[mythtv-users] Question while trying to setup a HDPVR

[Jarod Wilson]

On Jun 10, 2011, at 12:41 AM, Adam Jimerson wrote:

> Ok so I just bought a HDPVR to connect my satellite box to my Mythbox,
> so far everything is going well, I was able to cat /dev/video0 to a .ts
> file and had both video and sound with out having to update any firmware
> on the PVR (on the bottom of the box it says that it is a "Rev F2").  I
> got if setup in myth for the most part but the trouble I have is during
> trying to set up the IR Transmitter and have several questions...
> 
> 1. Following the directions on the Myth's wiki for the device step for
> for adding the HD-PVR to MythTV says "Important Note: You must set a
> channel change script for the HD-PVR to work properly. If you don't care
> about channel changes, you can set it to /bin/true, but there absolutely
> must be a channel change script defined."  I would like to have myth be
> able to change the channel on my satellite box but what scripts is it
> referring to?

There are multiple channel changing scripts in the mythtv wiki, any
that are for lirc can be adapted to work. There's also one linked to at
another location I'll link to later on in this reply. :)


> 2. I have Lirc and the Lirc utilities package installed on my distro
> (Arch Linux) and upon starting lircd it sees the HD-PVR but I don't see
> a hardware.conf anywhere on my system, I tried using locate but it seems
> to not exists is this a problem?

hardware.conf is a not part of upstream lirc, despite what legions of
Ubuntu users would lead you believe. It doesn't exist on most other
distributions outside of Debian derivatives. All it does is feed params
to your lirc initscript though. Fedora uses /etc/sysconfig/lirc to do
similar, not entirely sure about other distros.

Adding a standard lirc daemon config file that lircd itself reads is
on my TODO list, so we *do* have a common centralized config, rather
than every distribution rolling its own.


> 3. When checking dmesg the output of lirc_zilog is confusing:
> 
> [107355.768180] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 249
> 
> [107355.768685] lirc_zilog: module is from the staging directory, the
> quality is unknown, you have been warned.
> [107355.769772] lirc_zilog: Zilog/Hauppauge IR driver initializing
> 
> [107355.770554] lirc_zilog: probing IR Rx on Hauppage HD PVR I2C (i2c-6)
> 
> [107355.770560] lirc_zilog: probe of IR Rx on Hauppage HD PVR I2C
> (i2c-6) done. Waiting on IR Tx.
> [107355.770568] lirc_zilog: probing IR Tx on Hauppage HD PVR I2C (i2c-6)
> 
> 107355.770711] i2c i2c-6: lirc_dev: driver lirc_zilog registered at
> minor = 0
> [107355.795975] lirc_zilog: firmware haup-ir-blaster.bin not available
> (-2)

You're missing the necessary binary blaster index-to-signal-waveform
data blob that has to be loaded into the driver for it to be able to
actually transmit.


> [107355.796070] lirc_zilog: ir_probe: probing IR Tx on Hauppage HD PVR
> I2C (i2c-6) failed with -2
> [107355.796083] Zilog/Hauppauge i2c IR: probe of 6-0070 failed with
> error -2
> [107355.796126] lirc_zilog: initialization complete
> 
> I take it by the fact that I only have a /dev/licrd and no /dev/lirc0
> that it failed?  If so is this a problem with the firmware on the PVR or
> a issue with the drivers for the IR Transmitter I didn't compile them
> manually just using the ones packaged by Arch (I didn't see any
> instructions on the wiki for it...)

Read up here:

http://wilsonet.com/?p=40

Start at "Either way, you still need a firmware image..." though, since
the earlier bits are all irrelevant, now that the patches to enable the
IR part on the hdpvr are all upstream.

Also, watch out for a zilog rx thread pegging your cpu, there's a bug
in certain eras of lirc_zilog code, for which I just sent a patch upstream
yesterday. Optionally, if you're not using the rx bit, load lirc_zilog
with the module parameter tx_only=1.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com