USB TV Tuner [Solved]

[R_Head]

I have a problem with an USB TV Tuner. It shows video but no audio comes out. Looked everywhere and nothing seems to be muted.

Using Mandriva 2010.1

On Pulse Audio Settings I see the progression bars moving like there is audio but seems that is not routed to the Pulse Audio. In the pass, I disabled the Pulse Audio and still no sound.

Any ideas?

[rolf]

Are you seeing the tuner in the "Input Devices" tab of pavcontrol? Also, is it in the "Configuration" tab? I have found that changing profiles can make a difference between sound and no sound. One other thought. In alsamixer called from terminal, I have to press "F6: Select sound card" and explicitly choose my card rather than "Default" in order to expose other channels, where my microphone lives. Possibly, the needed channel is muted here. I've been playing with an inexpensive Hauppauge HVR-980/950 that does pretty well but has given me some puzzles. For one thing, kaffeine seems to have some problems, lately. If you use kaffeine, you might google on that. You could try vlc.

[R_Head]

Might try Kaffeine.
Was using TV Time and KDETV seems to crash.
I really like KDETV but for some reason is not working at all.

Thanks for the tip, will look into it at home later this evening.

[dedanna1029]

I know a couple of people who could answer this, but they're out of town right now. Joste's one. You could also try mythtv.

[R_Head]

mythtv, that, still an enigma to me.

Installed before and never worked for me

[dedanna1029]

There's an art to it, but once you get it going, it's sheer dynamite. There's a how-to that someone at the MDV forum posted at one time. I'll look it up when I have time. Grandson's here for today until 5 p.m. my time. Will also see what I can do to get a hold of Joste (he's at his mum & dad's for his days off).

[R_Head]

I do use Kaffeine for as a DVD Player. Tried the TV Tuner and does not even know what hardware is using. There is nothing to click to check the USB TV Tuner.

It sucks that I have to reboot to XP just to watch the TV, I have enough as is with my proprietary Canon Camcorder Software.

[rolf]

In the Kaffeine menu bar > Television > Configure Television, there is a General Options tab and a Device 1 tab, here. No device tab, there? I've been casting about with a lot of different new, to me, programs related to video and my recollection of details is a bit fuzzy, anyway. ISTR re-plugging the usb connection to my tuner made some difference at some point.

Before doing that

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tailf /var/log/messages

in a terminal window shows interesting kernel messages about the device discovery and driver loading.

That reminds me, my device required extracting a firmware from the Windows driver. My tailf shows a failure to load the firmware until I do that. I think that is not the problem in your case, since you get video but look through tailf, just in case a clue is there.

[R_Head]

There is a Device Tab but there is not really a device to choose from.

I am at work but as soon I get home I will check it out.

The only video I get is via TV Time other TV Tuner Applications fails miserably.

[rolf]

http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=130158

Very similar symptoms, there. I would repeat my suggestion about changing profiles in pavcontrol. Another shot:

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$ rpm -qa|grep pulse
pulseaudio-utils-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-module-gconf-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
lib64pulseaudio0-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
libalsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.0.21-2mdv2010.0
libpulseaudio0-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
alsa-plugins-pulse-config-1.0.21-2mdv2010.0
lib64pulseaudio-devel-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
lib64alsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.0.21-2mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-esound-compat-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-module-zeroconf-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
task-pulseaudio-2010.0-3mdv2010.0
gstreamer0.10-pulse-0.10.16-3mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-client-config-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
lib64pulsezeroconf0-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
lib64pulseglib20-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0
vlc-plugin-pulse-1.0.4-1mdv2010.0
pulseaudio-module-x11-0.9.21-0.1mdv2010.0

This is on a box where my usb tuner works with both video and audio. If yours is not a 64-bit system, check for the 32-bit version. It might be a matter of a missing pulseaudio plugin, idk.

[R_Head]

I let K answer that one

BTW, what is pavcontrol?

[rolf]

Yes. Just to be clear, I suggest running the tailf command and watch when you plug in the tuner connection.

I intended pavcontrol to stand for Pulse Audio Volume Control, the gui in the menu. Actually, the command is pavucontrol, which will start it from terminal or Run command. In that module, there are drop-down menus for different profiles, including on the 'Input Devices' tab, where I see my hvr tuner. I've found that changing the profile, in the past, made a difference whether I hear sound or not, in the 'Configuration' tab, also. I don't have a clear memory of this related to the tuner but it might be something to try, reverting to the original profile in case the others don't work at all.