[linux-dvb] Avermedia M103 TV Card

[Greg Brackley]

Warning: I'm a newbie with these v4l drivers, and don't claim to be an
expert.

Rob & Kate wrote:
> The following site has managed to get this card working with the 
> experimental code
> http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/dvb/t/compiling-mcentral-experimental-v4l-dvb-drivers 

Although I got the mcentral.de drivers loaded and running [3], I haven't
managed to get the main v4l drivers working with this card yet
(linuxtv.org)[2]. I would be interested in assisting anyone to get this
done.

I'm using four M103-C modules [1] in a routerboard card [5] to provide a
quad tuner card [4].

Looking through the code, it might not involve much more than adding the
  PCI ids and the required chipset/tuner to the right table.

> Can you please offer some advice, a couple of things that I think may be 
> the problem are
> 
> o Do I need to remove the card before I install the experimental code? 
> until now I haven’t because its under the fan, but will if needs must.

I wouldn't have thought so. Once I put the card into the computer I
haven't had to remove it. I would unload the existing v4l modules with
your kernel. If the v4l drivers are build into your kernel (not
modules), then you will need to build a new kernel.


> o Do I need to disable the installed V4L modules in the kernel, and then 
> re-compile the kernel? This seems very scary, but someone on the gentoo 
> pages did it this way, so I’ll give it ago if necessary

I left the stock kernel v4l modules in place, but put the new modules
earlier in the depmod path. As documented in a few places, use all 4vl
modules from the same place/version (half from your distro and half from
the experimental hg doesn't work).

> o How do I get the xc3028 to work, there seems to be 3 different 
> approaches, either download the windows firmware and convert, download 
> the picnnicale firmware 
> (http://mcentral.de/firmware/firmware_pinnacle.tgz), or download the 
> xc3028 firmware (http://mcentral.de/firmware/firmware_v5.tgz) .

As noted on the page, I found the firmware_v5.tgz firmware worked. When
I tried the v4l driver [1], I used other firmware (but I didn't get it
working).

I'm using this card for DVB-T only (I'm ignoring the analog support).
The card happily scans, and picks up current & next EIT program data. I
haven't got the rest of the system displaying the h.264 stream yet.

Greg.

--

[1]
http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/dvb/t/avermedia-m-103c-0405ab34-mini-pci-hybrid-tuner

[2]
http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/dvb/t/compiling-v4l-dvb-drivers-for-saa7134-and-xc2028

[3]
http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/dvb/t/compiling-mcentral-experimental-v4l-dvb-drivers

[4] http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/dvb/t/dvb-t-pci-quad-tuner

[5]
http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/wireless/routerboard-14-pci-to-quad-mini-pci-adapter