Linux PVR (HTPC) - Going for broke

Posted on July 9th, 2006 by arnljot.
Categories: htpc, linux.

I’m all in…

As I’ve previously posted, the attempt at making a Mandriva HTPC failed when I couldn’t get MythTV to compile.

My resident Linux expert Tord gave it two looks and advised that I go straight for the KnoppMyth Distro. So I did just that.

Now, some 21 hours later I’m trying for the last time (excluding a two hour nap)…

The first thing that stopped me from claiming success was that I couldn’t get sound to work with my Pinnacle PCTV Stereo card. When googling this issue it seems to be a well known problem; with a solution. I however, was not able to close this issue on my system with the fix reported.

I guess I could have used the audio cable and connected that to the Pinnacle audio-out, to the audio in on my motherboard. But this isn’t a “perfect” setup, and since this is a hobby project I can demand a perfect end result. So I rejected that solution, and when the saa7134 fix didn’t work for me either, I abandoned the Pinnacle card, and installed the Hauppauge card.

The next card I then tried was my Hauppauge HVR-1100 card (I know I said that it was the card I would use, but I changed my mind when I started out, thinking that Hauppauge would be a more widely supported brand…). This didn’t work at all as it seems that the cx88 driver is VERY immature at the moment, and in the knoppmyth distro it only supports 37 cards, and my card is not one of these.

So after hours of research and attempts at getting the new cx88 driver in, which might have support for my card; I’ve now given up. I’ll make one final attempt at a MythTV setup using my last TV card, the Terratec Cinergy 600.

If this doesn’t work, I don’t know if I’m up to trying out Ubuntu too. I might just head on right back to Win XP Home…

PS,

You have to excuse the bad spelling, syntax and grammar in this post. I’ll clean it up later:)

Right now I’ve only slept six hours in the last 51… And its taken one litre of coffee and it took me 20 minutes to figure out the sums of these hours. A sure tell tale sign that I’m way beyond the point where I can expect any level of productivity… But following this through to the end has become an obsession by now. I want to know where it all ends :)

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