I’ve moved it from the blog into a permanent page here.

Then, following the instructions in utils/README.X11,

install -c -m 0444 ivtvdev_drv_o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ivtvdev_drv.o


Then, set your default kernel to use a frame buffer.

Add
vga=791

to your kernel line

Add this to the line starting # kopt… in /boot/grub/menu.lst

vga=791


Identify the PCD ID of the PVR-350 card.

lspci

and look for the line relating to the PVR card. Mine says this…


0000:02:06.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)


The first column gives you the bus, slot, function. You’ll need this for the xorg.conf.

Then add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Screen"
Identifier "TV"
Device "Hauppauge PVR350"
Monitor "PAL Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
DefaultFbbpp 32
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
FbBpp 32
EndSubsection
EndSection


You can see the entire xorg.conf file here.

Reboot and see if it works…

Not working? You may need to rebuild the kernel to get it going

Follow the instructions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/KernelHowto…

if you don’t already have it, get the basic stuff for building a kernel module.
Get basics for building a kernel module

Following the instructions at Ubuntu Linux FAQ

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`


If you get an error like this,

make: *** /lib/modules/2.6.10-2-386/build: No such file or directory. Stop.
make: *** [all] Error 2

this is the bit you need to revisit.

Get ivtv module source

Get the latest stable tarball from Chris Kennedy’s site:

http://ivtv.no-ip.info/ivtv-0.2.0-rc3g.tgz (as of Feb 24th 2005)

Unpack it.

Build and install the module.

$ cd driver
$ make
$ sudo mv /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/msp3400.ko ~/msp3400.ko.orig # (or any other place; or just delete it)
$ sudo make install


Create /etc/modutils/ivtv
Create this file as follows:

alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
options ivtv ivtv_debug=1 ivtv_std=2


Now, I think you ought to able to have this at the top of the ivtv file, and for it to automatically pick up this directory.

keep
path[ivtv]=/lib/modules/2.6.10/extra

But that doesn’t work, so you’ll need to copy over the /lib/modules/2.6.10/extra directory into /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers.

Firmware
Extract the firmware and put that in /lib/modules

Create /etc/init.d/ivtv
Create this file as follows:

modprobe ivtv
modprobe ivtv-fb # if using PVR-350 and framebuffer


Make it executable

$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/ivtv


Set ivtv to load at boot

$ sudo update-rc.d ivtv defaults 12 # need to run this before gdm if using card for X output


Gotchas

1. If you’re using the default kernel, then you’ll find the ivtv modules end up in /lib/modules/2.6.10, rather than /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386. (for example). Which means that modprobe will fail, because it won’t be able to find the modules. Fix this by copying the directory across, and re-running depmod
   
# cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.10/ivtv /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/kernel/drivers/video
# depmod


Then we moved…

Now I live in a Telewest area, so we use that instead, a much cheaper option than upgrading the TV aerial to digital etc. And we use the cable for phone, and I use the Internet option for work. All round a good cable solution.

Except I really miss my nice Humax box (now donated to my brother…) Now I could use my video recorder, but that has these problems:

• You have to use tapes. Once you get used to the convenience of recording to disk, you never want to go back to recording onto tapes which you then need to label, keep track off (now where was that half-hour program I recorded 3 weeks ago?)
• You have set two machines not one each time you want to record a show. Thanks to the advances of modern technology, your Telewest box won’t automatically change channel when your VCR wants to record, so you can only record what the Telewest box is set to. So you must set the Telewest box to switch channel at the right time, and the VCR to record at the right time. Way too much hassle
• No timeslip.

So given that I can’t find one to buy, I’m going to build one. Watch this space to see how…