TV Tuner

**Pythagoras** · 12-05-2006

I' ve got a tvtuner, AverMedia Aver TV USB. How do I set it up?
I think it is a v4l device because dmesg says

Code:

usb 2-1: V4L device registered as /dev/video0

But it also says

Code:

usb 2-1: No supported image sensor has been detected by the 'ovcamchip' module for the W996[87]CF JPEG USB Dual Mode Camera (/dev/video0). Make sure it is loaded *before* (re)connecting the camera.

if I plug out and plug it in again.
Mplayer says /dev/video0 device does not exists.
I've got the latest 2.6.18 kernel. What else do I need to forget about rebooting into Windows

?

**Roxoff** · 12-06-2006

There is some information on the Linux TV WIKI about DVB devices - theres an AverMedia USB TV box listed on there.

Normally, you'd need the right firmware for the device (that page tells you what most DVB devices need) and a player. My personal choice is Kaffeine - it supports DVB TV very very well - my Freecom DVB USB stick is much better in Linux that in that other operating system.

**Pythagoras** · 12-06-2006

I'm not sure my tuner is a DVB device. How to verify?
The one listed there is "AVerTV DVB-T USB 2.0" while mine is "Aver TV USB" (USB 1.1, btw). Have I missed something?

**Roxoff** · 12-07-2006

Originally Posted by Pythagoras

I'm not sure my tuner is a DVB device. How to verify?
The one listed there is "AVerTV DVB-T USB 2.0" while mine is "Aver TV USB" (USB 1.1, btw). Have I missed something?

Nope, your tv card is this one which appears to be purely analogue. It may not need firmware after all, but I dont know for sure.

**Pythagoras** · 12-07-2006

Yes, it's my tv tuner, an external USB 1.1 one. I don't have any experience in tv tuners in Linux. What drivers do I need? What to look for?

**Roxoff** · 12-08-2006

I've only got experience of DVB tv devices, and I followed the instructions on Linux TV to get it all working. I dont think I can be any more help to you.

**emil10001** · 12-08-2006

Hmm, I don't have much experience with v4l, or usb tv tuners, but I have gotten my Hauppeg card working with the ivtv driver. First, let me say, that these things can be quite tricky, and might be painful to install the first time around. After the initial install, they are great, and you shouldn't have any problems getting it installed again when necessasry (write a script to do it for you).

Here's my suggestion:
1. Do some research on your tuner, and find out what chipset it uses.
2. Do some research on v4l and the name of your chipset

If it looks like it's supported in your kernel under the v4l module, do a modprobe "drivername" (replace drivername with the name of the driver). Then try mplayer /dev/video0

If it doesn't look like it's supported under the v4l driver, try to find out which driver is associated with the chip. And then google "Distroname" "drivername"

I'd start by going back to the page Linux TV, just as a place to start, and you can probably stumble on some other pages too, once you figure out what the chip is for your card. And a quick check lead me to this page.

Good luck, and don't get discouraged too easily. But, if you decide that this tuner isn't right for you, I'd go with a Hauppage PVR series, they seem to be the most popular for analog tv, so finding help will be easier.

**Pythagoras** · 12-08-2006

Here is some info I found:
A Philips radio component, a Winbond W9968CF chip for usb communication, a Philips SAA7111AHZ multistandard videoinput processor with anti-aliasing filter and a PT2313L audioprocessor.

Code:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1046:9967 Winbond Electronics Corp. [hex] W9967CF/W9968CF WebCam IC
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0424:0140 Standard Microsystems Corp.

I already have w9968cf driver:

Code:

$ cat /proc/modules | grep w9968cf
w9968cf 70753 0 - Live 0xd8998000
compat_ioctl32 5569 1 w9968cf, Live 0xd88f8000
videodev 27073 1 w9968cf, Live 0xd8964000
i2c_core 25537 4 i2c_ec,ovcamchip,w9968cf,i2c_i801, Live 0xd88c9000

Even more, udev created a /dev/video0 file:

Code:

$ ls /dev | grep video
video
video0

But I still can't open it:

Code:

$ mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video0:driver=v4l
MPlayer 1.0rc1-rpm.livna.org-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(TM) CPU                1000MHz (Family: 6, Model: 11, Stepping: 1)
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing tv://.
TV file format detected.
Selected driver: v4l
 name: Video 4 Linux input
 author: Alex Beregszaszi
 comment: under development
unable to open '/dev/video0': No such device


MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: demux_open
- MPlayer crashed by bad usage of CPU/FPU/RAM.
  Recompile MPlayer with --enable-debug and make a 'gdb' backtrace and
  disassembly. Details in DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports_what.html#bugreports_crash.
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
  It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your
  gcc version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read
  DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html and follow the instructions there. We can't and
  won't help unless you provide this information when reporting a possible bug.

I have no idea what to do

.

**emil10001** · 12-08-2006

Just a thought, try doing:
cat /dev/video0 > tv0 #cancel after a couple of seconds
mplayer tv0

This is something I use a lot to test the video. If that works, you can have a couple of terminals open, one with the cat command running, and the other with mplayer playing that file. This is what I was doing until I got mythtv up and running, because it results in better playback than straight from the video card.

Another thought, would be if you could use the serial port for the usb, to pipe the output to a file, then play the file (instead of using /dev/video0 ), but that might be a bit more confusing.

Also, what do you when you do a:
dmesg | grep v4l
or
dmesg | grep w9968cf
look to see if the firmware loaded properly.

**Pythagoras** · 12-08-2006

Code:

$ cat /dev/video0 > tv0
cat: /dev/video0: No such device
$ dmesg | grep v4l
$ dmesg | grep V4L
w9968cf: V4L driver for W996[87]CF JPEG USB Dual Mode Camera Chip 1:1.33-basic
usb 2-1: V4L device registered as /dev/video0
$ dmesg | grep w9968cf
w9968cf: V4L driver for W996[87]CF JPEG USB Dual Mode Camera Chip 1:1.33-basic
usbcore: registered new driver w9968cf

Another thought, would be if you could use the serial port for the usb, to pipe the output to a file, then play the file (instead of using /dev/video0 ), but that might be a bit more confusing.

As far as I understood I need to send some request to the tuner first, don't I?

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