Debian/ MythTV/ DVB-T digital TV (was: [clug] Live CD Distro with DVB-T builtin?)

[Mark Purcell]

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On Wednesday 07 April 2004 23:09, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
> I have a machine with a DVB-T tuner. It does not run Linux ('nuff said)
> and I want to see how linux handles it.

My Easter project was to get my DVB-T card working well under Linux. I think I 
am ready to throw out the analog TV now.

DVB is excellent in Canberra! I had no idea we were so advanced and it is 
really nice to watch some (most) of those programs in widescreen 16:9 rather 
than the standard analog (4:3). The real beauty is it is all running free to 
air.

After much hunting around, you can get xine/ mplayer working if you use the 
attached ~/.mplayer/channels.conf for Canberra. (Generated by running scan 
over the linuxtv-dvb dvb-t/au-canberra from http://www.linuxtv.org)

`mplayer dvb://"ABC TV Canberra"` works here now.

Thus if you can find any live linux (such as knoppix) and can load in the 
channels.conf you should be up and running depending on your hardware.

If you really want to go the full stage I can totally recommend MythTv, which 
even has a has a lot of advantages over the US based Tivo purchase. For 
starters it decouples the frontend (display terminals) and the backend (RF 
receivers). It also allows you to use hardware such as DVB-T which gets you 
digital free to air TV in Canberra, but as DVB-T is a European standard, I 
doubt you will get digital TV in Canberra from a US sourced Tivo.

There is a A Knoppix-based MythTV distribution 
<http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=14> but that 
only allows you to run the frontend of MythTv direct from the CD, the backend 
for MythTv still needs to be installed to run (and that's what accesses the 
DVB-T hardware).

> Is there a Linux bootable CD that can use it? Be it kernel 2.4 with DVB
> or 2.6 where it is standard.

It all depends on your hardware requirements. I purchased a Nebula DigiVT from 
DigitalNow <http://www.digitalnow.com.au/products/dtvbestbuys.html> who are a 
Canberra based mailorder firm for $280. The Nebula can be gotten to work with 
patches under kernel 2.4, or support is built in with kernel 2.6.  I 
downloaded Debian kernel 2.6.3, loaded the respective nxt6000 and dvb_bt8xx 
modules and the card was functional without any patches (contrary to earlier 
reports with earlier versions of 2.6).

If you want to try your hardware from a live CD I would suggest a 2.6 based 
solution. I believe the next version (3.4) of Knoppix from LinuxTag does have 
a 2.6 boot option and the requisite mplayer/ xine so that would work.  There 
is an 'unoffical' bitorrent for knoppix-3.4.

After a quick MAKEDEP I was able to use mplayer/ xine/ dvbstream to receive  & 
display the free to air broadcast.

I then tackled the MythTV aspect. I grabbed Matt Zimmermans debs from 
http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu:8088/~mdz/debian/dists/unstable/mythtv/, 
struggled a bit getting tv_grab_au 
<http://www.onlinetractorparts.com.au/rohbags/xmltvau/> (also have a look at 
<http://d1.com.au/D1xmltv.asmx>, stuggled a lot getting the PIDs into mythtv 
<http://www.ethics-gradient.net/myth/mythdvb.html>, but got there in the end. 
DVB-T tuner kept on trying to automatically tune to channel 3 (default 
startup) and unfortunately the current release of mythtv segfaults if the 
DVB-T is not provided good PIDs.

After the effort MythTV is well worth it.  The mplayer/ xine interface was 
inferior to the provided DigiTV software for the Nebula, although more 
stable.  The MythTV interface far exceeds any of those and has a whole lot 
more to boot.

Excellent.

Mark
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