Does the WinTV-HVR-850 work with Linux and SageTV?

[franco7777]

Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum.

I recently upgraded to SageTV 7, and in the process moved to a Linux based server as I wanted to rid myself of the last instance of Windows running in my house.

I was able to get SageTV installed and running perfectly. Everything on the SageTV side seems to be working fine.

I can't, however, get my WinTV-HVR-850 to work. I did research before moving to Linux and I was led to believe that it would work pretty much with minimal effort. Sadly that hasn't been the case.

Details:

Capture Device: WinTV-HVR-850 (device code: 2040:7240) (And yes, it is plugged into a USB 2.0 port.)

OS: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (not the server edition)

Kernel: 2.6.38-1-generic (I upgraded to that kernel. I also tried to get it to work with the kernel version that 10.04 LTS runs normally.)

Source of TV: OTA antenna (digital broadcasts)

All of this very same hardware worked perfectly when I was running Windows.



The WinTV-HVR-850 device is recognized by the OS. The firmware loads properly (checked by typing "dmesg"). I can add it as a source in SageTV.

I am even able to view the few analog broadcast channels in my area by using the TVTime software - so I know it's working somewhat.

I have been to the ends of the internet looking for a solution. I've done the steps that LinuxTV.org suggests for the device. I've tried it on different versions of Ubuntu (9.10 and 10.10 to be specific).

I don't know what else to do. Can anyone even confirm that this device will work with Linux and SageTV or should I just cut my losses and purchase a new device?

Thanks for your help.

[drewg]

What exactly are the symptoms of the failure?

Can you, for example, run a channel scan using the simple command line tool dvbscan from the dvb-apps package?

Drew

[franco7777]

SageTV simply gives me a "No Signal" message when I attempt to tune to any channel.

I just ran the dvbscan (actually had to run just 'scan' because I received an error message that stated "Unable to query frontend status" and the dvbscan page on the LinuxTVWiki said to run simply 'scan' if you got that message) - anyway, I ran the scan and it found all of the channels in my area (digital and analog). So I am encouraged by this finding, but I don't quite know what to do to get it working in SageTV.

As it stands now, I feel like the hardware is working properly in Linux, but for one reason or another SageTV isn't able to utilize it.

Any ideas? Thanks for your quick response, BTW!

[drewg]

Originally Posted by franco7777

SageTV simply gives me a "No Signal" message when I attempt to tune to any channel.

I just ran the dvbscan (actually had to run just 'scan' because I received an error message that stated "Unable to query frontend status" and the dvbscan page on the LinuxTVWiki said to run simply 'scan' if you got that message) - anyway, I ran the scan and it found all of the channels in my area (digital and analog).

Is SageTV able to run a scan?

Are you sure you're using the digital side in SageTV?

Have you enabled debug logging? I'd also suggest creating the empty file "NATIVE_LOG.ENABLE" in the sagetv server directory & restarting sagetv. It will create a log file called Native.log that will contain a log of the sagetv linux tuning events. The debug log and native logs will be the first thing that SageTV asks for if you open a ticket, and you may also want to post them here.

What happens if you use the azap tool to tune to a channel that was found in your scan? Does it tune?

The next step is to to "record" that channel using the simple command line test_dvr app? At least in my 10.04 ubuntu, it is stored compressed in /usr/share/doc/dvb-apps/examples/test/test_dvr.gz. So you copy it someplace, and then uncompress it (cp /usr/share/doc/dvb-apps/examples/test/test_dvr.gz .; gunzup test_dvr; chmod 755 ./test_dvr

While azap is still running, use test_dvr to "record" the tuned channel to a file. Use the 0x2000 PID if you don't know what PID programs are on. Eg:

In one window:
azap WRAL

In another:
./test_dvr WRAL.mpg 0x2000

You should see a rapidly increasing series of numbers. ^C after 10 seconds or so, and try to play the resulting file in mplayer.

Drew

[bcjenkins]

Is this 32 or 64bit?

B

[franco7777]

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying.

Anyway, I just wanted to jump in here and say that I have the WinTV-PVR-850 working with Linux. I ended up having to reinstall everything (OS and SageTV) and it works fine now.

I have a suspicion that VirtualBox was causing the problems I was experiencing. Does that make any sense to anyone?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by franco7777

I have a suspicion that VirtualBox was causing the problems I was experiencing. Does that make any sense to anyone?

Potentially, if you'd been doing some sort of USB passthrough..

Drew