ivtv on Fedora with 2.6.22 kernel

August 21, 2007
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Upgrade to 2.6.22 seems to break *everything* in the ivtv suite. It all disappeared from the rpms, so we need to install from source.

    • ivtv
    • ivtv-fb
    • ivtv-xdriver
    • ivtvfbctl (now gone)

In particular, some web posts indicate that support for the PVR-350 has been eliminated somehow. This doesn’t seem to be completely true – but maybe there’s a problem with the hardware decoding from MythTV. By doing the following, the PVR-350 can be made to display X in framebuffer mode, and do the output via the framebuffer too…

If the hardware-based decoding (which can be overlaid on the X display) can be made to work then the Use PVR-350 output in MythTV can be enabled. Which also means that doing MythTV should result in very low processor load.

ivtv and ivtv-fb on Fedora 7 : 2.6.22

yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers

We don’t need to build the ivtv stuff entirely from source : the ivtv driver has now been moved into the kernel. However, the ivtv-fb isn’t in the kernel… So we need to compile that part afresh (the rest of ivtv is in the v4l-dvb / v4l tree, shown below).

This is the only part that needs to be done if you’re upgrading between 2.6.22.xx versions.

/sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb # Should fail now
curl -O http://dl.ivtvdriver.org/ivtv/stable/ivtv-1.0.2.tar.gz
tar -xzf ivtv-1.0.2.tar.gz
cd ivtv-1.0.2/
cp v4l-cx2341x-init.mpg /lib/firmware/
make clean
make
make install # To create the ivtv-fb module
/sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb # Should work now

To install the firmware (may not be necessary now)

yum install ivtv-firmware

or

cp ivtv-1.0.2/v4l-cx2341x-init.mpg /lib/firmware/

For the v4l stuff – actually, may be better for ivtvfb

Do this only if the old FC6 v4l stuff is installed, since the control commands are expecting a different version of ivtv to be answering on the other end.

This includes the control suite necessary to change alpha and input/output channels on the card – so it’s important to have this in sync with the ivtv version.

Go to http://linuxtv.org/ and then pick up the most recent tar from the link at the top of the page : http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

mkdir -p /root/MythTV/2.6.22-ivtv/
cd /root/MythTV/2.6.22-ivtv/
curl -O http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb/archive/tip.tar.gz # around 2.7Mb
tar -xzf tip.tar.gz
cd v4l-dvb-* # Adjust this directory name
make clean
make
make install

ivtv-fb (?) : Installing Firmware

Fedora 7 : The location where hotplug expects firmware to be loaded into (for example, firmware for Cardbus cards) has changed from

/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware

to

/lib/firmware

. Existing firmware files must be moved into the new directory.

Get the firmware from the main ivtv page :

http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Main_Page

.

References :

  • http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/ivtv/users/36406

Fedora 7 xdriver

yum install video4linux
yum remove ivtv_xdriver # This is the old fc6 version

Check whether it’s there already :

ls -l /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/ | grep ivtv

If there’s no

ivtvdev_drv.so

we need to build it :

curl -O http://ivtvdriver.org/viewcvs/xdriver/trunk.tar.gz?view=tar
tar -xf trunk.tar.gz\?view\=tar
cd trunk
ls -l
more README
chmod 755 configure
./configure –prefix=/usr/
make clean
make
make install

Setting up the modprobe configuration

Into

/etc/modprobe.conf

put :

# load ivtv-fb for PVR-350 output
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
options ivtv-fb osd_compat=1
install ivtv /sbin/modprobe –ignore-install ivtv; /sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb

Checking it all works

# ll /dev/video*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video -> video0
crw——-+ 1 yoshika root 81, 0 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video0
crw——-+ 1 yoshika root 81, 16 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video16
crw——-+ 1 yoshika root 81, 24 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video24
crw——-+ 1 yoshika root 81, 32 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video32
crw——-+ 1 yoshika root 81, 48 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/video48
# /bin/dmesg |grep Initialized
ivtv0: Initialized Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350, card #0
[drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20060119 on minor 0

This shows that the framebuffer is on /dev/fb0 :

# cat /proc/fb
0 cx23415 TV out

And, just to confirm :

# ls -l /dev/fb*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/fb -> fb0
crw——- 1 yoshika root 29, 0 2007-06-13 09:18 /dev/fb0

To find the BusId of the PVR-350 (for the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file) :

# /sbin/lspci | grep “Internext Compression”
01:05.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)

Testing the Devices Work

Set up the Inputs and Outputs to Composite (the RCA connectors) :

# v4l2-ctl -i 2
# v4l2-ctl -o 2

Test the input connection :

# cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/test_capture.mpg
# mplayer /tmp/test_capture.mpg

NEW IN 2.6.22 : ivtvfbctl no longer working – must use v4l2 to control alpha

Set the framebuffer to be hidden :

# OLD VERSION : ivtvfbctl –device=/dev/fb0 –globalalpha=on –localalpha=on -v 0
# v4l2-ctl –set-fmt-output-overlay=global_alpha=0

Get the video signal to passthrough :

# ivtvctl -K 1

This should show a passthrough video/audio signal.
(or, as a one-liner :

# v4l2-ctl -i 2; v4l2-ctl -o 2;
# OLD VERSION : ivtvfbctl –device=/dev/fb0 –globalalpha=on –localalpha=on -v 0
# v4l2-ctl –set-fmt-output-overlay=global_alpha=0
ivtvctl -K 1

)

Set the framebuffer to be entirely in front of MPEG decoder :

# OLD VERSION : ivtvfbctl –device=/dev/fb0 –globalalpha=on –localalpha=on -v 255
# v4l2-ctl –set-fmt-output-overlay=global_alpha=255

Set the framebuffer to be dimly in front of MPEG decoder :

# OLD VERSION : ivtvfbctl –device=/dev/fb0 –globalalpha=on –localalpha=on -v 100
# v4l2-ctl –set-fmt-output-overlay=global_alpha=100

Test whether the encode/decode cycle works :

# ivtvctl -K 0
# dd if=/dev/video0 of=/dev/video16 bs=64k

This may come in handy later :

# v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 –set-fmt-video=width=720,height=480

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