TV support

English Hardware
1

Hi all!
I may be out of luck here, I have had USB based tv/video capture hardware(Pinnacle PCTV 150e) working well on previous linux distros, but my new PCIe device doesn’t. It’s an OEM Happauge HVR-1260(NXP 18271C2 chipset) that works perfectly in Windows, it doesn’t even skip frames, stutter, and records perfectly! If it can do that in Windows, linux performance would be broadcast grade video quality.
Are there any workarounds/patches that could bring even partial functionality to linux for this hardware? I’ve done the requisite searches and have found nothing.

My hardware:
Asus M2N-SLI
AMD Athlon64x2 5000+
Nvidia NCP controllers

2

Could you please show the output of


sudo lspci

, fwiw it seems like the driver is in the kernel.

3

This is the output of the terminal command:

00:00.0 Memory controller: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev f3)
00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f2)
00:07.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:08.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:0a.0 Bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev f3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev f3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev c0)
01:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs CA0106/CA0111 [SB Live!/Audigy/X-Fi Series]
02:00.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7231 (rev aa)<—this is the tv card chipset
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G92 [GeForce 9600 GSO] (rev a2)
Htos1@Htos1x64:~>

4

You could check to see that you have the correct firmware installed.

5

SAA7231? While its been around for years, there is a chance it is not supported in GNU/Linux < unsure >

When I look in the LinuxTV wiki I see no mention of it: LinuxTV wiki : Hardware Device Information

I recall reading a thread of a user noting some development but its not clear if that development has stalled / continued.

Edit-1 - The (granted out of date) Linux hardware page does not inspire confidence wrt support for the SAA7231.
Edit-2 - The LinuxTV Hauppauge does not list the HVR-1260.

In summary - I don’t know the answer - but provided links wrt my looking in to this.

6

Hi
Can you provide some more detail on the lspci output to see the pci id information;


/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -A3 "Multimedia controller"
7

When I surfed the internet for : firmware “SAA7231” it brought me back to a year 2010 !! openSUSE thread that had no resolution.

The Linux TV wiki on supported hardware is very good IMHO for providing advise on researching drivers on one’s PC current setup. It suggests wrt for possibilities with the V4L-DVB source code to navigate through the Linux media driver files (e.g. on your system try /usr/src/linux/drivers/media ). Out of curiousity I skimmed through such on an older openSUSE-15.0 PC and saw no mention of support for the SAA7231. Possibly a newer Tumbleweed ‘might’ be different, but this card is relatively obscure so I suspect no change.

There are also (or at least there used to be) mailing list archives that one could consult to see if there is any mention of the device … for example mailing list . I tried looking for the OP’s SAA7231 and had no success.

I am becoming more and more suspicious that this device may not be supported … albeit I concede I do not know.

8

We’re out of luck. I corresponded with an NXP(Philips) tech, he stated there was never any linux development for the chipset. This tuner was an oddball order from HP, using a custom coded version of WinTV by Happauge. It works excellently in windows, it would scream in linux. To help me feel better, he sent me the pinouts schematic and source code for the chip. :slight_smile:
We can close this one, thank you everyone for your assistance. If I can get a friend to bang out a functional driver, I’ll alert everyone and pass it on. He’s come through before for me.

9

https://rickcaylor.websitetoolbox.com/post/linux-kernel-module-avermedia-h339-saa7231-rev-ca-6668340
https://github.com/marcusbirkin/BGT3xxx/tree/master/bgt-linux-pcie-drv/linux/drivers/media/saa7231

10

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