James Emmrich » Operating System http://www.lwp.ca/james Just another motorcycle linux geek Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:25:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Linux and the Mercury EZ View TV Tuner Card http://www.lwp.ca/james/2010/05/linux-and-the-mercury-ez-view-tv-tuner-card/ http://www.lwp.ca/james/2010/05/linux-and-the-mercury-ez-view-tv-tuner-card/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 00:16:57 +0000 James http://www.lwp.ca/james/?p=539 I am not one to watch much TV, but when I do, I prefer to do so by PVR with commercials cut, and live pausing. I also like to set recording schedules in advance and do it from my cellphone if need be.

I bought this little card originally for my parents PVR that I built them, unfortunately I could not get it to work. I believe I paid a little less than $100.00 for it. After a lot of messing with it, I put it back in the box and left it.

Four years later, I attempted again ha.

This is how to get your Mercury EZ View PCI Card to work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The Mercury EZ View PCI Card

Product Image

FM Radio Reception

  • Auto Scan FM channels

TV / Video Display

  • Full motion display @ 30fps
  • Resizable video window from free size to full screen
  • Full screen display: Max resolution up to 720 x 576
  • Supports overlay mode to get the best quality

TV / Video Capture

  • Full motion video capture up to 30 fps
  • Video capture format: AVI, MPEG-1/2/4, DVD, VCD, MP3
  • Still image snapshot format BMP
  • Video capture size up to 352 x 288 (AVI), 325 x 240 (VCD NTSC) and 322 x 288 (VCD PAL)

Digital Video Capture

  • Capture and display video from Digital Video (DV) camcorder
  • Record DV video into MPEG-I or MPEG-II and AVI files
  • Camera control via GUI

System Requirements

  • Outdoor antenna or cable TV connection
  • Pentium III 700MHz or higher processor
  • 128MB of system memory recommended
  • Microsoft Windows 98 SE/ME/2000/XP with DirectX 8.1 installed
  • DirectX 8.1 compatible VGA card

Hardware

  • Conexant CX 23881 chipset, 10bits high quality ADC
  • Multiple tuner receptions (NTSC, PAL system)
  • PCI 2.1 compatible Interface
  • 4 layer PCB
  • Remote power on
  • Full IR remote control function

Installing the Card

Jumper cables provided

Duh, just like any card. But on the serious side, it came with a bunch of jumper cables as shown on the left. The back of the card has a cable coaxial input, a IR input port for the remote, and an “S-Video” like connector. The jumper cables provided, allow you to split this into the following connections:

  • Splitter cable:
    • Audio Out – 3.5mm female
    • Audio In – 3.5mm female
    • Video Composite Out – male
    • S-Video Out – female
  • 3.5mm headphone cable jumper – male/male

It seems to be a funky way of doing things, but in any case…

Upon system reboot, the card is not detected, the syslog shows the following:

