PCTV Pro problems

mani001 · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 485 Location: Oleiros

I'm trying to get the Pinnacle PCTV pro to work but no way. I gave support for I2C, I2C ranging -bit and the Video for linux-> bt878 as a module (if I tried to include it into kernel, I got an error message pvr_boot...).
Now I boot, I type "modprobe bttv" (I've also tried tuner=33,tuner=5,card=33,card=52 and permutations) and it seems Linux has detected (dmesg show information about it) but when I start tvtime, I get the "no signal" message.
Any idea? Does anybody have this TV card working?
I use kernel 2.6.9-r9
Thanks.

wim · Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject:

did you try to scan for channels?

the command is tvtime-scanner
you have to setup your tvtime to use pal/ntsc also.

i use card=52 for my pctv pro, the tuner is correctly detected.
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mani001 · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 485 Location: Oleiros

wim · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:12 pm Post subject:

its in tvtime itself

rightclick the screen, you'll get the OSD, just poke around in the menu's

secondly, your tuner should be configured automatically, when you load the module with the tuner=xx option, you risk breaking the card...

i didn't get the pctv to work, so i tried using another tuner, but doing this changed the identification code on the chip -> i had to install windows + the original driver to reset this.
my card is detected as type 33, but it has to be 52, thats the only thing i changed. (33 being the rave card ? )

for all certainty, output your dmesg, so we can see if all loads well

finally, in tvtime, disable the scan for signal option in the OSD menu and choose the right frequency table (you can use other for use with tvtime-scanner)
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mani001 · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 485 Location: Oleiros

My dmesg output after modprobe bttv card=52

bttv: driver version 0.9.15 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:0c.0[A] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 0000:00:0c.0, irq: 11, latency: 32, mmio: 0xee003000
bttv0: detected: Pinnacle PCTV [card=39], PCI subsystem ID is 11bd:0012
bttv0: using: Pinnacle PCTV Studio Pro [card=52,insmod option]
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00fffbdf [init]
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... found
bttv0: pinnacle/mt: id=2 info="PAL+SECAM / stereo" radio=yes
bttv0: using tuner=33
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... found
msp3400: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
msp34xx: init: chip=MSP3410G-B11 +nicam +simple +radio
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
msp3410: daemon started
tda9887: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tda9885/6/7: chip found @ 0x86
tuner: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc0 i2c-bus bt878 #0 [sw]
tuner: type set to 33 (MT20xx universal) by bt878 #0 [sw]
tuner: microtune: companycode=4d54 part=04 rev=04
tuner: microtune MT2032 found, OK
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: registered device radio0
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 .. ok

I have just discovered that when I click with the left button a message appears on screen:
cannot open device /dev/video0 and
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 10 Dec 13 14:45 /dev/video0 -> v4l/video0
I just don't know whether it's important or not.

And about choosing the right frequency table. I don't know where: when I click the options Change Video Source, Togle closed caption, Toggle XDS decoding, nothing happens.

Thank you again for your help.

wim · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 2:05 pm Post subject:

try starting tvtime as root and see if you can open /dev/video0 now...

the tuner seems to be detected correctly... but, if you have the PRO card, you need to set the card option to 52 or to 39.

i believe the 33 card is the pctv rave version. (you can find this in the cards file in the kernel sources)

reload all the modules with this option
the easy way to do this is to create a /etc/modules.d/bttv file.
edit this file like this:

options bttv card=52

run modules-update

reload all modules or reboot, try tvtime again
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mani001 · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 485 Location: Oleiros

I tried as root and channels appear finally (card=52).
I just add my user to the group video and there is no need to run TVTime as root.
Thanks.

wim · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:18 am Post subject:

for good quality with tvtime you might have to mess around a bit with the deinterlacer and video processing options...

allso... with my setup i've found this card to be really picky about where i put it in the computer... don't use a slot near to your soundcard, this gives you noisy sound/bad picture (specially when using the radio tuner)
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null_ · Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 6:54 pm Post subject:

sorry for steahling your thread but I have the same problem and I'm in the video group. It doesn't work as root either.
Here's my dmesg after loading the module bttv with options card=52

null_ · Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:01 pm Post subject:

today i've found the following in my dmesg: