Install Pixelview PlayTV Pro BT878

[jeffimperial]

Hi, all. I have an old TV capture card that I's like to use with my newly installed and beautifully running Hardy. How to do that?

Thanks!

[xbisont]

hey, have you get it done? i have that same old card, i haven't try to get it work since i used to use win2k (few years ago), just today i decided to give it a try, but i just found buggy howto's for some previus releases of ubuntu. so if you can help me, that would be great

[miki81]

I have that card too.
How to ?

[shadow-of-sin]

I have that card too and have successfully managed to get it working, here's how I got it working:
1. First type the following command in the terminal:
lspci | grep Bt878
You should get an output like so:
04:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
04:01.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)


2. Type the following command:
sudo nano /etc/modules
Then add "bttv" on a new line

3. Now create /etc/modprobe.d/bttv:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/bttv
And copy and paste the following
# i2c
alias char-major-89 i2c-devb
options i2c-algo-bit bit_test=1
# bttv
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 bttv
# My TV Card
options bttv card=16 tuner=5 radio=0 pll=1 adc_crush=0
note: your tuner no. may vary, there's a helpful list here: http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=43596 (scroll down to "Tuners")

4. Now install xawtv:
sudo apt-get install xawtv

5. Now to watch tv, use the following command:
xawtv -c /dev/vbi0

(6). If you get a black screen in xawtv and some errors in the command line like this:
v4l2: read: Device or resource busy

To find out what process is using the device use this command:
sudo fuser /dev/vbi0
Then kill the process using:
kill <process_id- from previous command>
(much of this is from the tutorial here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=153935 , however for some reason tvtime doesn't work for me)