Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro

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Revision as of 10:46, 7 November 2009

Introduction

This HOWTO is a guide on setting up your Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro TV capture card with OpenSuSE. You can use Kaffeine, mplayer and a number of other TV viewing programs to watch TV. This article focuses on Kaffeine and mplayer and kdetv as the TV viewing programs, but you can use others such as Me TV, VLC etc.

Requirements

Note: If you choose to use mplayer instead of Kaffeine you do not need xine installed. If you would like to use Kaffeine instead of mplayer you do not need the dvb package installed.

Note: The dvb package is also known as the dvb-tools package.

• The correct Linux kernel module is loaded (see below)
• xine and Kaffeine
• The dvb package and mplayer

Configuring the Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro TV capture card to watch Analog TV

By default the correct kernel module should be selected to enable the analog functions of the PCTV Hybrid Pro TV card. The second step is to make sure kdetv is installed (most likely is) and that's it! You will not need to even scan for channels in kdetv!

Note: You will need to connect the audio patch cable from your PCTV Hybrid Pro TV card to your sound cards internal sound port.

Configuring the Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro TV capture card to watch digital TV

Step 1

Configure the right kernel module:

• Goto YaST Control Center > TV Card
• Click Edit
• Click Expert Settings
• From the Kernel Module drop down menu select saa7134-dvb

Step 2

Install the firmware:

• Click here to download the firmware.

The firmware files you need are called:

dvb-fe-tda10045.fw
dvb-fe-tda10046.fw

Step 3

Setup your favorite TV viewing software and scan for TV Channels. Plaese read below for information about using mplayer and Kaffeine media players for Linux.

Setting up mplayer

Step 1

• Login as root
• Type: scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/xx-xxxxxxxx > channels.conf

Note: Type: ls -l /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/ |less to find your location and replace xx-xxxxxxxx with the correct name (country + city)

• Move the channels.conf file to ~/.mplayer

Watching TV with mplayer using the command-line:

• Type: mplayer dvb://channel_name

Note: Replace channel_name with the name of the TV channel you would like to watch.

Watch TV with the SMPlayer frontend for mplayer:

Note: As SMPlayer will look for the channels.conf file you will not need to scan for channels.

• Goto Open > TV and click the TV channel you would like to watch.

Below is a screen shot of SMPlayer playing a digital TV stream:

Using Kaffeine

• Goto DVB > Channels

Note: There will not be any channels listed in the left side of the Channels dialog box.

• Select your location in the Search On drop down menu and click Start Scan
• When kaffeine has found some channels, click on the <<Add Selected button and then on Done

Troubleshooting

Q: I get the following message at boot time, what do I do?

DVB: registering frontend 0 (Philips TDA10045H DVB-T)...
tda1004x: waiting for firmware upload (dvb-fe-tda10045.fw)...
tda1004x: no firmware upload (timeout or file not found?)
tda1004x: firmware upload failed

A: You have not got the correct firmware files installed. Install the correct firmware files.

See Also

• http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Pinnacle
• http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Pinnacle_PCTV_(310i) -- Both guides should work.
• http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Saa7162_devices
• http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/PCTV+Tuners/PCTV+Analog_Digital+PVR/PCTV+310i.htm -- Product Information on the Pinnacle website.
• http://www.pinnaclesys.com/documents/ConsumerProducts/PCTVTuners/PCTVAnalogDigitalPVR/uk/Datasheet_PCTV_310i_UK_07June05.pdf -- Datasheet for PCTV Hybrid Pro
• http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/MPlayer
• http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Testing_your_DVB_device
• http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Software
• http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Software#Standalone_Software_to_Watch_Digital_TV