PcHDTV HD5500

(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. I am by no means a linux expert, but playing with linuxmce has helped me alot.

Hardware

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

Installation

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.

   Heres 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 I then goto settings and click on MythTV Backend Setup -mythtv-setup.

   This will 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.)

3. After reboot navigate to the KDE desktop and goto settings and click on MythTV Backend Setup -mythtv-setup.

   You should be able to enter mythtvsetup at this point and set up capture cards.

4. Set up capture card -You want to pick DVB DTV capture card(v3.x) NOT pcHDTV DTV capture card(w/V4L drivers).

   When done you should see a capture card [DVB:0] listed.

   Set up a video source. I have two video sources, one is Digital and one is analog. I subscride to SchedulesDirect to grab the channel data. For both, 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).

5. Set up Input Connections. I set up two connections Digital and analog.

   Digital -choose [DVB:0](DVBInput) -> Digital, add the digital video source you created earlier. Click scan for channels. Select; full scan, cable high, Cable (QAM-256) [If you are connected to cable, otherwise pick the one that applies to you], I like the period to seperate 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, add the analog video source you created earlier. Same process as digital, only scan for cable instead of cable high. This scan should run alot quicker. 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.

   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.

   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.