Universal V4L Package available - installs on 0710 & 0810

[totallymaxed]

Hi all,

We have been using a V4L build from 2009-03-24 for sometime now that successfully provides support for many current DVB devices and better support for some 'older' DVB devices like the Hauppauge Nova T500 (yes so far the T500 seems to behave very well with this V4L build!). Several weeks back we decided to explore building a DKMS package of this build of V4L so that we could effectively target both 0710 & 0810 (in fact we have tested the packages on 9.04 too) with a single package. DKMS provides the magic (and my co-worker Uplink provided the 'human' magic on this) that enables this to work as it builds from the sources based on the Kernel you are using...intelligently managing the process for you (the nVidia drivers install using DKMS by the way).

We have been testing these packages internally and with some Forum members also over the last 10 days or so and now is the time to open this up a little wider so please PM me here if you'd like to test these packages on your system (as far as i know the worst that can happen is that you will need to un-install them if you hit any problems...however be aware there may be unexpected problems and you should not install these if you are not ready to accept this risk ;-) )

All the best

Andrew

[Dale_K]

A dumb question I'm sure.  What EXACTLY is V4L?

I've searched for V4L and it seems it's a video for linux api interface, does that mean it's a sort of backend engine for Myth/Xine/etc. or is this an interface to replace MythTV?

[totallymaxed]

A dumb question I'm sure.  What EXACTLY is V4L?

I've searched for V4L and it seems it's a video for linux api interface, does that mean it's a sort of backend engine for Myth/Xine/etc. or is this an interface to replace MythTV?

See here http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page for info. V4L is the main way to add video support to Linux... it provides the underlying interfaces to the TV card hardware you have installed in your system. So if you use a Digital TV card for DVB or ATSC broadcasts then V4L is for you ;-)

All the best

Andrew

[Dale_K]

Thanks for the reply and I had actually seen that wiki but I'm afraid it's a bit over my head.

I'm running 7.10 with a PVR 150 (STB plugged into the sVideo port on the tuner card controlled by IRBlaster).

Would I want V4L?

[totallymaxed]

Thanks for the reply and I had actually seen that wiki but I'm afraid it's a bit over my head.

I'm running 7.10 with a PVR 150 (STB plugged into the sVideo port on the tuner card controlled by IRBlaster).

Would I want V4L?

No... you only need V4L based modules if you have either DVB or ATSC Digotal TV cards...your PVR150 is an analog Tuner/capture card.

Andrew

[colinjones]

Andrew - I have the NovaT500 and 0710, what currently provides the interface? Is it purely the Nova driver and V4L replaces some of this with a more standardised interface, or is there already a V4l in my system (earlier version?) that this updates? I've never quite understood whether V4L is new or not for us.

What changes/improvements would I expect to see on my system with this? But yes, I would be interested in trying it....

[totallymaxed]

Andrew - I have the NovaT500 and 0710, what currently provides the interface? Is it purely the Nova driver and V4L replaces some of this with a more standardised interface, or is there already a V4l in my system (earlier version?) that this updates? I've never quite understood whether V4L is new or not for us.

What changes/improvements would I expect to see on my system with this? But yes, I would be interested in trying it....

V4L is the complete set of kernel modules that supports TV. The two debs we have update the firmware and the modules...importantly they are built using DKMS directly on your Kernel/sources/headers...so these debs do not contain pre-compiled code as normal debs do...these build the modules from source for your installed kernel.

I will email you the current build of the debs so you can give them a test...they will build on any DKMS enabled system (at least theoretically ;-) )

All the best

Andrew

**We have been running T500's with this V4L build reliably for several weeks now...so this may be the version that makes them usable again ;-)

[colinjones]

Andrew - so one updates the firmware (for all supported cards?) the other updates the modules? Is it just a case of

sudo dpkg -i blahblah.deb

for each one? Any config?

[totallymaxed]

Andrew - so one updates the firmware (for all supported cards?) the other updates the modules? Is it just a case of

sudo dpkg -i blahblah.deb

for each one? Any config?

Yep... just do;

sudo dpkg -i <package_name>

And sit back...it will take some time as it builds all of the V4L modules.

Andrew

[fastie81]

Hi

Will this only work for DVB-T PCI cards or will it work with the HDHomeRun DVB-T to?
C

[totallymaxed]

Hi

Will this only work for DVB-T PCI cards or will it work with the HDHomeRun DVB-T to?
C

These Deb's are for directly connected DVB based TV cards ie PCI/PCie/USB... the HDHomeRun is an IP based dual tuner device and and is not designed to make use of these Deb's.

All the best

Andrew

[Murdock]

Hello -
  Have any issues been reported with the latest v4l driver used in conjunction with the latest alsa driver? I received some cx88-alsa errors for 'Unknown symbol in modules' in the dmesg log after upgrading to both the latest alsa 1.20 and the latest v4l build on 810 (reproducable when attempting to load manually via modprobe). I'm running the pchdtv 5500 (more info on exactly how i'm installing is on my user wiki here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User:Murdock#My_810_Install_Instructions ).

  Both with and without upgrading to the latest alsa driver the audio is not coming in my myth config (this is something i'm going to be troubleshooting today) only if I don't upgrade the alsa driver to 1.20, I don't get any errors on boot.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!

Thank you,

Ryan

[Murdock]

Upon further investigation, I've determined this has nothing to do with the latest V4L module and everything to do with the ALSA module. I've opened thread http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=8591.0 to continue down the troubleshooting path.