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

[Nick]

On 18/09/05, Allan Wilson <allanwilson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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 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.

Thanks Allan,

For other new PVR-500 users, remember if you only have a single
PVR-500 capture card in your system, your video devices will be
/dev/video0 and /dev/video1 (still use tuner0 for both cards) and
modprobe.conf will be:

# ivtv modules setup
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
alias char-major-81-1 ivtv

(As Allan noted, the PVR-500 is treated as 2 separate cards, hence the
need for the 2 ivtv entries)

Nick