Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Bill Davidsen]

I am looking for a video solution which works on recent Linux, like Fedora-11. 
Video used to be easy, plug in the capture device, install xawtv via rpm, and 
use. However, recent versions of Fedora simply don't work, even on the same 
hardware, due to /dev/dsp no longer being created and the applications like 
xawtv or tvtime still looking for it.

The people who will be using this are looking for hardware which is still made 
and sold new, and software which can be installed by a support person who can 
plug in cards (PCI preferred) or USB devices, and install rpms. I maintain the 
servers on Linux there, desktop support is unpaid (meaning I want a solution 
they can use themselves).

We looked at vlc, which seems to want channel frequencies in kHz rather than 
channels, mythtv, which requires a database their tech isn't able (or willing) 
to support, etc.

It seems that video has gone from "easy as Windows" 3-4 years ago to "insanely 
complex" according to to one person in that group who wanted an upgrade on his 
laptop. There is some pressure from Windows users to mandate Win7 as the 
desktop, which Linux users are rejecting.

The local cable is a mix of analog channels (for old TVs) and clear qam. The 
capture feeds from the monitor system are either S-video or three wire composite 
plus L-R audio. Any reasonable combination of cards (PCI best, PCIe acceptable), 
USB device, and application which can monitor/record would be fine, but the 
users are not going to type in kHz values, create channel tables, etc. They want 
something as easy to use as five years ago.

Any thoughts?

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> I am looking for a video solution which works on recent Linux, like
> Fedora-11. Video used to be easy, plug in the capture device, install xawtv
> via rpm, and use. However, recent versions of Fedora simply don't work, even
> on the same hardware, due to /dev/dsp no longer being created and the
> applications like xawtv or tvtime still looking for it.
>
> The people who will be using this are looking for hardware which is still
> made and sold new, and software which can be installed by a support person
> who can plug in cards (PCI preferred) or USB devices, and install rpms. I
> maintain the servers on Linux there, desktop support is unpaid (meaning I
> want a solution they can use themselves).
>
> We looked at vlc, which seems to want channel frequencies in kHz rather than
> channels, mythtv, which requires a database their tech isn't able (or
> willing) to support, etc.
>
> It seems that video has gone from "easy as Windows" 3-4 years ago to
> "insanely complex" according to to one person in that group who wanted an
> upgrade on his laptop. There is some pressure from Windows users to mandate
> Win7 as the desktop, which Linux users are rejecting.
>
> The local cable is a mix of analog channels (for old TVs) and clear qam. The
> capture feeds from the monitor system are either S-video or three wire
> composite plus L-R audio. Any reasonable combination of cards (PCI best,
> PCIe acceptable), USB device, and application which can monitor/record would
> be fine, but the users are not going to type in kHz values, create channel
> tables, etc. They want something as easy to use as five years ago.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> --
> Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>  "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
> the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

I took a few minutes and put together a response to your email,
outlining the issues.  Feel free to check it out here:

http://www.kernellabs.com/blog/

Devin

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http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>> I am looking for a video solution which works on recent Linux, like
>> Fedora-11. Video used to be easy, plug in the capture device, install xawtv
>> via rpm, and use. However, recent versions of Fedora simply don't work, even
>> on the same hardware, due to /dev/dsp no longer being created and the
>> applications like xawtv or tvtime still looking for it.
>>
>> The people who will be using this are looking for hardware which is still
>> made and sold new, and software which can be installed by a support person
>> who can plug in cards (PCI preferred) or USB devices, and install rpms. I
>> maintain the servers on Linux there, desktop support is unpaid (meaning I
>> want a solution they can use themselves).
>>
>> We looked at vlc, which seems to want channel frequencies in kHz rather than
>> channels, mythtv, which requires a database their tech isn't able (or
>> willing) to support, etc.
>>
>> It seems that video has gone from "easy as Windows" 3-4 years ago to
>> "insanely complex" according to to one person in that group who wanted an
>> upgrade on his laptop. There is some pressure from Windows users to mandate
>> Win7 as the desktop, which Linux users are rejecting.
>>
>> The local cable is a mix of analog channels (for old TVs) and clear qam. The
>> capture feeds from the monitor system are either S-video or three wire
>> composite plus L-R audio. Any reasonable combination of cards (PCI best,
>> PCIe acceptable), USB device, and application which can monitor/record would
>> be fine, but the users are not going to type in kHz values, create channel
>> tables, etc. They want something as easy to use as five years ago.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> --
>> Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>>  "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
>> the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot
> 
> I took a few minutes and put together a response to your email,
> outlining the issues.  Feel free to check it out here:
> 
> http://www.kernellabs.com/blog/
> 
I fear you are concentrating on the analog which is only a discussion of where 
things were when there was support. But since you didn't offer any suggestions 
for some user-friendly app I could give users, and I haven't found any, I have 
to assume that the tools which I did find, all requiring a significant user 
expertise to install, configure, and use, are all that's available any more. 
Perhaps the days of the Linux desktop are over, at least for people who want to 
install and have it work.

