[sclug] Digital TV card and channel recognition

[Dickon Hood]

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:04:34 +0000, Andrew Sharp wrote:

: I have a TV card that does work in Windows, of course, but I would 
: rather use Linux if possible! I have tried following some tips on Media 
: Player (or MPlayer as I know it) which works using xine. I have 
: installed w_scan and run that a number of ways to get three channels 
: files in /etc:

: channels.conf for xine
: channels.dvb  for kaffeine
: and also /etc/vdr/channels.conf using a more generic  command
: (see  http://edafe.org/vdr/w_scan/ for commands used [-c GB switch does 
: not work])

scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/uk-CrystalPalace

(use your transmitter; you're not on Crystal Palace, clearly) is what you
want.

: Here's a partial listing of the /etc/channels.conf for xine:
: [andrew at dhcppc3 ~]$ cat /etc/channels.conf                            
: FIVER(five):626000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:6673:6674:12928                                                            
[...]

: etc, etc.
: These channels is the same order as listed by Windows KWorld software 
: with Fiver and Five USA as channels 1 and 2 found and BBC1 as channel 66.

They're likely in the order in which it found the multiplexes.  Simply
reorder the lines in the file to whatever you'd prefer.

: Mpalyer Watch TV on 'DVB Adapter 0' from the Movies menu gives
: Totem is missing a channels listing to be able to tune the receiver.

Google for 'totem channels.conf' to locate the right place for it (hint:
it isn't in ~/).

: Kaffeine is more surreal. When run to watch TV, it displays the TV 
: channels (but not the radio or shopping channels except for BBC Radio 5 
: Live and 5 Live SX) but says "No suitable device found" when one of the 
: channels is clicked.

Never used it.  KDE.  Hideous.

: How do I get MPlayer and kaffeine to see the channel lists and to view TV?

mplayer's handling of interesting transport streams is slightly suspect at
best, IME.  I'd recommend using vlc; 'vlc channels.conf' should do what
you expect.  If your signal is weak, and you drop transport stream frames
(which will manifest themselves as corruption in audio and / or video),
you may find it crashes occasionally in libpsi.  I've no idea why.

-- 
Dickon Hood

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