TV Capture

Summary

• Television video and audio robust in live tv on clitunno -- tvtime for local viewing, xawtv or motv remote.
  
• Recording works for both audio and video, in sync, using the channel script in /usr/local/bin:

  channel  <channel number> <recording time in minutes> <optional title> <optional card>
  

• However, the bttv driver seems to deliver significantly better quality than the cx88 driver, so don't use the analog driver for the pcHDTV cards.
• Note that mencoder supports -ovc nuv for nuppelvideo -- may be worth experimenting with this
• Use kcron to set up recording jobs.
  
  

• is it possible to instruct v4l to return timestamps based on CLOCK_MONOTONIC instead of CLOCK_REALTIME, which gettimeofday() uses? It would simplify capturing the video as now one has to disable tools like ntp during longer captures to ensure the a/v sync will be reliable. (I didn't know this and don't quite know what to do about it.)
• System clock jitter is far from being the only source of A/V de-synchronization. The difference between the nominal and true sampling frequency in whatever sound capture device is used, can be worse.  We have a 24/7 video capture system, on which
  
• (1) we use ntp
  
• (2) trust the system clock (system, audio and video clocks are somewhat unreliable, so you have to trust one of them)
  
• (3) drop or synthesize video or audio frames as needed to keep the 2 encoded fluxes synchronous with the system clock
  
• (4) the software is resistant to large skips in the system clock (one test involves resetting the clock back by 1 hour!).

Guides and software

• Haupauge WinTV Go cards for $18
  
• See the new Video4Linux wiki (I'm responsible)
  
• See also MythTV (local)
• Time-shifting FM radio and Time Shifting Radio with Linux
• kradio (in Debian)
  
• TV/Radio/Video/Frame grabbers for Linux
• DVB wiki
  
• New approaches to television archiving by Jeff Ubois
• v4l resources
• Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux -- including hardware mpeg4 encoding (March 2005)
• Recording sound without patch cable on a saa7134 card
• Gallery of cards
• Finding the right antenna
  
  
• Configuration
  
• bttv
• video4linux topics presented
• btaudio -- kernel documentation
• MythTV hints
• ALSA snd-bt87x
  
• pchdtv-tools for the 2.6 kernel by Jack Kelliher of pchdtv
• bash settings for optimizing xawtv
• home Tivo with great scripts
• truly interactive tv (excellent)
• echo "fourcc=DIVX" >> .mplayer/mencoder
• tvtime-scanner
  

• Systems
• Hacom OpenBrick-E
• Likely specs
  
• pcHDTV
• DVB with the pcHDTV HD3000 (excellent instructions for Debian sid and kernel 2.6.12 from Sep 05)
  
• cx88 video capture chip
• Documentation/video4linux/README.cx88
  
• pcHDTV wiki on LinuxTV (very useful)
• pcHDTV (review)
  
• forum
• success report (19 Feb 2005)
• Select Scan for Channels,  choose full scan, select ATSC transport as "Cable" instead of Terrestrial
• Reception issues (with local discussions)
  
• patches added to the dvb portion of the kernel
• add support for OR51132 frontend (pcHDTV HD-3000), by Gerd Knorr on 13 March 2005
  
• DVB support for the pcHDTV HD2000 card submitted by Rusty Scott (late April)
• This suggests we can use the DVB driver rather than the v4l driver...!
  
• Unofficial DVB patches added by Kirk Lapray <kirk_lapray@yahoo.com>
• Opens up for additional uses
  
• patches added to v4l by David George <david@thegeorges.us>
• added to cx88.h in Nov 04 (not merged in 2.6.11-rc3)
  
• added to tuner.c in Nov 04 (merged in 2.6.11-rc3)
• pcHDTV-1.6 from vendor
  
• README: Drivers under kernel-2.6.x have been tested against kernel 2.6.9 but should work for younger 2.6 kernels.  There appear to be significant changes happening in 2.6.10 to the PCI interface and we are told this driver has troubles compiling in 2.6.10.  We are doing our best to provide support, but we have purposely chosen to stay away from the bleeding edge.
• Conclusion: 
  
• stick with 2.6.9-ac6 and install the driver there (but current setup is working flawlessly), or
  
• leave off for now and wait until 2.6.11 or even 12 is out, then wait for driver to be ready
• Bryan J. Smith's comments -- he says unencoded HDTV is 19.2Mb/s or 2.4MB/s -- that's 8.5GB/hr
• He advises using the Netcell disk array, but it's not necessary
  
• pchdtvPVR by Merrick Johnson <inkling@nop.org>
• Test the digital part of pcHDTV -- see /usr/share/doc/xine/README.dvb.gz for using xine to watch digital tv (HDTV is a US/Korean version of DVB)
  
  
• Watching TV
  
• mplayer
  
• mplayer - < /dev/video0
• mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2
  
• xawtv
  
• xawtv -remote -noxv (watching remotely -- works without the -remote switch too)
• xawtv -remote -noxv -c /dev/video0 -C /dev/vbi0
  
• motv -remote -noxv -c /dev/video2 -C /dev/vbi2
  
• cvs
  
• xdtv
  
• FAQ with suggestions on testing display modes
• don't use the tv-fonts in this package -- conflicts with main tv-fonts
  
• kdetv (unofficial Debian packages available, but not for amd64; you could build from source)
  
• fbtv (frame buffer)
  
• motv
• aatv
  
• tvtime
• zapping (Gnome TV viewer)
  
  

• Recording
  
• ffmpeg manual
• ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 2048 -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg (poor sync)
• ffmpeg -vd /dev/video2 -f avi -vcodec h264 -r 29.97 -b 800 -s 640x480 \
  -ad /dev/dsp2 -acodec mp3 -ab 64 -t 10 video.avi (works, drops frames)
  
• try -acodec pcm_s16be -ar 8000 for mov files
• ffmpeg -ad /dev/dsp1 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -target dvd test.mpg
  
• if ffplay can play a file, you can convert it to dv using "ffmpeg -i your.avi -vcodec copy new.dv"
• aspect ratios and frame sizes
• cat /dev/video0 >dev_video0.mpg (untested, said to work)
  
• mencoder
• from analog tv to mpeg2: $ /usr/bin/mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:input=0:
  width=768:height=576:outfmt=yv12:device=/dev/video0:adevice=/dev/dsp2: audiorate=44100:forceaudio:forcechan=2:buffersize=512 -ovc lavc -lavcopts
  vcodec=mpeg2video:vbitrate=5000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128:
  mode=0  -o tv--10.11_2313.avi tv://
  
• motv
  
• record (sound only)
• krecord -- cvs
  
• streamer (good for debugging)
  
• streamer -n ntsc -t 0:10 -s 640x480 -r 30 -o stream.avi -f mjpeg -F stereo -c /dev/video1 -C /dev/dsp1
• transcode v4l2 import module
• man transcode
  
• xmltv (xmltv-gui, xmltv-util) -- program guide
• freeguide -- Debian package, java frontend (installed on clitunno, tested and works!)
• scheduled recording enhancement (announced 12 May 2005 and not yet merged)
  
• labs.zap2it.com
  
• xdtv lets you record TV directly to divX5 or libavcodec and lame (see FAQ)
• feature for setting up cron jobs for recording
• descrambler: a plugin allows you to watch encrypted channels
• nvrec (barely maintained)
• download (old download)
• run clitunno:/share/software/tarballs/nvrec-20041227/configure to see dependencies
  
• building for Debian
  
• nuppelrec -v /dev/video0 -ua OSS -d /dev/dsp1 -input Television  -o /var/tmp/test.nuv
  
• usefully combines with transcode; see /usr/share/doc/transcode/import_nvrec.txt.gz
• reputed to be good at keeping video/audio sync
  
• not updated for amd64 and wrong dependencies in Debian
  
• deb http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~mleeman/debian unstable/
  
• pchdtvPVR
  
• VCR -- command-line video capture program, in Debian (not maintained)
• VDR and KVDR (the KDE GUI) -- PC as video recorder, require DVB
• home-made bash scripts, currently using mencoder
  
• channel script -- see /usr/local/bin/channel and /ssa/TV/scripts/testing/channel.sh
  
• channel-timestamp script -- see /usr/local/bin and /ssa/TV/scripts/testing
• Note that cron's PATH must include /usr/local/bin (see kcron Variables)
  
  

• Program guides
• xmltv (xmltv-gui, xmltv-util) -- program guide, in Debian
  
• freeguide -- Debian package, java frontend (installed on clitunno), works for British, American, Canadian, German, Swedish and Norwegian program guides
  
• labs.zap2it.com
• nexTView EPG, TV Program Guide for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium; in Debian
  
  
• Closed captioning
• Information on closed captioning (link library)
• decoder-specifics
  
• bttv uses ntsc-cc (xawtv or ffmpeg/mencoder capture needs to run at the same time)
• saa7134 uses applications that link against libzvbi
• mtt, alevt, zapzilla, zvbi
  
• ivtv supports closed captioning (which application?)
  
• cx88 isn't working yet
• Tom Zoerner's explanation of what needs to be done
  
• zapping VBI library (libzvbi0 libzvbi-doc)
• zapzilla
  
• vbi proxy  -- VBI proxy daemon and wrapper (useful for automation)
• mtt 
  
• James G. Robinson's closed-captioning cleanup project description, with perl code (NYU)
• AleVT teletext/videotext decoder: http://www.goron.de/~froese/
  • Debian package: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/alevt.html
• Closed captioning card Opt III
• Linux driver: linux-opt-0.2.tar.gz pulls data from OPT III adapter
• Closed captioning on pcHDTV300
• Scott Larson wrote mplayer support (unofficial) in September 2005
  

• Scheduling
• cron is currently used for scheduling
  
• frontend kcron is nearly perfect -- but schedules in 5-min intervals
• add a job: crontab -l > cronjobs; cat newjobs >> cronjobs | crontab cronjobs
  
• usermin-cron has a great interface, with 1-minute intervals -- and it's better to do this on the web
• solutions:
• in the pilot phase, only you set the schedules -- use kcron and crontab -e
  
• for demonstratins, stick with 5-minute intervals and use kcron
• pay to get kcron to support 1-minute intervals (already bugreported)
  
• install usermin and train people to do the scheduling online -- this is the best solution
• freeguide would probably be an even better choice -- could write to cron or to pycron
  
• if to cron, then usermin-cron could be used to change it
  
• archives of the users' list and developers' list
  

• Post-processing
• pgmfindclip (finding the right clipping border automatically)
• Frame extraction
• ffmpeg -i myvideo.mp4 myframe%d.jpg
• http://www.inb.uni-luebeck.de/~boehme/libavcodec_update.html
• Convert images to movies
  
• im2avi (uses avifile and ImageMagick)
• gifsicle (also on amd64)
• gimp may be able to do this -- or film-gimp, now called CinePaint
• mencoder howto
  
• kmenc15 (gui for mencoder -- most useful for editing and encoding large high quality AVIs capped from TV. Allows cutting and merging at exact frames, applying filters and preview.)
• konverter (actively developed)
  
• transcode
  
• wiki
  

• Playing back
  
• mplayer -vo xv *mpg
• -speed <0.01-100> (Slow down or speed up playback by the factor given)
• -sstep <sec> (display one frame every <sec> seconds -- slideshows, slowmo)
  
  
• Making clips
• avidemux
  
• ffmpeg -ss 00:01:00.0 -t 00:01:00.0 -i some.mpg -vcodec dvvideo -sameq -async 1 > 1minute.dv
  
• kmenc15 (gui for mencoder -- most useful for editing and encoding large high quality AVIs capped from TV. Allows cutting and merging at exact frames, applying filters and preview.)
  
