Howto setup a bt878 TV Card

[art2003]

This howto refers to a Modular Technology MM200PCTV TVcard but may help also with other bt878 based TV Cards.

It was written when I was running Ubuntu 7.10, it may need little changes to work with later releases.
Also I must mention I am a PAL user and have used it just with PAL devices, so for NTSC again you may need to tweak some
parameters.

With the card in your PC
type
lspci | grep Bt878

this is the output on my card:
0000:00:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 02)
0000:00:0a.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 02)

1) Make sure the module will be loaded
sudo gedit /etc/modules
add bttv if not already present

2) Options for the module. Create this file:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/bttv

# 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=23 tuner=18 radio=0 pll=1 adc_crush=0

3) Install tvtime
sudo apt-get install tvtime
then run tvtime-scanner ; takes a few minutes

4) Running:
sudo modprobe bttv
and then run tvtime
at this point you should have black and white tv

to enable colour edit tvtime.xml

sudo gedit ~/.tvtime/tvtime.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE tvtime PUBLIC "-//tvtime//DTD tvtime 1.0//EN" "http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/DTD/tvtime1.dtd">
<tvtime xmlns="http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/DTD/">
  <option name="DefaultBrightness" value="50"/>
  <option name="DefaultContrast" value="50"/>
  <option name="DefaultSaturation" value="78"/>
  <option name="DefaultHue" value="50"/>
  <option name="PrevChannel" value="2"/>
  <option name="Channel" value="1"/>
  <option name="FramerateMode" value="0"/>
  <option name="OverScan" value="0.0"/>
  <option name="CheckForSignal" value="1"/>
  <option name="AudioBoost" value="100"/>
  <option name="AlwaysOnTop" value="0"/>
  <option name="QuietScreenshots" value="0"/>
  <option name="UnmuteVolume" value="0"/>
  <option name="Muted" value="0"/>
  <option name="V4LInput" value="0"/>
  <option name="AudioMode" value="stereo"/>
  <option name="PalDKMode" value="0"/>
  <option name="ShowCC" value="0"/>
  <option name="FullScreen" value="0"/>
  <option name="WideScreen" value="0"/>
  <option name="FullscreenPosition" value="centre"/>
  <option name="DeinterlaceMethod" value="TelevisionFull"/>
  <option name="Frequencies" value="custom"/>
  <option name="ColourInvert" value="0"/>
  <option name="Norm" value="PAL"/>
  <option name="InputWidth" value="924"/>
  <option name="MirrorInput" value="0"/>
</tvtime>

In order to get sound please refer to the excellent instalation guide for Windows XP and hardware modification (this second bit applies to linux too)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/minkus/mm200pctv/

[WarGasm]

I followed your steps until this:

vikernes@vikernes-desktop:~$ tvtime-scanner
Reading configuration from /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml
Scanning using TV standard PAL.
videoinput: Cannot open capture device /dev/video0: No such file or directory

what can I do ? please help !

[PartickThistle]

If you have /dev/video do this;

sudo ln -s /dev/video /dev/video0

[domino]

Do you have to manually un-mute your line-in setting in Volume Control in order to hear TV sound? I seem to have a problem with this on Dapper which didn't exist in Breezy, no matter whow I conig /etc/modprobe.d/bttv.

[chojin]

WARNING to people trying this. I have a Twinhan VisionPlus HDTV PCI and this method caused ubuntu to hang consistently even in recovery mode. I had to use a livecd to repair it. The drivers are ridiculously buggy for this card.

Using a vanilla ubuntu setup, the card is detected, but NO device nodes are created (although dmesg says it does create a dvb0, this doesn't exist in the filesystem).

So if you have this card, don't bother with this method... I don't think there's ANY way to get this card going under ubuntu

[darnyte]

under ubuntu feisty all you have to do is install tv-time and it works.. no module setup or config. I am guessing that the module is built into kernel now.. don't know about audio haven't tested it yet...

[jimufa]

Hi, I'am Milton from Venezuela i have a tv card lifeview with the conexant fusion 878A chip on it,
milton@milton-desktop:~$ sudo lsmod |grep videodev
videodev 29312 1 bttv
v4l2_common 18432 2 bttv,videodev
v4l1_compat 15364 2 bttv,videodev
Tvtime gives mi a blue screen someone know how to put this card to work in Ubuntu 7.10
Thanks

[gtr225]

Thanks for the guide, this worked perfect for my Maxron maxtv tuner card. Now I use Tvtime to watch satelite television on my computer monitor while I browse the web. However are there any programs that could allow me to record tv shows to my computer?

[pointfivezero]

Thanks for the guide, this worked perfect for my Maxron maxtv tuner card. Now I use Tvtime to watch satelite television on my computer monitor while I browse the web. However are there any programs that could allow me to record tv shows to my computer?

I think you might find this page at linuxtv to be useful...


Now as a side note to get line-in working

[pointfivezero]

...
In order to get sound please refer to the excellent instalation guide for Windows XP and hardware modification (this second bit applies to linux too)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/minkus/mm200pctv/

Awesome, thanks for the link! Since I don't have a working line-input (something to do with a rear_switch that doesn't work) this reminded about the spare cd-in wires I have around somewhere. that might just do the trick

Thanks!