  1. May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [   13.296313] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
  2. May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [   13.766829] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80×30
  3. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010115] cx88/0: cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.7 loaded
  4. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010171] cx8800 0000:02:0a.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
  5. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010469] cx88[0]: Your board has no valid PCI Subsystem ID and thus can’t
  6. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010471] cx88[0]: be autodetected.  Please pass card=<n> insmod option to
  7. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010473] cx88[0]: workaround that.  Redirect complaints to the vendor of
  8. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010474] cx88[0]: the TV card.  Best regards,
  9. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.010475] cx88[0]:         — tux
  10. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.012313] cx88[0]: Here is a list of valid choices for the card=<n> insmod option:
  11. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.012815] cx88[0]:    card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
  12. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.013152] cx88[0]:    card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV 34xxx models
  13. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.013521] cx88[0]:    card=2 -> GDI Black Gold
  14. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.013841] cx88[0]:    card=3 -> PixelView
  15. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.014143] cx88[0]:    card=4 -> ATI TV Wonder Pro
  16. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.014468] cx88[0]:    card=5 -> Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Expert
  17. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.014832] cx88[0]:    card=6 -> AverTV Studio 303 (M126)
  18. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.015178] cx88[0]:    card=7 -> MSI TV-@nywhere Master
  19. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.015518] cx88[0]:    card=8 -> Leadtek Winfast DV2000
  20. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.015858] cx88[0]:    card=9 -> Leadtek PVR 2000
  21. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.016214] cx88[0]:    card=10 -> IODATA GV-VCP3/PCI
  22. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.016554] cx88[0]:    card=11 -> Prolink PlayTV PVR
  23. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.016893] cx88[0]:    card=12 -> ASUS PVR-416
  24. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.017208] cx88[0]:    card=13 -> MSI TV-@nywhere
  25. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.017532] cx88[0]:    card=14 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T
  26. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.017900] cx88[0]:    card=15 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T1
  27. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.018252] cx88[0]:    card=16 -> KWorld LTV883RF
  28. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.018570] cx88[0]:    card=17 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-Q
  29. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.018925] cx88[0]:    card=18 -> Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T
  30. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.019270] cx88[0]:    card=19 -> Conexant DVB-T reference design
  31. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.019644] cx88[0]:    card=20 -> Provideo PV259
  32. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.019960] cx88[0]:    card=21 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Plus
  33. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.020356] cx88[0]:    card=22 -> pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV
  34. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.030618] cx88[0]:    card=23 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T
  35. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.040737] cx88[0]:    card=24 -> Hauppauge WinTV 28xxx (Roslyn) models
  36. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.051028] cx88[0]:    card=25 -> Digital-Logic MICROSPACE Entertainment Center (MEC)
  37. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.071494] cx88[0]:    card=26 -> IODATA GV/BCTV7E
  38. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.081762] cx88[0]:    card=27 -> PixelView PlayTV Ultra Pro (Stereo)
  39. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.091783] cx88[0]:    card=28 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-T
  40. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.101925] cx88[0]:    card=29 -> ADS Tech Instant TV DVB-T PCI
  41. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.111947] cx88[0]:    card=30 -> TerraTec Cinergy 1400 DVB-T
  42. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.122069] cx88[0]:    card=31 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 Gold
  43. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.132337] cx88[0]:    card=32 -> AverMedia UltraTV Media Center PCI 550
  44. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.142650] cx88[0]:    card=33 -> Kworld V-Stream Xpert DVD
  45. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.152954] cx88[0]:    card=34 -> ATI HDTV Wonder
  46. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.163478] cx88[0]:    card=35 -> WinFast DTV1000-T
  47. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.174010] cx88[0]:    card=36 -> AVerTV 303 (M126)
  48. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.184401] cx88[0]:    card=37 -> Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus DVB-S
  49. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.194992] cx88[0]:    card=38 -> Hauppauge Nova-SE2 DVB-S
  50. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.205465] cx88[0]:    card=39 -> KWorld DVB-S 100
  51. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.215970] cx88[0]:    card=40 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid
  52. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.226649] cx88[0]:    card=41 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid (Low Profile)
  53. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.247883] cx88[0]:    card=42 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T Pro
  54. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.259172] cx88[0]:    card=43 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T with cx22702
  55. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.270560] cx88[0]:    card=44 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital
  56. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.282025] cx88[0]:    card=45 -> KWorld HardwareMpegTV XPert
  57. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.293396] cx88[0]:    card=46 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Hybrid
  58. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.304702] cx88[0]:    card=47 -> pcHDTV HD5500 HDTV
  59. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.315830] cx88[0]:    card=48 -> Kworld MCE 200 Deluxe
  60. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.327030] cx88[0]:    card=49 -> PixelView PlayTV P7000
  61. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.338171] cx88[0]:    card=50 -> NPG Tech Real TV FM Top 10
  62. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.349322] cx88[0]:    card=51 -> WinFast DTV2000 H
  63. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.360277] cx88[0]:    card=52 -> Geniatech DVB-S
  64. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.371133] cx88[0]:    card=53 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR3000 TriMode Analog/DVB-S/DVB-T
  65. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.392302] cx88[0]:    card=54 -> Norwood Micro TV Tuner
  66. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.403119] cx88[0]:    card=55 -> Shenzhen Tungsten Ages Tech TE-DTV-250 / Swann OEM
  67. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.425351] cx88[0]:    card=56 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1300 DVB-T/Hybrid MPEG Encoder
  68. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.448397] cx88[0]:    card=57 -> ADS Tech Instant Video PCI
  69. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.460250] cx88[0]:    card=58 -> Pinnacle PCTV HD 800i
  70. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.472088] cx88[0]:    card=59 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 PCI nano
  71. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.483859] cx88[0]:    card=60 -> Pinnacle Hybrid PCTV
  72. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.495621] cx88[0]:    card=61 -> Leadtek TV2000 XP Global
  73. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.507511] cx88[0]:    card=62 -> PowerColor RA330
  74. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.519250] cx88[0]:    card=63 -> Geniatech X8000-MT DVBT
  75. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.531312] cx88[0]:    card=64 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T PRO
  76. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.543210] cx88[0]:    card=65 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 7 Gold
  77. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.554938] cx88[0]:    card=66 -> Prolink Pixelview MPEG 8000GT
  78. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.566832] cx88[0]:    card=67 -> Kworld PlusTV HD PCI 120 (ATSC 120)
  79. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.578525] cx88[0]:    card=68 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000 DVB-S/S2/T/Hybrid
  80. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.589973] cx88[0]:    card=69 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000(Lite) DVB-S/S2
  81. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.601279] cx88[0]:    card=70 -> TeVii S460 DVB-S/S2
  82. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.612676] cx88[0]:    card=71 -> Omicom SS4 DVB-S/S2 PCI
  83. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.624058] cx88[0]:    card=72 -> TBS 8920 DVB-S/S2
  84. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.635450] cx88[0]:    card=73 -> TeVii S420 DVB-S
  85. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.646784] cx88[0]:    card=74 -> Prolink Pixelview Global Extreme
  86. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.658301] cx88[0]:    card=75 -> PROF 7300 DVB-S/S2
  87. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.669770] cx88[0]:    card=76 -> SATTRADE ST4200 DVB-S/S2
  88. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.681486] cx88[0]:    card=77 -> TBS 8910 DVB-S
  89. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.692933] cx88[0]:    card=78 -> Prof 6200 DVB-S
  90. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.704146] cx88[0]:    card=79 -> Terratec Cinergy HT PCI MKII
  91. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.715313] cx88[0]:    card=80 -> Hauppauge WinTV-IR Only
  92. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.726179] cx88[0]:    card=81 -> Leadtek WinFast DTV1800 Hybrid
  93. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.736853] cx88[0]:    card=82 -> WinFast DTV2000 H rev. J
  94. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.736865] cx88[0]: subsystem: 0000:0000, board: UNKNOWN/GENERIC [card=0,autodetected], frontend(s): 0
  95. May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [   14.736872] cx88[0]: TV tuner type -1, Radio tuner type -1

