[pvrusb2] Unable to get pvrusb2 to work under Ubuntu.

[Mike Isely]

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006, Bent Lykkebo wrote:

> 
> To me it seems to be working and if I boot Windows and select a channel, 
> then boot Ubuntu (dual boot on my laptop) and 'cat /dev/video0 > 
> test.mpg' it will record the channel both video and audio, so OK. But 
> why can't I get mythtv or xawtv to work?

The fact that your experiment with test.mpg succeeded pretty much means 
that the entire driver is working OK.  You've proven in a lot of steps 
with that test.  So your attention should turn to MythTV and xawtv.


> 
> In mythtv-setup I have selected Capture Cards as 'V4L: /dev/video0'.
> Capture card setup:
> Card type: 'Analog V4L capture card'
> Video device: '/dev/video0'
> Probe info: 'Hauppauge WinTV pvr-usb2 [pvrusb2]'
> VBI device: Empty - (none to select)
> Audio device: '/dev/dsp'
> Audio samp...: '44100'
> Default input: 'television'
> 
> But under 'Input connections' all (television, s-video, composite, 
> radio) are (None) and if I select 'television' and try 'Scan for 
> channels' it say: Video Source: 'Empty', Capture Card: 'Empty' and Scan 
> Type: 'Failed to open the card'.
> 
> What am I doing wrong?

As for MythTV, release 0.20 only just came out.  I don't know if anyone 
has tried the driver yet with that version.  (Anyone care to chime in?)  
With earlier versions of MythTV (no idea about the current version), you 
need to select "PVR-250" **not** just a generic V4L device.  If you still 
have device choices in the setup program resembling PVR-250, PVR-150, 
PVR-500, you're likely to have far better success with that.  Selecting a 
generic V4L device really implies a dumb framebuffer capture card which 
the pvrusb2 is not (and neither are any of the PVR-xxx devices which is 
why there is a separate selection for them).

As for xawtv, the trick here is to ensure that you are running a 4.x 
version of it NOT a 3.x version and that you've compiled it with the 
appropriate configuration options so that mpeg2 decoding is built into it.  
If any of that gets missed then it won't work with the pvrusb2 driver (or 
for that matter with ivtv either).  With only a single exception, every 
single case of trouble with xawtv has been ultimately traced to either 
running the wrong version or having a wrong build.  (The single exception 
happened during 24xxx debugging when it was discovered that corrupted 
initial mpeg data could confuse xawtv into failing).

  -Mike

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