[mythtv-users] How to get PVR-500mce working on FC3

[Allan Wilson]

There have been quite a few posts on how to get the PVR-500mce working but I 
thought I would summarize everything that I found out while getting my new 
500mce working. If anyone has anything to add please feel free to update.

The PVR-500mce is a dual tuner card that only requires one coax cable in and 
then splits it to the two tuners. You want to make sure that you have the 
the 0.3 version of the ivtv driver which can be found here, 
http://www.ivtv.tv/releases/ivtv-0.3. I used the ivtv-0.3.8.tar.gz version 
and it worked fine for me. This will get you pictures on both inputs but no 
sound. To get the sound working you have to update the firmware with this 
link <http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/software/mce/mce_cd_v27a.zip> from 
Hauppauge's website. Then update the firmware by doing the following:

mkdir ~/pvrfirmware
unzip mce_cd_v27a.zip -d ~/pvrfirmware
cp ~/pvrfirmware/WinTV-PVR-150500MCE_2_0_30_23074_WHQL/HcwMakoA.ROM /lib/modules
cp ~/pvrfirmware/WinTV-PVR-150500MCE_2_0_30_23074_WHQL/HcwFalcn.rom /lib/modules
ln -sf /lib/modules/HcwFalcn.rom /lib/modules/ivtv-fw-enc.bin

Then just make sure that you have the proper /etc/modprobe.conf file. Below 
is what mine looks like. I also have a PVR-250 card which is 81-0.

# ivtv modules setup
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
alias char-major-81-1 ivtv
alias char-major-81-2 ivtv
 
Now you need to power off your computer and pull the power cable from the 
computer to do a hard power off for at least 10 seconds. Then power on your 
computer which will load the new ivtv modules. You can verify that 
everything is working fine by checking the end of /var/log/messages. If 
there is any problems you need to look at everything between the ----- ivtv 
start ------- and ------ ivtv end ------ lines. Once the power up is 
completed you need to run mythtvsetup to setup your two new inputs. I choose 
to keep all my current settings then added the two new video sources making 
sure for the first PVR-500 tuner to use /dev/video1 with tuner0 for the 
first input and /dev/video2 with tuner0 for the second input. There is an 
option for tuner1 but make sure that you do not use it. The PVR-500 is 
recognized as two PVR-150s and you have to setup as above to match this 
configuration. Then go in and map your channel guides to this new setup. 
Exit out of mythtvsetup and you are ready to enjoy your new cards.

Hope this helps anyone trying to get a PVR-500mce working on FC3.

Allan Wilson
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