Linux Information

from Guanosoft
01/22/2005
  lircd.conf.Flyvideo_3000_devinput
lircrc-Flyvideo_3000 for MythTV


LifeView FlyVideo 3000 in MythTV

I bought this card in January 2005 because I thought the driver sounded stable and there would be good support, making it easy to configure.  There is good support, but the documentation is lacking.  Hopefully my notes below will be helpful.

Identification: Looking at my card, I see a chip that says SAA7133HL/101.  If your card does not have this, the information below might not help you.  Under the LifeView sticker on the tuner, I can see part of a model number, and I believe it says TCL2002N 003.  If your card does not have this, look at Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.tuner or tuner.c in the kernel source to figure out which tuner number to use.  My card is the NTSC version with FM radio.

Driver: This card has been supported by the Linux kernel since at least the fall of 2004.  The relevant modules are saa7134, tuner, and evdev.  I currently use a custom 2.6.14.5 kernel in Fedora Core 4.

I added the following line to my /etc/modprobe.conf.

options saa7134 card=2 tuner=50 dsp_nr=1 mixer_nr=1 oss=1 oss_rate=3200

The card and tuner are not auto-detected, so the first two options are required.  By using the last four options, the devices /dev/dsp1 and /dev/mixer1 are created, which can be utilized in MPlayer or MythTV.  An alternate solution for audio is to use the included cable to connect the FlyVideo audio output to your sound card's input.

Update 01/08/2006: Before using the audio, you must unmute it.   There is no longer a need to change the mixer channel or the volume with aumix.   Run this on on the command-line or put it in rc.local or modprobe.conf.

/usr/bin/v4lctl volume mute off

When you configure MythTV with mythtvsetup, add a Standard V4L capture card.  Highlight the Audio device and use the right arrow to select /dev/dsp1.  Make sure the Default input is Television.

Warning: When I change the VBI format in the mythtvsetup General category, MythTV won't do live TV.  If you're having any trouble, try setting it to None.

Thanks to NathanKell for figuring out the audio options and configuration.

Infrared Remote Control

Once the saa7134 module is loaded, if you go to a command prompt or editor, you should see numbers show up when you press the numbers on the remote.  To utilize all the buttons on the remote and customize their behavior, you can load the evdev module and install lirc.

There are good instructions on the v4l homepage to get started.  I wrote a custom lircd.conf to assign all the buttons.  Once lirc is started as described in the instructions, run irw and push some buttons.  You should see something.

To use the remote in MythTV, put this file in ~/.mythtv and rename it to "lircrc" before you start the front end.  Here is how the buttons are assigned:

Air/CATV
Back/Exit
 Video
Left/Rewind
 Audio
Right/FF
 Power
Pause/Play
AV Source
Menu/Program Guide
 Full Screen
Skip Comm. Back
 Stereo
Skip Comm. Forward
 Mute
1
 2
 3
 VOL+
4
 5
 6
 VOL-
7
 8
 9
 CH+
Up
Recall
Information
 0
 Enter
 CH-
Down


I welcome corrections and questions.  If you know a better place to put this information, please let me know.

Contact name@domain, where name is 5bl0hhz02 and domain is sneakemail.com

Updated January 5th, 2006