  
• Storage and access
• imgSeek -- image viewer and manager (in debian)
• annodex -- annotating and indexing networked media
• Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) -- in Debian:
  
• cmml-tools
• libcmml0
  
• libfishsound1 -- for reading CMML files
• kimdaba -- Kde tool for indexing, searching and viewing images by keywords
  

Commands

• Configuration
  
• insert the kernel modules
  
• modprobe bttv i2c_debug=1 card=13 radio=0 tuner=2
• modprobe btaudio analog=1 dsp1=1 dsp2=2 debug=1 rate=32000
• modprobe bttv i2c_debug=1 card=11,22 radio=0  tuner=33,44 (for two cards)
  
• check and set the audio channels
• amixer controls
• amixer scontrols
  
• amixer -c 0 cget numid=18
• amixer -c 0 cset numid=18 100%,100% unmute cap
• alsactl restore
• alsactl store
• dump-mixers (show mixer values)
  
• cat /proc/asound/version (check ALSA version used)
• arecord -d 5 -N -vvv foobar.wav (see man arecord)
• aplay foobar.wav
  
• tune the card from console:
• tvtime-scanner
  
• scantv -c /dev/video2 -C /dev/vbi2 (see available stations)
  
• v4lctl -c /dev/video2 list
  
• v4lctl setnorm ntsc-m
  
• v4lctl setfreqtab us-cable
• v4lctl setfreqtab us-bcast
• v4lctl setchannel 3
• v4lctl volume mute off
• v4lctl setattr automute on (sets a two-second automute on channel switching)
  
• v4lctl volume 100
  
• v4lctl audio stereo
  
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 setattr 'chroma agc' on (bttv only)
• settings for pcHDTV cards:
  
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 hue "100%"   (or "0%" -- same thing)
  
• v4lctl -c /dev/video1 bright "50%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video2 contrast "45%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 color "100%"
• Note that the /dev/video1 card needs only color "50%"
  
• V4Lmark (performance benchmark?)
  
• test video
• xawtv -hwscan
  
• test overlay mode (capture card controls display -- easy on CPU)
  
• -noxv -capture overlay
  
• -v4l1 -capture overlay
  
• -xvtv -capture overlay
  
• -xvtv_overlay on -capture overlay
  
• -xvtv_overlay off -capture overlay
• test grabdisplay mode (application controls display -- required for deinterlacing and other effects)
• -noxv -capture grabdisplay
  
• -v4l1 -capture grabdisplay
  
• -xvtv -capture grabdisplay
  
• -xvtv_overlay on -capture grabdisplay
  
• -xvtv_overlay off -capture grabdisplay
  


• Debugging
• v4l-info
• id -a (list groups you're a member of)
• atscpackets /dev/video0 3 (on KnoppMyth -- not in Debian)
• xawtv -hwscan  and xawtv -xvport xxx (xxx as result of hwscan)
• aumix -q (see available channels)
• aumix -h
• aumix -i 10 (set the input gain)
• aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -2 R  (set recording to Line2 on the TV card mixer)
• aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -2 50 (set recording volume to 50% on Line2)
  
• kmix
  
• black screen on pcHDTV -- rmmod cx8800 cx8802 cx88xx and insert them again
  


• Viewing
• Play the video coming in on the capture device (see the video4linux-list for more hints):
• cat /dev/video0 | xine -
• cat /dev/video0 | mplayer -nocache -
• basically you can pipe it to any application
• Remote
• ssh clit xawtv -remote -noxv (try without the -remote switch)
• remote sound -- see nas under Sound
• Playback of captured file
• mplayer -autosync 30 (fixes minor sync problems from mencoder captures)
• kplayer (under Settings | Configure kplayer | Advanced | Additional commandline arguments:
• -autosync 30
  

• Capture
• ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 2048 -an -s 720x480 -t 10 video.mpg
• be sure to specify threads=2 in the ffmpeg.cfg file
• ffmpeg -s 176x144 -i f%d.yuv -o f.avi  (concatenating several files into one)
  
  
• transcode v4l2 import module
• import v4l into transcode (dated -- don't use v4l, it has no sync features)
  
• transcode -x v4l2 -o tvtest.avi -f 29.970 -i /dev/video0 -y ffmpeg -F mpeg4 -p /dev/dsp -b 128
  -g 720x480 -I 1 --print_status 20 -u 128 -c 0-60:00 -H 0 -w 1500 -q 1 -J hqdn3d=pre=1,smartyuv
• this is tested and works (5 March 2005)
• Sync is fine -- but you could try this if there's a persistent problem
  
• -T 2,15 -- resync when audio differs from video by at least 2 frames and check every 15 frames
  
• Try -y xvid or -y xvid,null without audio
• -J hqdn3d=pre=1 -- High Quality 3D Denoiser
• -J smartyuv -- Smart YUV Deinterlacer Test Filter Settings
• Make sure -J values (import filters) are concatenated (give -J once and use commas, as above)
• duration in frames or hours, minutes, and seconds: -c 0-01:05:00
  
• -q 2 -- verbose debug level
• -x mplayer,mplayer -- use mplayer as import filter

• mencoder capture commands
• encoding options
  
• timelapse
• use ~./mplayer/mencoder to set configuration defaults
• HOWTO Mencoder Introduction Guide - Gentoo Linux Wiki
• HARDWARE saa7134 - Gentoo Linux Wiki
• MPlayer documentation with several examples
  
• mencoder -ovc help
  
• Active
  mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video$DEV
  -ffourcc DIVX -fps 29.97 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq -oac mp3lame
  -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos $TIM -o $DIR/$FIL.mpg tv:// > /dev/null
  
• Ed Gomez' mencoder onepass:
  mencoder -ovc xvid -xvidencopts max_bframes=2:bquant_ratio=150:
  bquant_offset=75:bf_threshold=0:chroma_me:vhq=1:trellis
  -vf crop=704:416,scale=500:270 -sws 9
  #:qpel:quant_type=mpeg:turbo:cartoon:me_quality=1
  -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=96:q=0:aq=0:mode=1 -o output.avi
  
• Ed Gomez' mencoder xvid 2-pass:
  mencoder -ovc xvid -xvidencopts
  max_bframes=1:bquant_ratio=150:bquant_offset=100:bf_threshold=0:
  chroma_me:vhq=4:trellis:qpel:bitrate=700
  -vf crop=704:416,scale=500:270 -sws 9
  #quant_type=mpeg:turbo:cartoon:me_quality=1:packed
  #-rawvideo on:format=I420:w=352:h=288 -fps 30
  -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=96:q=0:aq=0:mode=1 -o output.avi
  
• Guillaume Poirier's two-pass benchmark:
  Filters: -vf crop=688:448:18:60,pp=fd,scale=480:288 (this speeds encoding quite a bit)
  XviD options:  max_bframes=2:me_quality=6:chroma_me:chroma_opt:trellis:\
  closed_gop:hq_ac:vhq=4:bvhq=1:autoaspect:psnr:bitrate=900
  Source: MPEG-2 (PAL DVD)  518,960 secs, 12975 frames
  
• mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480:norm=ntsc-m -ovc xvid
  -xvidencopts bitrate=900 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos
  $TIM -o $DIR/$FIL.mpg tv:// > /dev/null
• mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900
  -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 -o output.avi tv://
• mencoder -tv  on:driver=v4l:device=/dev/video0:norm=NTSC:width=320:height=240 -oac copy -ovc lavc
  -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=800 -vop pp=lb -endpos $2 -o $f.avi 2> /dev/null > /dev/null
• encoding a tv-captured file to H264 (use threads=1 for single processor):
  mencoder 2*avi -o /dev/null -oac copy -ovc x264 -x264encopts \
      pass=1:bitrate=400:bframes=3:subq=2:threads=2
  mencoder 2*avi -o out.avi -oac copy -ovc x264 -x264encopts \
      pass=2:bitrate=400:bframes=3:subq=6:threads=2:frameref=4:8x8dct
  
• encoding to H264 (2 pass, lots of features):
  mencoder -ss 00:00:00.400 -frames 1000 -sws 9 -vf crop=720:416:0:82,
  scale=640:256,harddup source.vob -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=1:
  qp_constant=22:cabac:deblock:frameref=3:subq=4 -o NUL: -passlogfile "x264_2pass.log"
  mencoder -ss 00:00:00.400 -frames 1000 -sws 9 -vf crop=720:416:0:82,
  scale=640:256,harddup source.vob -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=2:
  bitrate=650:cabac:deblock:frameref=3:subq=5 -of avi -ffourcc VSSH -o output.avi -passlogfile "x264_2pass.log"
  
• mencoder HDTV capture
• First pass:
  mencoder -vfm ffmpeg <hdtv-1080i-mpeg-ts-file> -tsprog 1 -vop hqdn3d=4:3:3,
  scale=1024:576,harddup,softskip,filmdint=crop=1908:1078:4:0 -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:psnr:mbd=2:v4mv:aspect=16/9:vmax_b_frames=1:trell:cbp:
  cmp=2:precmp=2:subcmp=2:vb_qoffset=0.5:vpass=1:vdpart:vpsize=1000:
  vqcomp=0.75:lmin=4:lmax=4 -force-avi-aspect 16/9 -sws 1 -fps 29.97 -ofps 23.976
  
• Second pass:
  mencoder -vfm ffmpeg <hdtv-1080i-mpeg-ts-file> -tsprog 1 -vop hqdn3d=4:3:3,
  scale=1024:576,harddup,softskip,filmdint=crop=1908:1078:4:0 -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:psnr:mbd=2:v4mv:aspect=16/9:vmax_b_frames=1:trell:cbp:cmp=2:
  precmp=2:subcmp=2:vb_qoffset=0.5:vpass=3:vqcomp=0.75:vbitrate=1000:
  vdpart:vpsize=1000 -force-avi-aspect 16/9 -sws 1 -fps 29.97 -ofps 23.976
  
• ntsc-cc -c  >> file.txt
  
• record -h (xawtv-tools' recorder)
  
• motv (capture from gui)
  
• test sound from TV card
• sox your_file.wav -t ossdsp -w -s /dev/dsp
  
• test sound capture (none of the sox commands are currently working)
  
• sox -c 1 -u -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 test.wav
• read audio data from btaudio (dsp2), send to es1730 (dsp,dsp1):
• sox -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp2 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp
• read audio data from the saa7134 card and pipe it to /dev/dsp?
  
• sox -c 2 -s -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp
• read audio data from btaudio, send to esound daemon (which might be running on another host):
  
• sox -c 2 -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp2 -t sw - | esdcat -r 32000
• sox -c 1 -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp2 -t sw - | esdcat -m -r 32000
• streamer -n ntsc -q -t $2 -s 320x240 -r 20 -o $f.avi -f jpeg -j 86 -F stereo 2>> tmp/TV_rec.err
• streamer -h for commands
• streamer -d -o test.avi for debug
  
  
• Convertions
  
• extract stills (how can you extract only reference frames -- and name them by timestamp?)
  
• ffmpeg -i video.mpg png/test-%04d.png  (convert an mpeg movie to png images)
• ffmpeg -i video.mpg -r 1 -f image test-%04d.png (extract every 30th frame)
• ffmpeg -an -y -t 0:0:0.001 -ss 0:0:4.000 -i  video.mpg -s 320x240 -f image -img jpeg image%d.jpg (over a time interval)
  
• display 'vid:*.png' (show a screenfull of stills)
  
• turn a png files into an animated gif
• convert -delay 5 -loop 0 frame-???.png movie.gif  (works -- creates an animated gif)
• turn a sequence of images into a movie
  
• ls -1 | grep .png > image_list.txt  (create a list of images to convert)
• transcode -i image_list.txt -x imlist,null -g 720x480 --use_rgb -z -y ffmpeg,null -F mpeg4 -o test1.avi -H 0 -f 29.97
  
• convert *.png movie.mpg (requires mpeg2encode)
  
• set the quality at 99 or better to avoid frame drops
  
• convert *.png video-0%d.jpg (no need to do this)
  
• convert captured files to be playable in windows media player:
• ffmpeg -i original.mpg -acodec adpcm_ms -vcodec mpeg4 new.asf
  
  
• Concatenation
  
• concatenate two or more mpeg files
• mpgtx
  
• cat foo.mpg bar.mpg > bah.mpg
• use zip -0 and rename the file .mpg
• use tar ditto (better)
  

Alsa mixer settings

• Master
• PCM (for soundcard playback -- not used by TV)
• Line (the first of the three Line components)
• Analog Mix (the first of two -- for TV playback)
• Analog Mix (the second of two -- for TV recording)
• Audigy Analog Output Jack (unmute)
• EMU10K1 PCM (both -- for soundcard playback)
• Front

• Audigy Analog/Digital Output Jack (to hear anything)
  
• Line (for TV playback)
  
• Front

• arecord -d 5 -D hw:1 -f S16_LE -c2 -r32000 test.wav (record from a saa713x tv capture card)

Capture and recording (see Digital Video Archive for main links)

• channel.sh -- script for recording, use with at jobs (accessible remotely)
  
• motv -- records with decent sync
  
• xdtv lets you record TV directly to divX5 or libavcodec and lame (see FAQ)
  
• feature for setting up cron jobs for recording
  
• descrambler: a plugin allows you to watch encrypted channels
• VCR -- command-line video capture program, in Debian (not maintained)
  
• VDR and KVDR (the KDE GUI) -- PC as video recorder, require DVB
  
• NVrec (not maintained)

Data sheets

• http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/pdf/Bt848.pdf
  
• http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/pdf/Bt878.pdf (local copy in /ssa/clips/TV*)
  
• http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/pdf/cx2388x.pdf
  
• http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/pdf/SAA7130HL_1.pdf
  
• http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/pdf/SAA7134HL_1.pdf
  

Linux VCR

"VCR is a non-interactive text-console video recorder for video4linux supported capture cards. It can real-time encode video using popular Windows codecs like DivX ;-) etc." Good but no longer maintained.

• Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/vcr/
• Home page: http://www.stack.nl/~brama/vcr/
• GUI for programming through a web browser: http://webvcr.sourceforge.net/
  

This is the method I use, but if you plan to start using it, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. The maintainer is no longer maintaining it. I have been working with the Debian developer who maintains the package on a couple of issues.

2. The program has a 2GB limitation. At 2GB, it just quits recording, not even exiting gracefully. Using the recommended DivX ;-) Low Motion codec (which records at about 875MB/hour), 2GB equates to a hair over 2 hours and 15 minutes. I have recently started using DivX5.0 for the codec and found that I am getting about 450MB/hr, which gives me almost 4 1/2 hours at a stretch.

3. Postprocessing can take a bit more time than the movie itself, but using mencoder, I generally get very good results. Generally speaking, record using vcr, then run mencoder -idx, then use avidemux for commercial removal. After that, I use a 3-pass DivX conversion. Result is not DVD quality, but for television, its very good."

Post-processing

• Deinterlacing -- a plugin for xawtv: http://xaw-deinterlace.sourceforge.net/

Streaming

• see streaming
  

Hardware and drivers

• Capture card overview (Australia)
• List of tuner cards (by chipset)
• Gallery of capture cards
• MythTV hardware database
• Tom's Hardware on TV cards (April 2000)
  
  
• Frame grabber drivers
  
• Bt848 or Bt878 video capture chip
• /usr/src/linux/Documentation/video4linux/bttv
• AverTV Stereo
• Hauppauge product list
• saa7134 video capture chip
• Lifeview FlyVideo 3000 TV capture card ($149)
• http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134
• purchased two for $43 each -- see image
• get more here
  
• chip SAA7133HL/101
  
• cx88 video capture chip
  
• pcHDTV (review)
  
• forum
• patches by by David George <david@thegeorges.us>
• added to cx88.h in Nov 04 (not merged in 2.6.11-rc3)
  
• added to tuner.c in Nov 04 (merged in 2.6.11-rc3)
• 
  
• ivtv video capture chip
  
• Hauppauge PVR-250 and 350 (with mpeg2 encoding)
  
• Hauppauge product list
• Studio DC10 -- the DC10+ has a compression chip
• tuners with mpeg4 encoding
• ETT Philips 7134 with mpeg4 compression ($36)
• Kworld XPERT TV - PVR 883 (incipient Linux driver)
• Kworld XPERT TV - PVR 7134
• PCI-X compatible
  
• LifeView FlyVideo-3000FM
  
• Osprey (no tuner)
• MPEG encoder cards
• DVD Plus 3210 from Aviosys
  
• Aviosys DVD Plus 3210 Mpeg4/2/1 for both Windows & Linux (Fall 2004)
• DSP Research V1304 / 1302 / 1301 -- H.264 encoder cards, see datasheet and software package and retailer
• Plextor TV402U
• HowTo by Steve Dibb
  
• Official GPL'd Linux drivers -- supports both PAL and NTSC tuners
• Press release
  
• NTSC tuner version
• PAL/SECAM tuner version
  
• V4L2 (other supported devices)
  
• Project list
  

Gstreamer

See http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Gstreamer

Mpeg encoder cards

Lots of mpeg encoder board reviews by Warren Young -- http://tangentsoft.net/video/mpeg/reviews/ -- the the comparative tables. He likes the DViCO FusionMPEG ($380), see http://tangentsoft.net/video/mpeg/reviews/fusion.html -- doesn't seem to be available in the US. He comments, "Like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR, the FusionMPEG is designed for time-shifting live TV, like a TiVo box." However, the audio is poor.

Warren Young writes, "Modern TV tuner cards have at least a 640x480 frame size, but there are a few that have 720x480, which is the actual resolution of the TV signal. Beware: your card's software might offer you a 720x480 mode, but it may well simply be a 640x480 picture stretched out to 720x480. To know if your card truly supports 720x480, capture the same picture at both resolutions, then take the 640x480 version and use a good paint program to scale that image up to 720x480. If you can't tell the difference between the two, your card is probably scaling the picture. You want to use a highly-detailed still picture for this test, like a paused DVD." -- see http://tangentsoft.net/video/tv-tuners.html

I wrote to Warren Young at tangent@cyberport.com on 30 December 2001 asking for advice.

See also compression. 

Video-in driver

RivaTV is a V4L driver for nVidia cards with a video-in feature.

RivaTV can be found at http://rivatv.sourceforge.net/

Questions can be asked on rivatv-help@ or rivatv-devel@lists.sf.net.

Linux video capture interface: v1.00

Modifications to Knoppmyth installation

• open a console
• su root
  
• mkdir gubbio
  
• mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 gubbio
• chroot gubbio
• vi /etc/lilo.conf -- vga=normal
  

• mkdir /mnt/vm && mount -t ext3 /dev/hdg1 /mnt/vm
• apt-get update
• apt-get install nano wajig
  
• ln -sf /usr/bin/wajig /usr/bin/just
• ln -sf /usr/bin/nano /usr/bin/pico
  
• ln -sf /usr/bin/atscpackets /usr/bin/signal
• just force libxv1
• just install xawtv
• cd /mnt/vm/knoppmyth/installation
• cp .bash* /root
• cp XF* /etc/X11
• cp fstab /etc
  
• cp hosts /etc
• cp interfaces /etc/network
• ifup eth0
• ssh sigillo -t steen
  
• su root
• cd /root/.ssh
  
• pico known_hosts
  
• cp /root/.ssh/a* gubbio:/root/.ssh
• scp /etc/ssh/sshd_config gubbio:/etc/ssh
• just restart ssh
  

• echo "auto eth0" >> /etc/network/interfaces && echo "iface eth0 inet dhcp" >> /etc/network/interfaces && ifup eth0
  

Installation history

16 April 2006

Speedup with two threads benchmarks

http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~tuukkat/mplayer/tests/x264test4/readme.html

transcode -x v4l2=resync_margin=1:resync_interval=250,v4l2 -M 2 -H 0 \
-i /dev/video$DEV -p /dev/dsp$DEV -y ffmpeg -F h264 -c 00:$TIM \
-g 640x480 -f 29.970,4 -w 800 -Q 5 -u 1024,2 -e 32000,16,2 -b 96 \
-o $DIR/$FIL.h264 --progress_off

# Switches                                                 File-size  CPU    Memory
# -w 500 video bitrate (cf. "bits/pixel .054")
# -b 96 (disables "--lame_preset medium") audio bitrate
# -I 1  De-interlacing through scanline interpolation       none      +3%?
# -Q 3  Quality (1-5, 5 is best)
# -u 128                                                                        7%
# -u 512                                                                       24%
# -u 1024 makes transcode run out of buffers                                   48%
# -H 0  Turn off probing, gets rid of error messages
# --encode_fields t --crop 0,0,0,0
# --progress_off should remove details from the mailed logs
# ALSA import ability is in the works --
# cf. http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode?WorkingOn

This gives good results on a dual-core, but creates garbage on a single CPU (messed-up sound).

26 March 2006 -- sound to ffmpeg on esteve

Files encoded to h264 using mencoder don't stream properly to any platform, although they play fine, also in amd64. Files encoded in ffmpeg, however, stream perfectly. I therefore looked to see if I can record tv using ffmpeg instead of mencoder. The problem is referring to the sound device.

ffmpeg -threads 2 -vd /dev/video$DEV -r 29.97 -b 800 -s 576x432 -vcodec h264 -qmax 51 \
-me epzs -deinterlace -g 300 -async 1 -acodec mp3 -ab 64 -ar 32000 -ad /dev/dsp$DEV \
-t $TIM -f avi -y $DIR/$FIL.avi

works, but there's no sound. On the other hand, I get sound here:

sox -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t .wav test.wav

while tv is playing.  How do I tell ffmpeg to access the sound?

I discovered the saa7134-alsa module, inserted with

saa7134-alsa index=1,2,3,4

/dev/audio1
/dev/audio2
/dev/audio3
/dev/audio4
/dev/dsp1
/dev/dsp2
/dev/dsp3
/dev/dsp4
/dev/mixer1
/dev/mixer2
/dev/mixer3
/dev/mixer4

/dev/snd/controlC1
/dev/snd/controlC2
/dev/snd/controlC3
/dev/snd/controlC4
/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c
/dev/snd/pcmC2D0c
/dev/snd/pcmC3D0c
/dev/snd/pcmC4D0c

Moreover, I discovered that

alsamixergui -c 1

aumix -d /dev/dsp1

sudo alsactl store 1

# amixer controls | grep Capture
numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
numid=27,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Switch'
numid=28,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Volume'
numid=40,iface=MIXER,name='IEC958 Capture Switch'

# amixer -c 0 cget numid=26
numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
  ; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw---,values=2,items=8
  ; Item #0 'Mic'
  ; Item #1 'CD'
  ; Item #2 'Video'
  ; Item #3 'Aux'
  ; Item #4 'Line'
  ; Item #5 'Mix'
  ; Item #6 'Mix Mono'
  ; Item #7 'Phone'
  : values=0,0

# amixer -c 0 cset numid=26 5,5
numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
  ; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw---,values=2,items=8
  ; Item #0 'Mic'
  ; Item #1 'CD'
  ; Item #2 'Video'
  ; Item #3 'Aux'
  ; Item #4 'Line'
  ; Item #5 'Mix'
  ; Item #6 'Mix Mono'
  ; Item #7 'Phone'
  : values=5,5

# amixer -c 0 cset numid=28 15,15
numid=28,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=15,step=0
  : values=15,15

That's probably enough -- but no, no luck. I made files on chianti and esteve and compared them:

alsactl store -f chianti-alsa
alsactl store -f esteve-alsa

On the positive side, the video that is captured directly to h264 with ffmpeg streams beautifully -- and I can capture at quite high quality without maxing out the CPU. So we're down to getting sound off the card with ffmpeg.

25 March 2006 -- autodetection

The kernel loads the cards on esteve incorrectly, so put this in /etc/modprobe.d/saa7134:

options saa7134 card=2,2,2,2 tuner=43,43,43,43 video_nr=1,2,3,4 vbi_nr=1,2,3,4 \ radio_nr=1,2,3,4 alsa=1,1,1,1

  saa7134-alsa index=1,2,3,4

21 March 2006 -- saa7134 on PCI-X

I discovered to my shock that the LifeView FlyVideo-3000FM cards fit in the PCI-X slot! I borrowed a card from Chianti and tested it on Clitunno. The picture comes through fine, I can record audio, and closed captioning works. Modules  unload and reload fine:

modprobe saa7134 video_nr=2 vbi_nr=2 dsp_nr=2 mixer_nr=2 radio_nr=2 card=2 \
    tuner=43 oss=1

saa7133[0]: registered device video2 [v4l2]
saa7133[0]: registered device vbi2
saa7133[0]: registered device radio2
saa7133[0]: registered device dsp2
saa7133[0]: registered device mixer2

aumix -d /dev/mixer2 -1 R
sox -w -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp2 -t .wav test.wav (works!)

zvbi-ntsc-cc -d /dev/vbi2 -cp (works!)

/etc/init.d/alsa unload

xdtv -c /dev/video2 -C /dev/vbi2 -v 0 -mixer_dev /dev/mixer2 -audio_dev /dev/audio2 -mixer_tvchan line1

12 February 2006 -- testing ffmpeg codecs

Testing ffmpeg on chianti -- get a list of video encoding codecs with "ffmpeg -formats | grep EV", using

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video2 -f avi -vcodec h264  -r 29.97 -b 800 -s 640x480 -ad /dev/dsp2 -acodec mp3 -ab 64  -t 10 video.avi

Codecs tested:

• ffv1 -- "under development, files encoded with it may not be decodeable with future versions"
• h264 -- 100% cpu usage, excellent quality, good sound -- but skips frames (you're close)
  
• rawvideo -- doens't stop recording, unplayable
• mpeg4 -- 19% cpu usage, records fine, lots of skips
• xvid (libxvidcore4 1.1.0-final-0.0) -- records something but doesn't stop, unplayable
  
• mpeg1video -- 22 cpu usage, records fine, very blocky, sync problems or no sound
• msmpeg4 --  22 cpu usage, records fine, plays fine, tcprobe says DIV3
• msmpeg4v1 -- unplayable
  
• msmpeg4v2 -- same as msmpeg4
  

21 November 2005: pcHDTV on trevi

Instructions

I rebuilt the 2.6.14 kernel, as I'd forgotten to include the cx88-dvb driver. On pchdtv.com, I find this:

Start with a fresh boot and try to load the modules in this order:

modprobe cx8800
modprobe cx8802
modprobe cx88-dvb

cx8800 is the analog section and will cause the tuner module to load, which cx88-dvb needs. cx88-dvb won't autoload the tuner because of some depmod issues.

cx8802 has some functions cx88-dvb needs, and is usually autoloaded when you load cx88-dvb, but no harm in manual load.

cx88-dvb is the actual dvb driver.

cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.5 loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:04.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
CORE cx88[0]: subsystem: 7063:3000, board: pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV [card=22,autodetected]
TV tuner 52 at 0x1fe, Radio tuner -1 at 0x1fe
cx88[0]/0: found at 0000:03:04.0, rev: 5, irq: 21, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfc000000
tuner 1-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (cx88[0])
tuner 1-0061: type set to 52 (Thomson DDT 7610 (ATSC/NTSC))
cx88[0]/0: registered device video0 [v4l2]
cx88[0]/0: registered device vbi0
cx88[0]/0: registered device radio0
cx2388x blackbird driver version 0.0.5 loaded
cx2388x dvb driver version 0.0.5 loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:04.2[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
cx88[0]/2: found at 0000:03:04.2, rev: 5, irq: 21, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfd000000
cx88[0]/2: cx2388x based dvb card
DVB: registering new adapter (cx88[0]).
DVB: registering frontend 0 (Oren OR51132 VSB/QAM Frontend)...

cx88_dvb                8900  0
mt352                   7044  1 cx88_dvb
or51132                 9796  1 cx88_dvb
video_buf_dvb           5380  1 cx88_dvb
dvb_core               82364  1 video_buf_dvb
crc32                   4416  1 dvb_core
lgdt330x                8348  1 cx88_dvb
cx22702                 6276  1 cx88_dvb
dvb_pll                 8836  3 cx88_dvb,or51132,cx22702
cx88_blackbird         14292  0
cx8802                 10372  2 cx88_dvb,cx88_blackbird
firmware_class          9280  2 or51132,cx88_blackbird
tuner                  39464  0
cx8800                 31116  1 cx88_blackbird
cx88xx                 58336  4 cx88_dvb,cx88_blackbird,cx8802,cx8800
i2c_algo_bit            9032  1 cx88xx
video_buf              20036  6 cx88_dvb,video_buf_dvb,cx88_blackbird,cx8802,
                               cx8800,cx88xx
ir_common               8516  1 cx88xx
tveeprom               14992  1 cx88xx
btcx_risc               4616  3 cx8802,cx8800,cx88xx

#!/bin/sh
rm -rf /dev/dvb/adapter*/*
device=0
for card in `seq 0 3`; do
  mkdir -p /dev/dvb/adapter$card
  device=`echo $card \* 64 | bc`
  for dev in video audio sec frontend demux dvr ca net osd; do
    mknod /dev/dvb/adapter${card}/${dev}0 c 212 $device
    chmod 0660 /dev/dvb/adapter${card}/${dev}0
    let device=device+1
  done
done

  modprobe -rv cx88_blackbird
  modprobe -rv cx88-dvb
  modprobe -rv cx8800
  modprobe -v cx88-dvb

cvs -z3 -d ':pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxtv.org:/cvs/linuxtv' co -P dvb-apps

$(MAKE) -C ttusb_dec_reset $(MAKECMDGOALS)

# Download the firmware
mkdir -p /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
cd /usr/lib/hotplug
wget http://pchdtv.com/downloads/firmware.tar.gz
tar zxf firmware.tar.gz
rm -f firmware.tar.gz

rw-r--r-- 1 501 501 12772 Feb 11  2005 dvb-fe-or51132-qam.fw
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 501 17532 Feb 11  2005 dvb-fe-or51132-vsb.fw
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 501  8518 Feb 15  2005 dvb-fe-or51211.fw

atscscan /share/usr/local/share/dvb/scan/atsc/us-NTSC-center-frequencies-8VSB

DVB: registering frontend 0 (Oren OR51132 VSB/QAM Frontend)...
or51132: Waiting for firmware upload(dvb-fe-or51132-vsb.fw)...
or51132: Version: 10001134-19430000 (113-4-194-3)
or51132: Firmware upload complete.
or51132: Waiting for firmware upload(dvb-fe-or51132-qam.fw)...
or51132: Version: 10001334-17430000 (133-4-174-3)
or51132: Firmware upload complete.

$ azap c88
using '/dev/dvb/adaptusing '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
tuning to 609000000 Hz
video pid 0x0000, audio pid 0x0000
status 00 | signal 3999 | snr f703 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 00 | signal 6ac0 | snr eb9d | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 00 | signal 6b84 | snr efc7 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 00 | signal a936 | snr f7b7 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |

$ atscscan /share/usr/local/share/dvb/scan/atsc/us-CA-SF-Bay-Area
scanning /share/usr/local/share/dvb/scan/atsc/us-CA-SF-Bay-Area
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
>>> tune to: 503000000:8VSB
WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!

just install libxml-xpath-perl
cd /share/software/cvs/dvb-apps/dvb-apps-1/util/szap/channels-conf/atsc
perl make_atsc_chanconf.pl 90024 > /home/steen/.azap/channels-90024.conf

$ azap -r KVCR -c channels-90024.conf

$ azap -r KVCR -c channels-90024.conf
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
tuning to 545000000 Hz
video pid 0x0000, audio pid 0x0000
status 00 | signal ae55 | snr cd37 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 1f | signal 19db | snr ab87 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 1d2e | snr aaa5 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 1333 | snr a3f7 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 00 | signal 3999 | snr c09b | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |
status 1f | signal 1645 | snr a69b | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 0a3d | snr cd37 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 1ef9 | snr ab29 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 0d0e | snr 9b4f | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status 00 | signal 3999 | snr cd37 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |

-PID--FREQ-----BANDWIDTH-BANDWIDTH-
0000     1 p/s     0 kb/s     2 kbit
0001     0 p/s     0 kb/s     1 kbit
0002     1 p/s     0 kb/s     2 kbit

Los Angeles, CA
     Los Angeles, CA - OTA
     Los Angeles, CA - Adelphia
     Los Angeles, CA - Charter
     Los Angeles, CA - Comcast
     Los Angeles, CA - DBS
     Orange County, CA - Cox

 av7110_loadkeys - tool to load keyfiles of ir-remotes
 evtest - find out events-keys to generate a keyfile for your remote
 femon  - monitor the singal-strength... of your card
 scan   - scan all transponders and generate a channels.conf
 azap   - scan for ATSC channels?
 czap   - simple zapping tool for the Linux DVB API (DVB-C-Cards)
 szap   - simple zapping tool for the Linux DVB API (DVB-S-Cards)
 tzap   - simple zapping tool for the Linux DVB API (DVB-T-Cards)

dvbsnoop -- DVB / MPEG stream analyzer
dvbstream -- Broadcast a DVB Transport stream over a LAN
dvbtune -- Simple tuning application for DVB cards

cat atsc-patch | patch -p1

28 October 2005: recording from bttv with 2.6.14 on trevi

For a year I postponed upgrading the kernel on trevi and stuck with 2.6.9-ac6, as I was unable to record from the tv card on 2.6.12, using the Audigy2 Value card.  Unnecessary really -- I wrote detailed instructions for finding the capture channel at http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/TVCapture_98 -- in brief,

• amixer controls | grep Capture
• use Analog Mix Capture Volume
  
• amixer -c 0 cset numid=19 100%,100% unmute cap
  

The capture channel had simply been moved from 18 to 19 during an ALSA upgrade.  You don't need the snd_bt87x module.

22 April 2005: btaudio on trevi

It looks like the snd_bt87x module may block the btaudio module's creation of device nodes -- I had to remove it first to get this:

modprobe btaudio analog=1 dsp1=2 dsp2=1 debug=1 rate=32000

ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:03:04.1[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 03:04.1, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfb6ff000
btaudio: using card config "default"
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp2 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer0

modprobe btaudio analog=1 digital=0 debug=3

aumix -d /dev/mixer0

aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -2 R

aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -2 50

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=30000/1001:chanlist=us-cable:audiorate=32000:
adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4 -ffourcc DIVX -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos 60 -o test.avi tv://5

The analog mode supports mono only.  Both 8 + 16 bit.  Both are _signed_ int, which is uncommon for the 8 bit case.  Sample rate range is 119 kHz to 448 kHz.  Yes, the number of digits is correct.  The driver supports downsampling by powers of two, so you can ask for more usual sample rates like 44 kHz too.

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=30000/1001:chanlist=us-cable:
audiorate=32000:adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4 -ffourcc DIVX
-ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos 10 -o test.avi tv://5

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=30000/1001:chanlist=us-cable:
audiorate=448000:adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4 -ffourcc DIVX
-ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos 10 -o test.avi -srate 30000 tv://5

Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 32000 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 512.0 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 64000->64000)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm:pcm (Uncompressed PCM)

# dump-mixers
/dev/mixer0 = Audigy2 (SigmaTel STAC9750/51)
  vol        ( 0) :  mono          100
  bass       ( 1) :  stereo        50/50
  treble     ( 2) :  stereo        50/50
  synth      ( 3) :  stereo        0/0
  pcm        ( 4) :  stereo        54/54
  speaker    ( 5) :  mono          0
  line       ( 6) :  stereo        100/100
  mic        ( 7) :  stereo        0/0
  cd         ( 8) :  stereo        0/0
  pcm2       (10) :  stereo        0/0
  line1      (14) :  stereo        0/0
  dig1       (17) :  mono          0
  phin       (20) :  mono          0
  phout      (21) :  mono          0
/dev/mixer1 = bt878 (Brooktree Bt878 audio)
  line1      (14) :  mono    rec   0
  line2      (15) :  mono    rec*  46
  line3      (16) :  mono    rec   0

21 April 2005: tvtime

I began by running tvtime-scanner, which creates a list of detected stations in ~./tvtime. I then did this:

ssh -X chi
export DISPLAY=128.97.221.30:0.0
xhost +128.97.221.30

tvtime -n NTSC -X 128.97.221.30:0.0

tvtime -d /dev/video1 -b /dev/vbi1 -n NTSC -f us-broadcast -x /dev/mixer1:line -m -S

TOGGLE_CC

Enables closed caption information to be displayed in the tvtime window.
Closed captioning is only available if you have enabled VBI reading in your tvtime.xml configuration file.

<option name="ShowCC" value="1"/>
<option name="VBIDevice" value="/dev/vbi1"/>

ntsc-cc -d /dev/vbi -c -w -r 27

21 April 2005: closed captioning with saa7134

• libzvbi0 -- documentation (local)
  
• zvbid -- the zvbid proxy; see instructions

20 April 2005: getting true mpeg

You should use

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video1:fps=30000/1001:
chanlist=us-cable:audiorate=32000:adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:
amode=1:normid=4 -ffourcc DIVX -ovc lavc -lavcoptsvcodec=mpeg4:
vhq -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos 60 -of mpeg -o /tv1/output1.mpg

20 April 2005: adjusting saa7133 settings

Now adjust the hue settings -- you don't need the 100% on the saa7134, while you still do on the cx88; you should also set stereo:

v4lctl -c /dev/video0 list (this looks fine -- current settings for cx88
v4lctl -c /dev/video1 list

config: invalid value for norm: NTSC-M
valid choices for "norm": "PAL", "PAL-BG", "PAL-I", "PAL-DK", "NTSC",
"SECAM", "PAL-M", "PAL-Nc", "PAL-60"
attribute  | type   | current | default | comment
-----------+--------+---------+---------+-------------------------------------
norm       | choice | PAL-DK  | PAL     | PAL PAL-BG PAL-I PAL-DK NTSC SECAM PAL-M PAL-Nc PAL-60
input      | choice | Televis | Televis | Television TV (mono only) Composite1 Composite2 S-Video
audio mode | choice | mono    | mono    | mono stereo lang1 lang2
bright     | int    |     128 |     128 | range is 0 => 255
contrast   | int    |      68 |      68 | range is 0 => 127
color      | int    |      63 |      64 | range is 0 => 127
hue        | int    |       0 |       0 | range is -128 => 127
volume     | int    |       0 |       0 | range is -15 => 15
mute       | bool   | on      | off     |
vertical f | bool   | off     | off     |
Invert     | bool   | off     | off     |
y offset o | int    |       0 |       0 | range is 0 => 128
y offset e | int    |       0 |       0 | range is 0 => 128
automute   | bool   | on      | on      |

v4lctl -c /dev/video1 norm=NTSC (I had to remove norm statements in .xawtv)
v4lctl -c /dev/video1 color "50%"
v4lctl -c /dev/video1 input Television
v4lctl -c /dev/video1 audio stereo

transcode -x v4l2,v4l2 -M 2 -i /dev/video1 -p /dev/dsp1 -y ffmpeg -F mpeg4 -c 00:10 -g 704x480 -f 29.970,4 -I 1 -V --pre_clip 0,0,0,0 -u 1024 -Q 3 -E 32000,8,1 --lame_preset medium -o /tv1/saa7134-03.avi

transcode -x v4l2,v4l2 -M 2 -i /dev/video$DEV -p /dev/dsp$DEV -y ffmpeg -F h264 \
-c 00:$TIM -g 640x480 -f 29.970,4 threads=2 -u 1024,4 crop=0,0,0,0 -Q 5 -e 32000,16,2 \
--lame_preset medium -o $DIR/$FIL.avi

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:fps=29.97:chanlist=us-cable:audiorate=32000:
 adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=704:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video1
chanlist=us-cable:audiorate=32000:adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4
-ffourcc DIVX -fps 29.97 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq -oac mp3lame -lameopts
cbr:br=128 -endpos 1 -o /tv1/saa7134-03.mpg

# mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video1:fps=29.97:chanlist=us-cable:audiorate=32000:
adevice=/dev/dsp1:input=0:amode=1:normid=4 -ffourcc DIVX -ovc lavc -lavcoptsvcodec=mpeg4:
vhq -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos 60 -o /tv1/saa7134-saa-01.mpg
MEncoder 1.0pre7-3.3.5 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices  (Family: 8, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: Type: 8 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2

File not found: 'frameno.avi'
Failed to open frameno.avi
success: format: 9  data: 0x0 - 0x0
TV detected! ;-)
Selected driver: v4l2
 name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
 author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
 comment: first try, more to come ;-)
Selected device: LifeView FlyVIDEO3000
 Tuner cap: STEREO LANG1 LANG2
 Tuner rxs: MONO STEREO
 Capabilites:  video capture  video overlay  VBI capture device  tuner  read/write  streaming
 supported norms: 0 = PAL; 1 = PAL-BG; 2 = PAL-I; 3 = PAL-DK; 4 = NTSC; 5 = SECAM;
6 = PAL-M; 7= PAL-Nc; 8 = PAL-60;
 inputs: 0 = Television; 1 = TV (mono only); 2 = Composite1; 3 = Composite2; 4 = S-Video;
 Current input: 0
 Current format: BGR24
v4l2: current audio mode is : STEREO
Unable to set trigger: 1
audio block size too low, setting to 16384!
[V] filefmt:9  fourcc:0x32315659  size:640x480  fps:29.97  ftime:=0.0334
==================================================
Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 32000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 1024.0 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 128000->128000)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm:pcm (Uncompressed PCM)
==================================================
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1  (-1=autodetect) osd: 1
==================================================
Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
VDec: vo config request - 640 x 480 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
videocodec: libavcodec (640x480 fourcc=34504d46 [FMP4])
High quality encoding selected (non real time)!
Selected video codec: [rawyv12] vfm:raw (RAW YV12)
==================================================
Forcing output fourcc to 58564944 [DIVX]
MP3 audio selected
Building audio filter chain for 32000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 32000Hz/2ch/s16le...
Writing AVI header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
Forcing audio preload to 0, max pts correction to 0
New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
Pos:   0.1s      3f ( 0%)   0fps Trem:   0min   0mb  A-V:0.000 [0:0]
1 duplicate frame(s)!
Pos:  60.0s   1798f ( 0%)  30fps Trem:   0min   0mb  A-V:0.000 [837:127]]
Flushing video frames

CBR audio: 16000 bytes/sec, 576 bytes/block

Writing AVI index...
Fixing AVI header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.

Video stream:  837.226 kbit/s  (104653 bps)  size: 6281992 bytes  60.027 secs  1798 frames

Audio stream:  128.000 kbit/s  (15999 bps)  size: 960192 bytes  60.012 secs
v4l2: 1803 frames successfully processed, 0 frames dropped.

20 April 2005: sound from saa7133

After loading the saa7134 module with "oss=1", I get /dev/dsp1 and /dev/mixer1. Steve Dibbs explains you can use aumix to configure this second mixer device:

aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -I

aumix -d /dev/mixer1 -1 R

v4lctl -c /dev/video1 audio stereo

v4lctl -c /dev/video1 mute off

20 April 2005: saa7133 on Chianti

FlyVideo 3000

• manufacturer
  
• reviews: 3000 PAL, 3000FM (very close), 3000FM for sale
  
• saa7133
• /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc2/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.saa7134
•   2 -> LifeView FlyVIDEO3000             [5168:0138,4e42:0138]
•   3 -> LifeView FlyVIDEO2000                    [5168:0138]
• 34 -> LifeView FlyTV Platinum33 mini      [5168:0212]
  
• /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc2/Documentation/video4linux/README.saa7134
  
• Tuners -- /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc2/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.tuner
• Phillips -- but which?
  
• cat CARDLIST.tuner | grep Philips | grep NTSC
  tuner=2 - Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles)
  tuner=17 - Philips NTSC_M (MK2)
  tuner=42 - Philips 1236D ATSC/NTSC dual in
  tuner=43 - Philips NTSC MK3 (FM1236MK3 or FM1236/F)
• I have to reboot with this in /etc/modules:
  saa7134 card=2 tuner=17 oss=1
  saa7134 card=2,2 tuner=17,17 oss=1
  
• PCI audio transfer
• modprobe bttv i2c_debug=1 card=13 radio=0 tuner=2
• modprobe btaudio analog=1 dsp1=1 dsp2=2 debug=1 rate=32000
• modprobe bttv i2c_debug=1 card=11,22 radio=0  tuner=33,44 (for two cards)

lspci -vvv:

0000:02:0a.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA713X Audio+video broadcast decoder (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Unknown device 5169:0138

dmesg:

saa7130/34: v4l2 driver version 0.2.12 loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [APC3] enabled at IRQ 18
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:0a.0[A] -> Link [APC3] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
saa7133[0]: found at 0000:02:0a.0, rev: 16, irq: 18, latency: 32, mmio: 0xf400a000
saa7133[0]: subsystem: 5169:0138, board: LifeView FlyVIDEO3000 [card=2,insmod option]
saa7133[0]: board init: gpio is 39800
saa7133[0]: there are different flyvideo cards with different tuners
saa7133[0]: out there, you might have to use the tuner=<nr> insmod
saa7133[0]: option to override the default value.
saa7133[0]: registered input device for IR
saa7133[0]: dsp access wait timeout [bit=WRR]
saa7133[0]: dsp access wait timeout [bit=WRR]
tuner 4-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (saa7133[0])
tuner 4-0061: type set to 17 (Philips NTSC_M (MK2))
saa7133[0]: i2c eeprom 00: 69 51 38 01 10 28 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7133[0]: i2c eeprom 10: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7133[0]: i2c eeprom 20: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7133[0]: i2c eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7133[0]: registered device video1 [v4l2]
saa7133[0]: registered device vbi1
saa7133[0]: registered device radio1
saa7133[0]: registered device dsp1
saa7133[0]: registered device mixer1

19 April 2005: some parts of mplayer/mencoder working on Chianti

This doesn't segfault, but the video is black:

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video1 -fps 29.97 -ovc raw -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video$DEV -ffourcc DIVX -fps 29.97 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos $TIM -o $DIR/$FIL.mpg tv:// > /dev/null

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video0:noaudio -ffourcc DIVX -fps 29.97 -ovc raw -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 endpos 1 -o output.avi

/tv1$ mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video0:noaudio -fps 29.97-ovc libdv -vf scale=720:480 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 endpos 1 -o output.dv

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video0:noaudio -fps 29.97 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=900 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 endpos 1 -o output.avi

mplayer tv://5 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:norm=ntsc:device=/dev/video1

15 April 2005: can't find capture channel in 2.6.12-rc2 on Clitunno

After installing 2.6.12-rc on Clitunno, I was unable to find the capture channel for the bttv card on the Audigy 2 Value card. The driver saw the card as SB0400, but the channels were very different from the ones I have under 2.6.9-ac6 and (I believe) alsa 1.0.8-rc1.

14 April 2005: picture adjustment for pcHDTV on Chianti

• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 hue "100%"   (or "0%" -- same thing)
  
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 bright "50%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 contrast "45%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 color "100%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video1 color "50%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video2 color "100%"

10 April 2005: bttv on the Chianti machine (not implemented)

Since closed captioning is not working on the pcHDTV cards, I will for the moment leave them for digital television and use bttv or saa7134 cards for analog capture.  If you use bttv (unlikely now), you should make the following changes on Chianti:

1. Create /etc/modutils/alsa with this content -- cf. instructions and snd-bt87x section below for details)

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-bt87x

# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

# First remove the dvb modules

rmmod cx88_dvb
rmmod or51132
rmmod video_buf_dvb
rmmod mt352
rmmod dvb_pll
rmmod dvb_core

# Then remove the cx88 modules

rmmod cx8802 cx8800 tda9887
rmmod cx88xx tda9887

# Finally take the v4l modules

rmmod btcx_risc tveeprom ir_common video_buf videodev
rmmod tvaudio v4l2_common v4l1_compat tuner i2c_algo_bit

4. Insert the bttv modules

snd_bt87x
snd_pcm
snd_timer
snd
snd_page_alloc
tuner
tvaudio
bttv
video_buf
firmware_class
i2c_algo_bit
btcx_risc

9 April 2005: recording video and audio from pcHDTV

I started out with this, which works:

transcode -x v4l2,v4l2 -M 2 -i /dev/video0 -p /dev/dsp -y ffmpeg -F msmpeg4v2 -c 00:01:00 -g 640x480 -f 24.0,1 -I 1 -u 1024 -Q 3 -E 48000,16,2 --lame_preset medium -o /tv1/transcode-test-01.avi

