File:  [DVB] / dvb-kernel / README
Revision 1.9.2.2: download - view: text, annotated - select for diffs
Sun Jan 25 18:31:35 2004 UTC (20 years, 4 months ago) by holger
not the TROUBLESHOOTING file

Instructions for building the standalone driver:
------------------------------------------------

If you encounter any problems while executing the follwing steps please read
the TROUBLESHOOTING file.

Simply type 'make' to build the driver. The compiled modules will be located
in directory ./build-2.4/ or ./build-2.6, depening on the kernel version you
are running. There you will also find scripts to load and unload the modules.

For some cards you need to download additional firmware binaries.  You get
notified in the build process or when loading the modules, please follow the
instructions there if you own one of the cards that need a firmware to run.

Be sure that you are root for the following steps.

Now execute the ./MAKEDEV-DVB.sh script to create the DVB API device nodes.

In ./build-2.4/ or ./build-2.6/ you find the insmod script.

Use './insmod.sh load' to load the driver modules, './insmod.sh unload' to 
remove them. './insmod debug' loads the drivers with debugging enabled. 
These scripts load all drivers for all cards but the ones based on the bt8xx
and the DEC2000-T, DEC2540-T and DEC3000-S USB boxes.

For bt8xx based cards please use the insmod-bt8xx.sh script, for the DEC USB 
boxes 'insmod dvb-core.o ttusb_dec.o'.

Now check the klog and syslog (in doubt type 'dmesg') for errors messages.

When you reached this point successfully you probably want to start some
test applications, download the linuxtv-dvb-apps-1.1.tar.gz package, unpack
it and compile it. This package contains some tools to test and debug the
driver:

linuxtv-dvb-apps-1.1/apps/szap/ contains three simple applications called 
szap, czap and tzap for zapping with DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T cards.
Read linuxtv-dvb-apps-1.1/apps/szap/ README for usage instructions.

Note 1: tuning succeeded if you see the FE_HAS_LOCK flag and "status 1f"; a
good signal has a low bit error rate (ber) and zero uncorrectable packets (unc).

Note 2: you must keep ?zap running, or the frontend will go to sleep (unless
you load dvb-core.o with dvb_shutdown_timeout=0)

If your card has a hardware MPEG decoder you can watch TV with xawtv (together
with e.g. szap for DVB tuning); Note: xawtv cannot control the DVB tuner, you
must use ?zap

For cards without hardware MPEG decoder you need a software MPEG decoder, 
e.g. mplayer or xine (you need *very* recent versions which understand MPEG2 
transport streams; xine v0.9.21 and mplayer dev-CVS-030723-16:39-3.3.1 seem to 
work); Note: You must run ?zap with the -r flag to enable stream output to the 
dvr device, and keep it running while watching tv.  

Examples: 
	mplayer - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 
	xine stdin://mpeg2 < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0
	
Note: Newest mplayer and xine versions are reported to have builtin DVB support
(see ./linux/Documentation/dvb/faq.txt for more info).

For 'real' everyday use you probably don't want to use these test applications 
but install a program like VDR or MythTV.
(Read ./linux/Documentation/dvb/faq.txt for some links)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The build system has been tested down to 2.4.20, if you run an older kernel
either update your kernel or just try - maybe you need to add some tweaks in
the dvb_compat.[hc] files. Please report your modifications on the linux-dvb 
mailing list.

If you want to build a not-standalone driver but want to patch your 2.6 kernel
source tree with this driver please read README-2.6.

More documentation is located in ./linux/Documentation/dvb/.

good luck,

Holger


LinuxTV legacy CVS <linuxtv.org/cvs>