Saa713x devices: Difference between revisions

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(→‎Supported cards: added info from CARDLIST.saa7134 article)
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For an excellent guide, see Gentoo wiki's [http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134 HARDWARE saa7134]. See also [http://www.datasheetarchive.com/datasheet/pdf/4366.html Philips saa datasheets]
For an excellent guide, see Gentoo wiki's [http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_saa7134 HARDWARE saa7134]. See also [http://www.datasheetarchive.com/datasheet/pdf/4366.html Philips saa datasheets]


==Supported saa713x devices cards==
==Supported saa713x devices==
An up-to-date list of saa713x devices supported by V4L-DVB drivers is found in the [http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb/file/tip/linux/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.saa7134 CARDLIST.saa7134] file in the master development repository.
An up-to-date list of saa713x devices supported by V4L-DVB drivers is found in the [http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb/file/tip/linux/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.saa7134 CARDLIST.saa7134] file in the master development repository.


Revision as of 03:37, 27 August 2007

Introduction

TV cards based on the saa713x chips are well supported. The picture quality is typically high, and the sound can be taken directly from the TV card or through a patch cable to your sound card. On the text capture front, both teletext and NTSC closed captioning are supported.

For an excellent guide, see Gentoo wiki's HARDWARE saa7134. See also Philips saa datasheets

Supported saa713x devices

An up-to-date list of saa713x devices supported by V4L-DVB drivers is found in the CARDLIST.saa7134 file in the master development repository.

Devices supported by the kernel running on your system are listed in your local <path_to_your_kernel_sources>/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.saa7134.

Getting an unlisted card to work

If your card is not listed, see the How to add support for a new card article.

Usually there are a few cards with undocumented support. If your card is not in the above list, check V4L-DVB Changelog, searching for your card name; maybe it was just recenty added. This should be the most up-to-date source for cards support status. If you don't find your card there, ask for assistance on the v4l mailing list -- cf. searchable archives. It may be a clone of a listed card.

Each of these card entries may work for several similar cards.

The number of supported cards has increased dramatically over the past year (for comparison, the 2.6.12-rc kernel includes only 34 cards), so you may need a recent kernel. Or, more simply, just get Mercurial (similar to CVS), use it to download latest V4L-DVB version, and compile it. You can then install the new V4L modules on top of your existing kernel (detailed instructions here on linuxtv). However, still some boards are supported only on newer kernels.

Before buying a new TV card, it's always worth checking its support status on V4L documentation. However, be advised that, since some producers label with the same product name boards that, inside, are actually different, there is always some risk of buying an un- (or non-completely) supported card even if it appears to be. Spending some more time searching newsgroups and mailing lists for complains is recommended.

Full card names can be cross-referenced from drivers/media/video/saa7134/saa7134-cards.c.


Make sure you post the findings of your investigations here and on the video4linux mailing list (video4linux-list@redhat.com) so that bttv-cards.c can be updated with a new card= entry for your card.

Sound support

Support for DMA sound, or sound taken directly off the PCI bus, has improved in the 2.6.16 kernel, thanks to the work of Ricardo Cerqueira and others. There are now two separate drivers for DMA sound, saa7134-alsa and saa7134-oss. In order to enable these in the kernel, you must first have selected support for ALSA and/or OSS under Sound. If you build both DMA devices as modules, you can use both alternately, though they cannot both be loaded at the same time.

While the saa7134-oss is listed as deprecated, there are still programs that have difficulties using ALSA's device enumeration, and the oss module remains useful.

These modules do not require parameters during insertion; for details see saa7134-alsa.

Installation

See Generic SAA7134 Card Installation for how to properly setup your saa7134-based tv tuner card or use the installation instructions for your specific card:

Avermedia

As described in AverTV 305/307 linux user guide (russian), the following cards are supported:

  • AVerTV 305
  • AVerTV Studio 305
  • AVerTV 307
  • AVerTV Studio 307

In addition, the following cards are known to work:

Bona

The brand is also refered to as Mentor. Bona Website

Canopus

Compro

KNC One (KNC1)

KWorld

Lifeview

MSI

Mercury

Pearl

Pinnacle

Sabrent

Terratec

Tevion

Vivanco

Other

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