$ transcode -x v4l2,v4l2 -M 2 -i /dev/video0 -p /dev/dsp -y ffmpeg -F mpeg4-c 00:01:00 -g 640x480 -f 29.970,4 -I 1 -u 1024 -Q 3 -E 48000,16,2 --lame_preset medium -o /tv1/transcode-test-01.avi

transcode v0.6.14 (C) 2001-2003 Thomas Oestreich, 2003-2004 T. Bitterberg
[transcode] auto-probing source /dev/video0 (failed)
[transcode] V: import format    | unknown  (V=v4l2|A=v4l2)
[transcode] V: AV demux/sync    | (2) initial MPEG sequence / enforce frame rate
[transcode] V: import frame     | 640x480  1.33:1
[transcode] V: de-interlace     | (mode=1) interpolate scanlines (fast)
[transcode] V: bits/pixel       | 0.196
[transcode] V: decoding fps,frc | 29.970,4
[transcode] V: Y'CbCr           | YV12/I420
[transcode] A: import format    | 0x2000  AC3          [48000,16,2]
[transcode] A: export format    | 0x55    MPEG layer-3 [48000,16,2]  128 kbps
[transcode] V: encoding fps,frc | 29.970,4
[transcode] A: bytes per frame  | 6408 (6406.400000)
[transcode] A: adjustment       | -1600@1000
tc_memcpy: using libc for memcpy
[transcode] V: video buffer     | 1024 @ 640x480
[import_v4l2.so] v1.3.4 (2004-08-25) (video) v4l2 | (audio) pcm
[export_ffmpeg.so] v0.3.13 (2004-08-03) (video) FFmpegcvsb4736 | (audio) MPEG/AC3/PCM
[import_v4l2.so]: v4l2 audio grabbing
[import_v4l2.so]: v4l2 video grabbing
[import_v4l2.so]: resync disabled
[import_v4l2.so]: video grabbing, driver = cx8800, card = pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV
[import_v4l2.so]: VIDIOC_S_FMT: : Invalid argument
[import_v4l2.so]: VIDIOC_S_FMT: : Invalid argument
[import_v4l2.so]: Pixel format conversion: UYVY [packed] -> YUV420 [planar] (slow conversion)
[import_v4l2.so]: driver does not support setting parameters (ioctl(VIDIOC_S_PARM) returns "Invalid argument")
[import_v4l2.so]: checking colour & framerate standards: [NTSC-M]
[import_v4l2.so]: receiving 30 frames / sec
[import_v4l2.so]: driver does not support cropping (ioctl(VIDIOC_CROPCAP) returns "Invalid argument"), disabled
[import_v4l2.so]: 27 buffers available
[export_ffmpeg.so] Using FFMPEG codec 'mpeg4' (FourCC 'DIVX', MPEG4 compliant video).
[export_ffmpeg.so]: WARNING: Interlacing parameters unknown, use --encode_fields
[export_ffmpeg.so]: INFO: No profile selected
[export_ffmpeg.so] Neither './ffmpeg.cfg' nor '~/.transcode/ffmpeg.cfg'
[export_ffmpeg.so] found. Default settings will be used instead.
[export_ffmpeg.so]: INFO: Starting 1 thread(s)
[export_ffmpeg.so]: INFO: Set display aspect ratio to input
Audio: using new version
Audio: using lame-3.96.1
encoding frame [1797],  29.96 fps, 100.0%, ETA: 0:00:00, ( 0| 0| 0)
[import_v4l2.so]: Totals: sequence V/A: 1800/1800, frames C/D: 0/0

clean up | frame threads | unload modules | cancel signal | internal threads | done
[transcode] encoded 1798 frames (0 dropped, 0 cloned), clip length  59.99 s

transcode -x v4l2,v4l2 -M 2 -i /dev/video0 -p /dev/dsp -y ffmpeg -F mpeg4-c 00:01:00 -g 640x480 -f 29.970,4 -I 1 -u 1024 -Q 5 -E 48000,16,2 --lame_preset medium -o /tv1/transcode-test-01.avi

v4lctl -c /dev/video0 hue "100%"

The result is somewhat better, but frankly the quality of recordings from the cx88 driver seems clearly inferior to that of the bttv driver -- less crisp, more grainy, poorer colors, smaller size.  To top it off, I can't get closed captioning off these cards:

ntsc-cc -c -r ntsc -w
ntsc-cc -d /dev/vbi -c -w -r 27

9 April 2005: recording sound from pcHDTV

I recalled that what you had to do was find the sound card setting that sent the audio to the recording application -- likely a "capture" channel.

amixer -q

gives you a list of all channels.

amixer -q | grep apture

amixer controls | grep Capture

numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
numid=27,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Switch'
numid=28,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Volume'
numid=39,iface=MIXER,name='IEC958 Capture Switch'

amixer -c 0 cget numid=26

numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
  ; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw---,values=2,items=8
  ; Item #0 'Mic'
  ; Item #1 'CD'
  ; Item #2 'Video'
  ; Item #3 'Aux'
  ; Item #4 'Line'
  ; Item #5 'Mix'
  ; Item #6 'Mix Mono'
  ; Item #7 'Phone'
  : values=0,0

amixer -c 0 cget numid=27

numid=27,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Switch'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=1
  : values=on

amixer -c 0 cget numid=28

numid=28,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=15,step=0
  : values=0,0

amixer -c 0 cget numid=39

numid=39,iface=MIXER,name='IEC958 Capture Switch'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=1
  : values=off

amixer -c 0 cset numid=26 5,5
amixer -c 0 cset numid=28 15,15

streamer -d -o /tv1/rgb24.avi -f rgb24 -F stereo -r 12 -t 0:10

1 April 2005: pcHDTV on the new Gigabyte computer (Chianti)

The pcHDTV driver is supported in the 2.6.12-rc1 kernel, and works to watch television, including switching channels. Sound unknown so far.

However, the script fails. Someone writes,

Friday, March 18, 2005
Bug-fix for ATSC Channel Changing on MythTv 0.17
Finally managed to nail the channel-changing bug on MythTV that had been bugging me, and more or less making mythtv unusable for me.

You can reproduce the bug by switching channels when on (on my setup) a ATSC (OTA HDTV) source. On switching channels between two channels that have the same pid/stream type (not toooo sure of this), the old pes won't get cleared out properly.

The proper fix would be to ensure that the pid/pes stuff gets handled properly in av_remove_stream in utils.c. Anyways, here's my crappy fix (well, more of a hack)

In the file libmythtv/avformatdecoder.cpp, change the file to look like the following. The real bug is that this doesn't fixup the pmt_pid tables in the ts context thingymajig. This works great now, well for me anyway.

void AvFormatDecoder::Reset(void)
{
SeekReset();

// Clear out the existing mpeg streams
// so we can get a clean set from the
// new seek position.
// for (int i = ic->nb_streams - 1; i >= 0; i--)
// {
// AVStream *st = ic->streams[i];
// if (st->codec.codec_type == CODEC_TYPE_AUDIO)
// {
// if (st->codec.codec)
// avcodec_close(&st->codec);
// av_remove_stream(ic, st->id);
// }
// }

m_positionMap.clear();
framesPlayed = 0;
framesRead = 0;
seen_gop = false;
seq_count = 0;
}

19 February 2005: mplayer autosync

I discovered mplayer will sync audio to video on playback:

mplayer -autosync 30 <filename.mpg>

Command Line=-autosync 30
Direct Rendering=true

14 January 2005: xvid

I tested xvid like this:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480:norm=ntsc -ovc xvid -xvidencopts \
bitrate=1000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -endpos $TIM -o $DIR/$FIL.mpg \
 tv:// > /dev/null

23 December 2004: finalizing the recording setup

So I see that mencoder does the best job keeping sync:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 -o output.avi tv://

#!/bin/sh

if [ "$1" = "" ] ; then
 echo "Use VCR <recording time in minutes> <filename>";echo "Please give a
time!";exit fi

if [ "$2" = "" ] ; then
 echo "Use VCR <recording time in minutes> <filename>";echo "Please give a
filename!";exit fi

sudo /usr/bin/aumix -lR -i70

/usr/bin/mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480:input=1:norm=ntsc 
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128
-endpos $1:00 -o $2 tv:// > /dev/null

cd /ssa/clips/TV-capture-scripts
./vcr.sh 15 CNN-time.mpg

at 3:30 -f vcr.sh 30 CNN-time.mpg
at now + 10 minutes -f vcr.sh 30 CNN-time.mpg

-oac mp3lame -lameopts br=96:cbr:vol=0:mode=1 -mc 0 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=2100:trell:mbd=2:vmax_b_frames=1:v4mv:vb_strategy=0:
vlelim=0:vcelim=0:cmp=2:subcmp=2:precmp=2:predia=1:dia=1:vme=4:psnr:vpass=1 -vop scale=704:304,crop=704:432:8:72 -sws 1

22 December 2004: recording sound

Here's what Michel Bardiaux says on video4linux-list:

The sound from the speakers comes (almost) directly from the line and mike, it does not go through the ADC. IMHO it is a very bad feature of xawtv since it makes xawtv unusable to validate your recording setup, notably the mixer settings.

What we do is this:

(1) start xawtv, select a channel and unmute audio (which unmutes on the TV card, not on the sound board). Check: sound from speakers.

(2) Don't exit xawtv (it re-mutes the card!), kill it with 'kill -9' (or ctrl-\). Note: we do that because in debian woody v4lctl does not seem able to do it.

(3) Using setmixer or aumix or xmixer, turn every mixer control to 100%.
Check with dump-mixer.

(4) Using 'record' (in deb package xawtv-tools), check have volume on the audio signal. Check: make a WAV and listen to it.

Here's what Poobah says on the ffmpeg-devel list:

$aumix -q
vol 70, 70
pcm 79, 79
speaker 64, 64
line 60, 60, P
mic 64, 64, P
cd 64, 64, P
igain 20, 20, R
line1 64, 64, P
phin 64, 64, P
phout 64, 64
video 64, 64, P

See how I have R next to igain so that is where its recording the sound
but... if line is muted or low thats how the sound will come out.

My "aumix -q" doesn't have an igain channel:

# aumix -q
vol 100, 100
bass 50, 50
treble 50, 50
synth 0, 0
pcm 54, 54
speaker 0, 0
line 100, 100
mic 0, 0
cd 0, 0
pcm2 0, 0
line1 0, 0
dig1 0, 0
phin 0, 0
phout 0, 0

Here's the audio part of v4l-info:

audio
    VIDIOCGAUDIO
        audio                   : 0
        volume                  : 0
        bass                    : 0
        treble                  : 0

amixer -q

amixer controls | grep Capture

numid=7,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Capture Volume'
numid=8,iface=MIXER,name='Music Capture Volume'
numid=16,iface=MIXER,name='Line2 Capture Volume'
numid=10,iface=MIXER,name='Mic Capture Volume'
numid=20,iface=MIXER,name='Aux2 Capture Volume'
numid=14,iface=MIXER,name='IEC958 Optical Capture Volume'
numid=18,iface=MIXER,name='Analog Mix Capture Volume'
numid=12,iface=MIXER,name='Audigy CD Capture Volume'

amixer -c 0 cget numid=18

numid=18,iface=MIXER,name='Analog Mix Capture Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=100,step=0
  : values=0,0

amixer -c 0 sset 'Analog Mix',0 80%,80% unmute cap

amixer -c 0 cset numid=18 80%,80% unmute cap

numid=18,iface=MIXER,name='Analog Mix Capture Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=100,step=0
  : values=80,80

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 2048 -s 720x480 -t 10 video-10.mpg

amixer -c 0 cget numid=7

amixer -c 0 cset numid=18 0%,0% mute

amixer -c 0 cset numid=7 100%,100% unmute cap

ffmpeg -muxdelay 2 -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 2048 -s 720x480 -t 60 video-4.mpg

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 -o output.avi tv://

Forcing audio preload to 0, max pts correction to 0

21 December 2004: sound to soundcard

The btaudio help file says "most TV cards come with a short cable which can be plugged into your sound card's line-in" -- and the Audigy2 Value guide says the blue input is for line-in and the red for the microphone.  So you don't need to use btaudio, but you do need to load snd-bt87x -- then sound works fine, provided the mixer is correctly configured.

See also the SoundFAQ from /usr/src/kernel-source-2.6.9/Documentation/video4linux/bttv/Sound-FAQ.

Alsamixergui need these components on and up:

• Master
• PCM is not needed
  
• Line (the first of the three Line components)
• Analog Mix (the first of two)
• Audigy Analog Output Jack (unmute)
• Front

Since Master regulates the volume, you can leave the others on max. You could find the command-line equivalent. 

