Seeking Advice for MythTV box

[kdx]

I impulsively purchased an eMachines EL1210-09 for $280 today at Staples with the intention of turning it into a DVR/HTPC with Ubuntu and MythTV (or potentially just Mythbuntu). It's got an AMD Athlon x64 processor (LE-1620), 2GB RAM (expandable to 4GB), HDMI output, and a 160GB HDD.

I've been reading up on MythTV and Hauppauge TV tuner cards, but I'm having some difficulty figuring out exactly where to go from here. Most of the information I've found relates to the older, analog-only PVR-X50 cards.

According to Newegg, this PC has one PCI-E x16 slot available. I would like to verify that a Hauppauge PCI-E x1 card will work properly in this slot. I've read that x1 cards will fit into x16 slots, but may not always be enabled in the BIOS. If it will work, I'm most likely headed for the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 MCE card. If I can't do the PCI-E card, it looks like I'll have to go to a USB card, but it doesn't seem that any of the USB-based cards handle hardware encoding, which may be an issue for the eMachine. Any thoughts on this?

My next snag is that I don't have an HDTV yet, so the HDMI-out isn't quite useful at this point in time. The only other video out on this computer is VGA. First, does anybody know if the NVIDIA GeForce 8200 GPU supports TV-out through VGA? I'm hopeful that it does, especially since it supports HDMI-out, although I'm not certain they'd even relate to each other in any way. If it supports TV-out, I can just buy a $10 VGA-to-composite cable. If not, I'll have to buy a converter box for it, which seem to run anywhere from $100-$250+. If that's the case, does anybody know of a relatively cheap and effective way to get VGA to RCA/composite output? I could just run this system headless as a DVR only, except that I don't have a monitor that I could hook up to it for the initial setup and troubleshooting!

Hopefully this is much easier than I'm making it out to be, but the information I'm looking for seems a bit sparse. Either that, or I'm just a n00b...

[kdx]

Bumpity.

[CJ_Hudson]

I thought most modern TVs had a VGA input socket. Some will show setup info i.e. while the system is booting and inbetween 'splash' screens, others not.
I suggest approaching a few businesses who may have just upgraded their systems and are throwing out old CRT monitors. You might be able to get one free, then you can do the system setup.
Sorry I can't assist with any other of the problems at the moment.

[kdx]

Thanks for the reply. My TV is about 10 years old, and I didn't see a VGA input on it. I solved this dilemma, though, by purchasing a 23" HP LCD monitor to use instead (it was a display model, so I got around $100 off). I figured it would be a lot less hassle than trying to figure out how to use the TV, and it would give me a better picture. Plus, with the HDMI input, I could also play Xbox 360 on it in HD.

I've also gotten my question answered about the PCI-E slots; the TV card should supposedly work without any issues.

[Berryjiveuptown5]

please let me us which card you go with. i'm trying to set up mythtv too and would like to know which one works before I buy one.

[kdx]

please let me us which card you go with. i'm trying to set up mythtv too and would like to know which one works before I buy one.

I ended up getting the Hauppauge HVR-1950 USB card. I decided that I preferred to leave the PCI-E slot open in case I wanted to add a different video card later on, and that I also didn't want to be locked into using the card in only a computer with a PCI-E slot available.

I'm running Ubuntu Intrepid x64 on the system, and it's working really great so far; the remote is even supported right out of the box! Just follow these instructions and you should be all set.

One thing I did notice is that I needed to change the permissions for /dev/video0 to allow the mythtv group to access the device. If I didn't, the mythbackend server wouldn't be able to connect to /dev/video0. By default upon connecting the box, only the root and video groups have access. As of right now, I have to manually change this every time the box is disconnected or I restart the computer. It was a real pain while I was working on setting up the system, but now that it's all set and running all the time, it's not a big deal for now.

[CJ_Hudson]

Why not edit the startup/boot kernal to include a little code to set that up automatically?

[kdx]

Why not edit the startup/boot kernal to include a little code to set that up automatically?

That would be a fantastic idea if I knew how to do it...

[kdx]

Just to be on the safe side in case the site I linked earlier ever goes down, here's a copy-paste of the instructions on the site.

1. Fresh install of mythbuntu 9.04
2. Extract and install the firmware files for HVR-1950:
1. Download http://www.isely.net/downloads/fwextract.pl to ~/Desktop
2. Insert the CD that came with your HVR-1950 (contains windows drivers) [assume it mounted as /media/cdrom0]
3. cd ~/Desktop
4. chmod u+x fwextract.pl
5. ./fwextract.pl /media/cdrom0/Drivers/
6. sudo copy *.fw /lib/firmware
3. Run mythtv-setup using sudo
1. sudo mythtv-setup
2. Capture Card Type: IVTV MPEG-2 encoder card
3. Video device: /dev/video0
4. Probed info: WinTV HVR-1950 Model Category 7 [pvrusb2]
4. Run mythtvfrontend
5. (if the video looks really bad in mythfrontend):
1. Utilities/Setup
2. Setup
3. TV Settings
4. Recording Profiles
5. MPEG-2 Encoders (PVR-x50, PVR-500)
6. for Live TV, Default, High Quality, Low Quality
1. Change Width to 720
2. Change Height to 480

Once again, here's the link:
http://sray.squidpower.com/2009/02/1...posite-inputs/

[sforces]

I've been trying to get my HVR-1950 to work since Jan. `09. So I'm glad to hear someone's gotten this device to work on Linux and an Ubuntu variant that's also 64bit. Now I know the instructions say to use "mythbuntu 9.04" but I've been using Ubuntu and currently on 8.10 64bit and would really like to get it to work if it's possible. Perhaps I need to wait for Ubuntu 9.04 next week to try (sigh)?

