[mythtv-users] Can't Open HDTV Card

[R. G. Newbury]

Gray wrote:

> I did a search to see if my system was showing my card and I found this
> in my dmesg file:
> 
> [root at localhost /]# cat /var/log/dmesg |more | grep dvico -i
> CORE cx88[0]: subsystem: 18ac:d500, board: DViCO FusionHDTV 5 Gold
> [card=31,autodetected]
> 
> So my computer does recognize my Dvico card.  So the question remains
> why can't i scan any channels?
There are wo major questions:

1)	Is your card working properly.
2)	Is myth scanning properly, if the hardware works.

	There is a TRAC bug report about mythtv-setup not scanning properly. 
That may be the problem you are experiencing. Then again, your card may 
not be working.

1)	Determining if your card is working.

Do you have a folder structure under /dev/dvb ???
You should have /dev/dvb/adapter0 and under that a demux0, frontend0 and 
dvr0 folders.

Go to the pchdtv.com site and download the dvb-atsc-tools-1.0.4 package. 
After compiling that package., you can use atscscan and one of the us-* 
frequency table files to run a scan. This will produce a summary listing 
which is an almost channels.conf for your cable feed (or antenna 
reception if you are doing OTA).

You can then use the azap program to tune your card to a particular 
stream, and mplayer to play the stream (mplayer 
dvb://dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 is the command IIRC).  It appears that on 
most cable feeds in North America, you will get a couple of hundred 
digital streams, most of which are encrypted (and need a set top box). 
You have to test each stream to find the ones that work.

You then amend your channels.conf to name your found channels to the 
same naming scheme as your zap2it lineup and put the file at 
~/.mythtv/channels.conf.

There is another package which you could google for. The scanner program 
is called dtvscan. It does the same thing as atscscan and azap.

Once you can tune a digital stream and play it with mplayer (or with 
xine) you can be sure that your hardware is working.
It appears from your dmesg extract, that your hardware is being 
recognized and should work.

At this stage you can use azap -r <channel-name> in one console and 'cat 
/dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 > save.mpg' to save a stream...If you start this 
with a cron, you can schedule a recording of a TV program, outside of 
myth for playback later! And I think you could even import that saved 
file into myth using the myth.rebuilddatabase.pl script.


2)	Determining if mythtv-setup is working properly.

The next step is problematic. You are at least the third person who has 
reported being unable to scan or import with mythtv-setup. There is a 
TRAC report under number 2830 for this problem.

If you have any content in your mythconverg database, do a backup and 
follow the 'Moving to new hardware' instructions in the Mythtv 
documentation (about chapter 23). Then start with a brand new clean 
database, and attempt to install....Something is going wrong with the 
scan setup and even with an existing setup, myth does not properly 
initilize the digital card, so it fails to tune. Post a note on the TRAC 
  database, and ask what you should forward. This is being looked a but 
your hardware may show a different symptom than mine.

Geoff