TV under 64-bit Linux

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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How would I get my USB TV tuner (ATI USB Wonder 2.0) to work with 64-bit Linux? Do I tell /dev/usb0 (or something like that) to use tvtuner.o(?)? How would I do it? ATI doesn't offer Linux drivers but I've had my tuner working under Fedora Core 4 32-bit (but it automatically did). I can only assume that means it's possible under SUSE 10 64-bit too? I see ATI USB TV Wonder 2.0N in the USB devices list in SUSE 10 64-bit, but how do I 'make' it a tuner or capture device? It is an analog TV device. I'm pretty sure it uses a Philips tuner and a Theater 200 chipset.
 

drag

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Jul 4, 2002
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I don't know anything about your ATI USB Wonder.. but if you had it working under Fedora Core what you need to do is figure out what drivers you used with that and then find out how to get them for your current setup.

What will probably end up happenning is that you'll have to make sure to install the kernel-headers package for your current kernel and compile yourself some drivers for it from source code.

The philips tuner part shouldn't be a problem, probably tuner driver supports it (it's a pretty common thing) but I don't know about the theater 200 chipset.
 

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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Sadly I don't have that Fedora 32-bit anymore and I have moved to Fedora Core 4 64-bit under which the TV won't work either.

Do I have to recompile my kernel? Can I just download a module file somewhere to insmod?

Here is some output. I have done these commands in root mode. I'm using OpenSUSE 10 64-bit with kernel 2.6.13-15-default. My USB ports are functioning properly (my USB mouse works). I also have the needed AC power plugged in to my tuner, along with the obligatory USB cable.
 

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Have you tried loading the tuner module?

Like this? It didn't return any errors but xawtv still can't find /dev/video0 after I do that.
linux:/home/andy # modprobe tuner
linux:/home/andy #

Do I need a specific tuner driver or does 'tuner' encompass a vast array of TV cards?
 

n0cmonkey

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Jun 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: xtknight
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Have you tried loading the tuner module?

Like this? It didn't return any errors but xawtv still can't find /dev/video0 after I do that.
linux:/home/andy # modprobe tuner
linux:/home/andy #

Do I need a specific tuner driver or does 'tuner' encompass a vast array of TV cards?

No idea. I'd happily use Linux before I'd buy an ATI product.
 

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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OK. Suppose 'tuner' was the correct module. How would I know? Would it open /dev/video for me?

Actually I think the right driver is 'bttv' because they suggest that for the TV Wonder PCI (same chipset). I modprobed it, still doesn't work. Somehow I need to 'tell' that USB device to use bttv, and I don't know how to do that.
 

n0cmonkey

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Jun 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: xtknight
OK. Suppose 'tuner' was the correct module. How would I know? Would it open /dev/video for me?

Actually I think the right driver is 'bttv' because they suggest that for the TV Wonder PCI (same chipset). I modprobed it, still doesn't work. Somehow I need to 'tell' that USB device to use bttv, and I don't know how to do that.

Chances are the bttv driver would have to be written to support USB devices. I did a search on google.com/linux for the product you say you use and almost nothing came up.
 

n0cmonkey

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Jun 10, 2001
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Maybe try knoppix or something, and see if that recognizes it properly and loads a module.
 

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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I think I'll just give up on this one. I don't have any blank CD-Rs or DVD-Rs at the moment for Knoppix. Can it just load from a download? For SUSE 10 I just burned a little 64 MB image and booted off of that (it downloaded the whole few gigs and installed it on the fly). The only thing I have at my disposal right now is a "pocket" CD-RW that holds 185 MB. I have very fast (6 Mbps) Internet so it would take like 20 minutes at best to download from a good mirror. Does Knoppix have a similar boot image because I'm not finding it? What I'm trying to do is a net install of Knoppix or something. I know, pretty far-fetched...

Is there some kind of Linux that will boot off a small image and then download itself like SUSE, but not actually install, but just take me to a console? I could get a blank CD-R tomorrow, but waiting sucks. :p
 

drag

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Jul 4, 2002
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tuner is just a generic thing to control tuners.. or something like that. You'll still need a driver like the bttv drivers or similar to read the actual data off of the video card.

I don't know anything about your card.. but this website looks like a likely place to start.
http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Main_Page
 

corinthos

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Mar 22, 2000
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not sure about your particular tv device, but i have a hauppauge pvr-500 and it appears most if not all of the hauppauge cards don't currently work under linux 64. i think either ivtv needs to add support for it or hauppauge needs to release 64-bit drivers or both for it to work. as for the pvr software for linux, i'm not sure if there's any that is 64-bit yet.
 

drag

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Originally posted by: corinthos
not sure about your particular tv device, but i have a hauppauge pvr-500 and it appears most if not all of the hauppauge cards don't currently work under linux 64. i think either ivtv needs to add support for it or hauppauge needs to release 64-bit drivers or both for it to work. as for the pvr software for linux, i'm not sure if there's any that is 64-bit yet.

Hauppage never released drivers for Linux.

The PVR line of cards were top of the line in affordable TV capture cards with hardware encoders for a long time, so the people at ivtv.sourceforge.net reverse engineered the card enough to make drivers.

Their drivers work on 64bit Linux versions.. (and have been for a while) you have to compile them yourself probably though.

The only company that I know of that released open source drivers and documentation (I know for the drivers, I think for the documentation.) is Plextor for their "ConvertX PVR" (models PX-M402U and PX-TV402U). These are USB2 devices that encode in mpeg2 and mpeg4. I beleive that mpeg4 recording is supported by Mythtv at this time.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_go7007

I expect that they would work in 64bit mode.

Since everything in Linux is open source, with a few notable exceptions (propriatory drivers for video cards and wifi devices, as well as immature drivers), we don't have the same problems that Windows has when using multiple archetectures. Almost all the archetectures that Linux supports, supports almost all the hardware that Linux supports.. pretty much.