[mythtv] AIR2PC -- success at last

[Thomas M. Pluth]

I have an HD3000 working under 2.6.10.   Minor changes to calls to
pci_save_state and pci_restore_state and it's working fine.


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org]
On Behalf Of Wendy Seltzer
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 1:46 PM
To: Development of mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv] AIR2PC -- success at last

With lots of help from Taylor via IRC, I got the Skystar card working 
under Myth.  I'm putting my notes here for the benefit of others who 
may be trying it.  Of particular note (to only a few, perhaps), 
pcHDTV doesn't yet have drivers for the HD-3000 that compile against 
the new kernel 2.6.10.

At 1:20 PM -0500 12/29/04, Taylor Jacob wrote:
>I have seen some prople having problems compiling the dvb-kernel 
>drivers to work
>with the Air2PC..  2.6.10 came out on Dec-24-2004..
>
>I just downloaded 2.6.10, got the dvb-kernel cvs code from today..
>
>Ran the makelinks script in dvb-kernel to inject the driver into the linux
>source tree..
>
>Then I selected the B2C2 SkyStar2/AirStar2 card in the config screens and
>compiled..

In the process of compilation, don't forget to copy the card's firmware:
e.g., cp path-to-dvb-kernel/firmware/dvb-fe-nxt2002.fw 
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware

Taylor's azap utility is helpful in determining whether the card is 
fully loaded and getting signal.
(download his make_atsc_chanconf.pl and azap package;  perl 
make_atsc_chanconf.pl [zipcode] > ~/.azap/channels.conf ; azap 
[station callsign] )

Recompile myth, being certain to include the DVB options and the 
correct path to dvb files in settings.pro.

Then follow the illustrated guide to setting up a dvb card 
<http://www.digitalregime.com/mythdvb/setup/>.  Broadcasters' 
careless attitudes toward whether they'll bother broadcasting ATSC at 
all, much less compliant ATSC, can make tuning the channels difficult.

As is true for the pcHDTV cards, recording a channel is easier than 
trying to watch it as live TV.  Set up a few one-minute manual 
recordings to verify the card's operation, then choose one that works 
well as a "starting channel."

Unlike the pcHDTV card, this card actually tunes to the starting 
channel each time live TV starts, and myth will choke with a segfault 
if it can't tune that properly.   (When I compiled with debug 
options, mythfrontend segfaulted out of gdb the moment it was run, so 
I couldn't get a backtrace.)  I had to try several channels before 
finding one (PBS) that worked as a start channel, even though the 
other channels worked for recording or when tuned to live after 
starting.

These steps work for the V3.3 or V3.4 patch.  Thanks!
--Wendy
-- 
--
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.com || wendy at eff.org
Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html