The recording volume for some reason is too low. I discovered the default settings are in the file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state, but you can store and restore different profiles like this:

• alsactl store -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.bt87x
• alsactl restore -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.bt87x

• EMU10K1 PCM (both)

18 November 2004: mencoder

• mencoder capture commands
• timelapse

$ mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 -o output.avi tv://

Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 32000 Hz, 1 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 64000->64000 (512.0 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm:pcm (Uncompressed PCM)

Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 44800 Hz, 1 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 89600->89600 (716.8 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm:pcm (Uncompressed PCM)
MP3 audio selected
Building audio filter chain for 44800Hz/1ch/16bit -> 44800Hz/1ch/16bit...
Writing AVI header...
ODML: vprp aspect is 16384:10922.
Forcing audio preload to 0, max pts correction to 0

If I now add this to turn off the audio, capture works:

$ mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=480:noaudio -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 -o output.avi tv://

$ tcprobe -i out*
[tcprobe] RIFF data, AVI video
[avilib] V: 29.000 fps, codec=DIVX, frames=897, width=720, height=480
[tcprobe] summary for output.avi, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
import frame size: -g 720x480 [720x576] (*)
       frame rate: -f 29.000 [25.000] frc=0 (*)
   no audio track: use "null" import module for audio
           length: 897 frames, frame_time=34 msec, duration=0:00:30.931

mencoder -tv on:driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:width=320:height=240:norm=NTSC:
chanlist=us-cable:channel=3:adevice=/dev/dsp1:forceaudio:forcechan=1
-o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900
-oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128

mencoder tv://TVN -tv
driver=v4l:input=0:norm=PAL:chanlist=europe-east:width=640:height=480:adevice=/dev/dsp
-oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=96 -ovc lavc lavcopts vcodec=xvid:vbitrate=900 film.avi

mencoder carrie-sample.dv -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=xvid:vbitrate=1000 -o Carrie.xvid

Cannot find codec 'xvid' in libavcodec...
Couldn't open video filter 'lavc'.

17 November 2004: making sound work in live TV

First see if the current settings work, then try to experiment:

bttv audiomux 0x0c, 0x04, 0x08, 0x04, 0

0000:00:09.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)

btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital+analog]
btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 03:04.1, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xff5ff000
btaudio: using card config "default"
btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer0

modprobe btaudio analog=1

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -ac /dev/dsp0 -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg

btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital+analog]
btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 03:04.1, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xff5ff000
btaudio: using card config "default"
btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer0

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg

Input #0, video4linux, from '':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 720x480, 29.97 fps
Input #1, audio_device, from '':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #1.0: Audio: pcm_s16le, 32000 Hz, mono, 512 kb/s
Output #0, mpeg, to 'video.mpg':
  Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg1video, 720x480, 29.97 fps, q=2-31, 200 kb/s
  Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #1.0 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding

I just played with and got the alsa btaudio driver working. I had to specify /dev/sound/adsp1 rather than /dev/sound/dsp1, because there's only the analog sound on my card.

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -s 720x480 -t 10 video.mpg

ln -sf /dev/dsp1 /dev/dsp

# ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 1 -an -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg
ffmpeg version 0.4.9-pre1, build 4718, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
  built on Sep 17 2004 00:52:01, gcc: 3.3.4 (Debian 1:3.3.4-11)
Input #0, video4linux, from '':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 720x480, 5.00 fps
Output #0, mpeg, to 'video.mpg':
  Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg1video, 720x480, 5.00 fps, q=2-31, 200 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
[mpeg1video @ 0x2a95a806a0]MPEG1/2 doesnt support 5/1 fps
Error while opening codec for stream #0.0 - maybe incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or heigh
#

modprobe btaudio analog=0

Nov 17 22:03:47 clitunno kernel: bttv0: timeout: drop=0 irq=181089/181089, risc=7bee903c,bits: HSYNC OFLOW
Nov 17 22:04:05 clitunno kernel: bttv0: reset, reinitialize
Nov 17 22:04:05 clitunno kernel: bttv0: PLL can sleep, using XTAL (28636363).
Nov 17 22:07:15 clitunno kernel: btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital]
Nov 17 22:07:15 clitunno kernel: btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 03:04.1, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xff5ff000
Nov 17 22:07:15 clitunno kernel: btaudio: using card config "default"
Nov 17 22:07:15 clitunno kernel: btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]

# ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 25 -ad /dev/dsp1 -s 720x480 -t 60video.mpg
ffmpeg version 0.4.9-pre1, build 4718, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
  built on Sep 17 2004 00:52:01, gcc: 3.3.4 (Debian 1:3.3.4-11)
File 'video.mpg' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Input #0, video4linux, from '':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 720x480, 25.00 fps
/dev/dsp1: No such device
Could not find audio grab device

snd_pcm_oss            52136  0
snd_pcm                92232  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              22920  1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          9424  1 snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss          18112  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd                    49256  4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss

tuner                  21220  0
tvaudio                23008  0
bttv                  172108  0
video_buf              19396  1 bttv
firmware_class          8896  1 bttv
i2c_algo_bit            9224  1 bttv
btcx_risc               4488  1 bttv

modprobe btaudio analog=1

btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital+analog]
btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 03:04.1, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xff5ff000
btaudio: using card config "default"
btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer0

snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm
snd_timer
snd_page_alloc
snd_mixer_oss
snd

dtvsignal /dev/video0 3

btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg

Audio: pcm_s16le, 32000 Hz, mono, 512 kb/s

btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital+analog]
btaudio: registered device dsp0 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer0

Audio: pcm_s16le, 32000 Hz, mono, 512 kb/s

btaudio: using card config "default"

sox -c 1 -u -r 32000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 test.wav

btaudio module_param conversion

Signed-off-by: Jan Dittmer

diff -Nru a/sound/oss/btaudio.c b/sound/oss/btaudio.c
--- a/sound/oss/btaudio.c 2004-11-14 01:24:57 +01:00
+++ b/sound/oss/btaudio.c 2004-11-14 01:24:57 +01:00
@@ -1113,15 +1113,15 @@
module_init(btaudio_init_module);
module_exit(btaudio_cleanup_module);

-MODULE_PARM(dsp1,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(dsp2,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(mixer,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(debug,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(irq_debug,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(digital,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(analog,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(rate,"i");
-MODULE_PARM(latency,"i");
+module_param(dsp1, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(dsp2, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(mixer, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(debug, int, S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR);
+module_param(irq_debug, int, S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR);
+module_param(digital, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(analog, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(rate, int, S_IRUGO);
+module_param(latency, int, S_IRUGO);
MODULE_PARM_DESC(latency,"pci latency timer");

MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE(pci, btaudio_pci_tbl);

modprobe btaudio analog=1 dsp1=1 dsp2=2 debug=1 rate=32000

• Analog to Digital Converter with 16 bits and 448000 Samples per second based in the Bt878A
  
• btaudio.c module modification to get 896000 Samples per second with the Bt878A ADC.

modprobe btaudio debug=1

sox -w -r 448000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t .wav test.wav

btaudio: open analog dsp [19]
btaudio: fmt: bits=16
btaudio: stereo=0 channels=1
btaudio: rate: req=448000  dec=4 shift=0 hwrate=448000 swrate=448000
btaudio: bufsize=131072 - bs=8192 bc=16 - ls=2048, lc=64
btaudio: bufsize=131072 - bs=8192 bc=16 - ls=2048, lc=64
btaudio: recording started

btaudio: recording stopped

btaudio: open digital dsp [3]
btaudio: fmt: bits=16
btaudio: stereo=0 channels=1
btaudio: bufsize=131072 - bs=8192 bc=16 - ls=2048, lc=64
btaudio: bufsize=131072 - bs=8192 bc=16 - ls=2048, lc=64
btaudio: recording started

sox: Unable to set audio speed to 448000 (set to 32000)

 modprobe btaudio analog=0 rate=44100 debug=1

sox -w -r 448000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp0 -t .wav test.wav

sox: Unable to set audio speed to 448000 (set to 44100)

sox: Can't open input file '/dev/dsp1': No such device

sox -t .wav /usr/share/tuxpaint/sounds/harp.wav -t ossdsp /dev/dsp

sox -w -r 448000 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp1 -t .wav sound.wav

# aumix -q
line1 100, 100, R
line2 0, 0, P
line3 0, 0, P

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-bt87x

# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

snd_bt87x              12328  0
snd_pcm                92232  1 snd_bt87x
snd_timer              22920  1 snd_pcm
snd                    49256  3 snd_bt87x,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc          9424  2 snd_bt87x,snd_pcm
tuner                  21220  0
tvaudio                23008  0
bttv                  172108  0
video_buf              19396  1 bttv
firmware_class          8896  1 bttv
i2c_algo_bit            9224  1 bttv
btcx_risc               4488  1 bttv

• live TV works -- great sound
• no record in dmesg of audio device nodes being created
• 
  
• Audio: pcm_s16le, 44100 Hz, mono, 705 kb/s (btaudio was 32000 Hz, mono, 512 kb/s)
• Same problem with timeout ignored and demuxing overhead huge
• tcprobe shows no audio track
• sox -c 1 -u -r 44100 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp0 test.wav
• $ tcprobe -i test.wav
  [tcprobe] RIFF data, WAVE audio
  [tcprobe] summary for test.wav, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
        audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 44100,8,1 [48000,16,2] -n 0x1 [0x2000] (*)
                     bitrate=352 kbps
• file may be empty -- I can't hear anything

• a single output channel, named "Capture", with a slider and recording button
• no inputs
• four switches
• FM (red -- inactive)
  
• Mic/Line (red -- inactive)
  
• Capture/boost (green -- inactive)
• TV Tuner (pink -- active)

$ aumix -q
synth 100, 100, P
igain 0, 0

$ aumix -q
synth 100, 100, P
igain 67, 67

$ aumix -i 10

16 November 2004: making video work

Moved the AverTV Stereo card to clitunno, recompiled the kernel to include bttv -- it works! Perfect picture in xawtv. I can also capture without seeing anything (works whether xawtv is running or not -- maybe because there's only one channel defined in ~/.xawtv?):

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 2048 -an -s 720x480 -t 10 video.mpg

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 4096 -an -s 720x480 -t 60 video.mpg

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 29.97 -b 512 -an -s 720x480 -t 60 0512.mp4

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -y -hq -vcodec mpeg2video -f rawvideo -loop -t 60 -r 25 220kbs.mpv

ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -y -hq -vcodec mpeg2video -f rawvideo-loop -t 60 -b 1000 -r 25 270kbs.mpv

find "$DIR" -name "*.wav" | while read list ; do
   echo "$list"
   ffmpeg -y -hq -i "$list" "${list%%.*}.ra" </dev/null
done

find "$DIR" -name "*.wav" | while read list; do
   echo "$list"
   lame -b $BITRATE -h -t "$list" "${list%%.*}.mp3"
done

bttv: driver version 0.9.15 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 0000:03:04.0, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xff5fe000
bttv0: detected: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13], PCI subsystem ID is 1461:0004
bttv0: using: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13,autodetected]
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00fff7c3 [init]
bttv0: Hauppauge/Voodoo msp34xx: reset line init [11]
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus bt878 #0 [sw]
bttv0: Avermedia eeprom[0x4002]: tuner=2 radio:no remote control:no
bttv0: using tuner=2
tuner: type set to 2 (Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles)) by bt878 #0 [sw]
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx (alternate address) @ 0x88... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16
c54 (PV951),ta8874z
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 .. ok
bttv0: PLL can sleep, using XTAL (28636363).

tuner: TV freq (268435455.93) out of range (44-958)

tvaudio: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16 c54 (PV951),ta8874z

bttv                  172108  1
video_buf              19396  1 bttv
firmware_class          8896  1 bttv
i2c_algo_bit            9224  1 bttv
btcx_risc               4488  1 bttv

15 November 2004

Gubbio is now set up in console mode to allow you to experiment with the capture card.  No need to sit by the computer -- you can do this remotely, finally. Give commands in the console and track the reulst with

tail -f /var/log/syslog

You can experiment with different settings by unloading the bttv module and reinserting it with new parameters --

rmmod bttv && rmmod tuner && rmmod tvaudio (add more?)
modprobe bttv card=6 tuner=2 audiomux=2 bttv_debug=1

atscpackets /dev/video0 3

.audio_inputs:   1,
.audiomux:       { 0x0c, 0x04, 0x08, 0x04, 0},
 /*                0x04 for some cards ?? */
.svhs:           3,
.gpiomask:       0x0f,
.tuner_type     = -1,

audio_inputs:   4,
audiomux       = { 13, 14, 11, 7, 0, 0},
svhs:           2,
gpiomask:       15,
msp34xx_alt    = 1,
pll            = PLL_28,

