ivtv 0.4.2 driver works on powerpc !!

[vinai <vroopcha@mcw.edu>]

Hi Folks,

Don't know if this has been made widely known, but I thought I's share
the last couple of days worth of experimenting.

The setup - a PowerMac 8500, running "stock" Debian testing except for
my own kernel compiled from the 2.6.15.1 sources from kernel.org.  The
machine has 1 G RAM, 200 MHz 604e PowerPC CPU and a Firmtek SATA drive
controller running a 36 G 10K WD Raptor drive, and the capture device
under testing is a Hauppage 350 PCI card.

In my kernel .config file, I have video4linux and I2C support enabled,
as per the instructions on the ivtv web site.  I built and used only
hardware modules from the ivtv 0.4.2 sources.  I grabbed the firmware
and installed it, again per instructions.

If I do:

     cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg

after a reboot, the hardware won't respond.  However, if I remove the
ivtv module then do a modprobe of that module again, the above command 
will work.  "modprobe"-ing without "rmmod"-ing did not allow the card
to function.

I was able to capture about 20 s of video, with no noticeable dropped
frames, even on this slow machine.  This machine can't even play the
captured clips, but transfer to another machine gave me a valid and
playable MPEG-2 file.  I plan to do some more testing over the next
few days, and see if I can get this to actually work predictably...

Cheers, and thanks to all whose work and efforts made this happen !!

cheers
vinai