How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350

[dibl]

You can find right about a zillion posts on the subject of MythTV and HDTV setups, but I found not a single straightforward explanation of how to get my PVR-150 to capture a simple analog video stream from my VHS tape player. So, here is "PVR-150 For Dummies".

1. Carefully install the card in an available PCI bus slot, using the alignment slot in the card's connector as a guide. Put the Windows driver CD and the IR remote back in the box, because I'm not going to help you with that stuff. :P

Cables -- on the PVR-150 you want to use the "S-Video" port, for the video input, and the "line in" jack, for the audio. If your VCR has only a composite video (yellow RCA jack) output, buy a composite-to-S-Video adapter, and then a double-male S-Video cable to plug between the adapter and the PVR-150, and a standard RCA cable between the adapter and the VCR "video out" jack. For the audio, get a "Y" cable that has the two RCA plugs (white and red) on one end, and the 1/8" audio plug on the other.

2. Upon rebooting your computer, check

lspci

and you should see something like this in the output:

05:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)

Also, you should be able to open your KInfocenter (or Kcontrol if you prefer) and see the new video device -- it may actually show up as a family of 4 devices, which represents 4 capabilities of the system.

3. The basic "driving" of your hardware is done with ivtv. Open Adept Manager or Synaptic, select "ivtv firmware", "ivtv-source", and "ivtv-utils" for installation, and proceed to install them.

4. Reboot your computer, because we need to verify via dmesg that it's all clicking together. When you're logged in, open a console window and run

dmesg

About two-thirds of the way down the message list is a section that describes the ivtv setup. That section needs to look a lot like this:

[  57.587272] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[  57.816771] ivtv: ==================== START INIT IVTV ====================
[  57.816774] ivtv: version 0.10.3 (tagged release) loading
[  57.816775] ivtv: Linux version: 2.6.20-16-lowlatency SMP preempt mod_unload 
[  57.816776] ivtv: In case of problems please include the debug info between
[  57.816777] ivtv: the START INIT IVTV and END INIT IVTV lines, along with
[  57.816778] ivtv: any module options, when mailing the ivtv-users mailinglist.
[  57.816859] ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge card (cx23416 based)
[  57.816898] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:05:00.0[A] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
[  57.859964] usbcore: registered new interface driver xpad
[  57.859967] drivers/usb/input/xpad.c: driver for Xbox controllers v0.1.6
[  58.050965] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[  58.149236] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1b.0[A] -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
[  58.149249] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1b.0 to 64
[  58.496030] ivtv0: loaded v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw firmware (376836 bytes)
[  58.716399] ivtv0: Encoder revision: 0x02060039
[  58.779551] tveeprom 0-0050: Hauppauge model 26152, rev E5B2, serial# 10295170
[  58.779554] tveeprom 0-0050: tuner model is TCL M2523_5N_E (idx 112, type 50)
[  58.779556] tveeprom 0-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) (eeprom 0x08)
[  58.779558] tveeprom 0-0050: audio processor is CX25843 (idx 37)
[  58.779559] tveeprom 0-0050: decoder processor is CX25843 (idx 30)
[  58.779561] tveeprom 0-0050: has no radio, has IR receiver, has IR transmitter
[  58.779563] ivtv0: Autodetected Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
[  58.779564] ivtv0: reopen i2c bus for IR-blaster support
[  58.850882] tuner 0-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
[  59.031050] cx25840 0-0044: cx25843-23 found @ 0x88 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
[  62.746067] cx25840 0-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
[  62.835027] wm8775 0-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (ivtv i2c driver #0)
[  62.884720] ivtv0: Registered device video0 for encoder MPEG (4 MB)
[  62.886605] ivtv0: Registered device video32 for encoder YUV (2 MB)
[  62.887753] ivtv0: Registered device vbi0 for encoder VBI (1 MB)
[  62.888331] ivtv0: Registered device video24 for encoder PCM audio (1 MB)
[  62.889038] tuner 0-0061: type set to 38 (Philips PAL/SECAM multi (FM1216ME MK3))
[  63.240737] ivtv0: Initialized Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, card #0
[  63.240752] ivtv: ==================== END INIT IVTV ====================
[  63.240974] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[  63.240980] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64

5. If you see errors, you may need to manually download and paste the latest firmware files, or otherwise work with the ivtv setup. One test to help you confirm that it's working is to simply tune a channel.

 ivtv-tune --channel=3

should return

/dev/video0: 61.250 MHz

for folks using United States NTSC channels.

