Watching my beloved Orioles play is one of my favorite summertime
activities. Unfortunately for me, my family doesn't share my passion for
the Birds. After having to choose one too many times between heading
upstairs to watch TV or remaining downstairs to use the computer, I
had an idea. I decided to get one of those nifty TV tuner cards. A
quick virtual trip to
newegg.com confirmed that
I could choose among several in my price range. At the time, though,
it was the end of baseball season, so I shelved my plans for a while.
A couple of months passed and Christmas was right around the corner, so I
revived my TV tuner card plans. In preparation, I did a bunch of Googling
and reading, and I subscribed to the Video4Linux mailing list (see
Resources). This research was vital to the success of the overall project.
I strongly recommend that anyone interested in using a TV tuner card in
his or her Linux system spend some time researching before purchasing,
as proper research can make all the difference. After checking prices and
researching various tuner cards, I finally settled on the Hauppauge
WinTV Radio card. This specific model number is referred to as either the
WinTV-dbx or the model 401. I chose this card for its price, stereo sound
and the FM radio tuner. Additionally, many people who posted on the
Video4Linux list reported their success with the card. Having made my
decision, I placed my order and commenced waiting for it to arrive.
When the card arrived, I opened the package and found a pretty blue box
containing almost everything needed for installation. Inside the box
was the card itself, an audio cable for connecting to the soundcard,
an FM antenna, a remote control and the software needed to install the
card in Windows. Coaxial cables used to provide input to the tuner,
however, conspicuously were absent. After some grumbling and a trip to
Radio Shack, I was ready to install the card.
Installing the card into a vacant PCI slot was easy enough. Connecting
the coaxial cable and the antenna was a little difficult, because I
have big hands and there wasn't much room between the two connectors.
The audio cable connected easily to the line-in of my sound card, and the
remote control's infrared receiver similarly was effortless to plug in.
It was time to boot the computer.
I recently put a Microsoft Windows partition on my computer, and after
installing the included proprietary software I was able to watch TV,
listen to the radio and use the remote control. I then rebooted into
Linux and began the software installation. You can read about the
installation process, which was quite easy and quick, later in this
article. The next step after getting both the TV and the radio
tuner to function was to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I chose tvtime as my viewing application, because several folks on the
Video4Linux list recommended it. tvtime is available from Yum, making for a quick
and easy installation. Initially, the picture was poor because the hue,
contrast and other settings were not set correctly. I was forewarned of
this by the V4L list, however, so I wasn't especially surprised. After correcting the picture,
I tested several different-sized windows. I found that a smaller
window looks sharper but the picture degrades, becoming more grainy and
blurry as the window size increases.
Next, I was ready to test the audio, so I donned my headphones. I
immediately was disappointed by the decidedly mono sound output I heard.
I knew the card had dbx stereo output, so I checked my connections first.
Removing and reconnecting the audio cable did the trick, as the cable's
connector wasn't inserted completely into the card. Chalk up another
one for user error. After resolving this connection issue, the sound
quality became quite good.
Once the testing of the TV tuner was complete, it was time to test
the radio tuner. I chose GQRadio. After installing the tda9887 tuner
module using modprobe, and I was able to listen to my favorite FM
radio stations immediately. As with the TV test, the sound quality
of the radio was very good.
Finally, it was time to test the remote control supplied with
the card. I tried a couple of times to get the remote control working
using LIRC, but I could not make it work properly. Other people on
the V4L list reported having success with the remote, however, so there
still is hope. Truthfully, it is not important to me that the remote
works. The only time I'm going to watch TV on my computer is when I'm
sitting next to the keyboard and mouse, both of which can be used to
tune channels in tvtime. Spending time perusing LIRC's Web site and the V4L
list will be of tantamount importance to you if remote control functionality
is a priority. The remote did function on the Windows partition, though, so
I'm sure my inability to configure the device was the problem rather than an
issue with the hardware.
Although I did not try to use the WinTV 401 with any PVR software, I did
check out the PVR Hardware Database and found that a few people have
reported that this card works with MythTV. I couldn't find anything
on the Freevo Web site that specifically states this particular
tuner card functions with Freevo, but they do allude to it by saying
"Any Video4Linux1/2 compatible board, which includes the popular Hauppage
WinTV boards" works with Freevo.
When everything was installed and configured to my liking, I gave my new
setup the Daughter Test. I sat down my two daughters in front of my
workstation and gave them a crash course in using tvtime. In mere
moments, my eldest was changing channels to her heart's content.
Both girls were squealing with childhood delight at watching TV on
my computer. Their only two complaints were that they couldn't watch TV on Mommy's
computer and they couldn't watch Noggin. Noggin is a children's television
network that resides on a channel above the tuner's 125-channel limitation.
I explained to them it wasn't really the computer's fault, it was more a
limitation of our cable provider.
