Having just followed several sets of incomplete instructions to set up KnoppMyth R5A16 to use my PVR-350's hardware decoder, I thought I'd post my own set of instructions designed for the complete novice (and written by a complete novice). I'm not entirely sure that all of the steps are actually needed, but they don't hurt, and if you follow these steps exactly, you've got a pretty darn good chance of getting it working first time! Hopefully someone finds them useful. Please post corrections if you see any glaring errors. Thanks.
Instructions for installing KnoppMyth R5A16 with a PVR-350 card using hardware decoding
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With an single, new hard drive in the machine, boot the KnoppMyth CD.
boot: knoppmyth tv
[RET]
0
[RET]
(Hint: The mode "tv" can be replaced by "screen=640x480 depth=24" if desired)
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Wait for until "KnoppMyth Main-Menu" shows up.
Choose option #2
(Hint: If your USB keyboard doesn't respond, unplug it, wait, and plug it back in)
Set timezones, then time.
Press "Y".
Enter name, login, password (4 times), hostname
Press "Y" (3 times).
Ugly, cascading text will write all over the screen.
Permit the reboot when prompted.
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Hold down the "shift" key as the machine comes up to catch the lilo prompt.
At the lilo prompt:
boot: linux tv
[RET]
0
[RET]
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The linux desktop comes up with a single black window.
Enter the root password.
Set the timezones, and time once again.
DHCP broadcast: Yes
Module action: default (unless you have an i686 machine)
Clear capture card settings? Yes
Clear program/channel settings? Yes
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The Myth GUI loads up.
----------
Select choice #2 [Capture Cards]
New capture card
Card Type: MPEG-2 Encoder card (PVR-250, PVR-350)
Video device: /dev/video0
Default input: Tuner 0
[FINISH]
[ESC]
(Note: don't accidently add another capture card by pressing enter by mistake!)
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Select choice #3 [Video Sources]
New video source
Video source name: cable (note: this name is arbitrary)
XMLTV listings grabber: North America (DataDirect)
Press "Retrieve Lineups"
(only takes 3 to 4 seconds to finish)
[FINISH]
[ESC]
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Select choice #4 [Input Connections]
Select "tuner 0"
Video source: cable
[FINISH]
[ESC]
Press [ESC] again.
The GUI exits. Wait, while the listings are fetched. It took 5 or 6 minutes for me.
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The MythTV GUI starts up with "Pre-scaling theme images"...
Using the arrow keys, select "Watch TV". You should be able to watch
TV on your monitor and change channels with the up/down arrow keys.
[ESC]
Press the down arrow key twice, then select "Utilities/Setup".
Select "Setup", "Appearance".
[NEXT] (note: [NEXT] mean select the "Next" button and hit enter)
Now, using *only* the arrow keys (keyboard numbers don't work), set
the following 4 parameters:
width=624
height=440
Xoffset=41
Yoffset=24
(note: These are approximate, and you can tweak them later)
Hit [NEXT] 4 times.
[FINISH]
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The MythTV GUI now loads up at a much smaller size on your monitor.
----------
Select "General"
Hit [NEXT] twice.
Mixer controls: Master
Hit [NEXT] 4 times.
[FINISH]
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Select "TV Settings"
Select "Playback"
Hit [NEXT] 4 times.
Turn on "Use the PVR-350's TV out / MPEG decoder"
(note: select it using the right arrow key)
Leave video device set to /dev/video16
Turn on "TV audio through PVR-350 only"
(note: don't forget to physically wire the 350's sound back into your sound card's line-in)
Hit [NEXT] 3 times.
Note that this is the screen that you can later adjust your TV's overscan. Don't do it now.
[NEXT]
[FINISH]
[ESC] 4 times
Exit MythTV? Yes
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From the linux desktop...
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Right-click, "XShells", "XTerm".
su
(enter root password)
ifconfig
(Write down your machine's IP address somewhere since you may need it later!
It will be probably be something like 192.168.1.100)
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xedit /etc/lilo.conf
Change the first line from:
vga=791
to
vga=normal
Save, Quit.
Type:
lilo -v
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xedit /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv
(note: widen the window so you can see everything)
Append to the install ivtv line:
; /sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb; /sbin/modprobe lirc_i2c
and append to the remove ivtv line:
&& /sbin/modprobe -r ivtv-fb && /sbin/modprobe -r lirc_i2c
Save, Quit.
Type:
update-rc.d lirc defaults
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Type:
cd /usr/src/
tar -xjf kernel-source-2.6.11.7-chw-4.tar.bz2
tar -xzf ivtv-0.3.3u.tgz
cd ivtv-0.3.3u/
cd driver
make install
cd ../utils
make install
cp /usr/src/ivtv-0.3.3u/utils/ivtvdev_drv_o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ivtvdev_drv.o
update-modules
(Yes, it's an "_" in the first name, and a "." in the second!)
(Hint: Remember that "tab" is filename complete!)
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Type:
cd /etc/X11
cp XF86Config-4 XF86Config-4.monitor
rm XF86Config-4
ln XF86Config-4.monitor XF86Config-4
cp XF86Config-4.pvr350-tvout.sample XF86Config-4.pvr350
lspci | grep MPEG
Output will be something like this:
0000:01:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
Convert this Bus ID from hex to a decimal string as follows. The example above becomes:
"PCI:01:10:0"
(Write it down!)
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xedit XF86Config-4.pvr350
Change the file as follows: "<" is old, ">" is new.
4c4
< InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
---
> InputDevice "USB Mouse" "CorePointer"
110c110
< Driver "fbdev"
---
> Driver "ivtvdev"
112,113c112,113
< Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
---
> Option "ivtvdev" "/dev/fb0"
117c117
< BusID "0:0x08:0"
---
> BusID "PCI:01:10:0"
(note: Change "Mouse0" to one of "USB Mouse", "PS/2 Mouse" or "Serial Mouse")
Save, Quit.
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Type:
su mythtv
aumix
Push the "Line" and "Vol" controls all the way to the right.
Save, Quit.
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Type:
su
reboot
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The linux desktop comes up with a single black window.
Enter the root password.
Clear capture card settings? No
Clear program/channel settings? No
[ESC]
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Type:
su
chmod 666 /dev/video0
chmod 666 /dev/fb0
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Ok, we're now gonna switch it over to use the TV screen. You won't be
able to get access to your computer easily if this step doesn't work,
however you will be able to SSH into it from another machine in your
network using the IP address you wrote down earlier. From Windows I
use "Putty" as my SSH client.
Type:
cd /etc/X11
rm XF86Config-4
ln XF86Config-4.pvr350 XF86Config-4
reboot
It should reboot, put a bunch of text on your monitor, ending in
cascading text. At that point, your TV screen should go black, then
quickly green, then have some horizontal black&white stripes, and then
after a couple of minutes (sometimes up to 5 minutes - BE PATIENT!),
it should go grey and a mouse pointer should appear. Shortly
thereafter the Myth GUI should appear. On subsequent boots, it will
go faster.
If everything comes up, you need to continue your setup by configuring
your remote control. There are many postings on how to do this.
If it doesn't work, you can use SSH to get into the machine and change
the XF86Config-4 link file to point back to XF86Config-4.monitor.
Then reboot, and it will all be back on your monitor so you can
attempt to figure out what went wrong.
By the way, if you need to transfer files onto or off the machine, you
can use "ftp" which you have to install like this:
Type:
apt-get update
apt-get install ftp
Good luck!
Cheers,
Julian
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