Hello everyone. First off, I'm a linux noob - I know just enough to be dangerous. I inherited my brother's PC when he left for college. It has ubuntu 9.04 on it. I thoght I would put in a TV card so I could watch shows on the monitor. I bought a Hauppage WinTV-HVR-1250 card. Well...I didn't realize how hard this would be. 2 days ago I put the card in, and here is where I've been:

I started with "The Google" and went here and started following the advice in the thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=974366

installed "xawtv" - launched it - NOTHING HAPPENED - No errors, just NOTHING.
installed Me TV - launched it - Scan Wizard popped up. Selected By Location, but "country" and "region" were both greyed out and NOT selectable. "Help" was NOT helpful (only contained "about"). Scan said scanning is only available for dvb-c or dvb-t. I pretty sure we do ATSC.

Following the thread I typed in "sudo lshw -C multimedia" and got:

danielle@media:~$ sudo lshw -C multimedia
[sudo] password for danielle:
*-multimedia
description: Multimedia video controller
product: CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder
vendor: Conexant Systems, Inc.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
version: 03
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pciexpress pm vpd msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=cx23885 latency=0 module=cx23885
*-multimedia
description: Multimedia audio controller
product: MCP04 AC'97 Audio Controller
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 13
bus info: pci@0000:00:13.0
version: a1
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=Intel ICH latency=0 maxlatency=5 mingnt=2 module=snd_intel8x0

Following further, I installed "Kaffeine". I launched Kaffeine and a pop-up window said "DVB-Device...Ok".

Scanned for channels - found 47-1, 47-2, 53-1 53-2 (didn't find 6,8,10,12,17,18,23,66 and a host of smaller religious stations in the area).

I actually could see these 4 channels through Kaffeine So, I'm making some progress WOO HOO!!

I continue to follow the thread because I still can't see all the stations that I can on the TV in my room, so somthing's not right.

Ran "lspci | grep Conexant" and got:

02:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 03)

Followed a link to here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1234274
which lead me to one here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014551

"dmesg" produced this (snippet) just like the thread starter:

[ 12.896297] cx23885 driver version 0.0.1 loaded
[ 12.897985] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[APC1] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 12.898104] CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:7911, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250 [card=3,autodetected]
[ 13.025756] tveeprom 2-0050: Encountered bad packet header [ff]. Corrupt or not a Hauppauge eeprom.
[ 13.025760] cx23885[0]: warning: unknown hauppauge model #0
[ 13.025762] cx23885[0]: hauppauge eeprom: model=0
[ 13.025765] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[ 13.025844] cx23885[0]: cx23885 based dvb card
[ 13.173484] MT2131: successfully identified at address 0x61
[ 13.173491] DVB: registering new adapter (cx23885[0])
[ 13.173495] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Samsung S5H1409 QAM/8VSB Frontend)...
[ 13.173900] cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xc0
[ 13.173910] cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:02:00.0, rev: 3, irq: 16, latency: 0, mmio: 0xd3000000
[ 13.173917] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

Following the thread, I clicked a link which took me here: http://www.linwik.com/wiki/installin...or+ubuntu+8.10. I realize this was an earlier version (8.10), but after jumping around the internet for a couple of hours and making little or no progress, I decided I had little to lose.

I followed their instructions:

1. Load up a terminal window if you are in the graphic interface.
2. Type in the following to install gcc, mercurial and the kernel headers:
sudo apt-get install build-essential mercurial linux-headers-`uname -r`
3. Move to the /usr/src/ folder with:
cd /usr/src
4. Download the latest V4L drivers with:
sudo hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
5. Move into the newly created folder with
cd v4l-dvb
6. Now start the building process with:
sudo make

This will take a while.

7. And finally we install these drivers with:
sudo make install
8. Reboot your computer and the newer V4L drivers will be used.

dmesg produced the same (snippet)

[ 12.804345] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 12.873197] cx23885 driver version 0.0.2 loaded
[ 12.873250] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[APC1] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 12.873372] CORE cx23885[0]: subsystem: 0070:7911, board: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1250 [card=3,autodetected]
[ 12.999362] tveeprom 2-0050: Encountered bad packet header [ff]. Corrupt or not a Hauppauge eeprom.
[ 12.999366] cx23885[0]: warning: unknown hauppauge model #0
[ 12.999368] cx23885[0]: hauppauge eeprom: model=0
[ 12.999370] cx23885_dvb_register() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[ 12.999513] cx23885[0]: cx23885 based dvb card
[ 13.219722] MT2131: successfully identified at address 0x61
[ 13.219728] DVB: registering new adapter (cx23885[0])
[ 13.219731] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Samsung S5H1409 QAM/8VSB Frontend)...
[ 13.226310] cx23885_dev_checkrevision() Hardware revision = 0xa4
[ 13.226319] cx23885[0]/0: found at 0000:02:00.0, rev: 3, irq: 16, latency: 0, mmio: 0xd3000000
[ 13.226326] cx23885 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

So...that didn't change anything.

according to to peeps on the web, the above shows my card isn't being recognized correctly. I followed a couple of other threads that said to set the tuner with ivtv-tune, but doing:

ivtv-tune -c6

gives me: Failed to open /dev/video0

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!

Can anyone out there help me get this thing going? I'm so close with Kaffeine. If I run ivtv-tune like this:

ivtv-tune -l - it gives me a list, but none of the frequencies are close to what is reported in Kaffeine for the 4 channels I got.

Well, I went back in to Kaffeine and did another scan and now I get:

TSID:1527-SID:3
TSID:1527-SID:4

in the found column, but when I try to move them to the channels column, they disappear

I feel like I'm chasing all over the internet and getting nowhere! I hope this isn't too long of a post, but I tried to list everything I did before asking for help.

Thank you - Danny

Help?

I think your answer is in the links you posted. Honestly, for me, I had to pass the card type to the module, and rebuild dvb. Honestly, I went through your list, got mine working and left. My fulesystem bit the dust, and I have had to re-do this. I remembered this post as a guide, not a call for help, which made it take forever to refind . Good luck, the answer is in your post for sure.

Just figured I'd let you know, this time I just followed the above directions for rebuilding dvb, no module parmeters and everything worked. Maybe reinstall to remove all other changes and just rebuild dvb?
Good luck!

Was this problem ever resolved?

I got some hints from http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eywords=ubuntu which states:

To install the drivers in Ubuntu, use the Synaptic Package Manager to download Mercurial which is a program that will install the drivers for you. A quick search regarding 1250 or 1600 cards should cue you in on how to do this.

Expect that drivers that are installed auxiliary to the regular Ubuntu package can cause bootup problems because there isn't enough virtual memory allocated to do this. A search of "vmalloc" in the Ubuntu Forum will quickly give you a clue on how to increase the memory allocation.

I was able to get my card working but my card is a revision 2 card. lspci -v should show what revision card you have.

Hope this helps, if not let me know