Here is the start point for any debugging of your ivtv installation: http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Main_Page

6. When your ivtv driver looks right, then it's time to get your application installed. You want vlc, so open Adept or Synaptic, mark "vlc" for installation, and install it.

7. vlc will appear in your "Multimedia" packages list. Click it to run it. Use "File>Open Capture Device" and then click the "PVR" tab to get to your PVR settings. Set "Norm" to "NTSC" (if you're in the USA, or "PAL" if Europe), and if you're using Channel 3 for the VCR output, then set the frequency to 61250. Then click the "Advanced" button to open the rest of the needed settings.

8. Here's the big secret that took me 3 days to discover (that's why it's "For Dummies", I guess!): While the little advisor that shows when you hover your cursor over the "Channel" window says "0 = tuner, 1 = composite, 2 = S-Video", it turns out that "1 sometimes = S-Video too". Matter of fact, "2" doesn't work for me at all, notwithstanding that the signal is coming in the S-Video jack. Go figure ....

Here is a short list of things that you will find posts suggesting to use, that were a total waste of my time:

tvtime (doesn't work with mpeg2, so it doesn't work with PVR-150/250/350)
xawtv
mplayer (there are a million posts telling how helpful it is to do

cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg

and then play it back with mplayer - it never helped me in the slightest, although it works NOW that I got the rest of it working)

v4l -- it is still installed, and vlc shows a v4l panel that appears functional, but I can't get it to produce a picture, so ......


I hope this helps someone get the job done in less than the week it took me! Screen shot attached (yes, it's Ubuntu, where I do my high-risk experiments that might break the OS).

[arist]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Thanks for the great post. I feel very lucky that you, too, have a PVR-150 and got it to work. Now I know at least that my card works, after months of frustration. I now have a picture in VLC, but there are still a few problems:
o No color
o No audio
o No picture controls in VLC
o Must use Konsole to change channels

Even the capture file (cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg) is black-and-white and has no audio. I find nothing at the ivtv site that refers to this problem.

I should add that I'm not capturing from a VCR, but viewing live from cable input. You say that we should use only the S-Video input, but why is that?


Kubuntu Feisty
AMD 64

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Well, your setup is a bit different from mine -- I hope to run a cable across my room to the computer to try it "live" one of these days.

Here are some questions that might or might not be relevant to your troubleshooting efforts:

1. NTSC vs. PAL -- you're one or the other, depending on where you live. There's a script in ivtv to set this, if I'm remembering how I did it correctly.
2. Encoding/Decoding/Scrambling -- if your cable service is digital or scrambled (i.e. you need a "cable box" between the cable and the TV), I think you'll have to use the cable box as a tuner/descrambler, upstream from your PVR.
3. Color & Audio - I'll bet this is one and the same problem, but I don't know what exactly it is. I'd play with every setting in VLC, especially the ones on the "Advanced" panel.

Once I got my VHS tape capturing working, I've been spending my time capturing the box full of old tapes that I have collected in the past 20 years. I'm close to finished, so perhaps I'll drag out a piece of coax and see what other trouble I can get into with it ....

[arist]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

I'm NTSC, analog. Signal coming into the capture card is good, picture is fairly clear, just silent. I did finally locate the picture controls in vlc (Settings|Extended GUI). I managed to restore the color by tweaking the channel frequencies with ivtv-tune; they're all 0.05 mHz too low. I really don't want to have to manually input the frequency everytime I change channels. I would like to try changing the frequency table in ivtv-tune but it doesn't recognize any string I give with -t or --freqtable.

I have since managed to capture from my camcorder to the composite inputs, and the color is fine, but still no audio. I've spent all day searching every forum and bit of documentation, but nearly everything is pre-feisty (ivtv has changed a lot in the past year) and nothing works. ivtv firmware is current and loaded, sound works fine on the system (e.g. Internet radio, mp3s).

It's not a problem with vlc, since capturing to a file in Konsole and playing it in any other player--Kaffeine, Mplayer--gives good video but no audio. I wonder if it's a problem with having a 64-bit system, which causes so many other difficulties.

I have exactly the same idea--converting old VHS home movies and 8mm tapes to mpeg and then burning to DVD. Are you just copying them straight to DVD, or using video editing software to convert/edit them? I haven't found an editing app that works yet.

