[mythtv-users] No Video At All

Ray Olszewski ray at comarre.com
Sat Feb 15 01:22:45 UTC 2003


I'm new to this list (though not new to video on Linux), so please excuse 
me if I'm wandering too far afield of the list's focus in this reply. (If 
someone tells me so politely, I'll be more circumspect in the future.)

Alex ... if you are as new to Linux as you say, you may be getting nowhere 
with xawtv because you have not configured it yet. Did you create a config 
file for xawtv to get its channel info from (I'm not sure where RH puts 
this - Debian uses /etc/X11/xawtvrc, and specific users can modify it with, 
I think ./.xawtvrc)? If not, xawtv itself will not know the basics of how 
to tune channels, including what frequency table to use. One app that can 
generate this list for you is scantv. Also make sure the TV card is set to 
use the tuner (television) channel and not a composite or svideo channel 
... right-click on the xawtv window to open its Options window, then make 
sure "Video source" is set to "Television".You can adjust other card 
settings in this same Options window, if you need to.

That advice assumes you have all the v4l stuff compiled correctly in the 
kernel and the right set of modules loaded. While xawtv is active, check 
modules in an xterm with "/sbin/lsmod" to see that you have these present 
(this is my list; yours should be close to it):

         tuner                   8004   1 (autoclean)
         tvaudio                 9664   0 (autoclean) (unused)
         bttv                   60128   0
         i2c-algo-bit            7020   1 [bttv]
         i2c-core               12736   0 [tuner tvaudio bttv i2c-algo-bit]
         videodev                4480   2 [bttv]

Finally, I don't know what you think "snow" looks like, so I'm not really 
sure what symptom you are describing. It's possible you have a problem with 
your X setup. Are you able to run any other video apps ... ones that play 
mpeg or avi files, such as xine, mplayer, ogle, or Xmovie? If not, the 
problem could be with your X server ... but I don't even know where to 
start with that until you tell us what video card, X version, and X server 
you are using.

If none of these suggestions helps you solve the problem, I think you are 
going to have to do the work of describing your setup in enough detail that 
someone can spot your problem without having to guess too much.

Hope this helps.

At 03:00 PM 2/14/03 -0700, Alex Davidson wrote:
>Recap:
>I have an ADS "Channel Surfer TV + FM" using the BT848 chip - I tested it
>successfully today in a Win98 system to confirm it still works.
>
>Having issues getting Myth running but figured I should get video working in
>general first.
>
>I am running Red Hat 8.0 and have tried numerous times to run xawtv but I
>get no video, just snow.
>
>Being a novice at Linux (not touched it to any extent prior to two weeks ago
>when I decided I needed a Myth system) there are probably all kinds of steps
>I could've missed that would get things rolling, can anyone point me in the
>right direction?


--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski					-- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA			  ray at comarre.com
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