Firstly, I'll apologise in advance for any idiot statements in this mail: I'm a user and emphatically (sadly) not a developer. I have a Hauppauge DEC2000-t it being (at the time anyway), the only viable way I could see to view UK Freeview DVB via a laptop. Maybe 4 months ago, I had this working, first crudely via tzap/mplayer to test, then via MythTV. But I'm now finding in the latest CVS releases for dvb-apps/dvb-kernel on Fedora Core 4 (kernel 2.6.12, gcc4), I can't even get tzap/mplayer (or xine etc.) to work reliably. Furthermore, after some discussions with people online and some reading, I now understand that the old-fashioned way of using this in MythTV (dvb-apps's dvbscan -> channels.conf -> channels.conf-import.pl -> mysql) isn't now supported, as MythTVsetup's scan is supposed to work - but doesn't for the DEC2000-t, supposedly because of driver issues, references: http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-dev/2005-April/035147.html and continuing at: http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-dev/2005-April/035177.html I can't pretend to understand the internals of these discussions - all I know is that as a previously happy DEC2000-t user, I seem to be now stranded... I'm pretty sure I have a working channels.conf, when tzap *does* work, but MythTV's channels.conf-import.pl is now out of date with the new table structure in 0.16+, because mythtvsetup scanning is supposed to work. Using tzap feeding into mplayer on stdin it seems to tune into the first few channels I try, but then mplayer rigidly sticks at 0% cache, and refuses to tune in until I reboot (card/module removal/reinsertion doesn't seem to help). For info, when I plug in the card, /var/log/messages first reports it as a DEC2540-t then seems to change its mind (it always did this, even when working): Jul 3 13:23:48 localhost kernel: usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2 Jul 3 13:23:51 localhost kernel: ttusb_dec: Firmware 1.11uk Jul 3 13:23:52 localhost kernel: ttusb_dec: found DSP code "DEC2540-t". Jul 3 13:23:57 localhost kernel: usb 6-1: USB disconnect, address 2 Jul 3 13:24:09 localhost kernel: usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3 Jul 3 13:24:09 localhost kernel: DVB: registering new adapter (DEC2000-t). Jul 3 13:24:09 localhost kernel: DVB: registering frontend 0 (TechnoTrend/Hauppauge DEC2000-t Frontend)... When I start tzap (successfully or not) I get the following: % ./tzap -r 'five' using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0' reading channels from file '/home/user/.tzap/channels.conf' tuning to 490000000 Hz video pid 0x1781, audio pid 0x1782 status 1f | signal 0003 | snr 0000 | ber bfc55670 | unc 00a34ad9 | FE_HAS_LOCK status 1f | signal 0003 | snr 0000 | ber bfc55670 | unc 00a34ad9 | FE_HAS_LOCK status 1f | signal 0003 | snr 0000 | ber bfc55670 | unc 00a34ad9 | FE_HAS_LOCK The "snr" reading is always suspiciously zero, even when it works ok, maybe this isn't implemented in the driver? When I then try and tune in with "mplayer - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0", once it's decided not to work, mplayer sticks at 0.00% cache - sometimes static and sometimes flickering mysteriously as if it's filling cache but staying at 0.00%. I should add that the device itself is functioning fine, on a TV. What can I do? Is there anything I can do as a user to help this back to a position where I might be able to use my device in linux? Or can I supply more information on my tzap problems to try and at least get past the first problem? Finally, if I can get tzap working reliably, does anyone have any suggestions about how I could even just *watch* TV in Linux on this thing with something other than MythTV, if that remains a problem? xine and mplayer's direct DVB support (for changing channels within the application never seemed to work to me). Is there anything else other than MythTV I could use, even for just viewing? I really don't want to boot Windows.
