[mythtv-users] DViCO FusionHDTV DVB (ATSC/QAM) and MythTV

[Todd Ignasiak]

Some people were having trouble getting the FusionHDTV3 QAM cards  
working with MythTV.  So, here is a short summary of how I got MythTV  
working with my FusionHDTV3 card.     This process should be similar  
for other DVB cards.      I am able to receive both Over-The-Air  
broadcasts (ATSC broadcasts using 8VSB) and clear channels on my  
Comcast cable system using QAM256.


- Linux OS Install.  I used Gentoo AMD64.  (Basic OS install &  
setup..  load standard packages + requirements for MythTV)
   -  Xorg, KDE, MySQL, etc.

- Update kernel to 2.6.13rc3-mm1, which includes FusionHDTV and  
general DVB updates.
    - Make sure to include modules for Video4Linux, DVB, Conexant  
2388x (plus DVB), and lgdt3302 frontend

- Rebuild NVidia drivers for new kernel

- In Gentoo's /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6, I load:

cx88-blackbird
dvb-core
lgdt3302
cx88_dvb

- use "dvb-apps" to confirm that card is recognized and functional.   
Check the docs in the dvb-apps package for details and channel config  
files.  I am using the QAM/Cable channel frequency configs here.

   - azap -r C79 -c QAM_Channels.conf
         - this should output lines showing "FE_HAS_LOCK", like the  
following:
status 1f | signal ffa2 | snr 0000 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 |  
FE_HAS_LOCK

   - Leave azap running, and in another terminal run "dvbtraffic", it  
should show information about the PIDs seen in the transport stream  
on that channel.

--- Once you've confirmed that the card is functioning correctly, go  
on to the MythTV setup.

- Install MySQL, set to run on system startup, set root password
   - Follow mysql setup:  http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv- 
HOWTO-6.html  ( Install MySQL, start server, set admin account and  
define password, input the MythTV schema with  mc.sql, set basic  
access privilegs so MythTV can talk to database)
   - Setting root password is not covered in the MythTV document,  
MySQl docs cover this: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/default- 
privileges.html

- Install MythTV.   Most Linux distro's will have a recent version  
available via their package manager.   Depending on the build options  
used to create the available package, it may or may not have all the  
necessary options (DVB support is needed,  XvMC support is useful,  
etc.).
   - I used subversion (svn) to grab the latest development snapshot  
( see http://cvs.mythtv.org/ ), or grab a tar file of the source for  
the current stable version from mythtv.org
   - Use 'configure' to set up mythtv with needed options ( --enable- 
dvb --enable-xvmc --enable-lirc --enable-proc-opt --enable-opengl- 
vsync  )
  - make
  - make install


Run mythtv-setup

Basic Setup:
- entered mysql user/passwd defined above
- Backend setup, ATSC TV Format  us-cable frequencies

Capture Card Setup:
   Type: DVB
     (Should show card 0 as DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-Q -- or similar)

Video Sources:
   Name video source and input zap2it account information.   Retrieve  
Lineups

Input Connections:
   Select Video source defined above.
   Set "Starting Channel" to a known valid channel you receive.  If  
MythTV starts up and cannot tune a channel, it doesn't react well.

Scan for Channels.
   First, select an ATSC scan, to scan for OTA/8VSB channels (even if  
you're using QAM / Cable --- (Is this still necessary?))

Then, do a QAM scan, which should result in more channels found.  If  
your cable company is broadcasting the PSIP channel data, the  
channels should be automatically detected.  For channels without PSIP  
data, you will need to manually edit the channel data (in the mysql  
database) to enable those channels.