WinTV HVR-1100 under Archlinux
Ὀδύσσεια
I recently bought a TVcard together with my new PC. It is a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100, which (according to some users) was supposed to work well with Linux. However, there was a slight (cough !) problem with the sound - there was NONE with TVtime !
Okay, after consuming two cups of coffee I was sufficiently prepared to tackle this. Google instantly found an answer:
$ tvtime | arecord -D hw:1,0 -f S16_LE -c2 -r32000 | aplay -
Starting TVtime that way produced sound. The only problem was that the sound started lagging after 5-10 mins of playing. So this was not the perfect solution.
Another method that I found on the net involved sox, the Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs.
$ sox -r 32000 -c 2 -t alsa hw:1,0 -t alsa default
There was no lag, but the sound stopped every 5-10 seconds. - Damn !
So what exactly was the problem ?!? The HVR-1100, which tuned out to be a HVR-1120 with an saa7143 chipset, is treated as a second sound device. So Linux tries to get its videodata from /dev/video0, which is correct, and its sound from the default audio device, which usually is the soundcard, not the TVcard. So your preferred app must somehow be persuaded to use the other card. With mplayer this is not much of a problem:
mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-west:alsa:adevice=hw.1,0:amode=1:audiorate=32000:forceaudio:volume=100:immediatemode=0:norm=PAL tv://
et voilá… TV + Sound !!!!
For those who are interested I have provided explanations for all the parameters:
| Parameter | What ??? |
|---|---|
| driver=v4l2 | no explanation needed |
| device=/dev/video0 | no explanation needed |
| chanlist=europe-west | your local channellist |
| adevice=hw.1,0 | use the second sounddevice |
| amode=1 | stereo |
| audiorate=32000 | you can also use 48000 |
| forceaudio=1 | capture all sound |
| volume=100 | no explanation needed |
| immediatemode=0 | no loopback cable between cards |
| norm=PAL | TV-norm |
A tidier solution: Simply add all the parameters to the "tv"-line of your .mplayer/config :
tv="driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-west:alsa=1:forceaudio=1:adevice=hw.1,0:amode=1:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:norm=PAL:channels=E5-ARD,E6-ZDF,E7-WDR,SE7-RTL,SE8-SAT1,SE11-PRO7,SE16-KABEL1,SE19-RTL2,S22-TELE5,S25-DAS VIERTE,SE20-ARTE,24-NICK"
As you can see, it is also possible to configure your channels there…
Have fun watching !! :D
P.S.: Zapping with h and k.
tags: linux, tv