Terratec Cinergy 400

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Warning.png Warning: This page has been locked and archived on September 27, 2010. The official documentation for this card can be found at TerraTec_Cinergy_400. This page remains as there is significant information herein not included in the official documentation. Please migrate any such information to the proper location.

Terratec Cinergy 400 PCI card

Description

Terratec Cinergy 400
Vendors Website terratec.net
Input Formats not applicable
Support Status Works!
Driver Video4Linux (v4l) http://linux.bytesex.org/v4l2/drivers.html
Sound Driver saa7134 http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Saa7134-alsa
Chipset Philips SAA 7134 Video Decoder Chipset


Description: Single-tuner PCI card with no hardware encoder. Cinergy400i comes with remote that works using lirc.

Install your Card

For a generic saa7134 card installation see http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Generic_SAA7134_Card_Installation

The Terratec Cinergy 400 PCI card is automatically detected use $ # dmesg |grep saa7134 for details.

Get your ALSA Sound

For a general information about saa7134-alsa visit http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Saa7134-alsa

You need the Saa7134-alsa driver with DMA to access the sound chip on the tuner directly. You DONT need your loopback cable!

An modified cut-out from http://www.wlug.org.nz:

With 2.6.16, you can go something like: $ sudo modprobe saa7134-alsa

To test DMA access with mplayer use:

$ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:input=0:width=384:height=288:adevice=hw.1,0:\
audiorate=32000:forceaudio:volume=100:alsa:immediatemode=0

The audiorate=32000 is vital; saa7134 only does 32k sound. forceaudio and immediatemode=0 tell mplayer not to be lazy -- by default it will assume you are using the loop-back. The numbers in adevice=hw.1,0 depend on your actual hardware. You can also leave out the alsa and use adevice=/dev/dsp1 -- oss emulation ought to take care of it.

If you hear sound you are on a good way to have also sound in mythtv. Just follow the MythTV Configuration section.

Settings for openSUSE 10.2

Geeko head48.png If you use openSUSE you can follow these instructions. You can configure your card using YaST but you have to modify parameters in the advanced configuration. So its easier to go to /etc/modprobe.d/tv and edit this file. This is my configuration:

alias char-major-81 videodev
options i2c-algo-bit bit_test=1
options saa7134 card=8 radio_nr=-1 tuner=5 vbi_nr=0 video_nr=0

install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134; /sbin/modprobe saa7134-alsa
options saa7134-alsa index=1

# YaST configured TV card
# B35A.AIy4B8S35H6:Terratec Cinergy 400 TV
alias char-major-81-0 saa7134

This gives you a video device /dev/video resp. /dev/video0 and a saa7134 sound device /proc/asound/SAA7134 resp. /proc/asound/card1

For a full MythTV configuration for openSUSE 10.2 see the openSUSE 10.2 mythTV wiki page.

MythTV Configuration

Once the drivers are installed and appear to be working, you can configure the device in MythTV.

MythTV setup

Capture Card -> New Capture Card and use the following settings:

Card Type: 	Analogue V4L capture card
Video Device: 	/dev/video
VBI Device:	/dev/vbi
Audio Device:	/dev/dsp1
Audio sampling rate limit: 	(None)
		[] Do not adjust volume
Default input: Television

The User Manual:Detailed configuration Backend section of this wiki describes MythTV backend configuration in more detail.

MythTV frontend

Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> General. Advance to Audio and use these settings:

Audio output device:		/dev/dsp 	(NOTE: It is essential to choose this one and not dsp1 because
						 you have to 'pipe' your sound to your main soundcard)
Passthrought output device: 	Standard

				[x] Use internal volume controls
Mixer Device: 			/dev/mixer 
Mixer Controls:			PCM

Now try live TV an enjoy! If you have no sound have a look at the #Issues and Problems section.

The User Manual:Detailed configuration Frontend section of this wiki describes MythTV frontend configuration in more detail.

Issues and Problems

You can hear no sound

In order to get sound from this card you must unmute the card after startup of mythbackend. You can check this by issuing the command

v4lctl volume mute off 

If you use v4l2 the command will be something like:

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 -c mute=0 -c volume=63

In in a console after startup of mythbackend, then start mythfrontend, watch live TV and check if you have got sound. To do this automatically you should add the command to the general section of the mythbackend setup (User Manual:Detailed configuration Backend#Starting mythbackend -> Startup command).

You can hear sound but very bad and noisy

I had very bad sound in Live TV (a bit like comics with much noise). This was caused by a wrong setting in the Recording Profiles. In your frontend go to Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Recording Profiles -> Software Encoders (v4l based) -> Live TV. Now advance to Audio Quality. Change codec from MP3 to Uncompressed click Finish an try your sound. If it works good go back to Audio Quality and try the following settings:

Codec:		MP3
Sampling Rate: 	32000
MP3 Quality: 	7
Volume: 	92%

Using the Remote

The Up, Down, Right, Left, 0-9 buttons works with the standard installation. You can use the “xev” program to see if X can see remote button presses.

Since the Infraredmodule is recognised as an "USB-Keyboard" it is very simple to map quite all Keys manually.
Just follow the instructions on this page: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Configuring_keyboards#General_Instructions
Worked absolutely fine for me :-)

FAQs

Nothing yet ... Note that the driver is NOT bttv, it's the SAA7134

User Experiences

After struggling with sound this card works fine with mythtv. Also the IR works. I use it on Opensuse 10.2 with mythtv .20-19@x86_64. - miguel


If you have this card, speak up! This is a good place to note your experiences - ease of install, what you like, what's not to like, etc.


My card works fine to, but have two problems: 1) The remote doesn't work with all buttons. Please post a working configfile. 2) When changing channels, _sometimes_ the sound doesn't work. When I change like 10 channels more, it suddenly just works again.

Useful Commands

  • Is your device detected? $ # dmesg |grep saa7134
  • Unmute Card: $ # 4lctl volume mute off
  • Show your v4l settings: $ # v4lctl list
  • Get a list of your alsa capture devices $ # arecord -l