Videomate s350 drivers

[crookingfackedit]

Ace, I'm glad people have managed to make some progress. Sadly, I've ditched Linux for a bit, and installed W7 on my main box. I've used Linux full-time since 2002 or so, and fancy a break. I'll keep this page bookmarked for future reference - chances are Windows will annoy me very much over just a few weeks, and I'll be coming back...

Much of the motivation behind dumping Linux was so I could watch recordings from my HTPC on the laptop, so I'll be watching this very keenly. It'd be nice to figure how to get everything working smoothly - it seems all the keys are in place, they're just not talking to each other properly.

I still hate, and blame, Compro. Useless company.

[masterluke]

Much of the motivation behind dumping Linux was so I could watch recordings from my HTPC on the laptop, so I'll be watching this very keenly.

What I really love about tvheadend is that it saves recorded tv as properly named .MKV's from the EPG for example "The Godfather.MKV" which makes it really easy to view recordings on other devices.

I had reason to go back to Win7 recently but didnt last long

Thanks again for your help.

EDIT - Mine is detected as a "Zarlink ZL10313 DVB-S" too in mythtv and tvheadend. Agreed that the V4L device is probably the analog input and the Zarlink device is the one we are interested in. Maybe I'll test the other input at some point.

EDIT 2 - For folks with nvidia graphics cards dont forget to enable vdpau. Gives very nice hardware HDTV decoding and deinterlacing. Works nicely in mplayer, mythtv or XBMC.

[crookingfackedit]

What's the EPG like? Can it capture over the air on Freesat, or does it take the information from other sources?

Very tempted to have a look. I miss Linux already.

[masterluke]

Tvheadend uses XMLTV to grab the listings. It seems to find all of the uk freesat channel listings. Unfortunately it only gets now and next over the air and not the full 7 days. Tvheadend has a very easy to use web-based epg. You can also see the epg from within XBMC which looks quite polished. I can use my laptop to schedule recordings from the web interface and then stream the recording to the laptop once its complete. If you are so inclined tvheadend also has built-in cardsharing support. I only really wanted a good setup to watch the freesat hd channels as i have sky+ already, but im trying to convince the wife that we can move over to this full-time.

One big flaw with the Videomate s350.. i cant seem to get the passthrough loop jack to work. Certainly my sky box will not lock on or show any signal strength daisy-chained via this port. Does this work ok on windows?

[crookingfackedit]

Bummer, I was hopeful it would collect the week ahead using over-the-air. I'll have to look into any alternative configurations possible.

[GerMulvey]

Having followed and finally got this working I thought I'd post my method for anyone struggling. This is the info gathered from this thread and a few others. I hope it helps someone!

To get the card working:

1

sudo apt-get install mercurial

2

sudo hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

3

cd ~/v4l-dvb/linux/drivers/media/video/saa7134

4

sudo nano saa7134-cards.c

CTRL-W - search for SAA7134_BOARD_VIDEOMATE_T750,

change T750 >> S350

Write out the changes(CTRL-O), then quit(CTRL-X). Drop back to the base directory(/v4l-dvb) using cd ..

5

make

ignore fail message and

6

nano ~/v4l-dvb/v4l/.config

ctrl-W - search for CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=m <<change m to n
Write out the changes(CTRL-O), then quit(CTRL-X).

7

make all

8

sudo make install

9 Next we need to reboot so save any work before continuing!

sudo reboot

TvHeadend to see TV:

Tvheadend is a lightweight TV tuning backend that supports DVB-C, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-S2, ATSC, IPTV and PAL analog TV. It has an integrated web frontend that can be used to configure the backend, view the EPG and start and view live TV or recordings.

1

sudo apt-get install -y python-software-properties

2

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lars-opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr

3

sudo apt-get update

4

sudo apt-get -y install tvheadend xbmc

This will install Tvheadend and the PVR version of XBMC.

Configure TvHeadend:

Go to the TVheadend GUI by visiting http://yourmachine:9981/
Go to configuration -> tv adapters and select zarlink (only option unless you have other cards)

Enable "Autodetect muxes" and "Idle scanning" Then select "Add DVB Network by location"
Click "save"
Tvheadend will now start to detect multiplexes and services. Wait for "Muxes awaiting initial scan" to become 0.
Then click "Map DVB Services to channels". TVheadend will now try to open each channel and will add each channel that can be opened.
Once completed you should have a channel list.

(This is as far as I have got so far. Currently I'm able to open channels in vlc, not a perfect solution but so far so good.)

"Configuring XBMC

After installing, you can head to http://yourserver:9981/ to access the web interface and configure the backend.

After you configured the backend, start up XBMC and go to System -> Addons -> Installed -> PVR clients -> Tvheadend HTSP Client. Choose "configure" and fill in the requested information. Then choose "enable" to enable the PVR client.

Go back to System and choose TV -> General -> Activate.

Now you can start using Tvheadend from within XBMC by accessing the LiveTV in the main menu."

Can't seem to get there with this last bit.

[rmil]

After the kernel 2.6.36.? (Ubuntu 11-04) it become very difficult to compile v4l dvb drvers.

Anyway this worked for me without compiling the driver or module it self

#:>sudo bash (enter your password)
root:>echo "options saa7134 card=169" > /etc/modprobe.d/saa7134

now reboot
check dmesg if your card is recognized well

[thebignose]

Hi rmil,
Having just properly made a mess of my Myth box, I'm about to give 11.04 a wee go now, so I'm glad to see it looks like things might get a bit simpler when it comes to getting the card going.

Can I just ask if there's a carriage return after [root:>echo "options saa7134 card=169"] or did you type [echo "options saa7134 card=169" > /etc/modprobe.d/saa7134] after the prompt?

[rmil]

Hi thebignose,

as root just type:

echo "options saa7134 card=169" > /etc/modprobe.d/saa7134


it will make file saa7134 at the location /etc/modprobe.d/ telling kernel to load driver for s350 instead of autodetected card.

Not sure if mythtv will work but Me TV should work.

[thebignose]

Thanks for that, rmil - worked a treat!

This makes the card pretty easy to set up now. I'm thinking updates should now work without causing the card to be misdetected but time will tell...