G400-TV, xawtv, driver hell

[spankmeister7]

I'm absolutely pulling my hair out over this one. I simply cannot get xawtv to work on my system. I'm using RedHat 8.0 with a dual-Athlon system. Whenever I run xawtv I get:

This is xawtv-3.81, running on Linux/i686 (2.4.20)
can't open /dev/video0: No such device
v4l2: open /dev/video0: No such device
v4l2: open /dev/video0: No such device
v4l: open /dev/video0: No such device
no video grabber device available

One of the many things I've tried to is to get the mgavideo drivers installed - but this doesn't appear to work either. Similarly, when I run mga_vid_test I get the following:

[root@vertov mga_vid_test]# ./mga_vid_test
scanning video devices...
/dev/video0...
/dev/video1...
/dev/video2...
/dev/video3...
/dev/video4...
/dev/video5...
/dev/video6...
/dev/video7...
/dev/video8...
unable to find an overlay device

The problem I'm having seems to be a popular one in that after running ./update I get a load of unresolved symbol errors. I read through the past messages archive and found the typical "answer" of recompiling my kernel doesn't solve it. I compile my own kernels and I made sure that I checked the option to use video for linux (v4l) before compiling. I've spent all day trying different modules, drivers, configs, yadda, yadda.

Nothing.

In fact, I don't even care if xawtv works if there is something better to use for video capture from this card.

Really what I need is a nice how-to that explains the process in TOTAL instead of keeping fifteen different websites open trying to figure out exactly who I should be asking for help.

In any event, I could some clarity.

[omol]

Originally posted by spankmeister7
One of the many things I've tried to is to get the mgavideo drivers installed - but this doesn't appear to work either. Similarly, when I run mga_vid_test I get the following:

[root@vertov mga_vid_test]# ./mga_vid_test
scanning video devices...
/dev/video0...
/dev/video1...
/dev/video2...
/dev/video3...
/dev/video4...
/dev/video5...
/dev/video6...
/dev/video7...
/dev/video8...
unable to find an overlay device


Please attach your /usr/src/`uname -r`/.config, XFree86Config(-4) and X -probeonly output.

regards,
omol

[spankmeister7]

Okay. It works as follows:

Step 1:
- ensure that when configuring a new kernel to install video4linux as a module, configure i2c (everything) as a module, and the BT848 entry under video devices as a module. I had many problems in the past compiling these modules when chosen as modules instead of just saying "y" and building them into the kernel itself.

Step 2:
- install the latest driver from marvel.sourceforge.com ONLY AFTER getting the above to work and install properly

Step 3:
- Joy. Xawtv now works.... but poorly. The image quality is good while watching TV but the capture looks terrible using MJPEG. I'll try using Microsoft AVI next to see if it works any better.

Things I'm still unsure of:
1. Is this driving actually using the hardware MJPEG encoder built into the card? Even so, my plan is to convert my old MST3K tapes to DVD. Which is the best codec to use to grab video with?

2. Which is the best editor? The **ONLY** reason why I still have a windows partition is to use VirtualDub and SoundForge to edit, recompress, yadda yadda.

Thanks for hearing me out...

[omol]

Originally posted by spankmeister7
ensure that when configuring a new kernel to install video4linux as a module, configure i2c (everything) as a module, and the BT848 entry under video devices as a module.


Marvel/Rainbox/GxxTV don't have Broktree chips. Or do they?

regards,
omol