Pinnacle PCTV Stereo Tuner Problems

[rvarada]

I did check the forums and found similar problems with this card but without any clear resolution.

Configuraton:
Tyan S2875 Dual Opteron 242 (linux x86_64)
Pinnacle PCTV Stereo

Problem:
1. On a fresh reboot, if I start tvtime, I get a picture, but no sound.
2. If I change channels, I get a "No Signal" Error in tvtime and a blue screen
3. If I select "Disable Signal Dtection" I get some signal and a very bad image.

I have saa7134 module loaded and it auto-detected card=26 and tuner=33 . I am attaching the relevant section of the dmesg output.


I am new to Linux and I would very much appreciate if anyone with any idea on what may be going on can give me a hint on how I can fix it.

Thanks
RV


Linux video capture interface: v1.00
saa7130/34: v4l2 driver version 0.2.12 loaded
saa7134[0]: found at 0000:01:07.0, rev: 1, irq: 19, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfc9fe800
saa7134[0]: subsystem: 11bd:002b, board: Pinnacle PCTV Stereo (saa7134) [card=26,autodetected]
saa7134[0]: board init: gpio is 0
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 00: bd 11 2b 00 f8 f8 1c 00 43 43 a9 1c 55 d2 b2 92
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 10: 00 00 19 0e ff 20 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 20: 01 40 01 03 03 ff 03 01 08 ff 00 53 ff ff ff ff
saa7134[0]: i2c eeprom 30: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
tuner: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tuner: chip found at addr 0xc0 i2c-bus saa7134[0]
tuner: type set to 33 (MT20xx universal) by saa7134[0]
tuner: microtune: companycode=3cbf part=42 rev=80
tuner: microtune MT2050 found, OK
tda9887: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
tda9885/6/7: chip found @ 0x86
saa7134[0]: registered device video0 [v4l2]
saa7134[0]: registered device vbi0
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]
saa7134[0]/audio: audio carrier scan failed, using 5.500 MHz [default]

[rvarada]

Also here's the tvtime output if it would help at all with the diagnosis.

Running tvtime 0.9.12.
rtctimer: Cannot open /dev/rtc: Permission denied
rtctimer: Cannot open /dev/misc/rtc: Permission denied

Enhanced Real Time Clock support in your kernel is necessary for
smooth video. We strongly recommend that you load the 'rtc' kernel
module before starting tvtime, and make sure that your user has
access to the device file (/dev/rtc or /dev/misc/rtc). See our
support page at http://tvtime.net/ for more information.

Reading configuration from /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml
Reading configuration from /home/rajesh/.tvtime/tvtime.xml
cpuinfo: Unknown architecture (non-x86).
tvtime: Cannot set priority to -19: Permission denied.
xcommon: Display :0.0, vendor Gentoo Linux (The X.Org Foundation 6.8.0, revision r3-0.2.2.1), vendor release 60800000
xfullscreen: Single-head detected, pixel aspect will be calculated.
xfullscreen: Pixel aspect ratio on the primary head is: 108/107 == 1.01.
xfullscreen: Using the XFree86-VidModeExtension to calculate fullscreen size.
xfullscreen: Fullscreen to 0,0 with size 1600x1200.
xcommon: Have XTest, will use it to ping the screensaver.
xcommon: Pixel aspect ratio 108:107.
xcommon: Window manager is KWin and is EWMH compliant.
xcommon: Using EWMH state fullscreen property.
xcommon: Using EWMH state above property.
xcommon: Using EWMH state below property.
xcommon: Pixel aspect ratio 108:107.
xcommon: Displaying in a 761x576 window inside 761x576 space.
xvoutput: Using XVIDEO adaptor 145: NV17 Video Overlay.
station: Reading stationlist from /home/rajesh/.tvtime/stationlist.xml
videoinput: Using video4linux2 driver 'saa7134', card 'Pinnacle PCTV Stereo (saa7134)' (bus PCI:0000:01:07.0).
videoinput: Version is 524, capabilities 5010015.
videoinput: Driver refuses to set norm: Invalid argument
videoinput: Driver refuses to set norm: Invalid argument
tvtime: Sampling input at 720 pixels per scanline.
deinterlace: AdaptiveSimple disabled: required CPU accelleration features unavailable.
xcommon: Pixel aspect ratio 108:107.
xcommon: Displaying in a 761x576 window inside 761x576 space.
xcommon: Received a map, marking window as visible (5.
xcommon: Window fully obscured, marking window as hidden (5.
xcommon: Window made visible, marking window as visible (5.
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (282).
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (418).
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (114).
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (2).
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (43).
videoinput: Can't read frame. Error was: Input/output error (54).
tvtime: Cleaning up.
Thank you for using tvtime.

[ipic]

I saw the tda9887 messages in your dmesg, so you might like to try this.

tda9887 is a chip within the tuner. To get sound, its register settings are very important.
The tda9887 takes three parameters: qss port1 port2

You can experiment until you get sound by gioing through the 9 possible settings (they take values of 1 or 0) to see if one of them gives you clear sound.

You can set the values in /etc/modules.conf as follows (an example that works for me in the UK: