[mythtv-users] Problem getting AverTVHD A180 going.

[Kevin Kuphal]

R. G. Newbury wrote:
> mike wrote:
>   
>>> OK. atscscan is a synonym for 'scan' as far as I can tell.
>>> I presume that you have the card and its driver installed properly...
>>> that is, no error messages in  dmesg... and it reports that it is
>>> installing, and then has installed the firmware. And there is a set of
>>> folders under /dev/dvb/adapter0
>>>
>>> Unless you can positively state those things, all bets are off.
>>>
>>> The commnand line you have given DOES NOT DO WHAT YOU WANT!
>>>
>>> scan -c only scans the card for services on the channel already tuned.
>>> You  have never, as far as I can tell, actually tuned the card to
>>> anything, so you are getting nothing...Think of it as tuning to 'channel
>>> 1'.
>>>
>>>
>>> You need to use:
>>>
>>> scan -a 0 -f 0 -d 0 -U US-Cable-Standard-Frequencies-QAM256
>>>
>>> This tells scan to try every frequency in that file...I may have the
>>> name of the file wrong... its so long, I immediately shortened it on my
>>> machine...The other switches force the use of adapter0, frontend 0,
>>> demux0 (in case you have multiple cards). The rest of the defaults are
>>> acceptable for your purposes. This will take quite some time to run. The
>>> summary is what you want.
>>>
>>> This will scan for *every* available service. Some will be encrypted,
>>> some will be radio. You can play with the command line switches to see
>>> what happens if you restrict the search, later. At the moment you want
>>> to get SOMETHING... ANYTHING.
>>>
>>> NOTE that this card will not decrypt encrypted HD channels. I presume
>>> you mention that fact, to confirm that you think you should be getting
>>> some QAM256 encoded, but unencrypted channels with this card. It also
>>> appears that you may be confusing digital with HD...Digital is a
>>> transport method. SD and HD are quality levels. With your card, you can
>>> get digital streams. In the US, you should get a number of SD streams,
>>> and a few HD streams, being the cable equivalents of the local (OTA) HD
>>> broadcasts which the FCC mandates that the cableco distribute
>>> *unencrypted*. In Canada, anything HD is encrypted on cable... dammit.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Goeff
>>>       
>> Thanks Geoff...and I mean a sincere THANKS! for having the patience to help me 
>> get this working, and it is!!!
>>
>> I translated the commands you described for my stuff, and found that 
>>
>> scan -a 0 -f 0 -d 
>> 0 -U /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/atsc/us-Cable-Standard-center-frequencies-QAM256
>>
>> ...actually got over 300 channels. Once I knew that the card COULD get 
>> channels, I went back to mythtv-setup and added the card, and did the scan 
>> using "cable" and "QAM256" It works, mostly...there's some hanging up where 
>> it only gets "partial lock" sometimes, but overall it's working!
>>
>> My channel editor is showing lots of garbage, I'm sure there's a lot of 
>> duplicates in there, and lables that don't mean anything to me... but I'll go 
>> back and sort that out later.
>>
>> Once I get it all sorted out, it's gonna be very cool.
>>
>> Many thanks again, Geoff.
>>     
>
> You are welcome...And the next time some poor guy is thrashing around 
> trying to get his stuff working, it will be your turn to hold *his* hand 
> and lead him through it!...Sort of a 'pay it forward'.
>
> And on that occasion, you will be ready and you will really understand 
> how it works!
>
> Now you get to spend a couple of hours using azap in one console and 
> mplayer in another to see what the hell all those channels are! I get 
> about 450 in total of which only 32 or so are usable.
>
> Glad to be of service.
>
>   
You can do this in the frontend now using the Frontend Channel Editor 
(as described in the Wiki) to tune the channels, edit the callsign and 
xmltvid, etc.

Kevin