On the hopes that it "might work" now, I've installed Mythtv packages and followed the rest of the install. I don't have a /dev/video0 directory.

Doing a dmesg I do see that things do get recognized (not sure if correctly though). Any advice on getting this to work?:
[ 17.065249] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 17.279358] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
[ 17.279386] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 17.311384] hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC883, trying auto-probe from BIOS...
[ 17.449812] usbcore: registered new interface driver pvrusb2
[ 17.449830] pvrusb2: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 MPEG2 Encoder/Tuner : V4L in-tree version
[ 17.449832] pvrusb2: Debug mask is 31 (0x1f)
[ 17.624036] cx25840' 0-0044: cx25843-24 found @ 0x88 (pvrusb2_a)
[ 17.801332] tuner' 0-0042: chip found @ 0x84 (pvrusb2_a)
[ 17.825298] tveeprom 0-00a2: Hauppauge model 75111, rev C3E9, serial# 5055510
[ 17.825300] tveeprom 0-00a2: MAC address is 00-0D-FE-4D-22-15
[ 17.825302] tveeprom 0-00a2: tuner model is Philips 18271_8295 (idx 149, type 54)
[ 17.825303] tveeprom 0-00a2: TV standards NTSC(M) ATSC/DVB Digital (eeprom 0x88)
[ 17.825305] tveeprom 0-00a2: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
[ 17.825306] tveeprom 0-00a2: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
[ 17.825307] tveeprom 0-00a2: has radio, has IR receiver, has IR transmitter
[ 17.825311] pvrusb2: Supported video standard(s) reported available in hardware: PAL-M/N/Nc;NTSC-M/Mj/Mk;ATSC-8VSB/16VSB
[ 17.825313] pvrusb2: Mapping standards mask=0x300b700 (PAL-M/N/Nc;NTSC-M/Mj/Mk;ATSC-8VSB/16VSB)
[ 17.825315] pvrusb2: Setting up 6 unique standard(s)
[ 17.825317] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=0 name=PAL-M
[ 17.825318] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=1 name=PAL-N
[ 17.825319] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=2 name=PAL-Nc
[ 17.825320] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=3 name=NTSC-M
[ 17.825322] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=4 name=NTSC-Mj
[ 17.825323] pvrusb2: Set up standard idx=5 name=NTSC-Mk
[ 17.825324] pvrusb2: Initial video standard (determined by device type): NTSC-M
[ 17.825329] pvrusb2: Device initialization completed successfully.
[ 17.825391] pvrusb2: registered device video0 [mpeg]
[ 17.825393] DVB: registering new adapter (pvrusb2-dvb)
[ 17.838078] firmware: requesting v4l-cx25840.fw
[ 20.183518] cx25840' 0-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
[ 25.058472] cx25840' 0-0044: Video signal: not present
[ 25.058475] cx25840' 0-0044: Detected format: NTSC-M
[ 25.058477] cx25840' 0-0044: Specified standard: NTSC-M
[ 25.058478] cx25840' 0-0044: Specified video input: Composite 7
[ 25.058480] cx25840' 0-0044: Specified audioclock freq: 48000 Hz
[ 25.064597] cx25840' 0-0044: Detected audio mode: mono
[ 25.064599] cx25840' 0-0044: Detected audio standard: no detected audio standard
[ 25.064600] cx25840' 0-0044: Audio muted: no
[ 25.064602] cx25840' 0-0044: Audio microcontroller: detecting
[ 25.064603] cx25840' 0-0044: Configured audio standard: automatic detection
[ 25.064605] cx25840' 0-0044: Configured audio system: BTSC
[ 25.064606] cx25840' 0-0044: Specified audio input: Tuner (In8)
[ 25.064607] cx25840' 0-0044: Preferred audio mode: stereo
[ 25.113357] cx25840' 0-0044: 0x0000 is not a valid video input!
[ 27.627710] DVB: registering frontend 0 (Samsung S5H1411 QAM/8VSB Frontend)...
[ 60.190461] bttv: driver version 0.9.17 loaded
[ 60.190467] bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
[ 60.280877] ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.4.0
[ 60.281931] ivtv: End initialization
[ 60.441007] cx88/0: cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.6 loaded
[ 60.442269] lirc_i2c: chip 0x10005 found @ 0x1a (Hauppauge IR)
[ 60.442300] lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin: sample_rate: 10
[ 64.440104] pvrusb2: Timed out control-write
[ 64.440108] pvrusb2: Device being rendered inoperable
[ 64.440122] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok
[ 64.440126] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok
[ 64.440127] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok
[ 64.440129] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok
[ 64.440131] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok
[ 64.440133] pvrusb2: Attempted to execute control transfer when device not ok