[mythtv-users] Quick guide to verify operation of DVB board using "getatsc" and "mplayer"

Larry Jones larry at foxgulch.com
Sun Feb 4 16:33:28 UTC 2007


This is a quick guide to downloading, installing, compiling, then using 
Jack Kelliher's excellent "getatsc" program which is part of his 
"dvb-atsc-tools" package.  I used it to display the output from my 
Air2PC HD5000 dvb card in mplayer  Now that I know the card is OK,  I 
can concentrate on fixing my installation of MythTV which still doesn't 
work!

1. Create a directory in your "home" folder to hold the tools download 
package.
$ cd ~
$ mkdir dvb-atsc-tools

2. Change into the newly created directory
$ cd dvb-atsc-tools

3. Download the tools tarball from Jack's pchdtv.com site. (Any download 
method will work if you don't have wget installed) If wget fails, go to 
the site. A new version  of his tools may be available.  Check the website.
$ wget http://www.pchdtv.com/downloads/dvb-atsc-tools-1.0.4.tar.gz

4. Extract the zipped .tar.gz file. A directory named 
dvb-atsc-tools-1.0.4 (tools) will automatically be created.
$ tar xvzf dvb-atsc-tools-1.0.4.tar.gz

5. Verify  creation of the "tools" directory
$ ls

6. Change to the "tools" directoy.  (Hint for newbies: type cd space dvb 
then hit tab)
$ cd dvb-atsc-tools-1.0.4

7. Invoke the Linux compiler.  This operates on the just extracted file 
"Makefile" to compile the binary files from their *.c source.  This 
will  include "getatsc" which is the object of this guide.
$ make

8. Makes sure the binary getatsc was created.  You should see it listed 
as similar to
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mythtv 501  11K Feb  4 07:53 getatsc
$ ls -alh

9. Use the linux utility "make" to place the binary files into your 
"/usr/bin" directory
$  make install

10.  Invoke the "getatsc" program on local OTA channel 7, taking input 
from adapter 0,  and pipe   the output into mplayer for display.  Note  
the minus sign following the program name mplayer.  Shortly you should 
hopefully see "Channel 7" displayed from within mplayer thus verifying 
the operation of your dtv card.
$   getatsc -dvb 0 7 | mplayer -

10. Don't know which channel to use?  Run scandvb to create a list of 
digital services (a channels.conf file) that your dvb card is receiving. 
After I ran scandvb,then from that list, I picked local OTA channel 7 
referred to above. For  Fedora, Debian, and Gentoo scandvb installation 
and operation instructions , go here:  "First steps with a budget DVB card"
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/First_steps_with_a_DVB_card.

I couldn't get any of the other utility programs in Jack's package to 
work with my air2pc HD5000 board.  Probably just cockpit error on my part.

Larry



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