[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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