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Are you just copying them straight to DVD, or using video editing software to convert/edit them? I haven't found an editing app that works yet.

Nooooooooooo, it's nothing anywhere near that straightforward! :P

I'm experimenting with the process -- I have made DVDs that play nicely on a computer, but not yet got one that will play on a commercial DVD player. I'll post the process, if I can get it nailed down. Basically, the Hauppauge card produces a .mpg file that is mpeg2 encoded. You'll use Avidemux to open it and edit it down to what you actually want to keep (cutting off the noise and deleting commercials or whatever). Then you re-save it. At that point, there seems to be multiple theories of how you get to a DVD-ready file. I'm working on it .... I think Kdenlive is probably going to be part of the solution. :P

[arist]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

OK, I have audio now. Don't know how it happened, unfortunately. I must have messed with some settings, then shut the computer down, and when I booted it later the sound was there. Now to find a friendlier interface with proper frequencies for the channels, and software for creating movies for DVD. See you in another thread.

[lancer]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Hi
This How to is really great for the Hauppauge card, but do you have any idea how to get a Kworld card to work? I have "DVD Maker PCI" which has a Conexant CX23883-19 broadcast decoder chip. I bought this card about 8 months ago and I really haven t being able to make it work. Any ideas/help/suggestion?

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

I wish I could help you, but I've no clue ....

I'd say start googling that particular chip, like "CX23883-19 capture linux" and see what you can dig up in the way of other folks' posts. For example, the last post on this thread shows an edit to /etc/modprobe.conf that seems to be important: http://archives.devshed.com/forums/l...e-1674771.html

[rcarlton]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

This page got my 150 running both with compoosite and cable, changing Channel effectively switches between them. I had the same problem with no audio on the VCR because it was an old one (the newer one ate my tape), I had to change Audio Device menu option to MONO. I got this all working within an hour, including switching the VCR's.

Thanks, hope someone saves you a week sometime.

Gutsy
AMD64

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

This page got my 150 running both with compoosite and cable, changing Channel effectively switches between them.

Great -- I'm glad to hear it helped someone!

Thanks, hope someone saves you a week sometime.

Yeah, I could use it!

[Detonate]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Thanks to this "How To" I got my 150 yesterday afternoon and I can watch TV and VCR today using VLC.

But I have a couple of questions.

How do I save a file? This is probably staring me in the face and I can't see it, but if I want to copy the output of my VCR to my computer to later try and burn a CD or DVD how do I save the file?

Second question. When I close VLC it loses all the settings. I have to reenter them each time I want to view a video or TV. How do I get VLC to save the settings?

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350

@Detonate, I just now found this (while looking for something else). Did you figure out to use the Konsole and

cat /dev/video0 > myfile.mpg

?

[Detonate]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Thanks for the reply. I finally found how to save the file using VLC. Click on the "Wizard" under File and follow the instructions. Easy. I'll try your CLI method, looks easier. Still can't make VLC keep the settings. Any guidance there?

[dibl]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

Still can't make VLC keep the settings. Any guidance there?

To be honest, I've been away from the video-capturing project for so long that I don't recall that. But I also don't remember vlc losing its settings after I first set it up. That was in my Feisty Ubuntu system -- maybe something has changed. :P

[Detonate]

Re: How to get a basic TV capture capability working -- Hauppauge PVR-150/250/35

OK, I have successfully saved a copy of an old VHS tape from 1991 I made with a VHS camcorder of a Family Reunion. I have successfully burned it to a DVD that will play in any DVD player, not just on the computer. I discovered a program called DeVeDe. It's in the repositories. It takes your saved video file and makes an iso file from it. Creating the Dvd using the iso correctly formats the file to work in a Dvd player. Patience is required. It takes longer for the program to create that iso than it does to record the file. My file was 3.9 GB. It took over three hours to convert it to the iso. But it worked!!! The final product works great! The quality seems to be identical to the original recording. I had no problems with the sound sync, which seems to be a challenge for other methods I have read about.
I saved the original file in mpg format, and DeVeDe had no problem with that. When you first open the program up, and select the file, it will ask you to decide on a couple of parameters before beginning the process. The only ones I changed were to make the video and audio bit rate match those of the recorded file. Hope this helps others who may want to convert their old VHS tapes to DVD.