I guess staying with FC4 or going Windows are the only options for users who 
want something easy to use, thanks for assuring me that I didn't miss something.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> I fear you are concentrating on the analog which is only a discussion of
> where things were when there was support. But since you didn't offer any
> suggestions for some user-friendly app I could give users, and I haven't
> found any, I have to assume that the tools which I did find, all requiring a
> significant user expertise to install, configure, and use, are all that's
> available any more.

Ah, well, we can talk about digital TV as well, although I had
excluded it since your references were to analog and this was sent to
the video4linux mailing list as opposed to linux-media.

Compared to digital television support for international standards
like DVB-T, the application support for ATSC/ClearQAM is much weaker.
I added ATSC support to Kaffeine last year, and ClearQAM *should* work
under Kaffeine but it is not heavily tested.  Me-TV supports ATSC as
well, although it has considerable playback problems at high bitrates
(channels such as CBS-HD).  I don't know of any applications that are
easy to use and have support for both digital and analog.  The "easy
to use" apps generally support one or the other, as they tend to have
been developed by different groups of people.

The reason for ATSC/ClearQAM support not being as good as DVB is
pretty simple:  I can count the number of developers who actively
contribute to it on one hand (three of which work for KernelLabs).

The driver support for both ATSC and ClearQAM is pretty mature, but
again most of the problems you will find are in the applications
space.  There also is an issue where because ClearQAM devices are much
newer, there tends to be fewer devices that support both ClearQAM
*and* analog.  There are plenty of devices that support ATSC and
analog but not ClearQAM, and there are plenty of devices that support
ATSC and ClearQAM but not analog.  There are fewer devices though that
support all three.

> Perhaps the days of the Linux desktop are over, at least
> for people who want to install and have it work.

Well, I'm not as extreme as some other developers as to say that
"analog is dead", but like most developers, I don't have any personal
interest in going out of my way to continue supporting it.

> I guess staying with FC4 or going Windows are the only options for users who
> want something easy to use, thanks for assuring me that I didn't miss
> something.

Yeah, short of some commercial entity being willing to support
maintenance of the apps and adding support for new devices, it seems
likely that this is where things are going.  People seem to think they
are somehow entitled for this stuff to "just work" when in reality it
takes an enormous amount of effort, and if developers don't have an
interest in doing it, and nobody is willing to pay for it, then
support will indeed continue to get smaller and smaller.

Devin

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http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Andy Walls]

Bill,

On Fri, 2009-10-02 at 09:04 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> I am looking for a video solution which works on recent Linux, like Fedora-11.

The video4linux ML is just about dead.  You should post to
linux-media@vger.kernel.org 


> Video used to be easy, plug in the capture device, install xawtv via rpm, and 
> use. However, recent versions of Fedora simply don't work, even on the same 
> hardware, due to /dev/dsp no longer being created and the applications like 
> xawtv or tvtime still looking for it.

(Non-emulated) OSS was ditched by the linux kernel folks long ago.  And
I thought xawtv and tvtime were abandon-ware.


> The people who will be using this are looking for hardware which is still made 
> and sold new, and software which can be installed by a support person who can 
> plug in cards (PCI preferred) or USB devices, and install rpms.

rpmfusion, ATrpms, and I even think Fedora have MythTV available now.
mplayer is probably also available from 2 of those 3 resources.

For any open source software that implements video and audio decoders,
you will need to investigate if you must pay someone licensing fees to
use the decoders you need to meet your usage requirements.  Fedora has a
mechanism in place by which you can pay for the non-free codecs, IIRC.