Never had to deal with this before. Annoying, as my Hauppauge 250 PVR card works amazing and out of the box. As you can see there is no EZ View or Mercury in there.

Debugging

I needed to find out more information:

sudo lspci -v
02:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 03)
 Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22
 Memory at f9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
 Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data <?>
 Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
 Kernel modules: cx8800

I installed my usual software:

  • tvtime
  • xawtv
sudo apt-get install tvtime xawtv

I tried all, obviously, got nothing.

After posting numerous posts around the web, reading, my last resort was to figure out how to set the card types. To do so I needed to learn the modprobe command.

One thing to note here is that it seems the cx8800 driver creates the device /dev/video0 and the cx88xx provides new functionality, therefore they work together. You need to unload and reload them both. My initial problems was that the cx8800 driver does not support the modprobe command “card” as that was moved to the cx88xx driver.

Another thing was you can’t unload the cx88xx module from the kernel unless you first remove the cx8800 module. These little things caused a lot of initial confusion for me.

I wrote a little script to test each card type, surprisingly, this card seems to work on a couple different types. It was working and I didn’t even know it a couple times. Here’s a simple shell script I wrote:

rmmod cx8800
rmmod cx88xx
modprobe cx88xx card=$1 tuner=$2
modprobe cx8800
tvtime

When tvtime opens, you can then set the input for the card, in my case it was Television, but for some it might be composite, s-video, dvb whatever your case may be. It took a few seconds before my video started producing color video.

Freenode help

A friendly fellow from Iceland, kizi, from Freenode’s IRC ##linux channel, provided some expertise here and helped me on the rest of the journey. He found me this interesting site:

http://translate.google.is/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsugo.ubuntu.hu%2Fcommunity-doc%2Fhardy%2Funiverse%2Fhardware%2Fmercury_ezview_cx88xx.html&sl=hu&tl=en

Honestly cannot thank him enough!

