v4l2/cx88.html

The drivers we have included here include the Video4Linux project with Blackbird patches, plus some additional patches and an ivtv emulation layer allowing the drivers to be used in a PVR, such as MythTV.

How to get it/use it?

If you are going to setup a PC as a dedicated PVR, the easiest solution is just to install LinuxMCE. Even if you're not interested in the other aspects of LinuxMCE (home automation, security, telecom, etc.), it's a very quick way to get a PVR up and going. Just download the Kick-Start CD and boot--it will automatically install & configure a Debian OS, the LinuxMCE software, the PVR software, and, if you wish, all the source code. This way your PVR is very easy to configure using a web-based configuration front-end--you don't even need to login to a console. And it will update itself automatically with the latest versions. http://www.linuxmce.com/support

To download the drivers or source code manually, click the Download button above. Or get a patch file http://www.LinuxMCE.com/download/cx88patches.pat