TV tuner assistance please.

[Locator]

Can anyone out there PLEASE tell me what TV tuner(s) will work correctly with Vector Linux 7.0? It seems that every time that I have asked that question on this forum I get little or no response, and the two tuners that I currently have tried, an SAA7134, and a WinTV-HVR 1950 (model 1192), have not worked. Any assistance will be GREATLY appreciated.

[bigpaws]

I have responded many times.

This may help.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Digital_Tuner_Cards

Bigpaws

[stretchedthin]

Locator, before you run out and get a new tuner, I finaly got mine working.

Now mine is a hauppauge 250 and uses the ivtv driver.

You had an earlier post were I thought you were using one that used the same driver.  Do you still have that card?

[stretchedthin]

Locator, before you run out and get a new tuner, I finaly got mine working.

Now mine is a hauppauge 250 and uses the ivtv driver.

You had an earlier post were I thought you were using one that used the same driver.  Do you still have that card?

Sorry, I see you have both cards listed at the top of the thread.  Neither use the ivtv driver, so my experience will not help you.

Here is the web page for devices that will take ivtv driver.
http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Supported_hardware
If you get one of these I can help.

[Locator]

I have responded many times.

This may help.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Digital_Tuner_Cards

Bigpaws

Unfortunately, I have discovered after carefully looking over that page, that it is BADLY out of date. So where do I get information that is both accurate AND up to date?

[Locator]

Locator, before you run out and get a new tuner, I finaly got mine working.

Now mine is a hauppauge 250 and uses the ivtv driver.

You had an earlier post were I thought you were using one that used the same driver.  Do you still have that card?

When I said that I had a SAA7134 tuner I discovered that I made a typing error, because the tuner card that I do have is a SAA7130 - NOT a SAA7134, if that makes a difference. So what's the solution to get my tuner card working the way that it's supposed to?

[stretchedthin]

OK, So your card should work, just not out of the box.

I just google "SAA7130 linux driver" and did a little google-fu.

I found this from a Ubuntu forum....
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=948180

and this from a Gentoo forum...
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/SAA7134#tuner

Then I locked in on this answer here...
[quoteRe: PCI Capture cards based on Phillips SAA7130 chipset?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jobinau View Post
Quick answer to your question:
Yes! SAA7130 is supported, but it uses the SAA7134 driver.
infact Philips SAA7130 is a scale down version of SAA7134 for which linux driver is available.
i mean, you need to load the saa7134 module like:

modeprobe saa7134

I am already using a SAA7130 based tuner for viewing TV.
here i documented how you can do that.
http://jobinau.googlepages.com/saa71...cardunderlinux

You will likely need to download and install the nxt2004 firmware for one of these cards, and you'll also likely need to specify the card and tuner parameters as modprobe options, since most of these cards are so cheaply produced that modprobe has trouble identifying one from another. Once they are configured, however, they work great.

The mythtv howto for the Avermedia A180 tells how to get the firmware for these cards.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/AVerTV_HD_A180

The list of cards is most easily found on the Gentoo wiki:

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Saa7134

The list of tuners is found here:

http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/SAA7134#tuner

So that, for example,to load my AverMedia A180 properly via modprobe, the command was;

modprobe saa7134 card=75 tuner=68

And finally, though this doesn't usually affect Ubuntu, it's hardly documented anywhere: if your I2c support is compiled straight into the kernel, the nxt-2004 firmware absolutely, positively will not load. I2c support must be done as a module.

Like I said, not usually a problem with Ubuntu, unless you've done some peculiar kernel compiling. But in some distros it will stop you dead with one of these cards until you figure it out.

Cheers! [/quote]

Seems no one here uses the same card as you, but that does not mean that the answer can't be found on another forum were someone does.

Read through the above, the steps should be very much the same.  Ask questions about specific steps, if they give you trouble, I 'll try to help where I can, if I can.

[Locator]

Yes...I checked out that information that you provided, but unfortunately it only seems to apply to a different "flavor" of Linux (Ubuntu to be exact) because I tried all of the suggestions found in those links, and I am NO closer to getting my tuner to work than before (apparently the Ubuntu version of Linux is NOT the same as Vector Linux 7.0). And while I am thinking about it, where do I get a copy of the nxt2004 firmware?

[bigpaws]

http://www.slackwiki.com/DVB

Bigpaws

[stretchedthin]

What do you see when you do the following (as root)?
modprobe saa7134

That should work without error.  I'm assuming you are using the 3.0.8 kernel, and I have tested on that one.

Then as the artical said you will need to install the firmware.
There is an link to that from the post above is old.
Try this one....
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1120#Installing_the_Firmware

Then it looks like you do this...
Next Step

The next step is to create a channels.conf. To this end follow the link Testing your DVB device



Now if can not complete these steps yourself, there are really only two other ways to bring in someone to help.

1. You allow someone remote access to you computer through teamview or the like.

or
2. You pack up and send the hardware to one of the dev's who is willing to take it and they will figure it out and make the packages needed for it.

[Locator]

When I typed in "modprobe saa7134" I got the following output -

vector:/~
root:# modprobe saa7134
vector:/~
root:#

and the tuner that I have was manufactured by Sabrent, NOT Hauppauge (for what that information might be worth).

[stretchedthin]

When I typed in "modprobe saa7134" I got the following output -

vector:/~
root:# modprobe saa7134
vector:/~
root:#

and the tuner that I have was manufactured by Sabrent, NOT Hauppauge (for what that information might be worth).

OK, believe it or not you have done the first step.
When you ran modprobe saa7134, you loaded the driver that is part of the kernel.
Now start reading through the firmware stuff.  Give it a try let us know what questions you have.

Does not matter the manufacturer.  Just the chipset.

[Locator]

According to the instructional link that you gave me (which would have been of more help had it been written in "layman's terms"), I need to download a firmware file called dvb-fe-nxt2004.fe, now where can I find it (that instructional page doesn't have it)?

[stretchedthin]

here for the zip file
Download this into a folder by itself

Then download this
extraction shell script

Then in a terminal opened in that same directory do this
sh ./extract.sh

You will end up with three firmware files all ending in .fw
Copy them into /lib/firmware/

Follow the instructions from that point down.

[Locator]

Thank you, but then the next instruction says -

"In order that the saa7134-dvb module gets loaded at startup add following line

install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe  --ignore-install saa7134 && { /sbin/modprobe saa7134-alsa; } && { /sbin/modprobe saa7134-dvb;}

to the modprobe.conf in

/etc/modprobe.conf"

I went to the /etc subdirectory, and didn't find "modprobe.conf" anywhere.