The goal of purchasing the TV tuner card was to enable me to watch a different
TV program than the rest of the family, without having to leave the room
to do so. Having found that the card satisfied this objective, I decided
to see how far I could push the limits. I opened tvtime and made the
window fairly small. I started Neverwinter Nights
in a window of its own and joined a server on the Internet, surfed the Web
and instant messaged friends. Watching TV seemed to have no discernible effect
on system speed or stability. Later testing showed that only about 7%
CPU usage was required to watch TV on the computer. Now, I can't seem
to play NWN without having the TV running in the
corner of my screen.
I was very happy with the installation process, which--with the exception
of the remote control--was accomplished easily. I can watch
TV and listen to the radio on the computer while also using my computer
for other tasks. My children love being able to watch TV on the
computer, and they can use the TC functionality quite easily.
In summary, I can't help but recommend the purchase of this card.
It's reasonably priced and offers good picture quality and very good
sound quality. The manufacturer, although not officially supporting Linux,
actually has a link to some Linux installation guides. It must be
noted, however, that these guides are out-of-date. Still, as a prospective
buyer, I found it reassuring that the company acknowledged that its hardware
runs on Linux. My only minor disappointments were the picture quality
in full screen or large windows and the fact that the remote didn't work
as easily as the TV and radio tuners did. Overall, this TV tuner card is a solid
product with some very nice features. Most importantly, once Opening
Day arrives, I'll not have to leave my family in order to watch my beloved Os.
Installation and Configuration
System Specifications
- Intel Pentium4 2.4GHz
- 1GB of Ram
- Fedora Core 2 using kernel version
2.6.9-1.6_FC2SMP - NVidia Geforce 5900 using NVidia drivers
- Hauppauge WinTV model 401 TV Tuner Card with the
Conexant 2388x chipset. Note: Some Hauppauge cards use
the BT8x8 chipset and bttv drivers, so carefully inspect the card
to see which chipset your card is using. These installation
instructions may not work for the bttv drivers.
The installation process was surprisingly quick and easy. Red Hat and
Fedora Core use kernels that provide many elements as loadable modules.
This eased installation considerably, as otherwise, one would have to
recompile the kernel to get the needed modules. I tested with kernel
version 2.6.9-1.6_FC2SMP. There have been reports of problems with the
2.6.10 kernels, and I can confirm the stock Fedora Core 2 kernel
2.6.10-1.12_FC2SMP doesn't work. Because I use the kernel version listed
in the system specifications above, I'm not affected. However, some
people report success with various Hauppauge cards and the 2.6.1 0
kernels in Fedora Core 3. Please be aware that kernels change often,
and any issues existing at the time this article was written may be
resolved by the time you are ready to install the card.
Here is the abbreviated step-by-step process to install and configure the
TV tuner card.
- Install the card into an empty PCI slot.
- Make all proper cable connections. No coaxial
cables are included with the card, so make sure to have some prior
to beginning installation. The included manual provides the
procedures on how to connect the cable TV input, FM antenna,
sound cable and IR remote receiver. - Power on the computer.
- When Kudzu--the Red Hat/Fedora Core tool that runs at boot
time to probe for and configure new hardware--runs, choose to
configure the new hardware and accept all defaults. - Log in once the boot process completes.
- Kudzu inserts lines similar to the following into modprobe.conf:
alias char-major-81 cx8800
Add this line:
options cx8800 tuner=43
immediately following the alias line above.
- Add the following line to rc.local. Note: I wasn't
able to get the radio tuner module tda9887 to load properly using
modprobe.conf. It may be possible to do so, but I chose to add the
line to rc.local.modprobe tda9887
- Reboot the computer to test that all modules load properly when the
computer boots. You may not need to reboot to test the modules, but I did for the
sake of expediency. - Install television viewing application. tvtime is
available by way of Yum and is known to work with this tuner card. - Install radio tuning application. GQRadio is available in an RPM
package and is known to work with this tuner card. - Configure your viewing and listening applications and
enjoy!
A Final Word
Another Conexant chipset model is available, the cx88XX module. If cx8800
doesn't work you might want to try cx88xx. You also may have to try different
values for the options cx8800 tuner= line. It seems
the chipsets on these cards can change with astounding frequency. Likewise,
you may have to find a different radio tuner module from the tda9887 used
above.
If you do not add the options cx8800 tuner=43 line
to modprobe.conf, then tvtime produces the following errors:
Running tvtime 0.9.12. Reading configuration from /etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml Reading configuration from /home/ron/.tvtime/tvtime.xml videoinput: Can't get tuner info: Invalid argument videoinput: Can't set tuner audio mode: Invalid argument videoinput: Can't get tuner info: Invalid argument videoinput: Can't set tuner audio mode: Invalid argument videoinput: Tuner present, but our request to change to videoinput: frequency 247250 failed with this error: Invalid argument. videoinput: Please file a bug report at videoinput: Tuner present, but our request to change to videoinput: frequency 241250 failed with this error: Invalid argument. videoinput: Please file a bug report at videoinput: Tuner present, but our request to change to videoinput: frequency 235250 failed with this error: Invalid argument. videoinput: Please file a bug report at Thank you for using tvtime.
You may see this error message if the tuner=XX value is incorrect, but
this is unconfirmed.
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