Re: Kworld PlusTV HD PCI 120 (ATSC 120)

[Vanessa Ezekowitz <vanessaezekowitz@gmail.com>]

On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:48:14 pm Curt Blank wrote:
> I'm trying to get this  card working  and I'm having some trouble and
> I'm not sure exactly where. I'm using the 2.6.26.5 kernel gen'd to
> include all the v4l support.

I don't know if that version of the kernel has the full driver or not, however, 
it would be a good idea to use the v4l-dvb repository instead, as that code is 
more up to date.

Mauro, does any current kernel contain these drivers yet?  I've not been 
following v4l-dvb-->kernel merges.

> Using Kradio I can manually tune in a station  but the audio only comes
> out the Line Out jack on the card. Alsa is installed and working, I can 
> play CD's, listen to streaming music, KDE sound effects work, so it
> appears my sound subsystem is working. The alsa config in Kradio is set
> to what it determined and it appears to match the device as far as
> things go.
  
The first thing that comes to mind here is that Kradio chose the wrong audio 
device but made it look like it chose correctly.  I seem to recall it doing 
the same thing on my box as well.  This card provides audio via a digital 
stream, and the drivers put that stream on /dev/dsp1, so you must chose that 
as your capture card/device, and set the playback card/device to use your 
usual sound card.

Also, the current version of the driver no longer provides or requires the 
cx88-alsa module (it has apparently been merged with other parts of the 
driver).  Don't try to load this module, as it will probably cause a bunch of 
errors and break things.  I've just updated the KW120 article to reflect this 
change in driver behavior (and to fix some other errors on my part).

> When I try to scan for stations it doesn't find any but I can 
> tune to any local station and get it.
>
> I also can't get the video (HDTV) to work either. When it starts up I get
> a:

At the present, you can't load both the digital- and analog-mode drivers at the 
same time - this card uses a "hybrid" tuner, which the drivers can't quite 
deal with properly yet (this is being worked on).  The end result is that 
neither mode will work at all, or may work only intermittently (last time I 
tried, the result was unpredictable).

You must select one more or the other, and you must reboot the computer 
(actually, a hard power-off is better) when switching modes.

Basically, it boils down to blacklisting several modules and then loading 
either the cx8800 or cx88-dvb module (for analog or digital, respectively).

> I also can't get the video (HDTV) to work either. When it starts up I get a:
> [...]
> When I run kdetv in a terminal window I see this:

[errors snipped]

Last time I tried to use it, KDETV only worked with analog video/TV and other 
v4l capture devices.  For digital TV, you need to use something like 
Kaffeine/Xine, MythTV, etc.  Basically any video player that can read from a 
DVB device.

Also note that KDETV, unless it's changed since I last looked, isn't aware of 
that separate digital stream for analog TV, so you probably won't get any 
audio from it.  Most of the other TV programs are like this also.  Kradio is 
aware of it, however, and worked fine for me last time I used it.

> I've read the Wiki at http://www.linuxtv.org including the
> http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/KWorld_ATSC_120 info. I also
> downloaded the archived list messages back to January 2007 and looked
> through them for help.

I know it sounds a little Windows-ish, but since the driver is still 
experimental, and the ATSC 120 is kinda finicky, a reboot is the first thing 
to do here, just to get the card back into a predictable state.  Get the 
blacklist into place before you do that, check after the reboot to make sure 
that worked, then try just the analog mode.  One that works, reboot again, 
enable digital mode, and scan for channels with dvbscan or whatever your 
distro calls it.

Stuart and I wrote most of what's in the ATSC 120 info page, so if it didn't 
work for you, I'd like to see if we can figure out what went wrong, so I can 
update the page to address the problem.  I'm kinda partial to the idea of 
seeing this card working fully for those who have one. :-)

-- 
"Life is full of positive and negative events.  Spend
your time considering the former, not the latter."
Vanessa Ezekowitz <vanessaezekowitz@gmail.com>

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