Interestingly this link had the card and tuner number I needed! card=27 tuner=69

So I ran the script again with the following:

./mercury 27 69

Viola! seemed to work even better!

To make this work after rebooting the computer, I made a config file: /etc/modprobe.conf/mercury.conf

options cx88 card=27 tuner=69

So I rebooted and to make sure it worked still. Yay!

As for setting it up in MythTV, well, that is a whole different post. Due to the way my audio is configured, it’s like a puzzle of jumper cables and only just figured it out 24 hours later with lots of frustration. Boy, do I hate the way Ubuntu 10.04 LTS handles the audio card configurations!!

Hope this will help anyone else getting their card to work.

Related pages:

  • Mercury EZ view tv tuner card (Conexant CX 23881 chipset) – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512551
]]> http://www.lwp.ca/james/2010/05/linux-and-the-mercury-ez-view-tv-tuner-card/feed/ 0 Windows Mobile: The Price of Freedom. Linux: The Freedom to Act. http://www.lwp.ca/james/2008/09/windows-mobile-the-price-of-freedom-linux-the-freedom-to-act/ http://www.lwp.ca/james/2008/09/windows-mobile-the-price-of-freedom-linux-the-freedom-to-act/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:36:19 +0000 James http://www.lwp.ca/james/?p=206 As a Linux user, I guess you come to expect a certain amount of FREEDOM. And I think when you get a taste of it, you only want more, and more until you are at the point of being considered spoiled I guess ha!

HTC Titan

The HTC Titan

Well I have a Windows Mobile (pocket pc) cell phone. It’s a Telus HTC P4000 (aka Titan/Mogul). Like many cell phone manufacturers, HTC builds cellphones which are then rebranded for each cellphone company, hence the shitty name Telus gave it. The P4000.

On to the real issue though. Windows Mobile. If there are two things that drives me nuts the most, they would be:

  1. Lack of flexibility (freedom)
  2. Networking issues (in two forms, dropped/missed calls and router/ip/ether issues)

I consider myself a power user, and the gadgets that I buy are used for specific reasons and get used every single day until they break. The reason I chose this phone was for a couple of reasons:

  1. Full slide out keyboard for ease of typing (possibly programming on the go if absolutely needed)
  2. Provides the ability to ssh into servers from wherever I am using the Cellular network or using the built-in Wifi
  3. The remote possibility it will eventually run Linux

Now, I moved from Windows to Linux quite a few years ago, mostly due to extreme frustration, and I did not take purchasing this phone lightly. I was worried that buying a Windows Mobile phone could be a big mistake. After having it now for almost a year, I must say it has been awesome.

The Price

The source of frustration is the model that the Windows Operating System is built around. The OS provides basic hardware to software functionality. Alone its useless, but with software it can make things easy and fun.

However, buying software sucks.

When I was younger, the whole idea and process of cracking and pirating software was cool and fun, but realistically, it is a pain in the ass, and when more people realize that free software does not always mean crap software, prices will go down or disappear and we will all be thankful for it.

My rant is continuing on far too long here, and I am sorry. What I am trying to get at is this:

It is absolutely frustrating to come from a Linux operating system and go to a Windows Mobile based device and suddenly realize that I do not have software to do the things I need.

The Freedom

Running Linux on this phone, and future phones is right around the corner, unfortunately, it is not coming fast enough.

From what I understand, Googles Android is extremely close to running on the phone (boots into Android), a huge success considering the amount of information provided by HTC to get it to work (zip-nadda-zilch!). However I do not want Android, I do not want a “pretty” phone. I do not want the Iphone.

I want a functional phone and that means I want:

  • Access to a terminal/command prompt
  • ssh functionality without having to use purchase-ware
  • For god sakes, an internet enabled phone must come utilities to debug networking issues such as the simple command ping.

I do not want to spend my days searching for software to help make my Windows Operating System functional. I am a web developer, and Linux does this [functionality] right out of the box. Literally.

In conclusion, I will be adding a page about the phone some time in the future. There has been some real cool stuff you can do with it after flashing and doing some upgrades that happily void your warranty. It’s real cool stuff and makes the phone a lot more fun to use.

]]> http://www.lwp.ca/james/2008/09/windows-mobile-the-price-of-freedom-linux-the-freedom-to-act/feed/ 0