All my config is in /etc/modules.d/bttv

alias char-major-81     videodev
alias char-major-81-0   bttv0
alias char-major-89     i2c-dev
alias sound-slot-1      btaudio
alias sound-service-1-0 btaudio

pre-install bttv modprobe -k msp3400; modprobe -k tuner
options bttv card=63 tuner=2

rmmod i2c-algo-bit && rmmod i2c-core && rmmod v4l2-common && rmmod video-buf
modprobe bttv bttv_verbose=3 gbuffers=32 bttv_debug=1 automute=0 v4l2=1 tuner=2
modprobe bttv bttv_verbose=3 gbuffers=32 bttv_debug=1 automute=0 v4l2=1 tuner=2 audiomux=1 audioall=1
modprobe tvmixer
modprobe bttv i2c_debug=1 card=13 radio=0 tuner=2

rmmod bttv && rmmod tuner && rmmod tvaudio && rmmod btcx-risc

bttv: driver version 0.9.15 loaded
bttv: using 32 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Host bridge needs ETBF enabled.
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:09.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:07.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:09.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:11.0
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 00:09.0, irq: 11, latency: 32, mmio: 0xdb00b000
bttv0: detected: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13], PCI subsystem ID is 1461:0004
bttv0: using: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13,autodetected]
bttv0: enabling ETBF (430FX/VP3 compatibilty)
bttv0: risc main @ 046e1000
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00fff7c3 [init]
bttv0: Hauppauge/Voodoo msp34xx: reset line init [11]
i2c-core.o: adapter bt878 #0 [sw] registered as adapter 0.
bttv0: Avermedia eeprom[0x4002]: tuner=2 radio:no remote control:no
bttv0: using tuner=2
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx (alternate address) @ 0x88... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951),ta8874z
i2c-core.o: driver generic i2c audio driver registered.
i2c-core.o: driver i2c TV tuner driver registered.
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus bt878 #0 [sw]
tuner: type set to 2 (Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles)) by bt878 #0 [sw]
bttv0: i2c attach [client=Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and]
i2c-core.o: client [Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and] registered to adapter [bt878 #0 [sw]](pos. 0).
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: video mux: input=0 mux=2
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 .. ok

atscpackets /dev/video0 3

channel 3
freq*16 = 980
main: ioctl 1 rtn 0
main: ioctl 2 rtn 0
atscpackets ver 0.1 - by Jack Kelliher (c) 2002

$ signal /dev/dtv 13
main: argc 3 argv[1] /dev/dtv
channel 13
freq*16 = 3380
main: ioctl 1 rtn 0
main: ioctl 2 rtn 0
signal ver 0.1 - by Jack Kelliher (c) 2002
channel = 13 freq*16 = 3380
Signal: | . : . | .____:____.____|
Signal: 088 (-26) #############################

14 November 2004

Seeing somewhere that someone else had the same error messages when they tried to get two cards to work, I removed the Radeon AIW 8500 card, which also has a tuner, and replaced it with the old Voodoo Banshee card. I managed to get MythTV to use it -- I had to boot it without the initrd, which likely contained the radeon driver, and reconfigure X11.

v4l-conf now shows:

dga: version 2.0
mode: 1024x768, depth=24, bpp=32, bpl=4096, base=0xd8041000
/dev/video0 [v4l2]: ioctl VIDIOC_QUERYCAP: Invalid argument

What does this mean? in-out control something?

Here I don't see a problem:

$ xawtv -hwscan
This is xawtv-3.88, running on Linux/i686 (2.4.25-chw)
looking for available devices
port 61-61
   type : Xvideo, image scaler
   name : 3dfx Video Overlay

/dev/video0: OK                         [ -device /dev/video0 ]
   type : v4l2
   name : BT878 video (AVerMedia TVCapturÆPCI:00:09.0
   flags: overlay capture tuner

When I try to switch channels in xawtv, I get

v4l2: read: Input/output error
v4l2: read: Input/output error

It looks like the wrong in/out control has been selected. I wrote the v4linux list to ask for help.

Here's a happy AverTV Stereo camper -- from a year ago, using MythTV with no customized settings.

deb http://knoppmyth.geekweb.net/updates ./

mythbackup
/etc/init.d/mythbackend stop
apt-get update
apt-get install mythtv-arch-option mythmodule-arch mythmodule-arch mythmodule-arch
ldconfig
/etc/init.d/mythbackend start
mythtv-setup

mythnews_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythweb_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythdvd-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythgallery-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythgame-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythmusic-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythtv-i586-lirc-xvmc_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythtv-i586-lirc_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythvideo-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythweather-i586_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythdvd-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythgallery-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythgame-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythmusic-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythtv-i686-lirc-xvmc_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythtv-i686-lirc_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythvideo-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb
mythweather-i686_0.16-1_i386.deb

mythtv-i686-lirc
mythgame-i686
mythgallery-i686
mythdvd-i686
mythnews
mythmusic-i686
mythweather-i686
mythweb

13 November 2004:

I purchased an AverMedia AverTV Stereo card from the company in early November 2004 and installed it on Gubbio. dmesg shows:

bttv: driver version 0.9.15 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Host bridge needs ETBF enabled.
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).

bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 0000:00:09.0, irq: 11, latency: 32, mmio: 0xe700b000
bttv0: detected: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13], PCI subsystem ID is 1461:0004
bttv0: using: AVerMedia TVCapture 98 [card=13,autodetected]
bttv0: enabling ETBF (430FX/VP3 compatibilty)
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00fff7c3 [init]
bttv0: Hauppauge/Voodoo msp34xx: reset line init [11]
bttv0: Avermedia eeprom[0x4002]: tuner=2 radio:no remote control:no
bttv0: using tuner=2
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx (alternate address) @ 0x88... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951),ta8874z
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc2 i2c-bus bt878 #0 [sw]
tuner: type set to 2 (Philips NTSC (FI1236,FM1236 and compatibles)) by bt878 #0 [sw]
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 .. ok

Note that you should probably be seeing this and you're not:

btaudio: Bt878 (rev 2) at 00:09.1, irq: 9, latency: 32, mmio: 0xe2002000
btaudio: using card config "default"
btaudio: registered device dsp1 [digital]
btaudio: registered device dsp2 [analog]
btaudio: registered device mixer1

You are getting reams of these, however:

Nov 14 00:32:12 gubbio kernel: bttv0: timeout: drop=0 irq=449/1382, risc=0f60f000, bits: VSYNC$
Nov 14 00:32:12 gubbio kernel: bttv0: reset, reinitialize
Nov 14 00:32:12 gubbio kernel: bttv0: PLL can sleep, using XTAL (28636363).
Nov 14 00:32:12 gubbio kernel: bttv0: SCERR @ 0f60f000,bits: VSYNC HSYNC OFLOW FBUS SCERR*
Nov 14 00:32:13 gubbio last message repeated 3 times

0000:00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Avermedia Technologies Inc AVerTV WDM Video Capture
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32 (4000ns min, 10000ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at e700b000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

0000:00:09.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Avermedia Technologies Inc AVerTV WDM Audio Capture
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32 (1000ns min, 63750ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at e7008000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

tuner                  12712   1  (autoclean)
tvaudio                13064   0  (autoclean) (unused)
bttv                  110572   0
video-buf              11392   0  [bttv]
btcx-risc               2216   0  [bttv]
i2c-algo-bit            7048   1  [bttv]
i2c-core               12452   0  [tuner tvaudio bttv i2c-algo-bit]
soundcore               3524   3  [snd bttv]
videodev                6016   2  [bttv]
v4l2-common             3104   0  [bttv]

TVCapture98 (="AVerMedia TV98" in USA) (Bt878)

PCB      PCI-ID      Model-Name      Eeprom  Tuner  Sound    Country
--------------------------------------------------------------------
M168-U   1461:0004   TVCapture98     40:11   FI1216   --      D    w/Remote

That's a minor but possibly significant mistake: my card is the M168T, with PCI-ID, Eeprom, and Tuner as shown.

The bttv-card.c file has this:

static void avermedia_tv_stereo_audio(struct bttv *btv, struct video_audio *v, int set);

The PCI-ID is correct, shown in dmesg above. The card was added to the Cards file in October 2002. There a piture here:

This is the AverMedia AverTV Stereo, model M168T, with a little board, SONY NE41S 216. The user comments,

"the audio settings for card 6 work properly with my card, and the tuner type with card 13"

static void avermedia_tvphone_audio(struct bttv *btv, struct video_audio *v,
                                    int set);

{ 0x00041461, BTTV_AVERMEDIA98,   "AVerMedia TVCapture 98" },

.audio_inputs:   1,
.audiomux:       { 0x0c, 0x04, 0x08, 0x04, 0},
 /*                0x04 for some cards ?? */
.svhs:           3,
.gpiomask:       0x0f,
.tuner_type     = -1,

audio_inputs:   4,
audiomux       = { 13, 14, 11, 7, 0, 0},
svhs:           2,
gpiomask:       15,
msp34xx_alt    = 1,
pll            = PLL_28,

{
        .name           = "AVerMedia TVCapture 98",
        .video_inputs   = 3,
        .audio_inputs   = 4,
        .tuner          = 0,
        .svhs           = 2,
        .gpiomask       = 15,
        .muxsel         = { 2, 3, 1, 1},
        .audiomux       = { 13, 14, 11, 7, 0, 0},
        .needs_tvaudio  = 1,
        .msp34xx_alt    = 1,
        .pll            = PLL_28,
        .tuner_type     = TUNER_PHILIPS_PAL,
        .audio_hook     = avermedia_tv_stereo_audio,
},

The tuner is clearly not correct -- but it's still likely correctly detected.

Installations for Isabel says to use these settings in /etc/modules.conf:

AverMedia TVCapture98: options bttv card=1 pll=1

However, the list of cards shows the card as number 13 and these instructions use the 2.2 kernel, so way outdated.

# modinfo bttv | more
filename:    /lib/modules/2.4.25-chw/kernel/drivers/media/video/bttv.o
description: "bttv - v4l/v4l2 driver module for bt848/878 based cards"
author:      "Ralph Metzler & Marcus Metzler & Gerd Knorr"
license:     "GPL"
parm:        radio int array (min = 1, max = 16), description "The TV card supports radio, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        bigendian int, description "byte order of the framebuffer, default is native endian"
parm:        bttv_verbose int, description "verbose startup messages, default is 1 (yes)"
parm:        bttv_gpio int, description "log gpio changes, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        bttv_debug int, description "debug messages, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        irq_debug int, description "irq handler debug messages, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        gbuffers int, description "number of capture buffers. range 2-32, default 8"
parm:        gbufsize int, description "size of the capture buffers, default is 0x208000"
parm:        video_nr int
parm:        radio_nr int
parm:        vbi_nr int
parm:        debug_latency int
parm:        fdsr int
parm:        combfilter int
parm:        lumafilter int
parm:        automute int, description "mute audio on bad/missing video signal, default is 1 (y es)"
parm:        chroma_agc int, description "enables the AGC of chroma signal, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        adc_crush int, description "enables the luminance ADC crush, default is 1 (yes)"
parm:        whitecrush_upper int, description "sets the white crush upper value, default is 207"
parm:        whitecrush_lower int, description "sets the white crush lower value, default is 127"
parm:        vcr_hack int, description "enables the VCR hack (improves synch on poor VCR tapes), default is 0 (no)"
parm:        irq_iswitch int, description "switch inputs in irq handler"
parm:        v4l2 int
parm:        triton1 int, description "set ETBF pci config bit [enable bug compatibility for triton1 + others]"
parm:        vsfx int, description "set VSFX pci config bit [yet another chipset flaw workaround]"
parm:        no_overlay int
parm:        latency int, description "pci latency timer"
parm:        card int array (min = 1, max = 16), description "specify TV/grabber card model, see CARDLIST file for a list"
parm:        pll int array (min = 1, max = 16), description "specify installed crystal (0=none, 28=28 MHz, 35=35 MHz)"
parm:        tuner int array (min = 1, max = 16), description "specify installed tuner type"
parm:        autoload int, description "automatically load i2c modules like tuner.o, default is 1 (yes)"
parm:        svhs int array (min = 1, max = 16)
parm:        remote int array (min = 1, max = 16)
parm:        gpiomask int
parm:        audioall int
parm:        audiomux int array (min = 1, max = 6)
parm:        firm_altera string, description "WinTV/PVR firmware (driver CD => unzip pvr45xxx.exe => hcwamc.rbf)"
parm:        vbibufs int, description "number of vbi buffers, range 2-32, default 4"
parm:        vbi_debug int, description "vbi code debug messages, default is 0 (no)"
parm:        i2c_debug int
parm:        i2c_hw int