ATI TV Wonder™ 550 PCI -- drivers or whatever ??

[Bill Case]

Hi; 

I got an ATI TV Wonder™ 550 PCI card for Christmas two years ago.  It
has just recently been listed in hwdata but now I need to get it running
in Linux (it works fine in WindowsXP).

AMD/ATI does not seem to have drivers for it.  Does anyone have any
suggestions on how to get this TV tuner working with either TVTime or
MythTV?

I have googled and seem to be finding other people's misery from over a
year ago.  Nothing current.

-- 
Regards Bill

[Ed Greshko]

William Case wrote:
>  Hi; 
>  
>  I got an ATI TV Wonder™ 550 PCI card for Christmas two years ago.  It
>  has just recently been listed in hwdata but now I need to get it running
>  in Linux (it works fine in WindowsXP).
>  
>  AMD/ATI does not seem to have drivers for it.  Does anyone have any
>  suggestions on how to get this TV tuner working with either TVTime or
>  MythTV?
>  
>  I have googled and seem to be finding other people's misery from over a
>  year ago.  Nothing current. 
The output of lspci -v maybe helpful to determine what you need.  For 
example my TV tuner card returns....

05:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video 
Capture (rev
  11)
         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 132, IRQ 50
         Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
         Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
         Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2

So I know I need the bttv drivers.

[Bill Case]

Thanks again Ed;

On Sun, 2008-01-27 at 09:46 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
>  William Case wrote:
>  > Hi; 
>  > 
>  > I got an ATI TV Wonder™ 550 PCI card for Christmas two years ago.  It
>  > has just recently been listed in hwdata but now I need to get it running
>  > in Linux (it works fine in WindowsXP).
>  > 
>  > AMD/ATI does not seem to have drivers for it.  Does anyone have any
>  > suggestions on how to get this TV tuner working with either TVTime or
>  > MythTV?
>  > 
>  > I have googled and seem to be finding other people's misery from over a
>  > year ago.  Nothing current.
>  
>  The output of lspci -v maybe helpful to determine what you need.  For 
>  example my TV tuner card returns....
>  
>  05:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video 
>  Capture (rev
>    11)
>           Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 132, IRQ 50
>           Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
>           Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
>           Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
>  
>  So I know I need the bttv drivers.
>   
Well, things have improved.  lspci used to give me nothing useful, now I
am returned:
]$ lspci -v
01:09.0 Multimedia controller: ATI Technologies Inc Theater 550 PRO PCI
[ATI TV Wonder 550]
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device a346
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
        Memory at fdd00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
        Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

I will search for 'Unknown device a346' tomorrow.



-- 
Regards Bill

[Ed Greshko]

William Case wrote:

>  Well, things have improved.  lspci used to give me nothing useful,
> now I
>  am returned:
>  ]$ lspci -v
>  01:09.0 Multimedia controller: ATI Technologies Inc Theater 550 PRO PCI
>  [ATI TV Wonder 550]
>          Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device a346
>          Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
>          Memory at fdd00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
>          Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
>          Capabilities: <access denied>
>  
>  I will search for 'Unknown device a346' tomorrow. 
Well, while it really was "lspci -vv" output I should have asked for, I did 
some additional research that leads me to believe you are SOL.  The 
technology used in the ATI TV cards is proprietary and only proprietary 
drivers were ever written and none were ever written for linux.  It would 
seem that the only ATI TV cards with linux drivers were the now extinct 
All-In-Wonder cards.

[Bill Case]

Thanks Ed;

On Sun, 2008-01-27 at 14:49 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
>  William Case wrote: 
>  Well, while it really was "lspci -vv" output I should have
> asked for, I did 
>  some additional research that leads me to believe you are SOL.  The 
>  technology used in the ATI TV cards is proprietary and only proprietary 
>  drivers were ever written and none were ever written for linux.  It would 
>  seem that the only ATI TV cards with linux drivers were the now extinct 
>  All-In-Wonder cards.
>   
I think so to.  I thought I would check one last time before I
bought/got a new TV tuner card.

Here in Ottawa, my cable supplier is slowly going to HDTV and I think I
will try to find a tuner card that works with HDTV and/or digital.  I
haven't done my research or homework yet on the latest TV tuner cards, I
confess, but if anybody has some quick advice on which card to look
into, I would appreciate it.

-- 
Regards Bill

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: William Case <billlinux(a)rogers.com&gt;

| Here in Ottawa, my cable supplier is slowly going to HDTV and I think I
| will try to find a tuner card that works with HDTV and/or digital.

In Toronto, the cable company is Rogers.  In Ottawa too, your supplier
is Rogers.

The cable company is going digital, for HD (always digital) and SD.  At
some point they will turn off the analogue signal (the CRTC has
already set the policy).

All HD content on Rogers here is encrypted (some or all of Toronto).
No tuner card can decode the signal.  It used to be the case the basic
digital SD content was unencrypted.  TV tuners that could decode QAM
could do the job.  No longer.

Ottawa Rogers might not yet have implemented this policy.  It probably
will.

In the US, the FCC requires cable companies to support the flawed
"CableCard" standard.  The Canadian regulator (CRTC) imposes no such
requirement.

If you want digital TV with a tuner in your computer, your best bet is
to get an antenna and use a tuner that supports ATSC.  I have no idea
if you in Ottawa can get any of the US channels that way.

It is possible to use a set-top box and a capture card.  Changing the
channel is awkward and likely unreliable ("IR blaster").  Digitizing
true HD is hard -- the signal has to got to analogue and back and the
bandwidth of consumer digitizers is limited.  Eventually most or all
HD signals will be protected by HDCP making this task impossible.

The bottom line is that the Canadian cable companies have managed to
arrange a monopoly on PVRs.  Stupid CRTC.