>  I maintain the 
> servers on Linux there, desktop support is unpaid (meaning I want a solution 
> they can use themselves).
> 
> We looked at vlc, which seems to want channel frequencies in kHz rather than 
> channels, mythtv, which requires a database their tech isn't able (or willing) 
> to support, etc.

After vlc or mplayer has started capturing, just use ivtv-tune to change
analog channels by channel numbers (using your applicable channel table
built into ivtv-tune).  You can even set the channel before starting the
capture, if you can supress vlc from trying to change the channel.


> It seems that video has gone from "easy as Windows" 3-4 years ago to "insanely 
> complex" according to to one person in that group who wanted an upgrade on his 
> laptop.

Most people perceive large number of "options", and the control afforded
to the user by those options, as "complexity".  I'd say that Linux is
all about giving the user options and control.  I wouldn't expect that
to go away any time soon.

If your user wants someone else to put in the effort for him, he either
has to give up control (e.g. buy Windows) or incentivize someone to
manage the options and flexibility (a.k.a. complexity) he does not wish
to manage.



> There is some pressure from Windows users to mandate Win7 as the 
> desktop, which Linux users are rejecting.

And if the Linux users value their freedoms and control over their own
destiny, you think they'd be willing to put in the effort to maintain
it.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.


As far as mandates go, those are usually short-sighted one-size-fits-all
solution attempts, often backed by flawed reasoning along the lines of:

"Keeping track of all these different things (computers and OSen, and
software apps) is complex.  My life would be simpler, if I reduced the
complexity by standardizing on what I think is right; regardless of all
the domain or department specific subtlties and requirements that I'm
choosing to ignore."

Mandates are easy to push back on once you debunk the cost equation the
person is using to justify the mandate.  They often haven't considered
everthing.



> The local cable is a mix of analog channels (for old TVs) and clear qam. The 
> capture feeds from the monitor system are either S-video or three wire composite 
> plus L-R audio. Any reasonable combination of cards (PCI best, PCIe acceptable), 


An HVR-1600 is a PCI board based on the CX23418, that can capture analog
(NTSC for RF, Worldwide for CVBS or SVideo) and digital (ATSC or QAM) TV
simultaneously.

The Leadtek WinFast DVR 3100 H board, based on the CX23418, can accept Y
Pr Pb inputs as analog baseband.  I would need to fix the cx18 driver
under Linux to actually support that input (so far no one has asked for
it and I don't have test hardware).  Simultaneous analog and digital
capture are possible as long as they both aren't trying to use the
XCeive tuner (which can only do one thing at any one time).

But PCI is rapidly disappearly from modern motherboards.  I assume
within 5 years, most PCI-only motherboards will be failing due to old
age.



> USB device, and application which can monitor/record would be fine, but the 
> users are not going to type in kHz values, create channel tables, etc.

Honestly, a separate analog tuning app is something one can easily write
to meet the exact requirements of one's demanding userbase.  Of course
ivtv-tune is good enough for mostly everyone I've heard express a need.

With DVB under linux, you have no choice but to build a channels.conf
file.  Whether that's MythTV, mplayer, or something else.  You could
build a single file for all your users and install it for them, if it is
beyond their skills.


>  They want 
> something as easy to use as five years ago.

> Any thoughts?

One person's "easy to use", is another person's "alot of work".

You mentioned where you work Linux desktop support is unpaid, so I
assume you don't want to do that extra work.  Likewise most of the folks
here are unpaid and don't want to do your users' work for them either.

As for a suggestion:
Move to Ubuntu.  That distribution has a focus on helping the novice or
unskilled user that is unparalleled by the other distributions, IMO.
They've done "alot of work" on usability; maybe they've got video
smoothed out for the average user (I don't know for sure).

I started using RedHat (now Fedora) because of my prior years of
REAL/IX, IRIX, and HP-UX system admin experience and the similar System
V-ish feel of RedHat 5.2.  "Fedora" and "easy to use" are two things I
rarely associate without a lot of qualification.


If you really want a RH-like distribution that's easy to use, then pay
for RHEL support or some other support plan.  I bet they'll still be
cheaper than Windows support in the long run, but that also depends on
your actual requirements.




Regards,
Andy

Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Jarod Wilson]

On Oct 2, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Andy Walls wrote:

>> Video used to be easy, plug in the capture device, install xawtv  
>> via rpm, and
>> use. However, recent versions of Fedora simply don't work, even on  
>> the same
>> hardware, due to /dev/dsp no longer being created and the  
>> applications like
>> xawtv or tvtime still looking for it.
>
> (Non-emulated) OSS was ditched by the linux kernel folks long ago.   
> And
> I thought xawtv and tvtime were abandon-ware.

Yeah, seems that way. Though Devin's been talking about maybe starting  
up a new tvtime maintenance tree, which Fedora would be happy to  
contribute to and track... (nudge, nudge, Devin ;)

>> The people who will be using this are looking for hardware which is  
>> still made
>> and sold new, and software which can be installed by a support  
>> person who can
>> plug in cards (PCI preferred) or USB devices, and install rpms.
>
> rpmfusion, ATrpms, and I even think Fedora have MythTV available now.
> mplayer is probably also available from 2 of those 3 resources.

MythTV and mplayer are both only in RPM Fusion and ATrpms. Both rely  
on ffmpeg, which is no-go for Fedora itself.

> For any open source software that implements video and audio decoders,
> you will need to investigate if you must pay someone licensing fees to
> use the decoders you need to meet your usage requirements.  Fedora  
> has a
> mechanism in place by which you can pay for the non-free codecs, IIRC.

Sort of. If you're using something gstreamer-based (like totem).  
Fedora used to have codeina (formerly codec-buddy) that would point  
you at Fluendo's site for some gstreamer codec plugins you  could buy.  
The current world order is PackageKit with a codec plugin that tries  
to find a plugin that provides the codec in your configured yum repos.  
Can't recall if it points at Fluendo if nothing is found...


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod@wilsonet.com

Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod@wilsonet.com> wrote:
>> (Non-emulated) OSS was ditched by the linux kernel folks long ago.  And
>> I thought xawtv and tvtime were abandon-ware.
>
> Yeah, seems that way. Though Devin's been talking about maybe starting up a
> new tvtime maintenance tree, which Fedora would be happy to contribute to
> and track... (nudge, nudge, Devin ;)

Yeah, I started working on it when I was at the Plumbers Conference,
but haven't wanted to commit to it publicly until I had something
working, mainly because it's a project I'm working on in the
background (and I've already got three or four such projects).  And
like most stuff I'm working on, progress can always be sped up
considerably if a commercial party comes along and decides its worth
sponsoring (but the converse applies as well - progress slows down on
background items when I'm working on other sponsored work).

In the worst case, tvtime is my target use case for the part of the
Media Controller framework that allows you to associate video streams
with ALSA and VBI devices, so it *will* get done eventually.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

linux-media@vger.kernel.org is gmane.linux.drivers.video-input-infrastructure

[Arthur Marsh]

Andy Walls wrote, on 2009-10-03 05:44:
> Bill,
> 
> On Fri, 2009-10-02 at 09:04 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> I am looking for a video solution which works on recent Linux, like Fedora-11.
> 
> The video4linux ML is just about dead.  You should post to
> linux-media@vger.kernel.org 

Just for anyone who missed it, linux-media@vger.kernel.org is available 
on gmane.org as gmane.linux.drivers.video-input-infrastructure

Arthur.

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>   
>> I fear you are concentrating on the analog which is only a discussion of
>> where things were when there was support. But since you didn't offer any
>> suggestions for some user-friendly app I could give users, and I haven't
>> found any, I have to assume that the tools which I did find, all requiring a
>> significant user expertise to install, configure, and use, are all that's
>> available any more.
>>     
>
> Ah, well, we can talk about digital TV as well, although I had
> excluded it since your references were to analog and this was sent to
> the video4linux mailing list as opposed to linux-media.
>
> Compared to digital television support for international standards
> like DVB-T, the application support for ATSC/ClearQAM is much weaker.
> I added ATSC support to Kaffeine last year, and ClearQAM *should* work
> under Kaffeine but it is not heavily tested.  Me-TV supports ATSC as
> well, although it has considerable playback problems at high bitrates
> (channels such as CBS-HD).  I don't know of any applications that are
> easy to use and have support for both digital and analog.  The "easy
> to use" apps generally support one or the other, as they tend to have
> been developed by different groups of people.
>
> The reason for ATSC/ClearQAM support not being as good as DVB is
> pretty simple:  I can count the number of developers who actively
> contribute to it on one hand (three of which work for KernelLabs).
>
> The driver support for both ATSC and ClearQAM is pretty mature, but
> again most of the problems you will find are in the applications
> space.  There also is an issue where because ClearQAM devices are much
> newer, there tends to be fewer devices that support both ClearQAM
> *and* analog.  There are plenty of devices that support ATSC and
> analog but not ClearQAM, and there are plenty of devices that support
> ATSC and ClearQAM but not analog.  There are fewer devices though that
> support all three.
>
>   
>> Perhaps the days of the Linux desktop are over, at least
>> for people who want to install and have it work.
>>     
>
> Well, I'm not as extreme as some other developers as to say that
> "analog is dead", but like most developers, I don't have any personal
> interest in going out of my way to continue supporting it.
>
>   
First, thanks for your detailed response. As long as cable providers 
have a policy of providing analog in clear for customers with old TV 
hardware, and only broadcast local in clear-qam (because they must), 
users will want support for analog, because the digital is encrypted and 
needs a cable box. So analog won't be dead any time soon, at least in 
much of the US.

In looking for solutions I got an HDhomerun box, and while it's pretty 
much a single user solution, it works well for clear-qam, although the 
tuning is awkward, you don't need to be a genius to use it. 
Unfortunately it seems to not do the analog, so it's less than ideal as 
an overall solution. I haven't found any solution for S-video, other 
than to drop back to FC6 and use old analog apps. I have a bunch of 
cards (mostly PCI) and several USB dongles, none seem to do S-video 
under Linux. That's turned out to be more of an issue than I expected as 
well, I considered feeding the USB to a VM and Windows under KVM, but I 
really want Windows out!
>> I guess staying with FC4 or going Windows are the only options for users who
>> want something easy to use, thanks for assuring me that I didn't miss
>> something.
>>     
>
> Yeah, short of some commercial entity being willing to support
> maintenance of the apps and adding support for new devices, it seems
> likely that this is where things are going.  People seem to think they
> are somehow entitled for this stuff to "just work" when in reality it
> takes an enormous amount of effort, and if developers don't have an
> interest in doing it, and nobody is willing to pay for it, then
> support will indeed continue to get smaller and smaller.
>   

These folks have money, for political reasons they prefer open source, 
but that's the end of it, it's not a deal breaker to buy a solution by 
the seat.

Again, thanks for clarifying the dismal situation, I'm surprised that 
none of the developers is in an area where the majority of the signal 
are still analog, but that seems the case.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  Unintended results are the well-earned reward for incompetence.

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Devin Heitmueller]

Hello Bill,

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
<snip>
> analog apps. I have a bunch of cards (mostly PCI) and several USB dongles,
> none seem to do S-video under Linux. That's turned out to be more of an
> issue than I expected as well, I considered feeding the USB to a VM and
> Windows under KVM, but I really want Windows out!

You have boards where the analog RF input works under Linux but the
S-video does not?  That's a bit surprising given it's usually pretty
trivial to make all the inputs work once you get the first one
working.

Which boards do you have?

Devin

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http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Upgrading from FC4 to current Linux

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> Hello Bill,
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>   
>> analog apps. I have a bunch of cards (mostly PCI) and several USB dongles,
>> none seem to do S-video under Linux. That's turned out to be more of an
>> issue than I expected as well, I considered feeding the USB to a VM and
>> Windows under KVM, but I really want Windows out!
>>     
>
> You have boards where the analog RF input works under Linux but the
> S-video does not?  That's a bit surprising given it's usually pretty
> trivial to make all the inputs work once you get the first one
> working.
>
> Which boards do you have?
>   

Sorry, I didn't say that clearly. Under FC4/FC6 the boards work for both 
analog and S-video. Under more recent kernels they don't seem to work 
for either with any application I tried. Applications offer dvb-t dvb-s 
etc, but don't seem to offer S-video input. Didn't mean to confuse the 
issue.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  Unintended results are the well-earned reward for incompetence.

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