Video Input HOWTO (Nvidia)

[JP83]

My turn to make NHF! Yes this is 3 step video input HOWTO for Nvidia cards by JP83 because not many threads about this and because Elijah just make Tv-Out howto http://linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73483

1. Download normal Nvidia kernel and glx drivers from www.nvidia.com (i suggest tar packages)

2. Download rivatv driver from http://rivatv.sourceforge.net/ this enables video input. Install goes like this download that (to dir programs) then type these commands:
cd / && cd programs
tar -xvvzf rivatv-0.8.1.tar.gz
cd rivatv-0.8.1
make config
make
make install
modprobe rivatv (this step after every reboot)

Notes you need these kernel supports if you use a custom kernal (in stock kernels these should be enabled by default)
I2C core
I2C bit banging algorithm
video4linux
And you can't use that kernel Frame buffer device (logo) in same time when you use rivatv driver. If you see logo you need to modify your /etc/lilo.conf file like this (but backup first) (this is my file your kernel is probably different):

(this one is fb)
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19-xfs
label=Linux
read-only
vga=792

(and this is without fb)
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19-xfs
label=Linux-no-fb
read-only

So add this second section and then command lilo
then reboot using Linux-no-fb (now you don't see the logo)

3. Download Xawtv tarball from http://bytesex.org/xawtv/ install goes:
download to /programs
cd / && cd programs
tar -xvvzf xawtv_3.78.tar.gz
cd xawtv-3.78
./configure --prefix=/usr (this could work without --prefix=/usr but i wan't to use that) and usually complains about missing things so install those missing libraries
make
make install

4 Time for smoke test command xawtv (hope this works because xawtv is tricky)

[TheFr00n]

JP8
You are a jedi master!
This tip is just what I've been looking for for weeks now. I will sell all my worldly possesions and follow you.

[TheFr00n]

Hi JP83
I have a small problem: I don't use lilo, so editing the lilo.conf file has no effect on how the system boots.
Do you know which configuration file I should edit to disable the frame buffer? I use SuSE 8.0.
Thanks,
TheFr00n

[JP83]

Do you use grup if so it's /etc/grup.conf file (i guess) but if you don't see the logo (penquin) when you boot it's not problem.

[TheFr00n]

Erm
Actually I use BootMagic, which in turn triggers the standard SuSE boot thingy. Which is not called grup.
??
:confused:

[JP83]

It's ok if you don't see that logo (resolution small and no much colors) of course you can try to install rivatv driver and if that complains that there are fb dev in use it won't work and if so you should start new thread about that because i don't know nothing about BootMagic. But try to install rivatv driver first.

[TheFr00n]

Heh. You know what the command to boot with no framebuffer was?

linux vga=normal

Sometimes it's just so-o-o-o simple that you don't see it at all.

[JP83]

Yes

[TheFr00n]

Hi JP83
So the "make config" went off smoothly enough, but when I ran "make" a bad thing happened - see attached screenshot.
Any ideas?

[JP83]

Yes probably you need kernel headers package it's your distro's cd's (probably cd 1 or 2) and then reconfigure.

[TheFr00n]

Ah JP83, thanks for holding my hand through all of this.

So, I took your advice, and installed the kernel sources. AND IT WORKED!! I did the make install and everything and that worked too!

But then, when I ran modprobe, disaster struck. I think I understand the error, but how do I go about fixing it?

If you still have the stamina, do you have a suggestion?

Ta,
TheFr00n

[JP83]

Check that you have installed a correct version of kernel headers = same version and type as your running kernel. Is your kernel stock or custom?

[JP83]

Originally posted by TheFr00n
Ah JP83, thanks for holding my hand through all of this.

So, I took your advice, and installed the kernel sources. AND IT WORKED!! I did the make install and everything and that worked too!

But then, when I ran modprobe, disaster struck. I think I understand the error, but how do I go about fixing it?

If you still have the stamina, do you have a suggestion?

Ta,
TheFr00n

And i have to ask that did you make these steps after kernel headers installation make config and then make and then make install or did you just the make install? If you did just make install, then you need to make reinstall using commands make uninstall && make distclean and then remake those install steps.

[bwkaz]

Looks to me like you installed a kernel-source that was not for SMP, but your running kernel uses SMP. The kernel-source and running kernel must match, both configuration-wise and version-wise. Try installing a -smp kernel-source, that could help.

Also try the make distclean, etc.

[TheFr00n]

Thanks for all the support, you guys rock!

Soooo, I installed the sources directly off the SuSE 8.0 install CDs. And I did make clean to get rid of previously compiled rivatv. And, I edited MAKEFILE to explicitly call the path of my kernel ie 2.4.18-64GB-SMP. And everything *seemed* to work. Ha. Same error (see grab).

Which I think is odd.
Then I went to have a squiz at the /lib/modules/2.4.18-64GB-SMP folder up close and personal. Hmmmmm. It seems the build folder is simply a symbolic link to /usr/src/thewrongf$%^kingversion_SuSE. If I understand this correctly, it means that SuSE shipped version 8.0 WITHOUT THE CORRECT KERNEL SOURCE.

Is my interpretation of this correct? Can I work around this by locating kernel source elsewhere? Anybody know a good download site?

[JP83]

Then I went to have a squiz at the /lib/modules/2.4.18-64GB-SMP folder up close and personal. Hmmmmm. It seems the build folder is simply a symbolic link to /usr/src/thewrongf$%^kingversion_SuSE. If I understand this correctly, it means that SuSE shipped version 8.0 WITHOUT THE CORRECT KERNEL SOURCE.

Thing is that kernel source is installed in the /usr/src/*kernelversion*
and if kernel headers (source) and running kernel don't mach that is problem because rivatv (and other driver modules) are compiled using that kernel headers package and if that package is wrong driver modules are compiled to different kernel and it will not work with your running kernel. When you have installed those correct headers then /usr/src/*correct-version* and now those headers and running kernel mach and it will work.


So check once again that you have installed correct version of kernel headers package (there are many versions of kernel headers in the cd). Your running kernel version now is 2.4.18-64GB-SMP and probably you have installed kernel headers version 2.4.18-4GB or you need to install headers version 2.4.18.SuSe. Is this kernel orginal stock or is it updated from SUSE. If your kernel headers is correct then you can always download kernel 2.4.19 tarball and compile/install that it's not that difficult (if you know your hardware).

And Don't edit MAKEFILE because probably it will not help you now.

[bwkaz]

Yeah, I think it might be easier to d/l and install 2.4.19 as well, at this point. Though I could be wrong, check kernel-headers (or whatever it is) as well...

Take a look at the various kernel compiling NHF's, and the HOWTO at www.tldp.org for some walkthroughs. And make sure you read all the options for all the settings... set aside like 3 hours or so to do all the reading your first time through.

[TheFr00n]

I finally made it work! but not the way u think.

What happened was this: The company I work for purchased Red Hat 8. I sneakily lifted the disks and made off home with them, killed SuSE 8 (kept my /home partition OBVIOUSLY) and installed RH.
Guess what? RH have source that matches their kernel OMG WTF??? Which means rivatv install is as easy as:
make config
make
make install
... Just like JP83 said it was.

Now, this makes me sad because I purchased the full boxed version of SuSE 8 and it turned out to be a bad thing: perfect for an end user (I wanna wordprocess duhhhhhhhh), but less than useless for someone who wants to get under the hood.

Sad.

Now if only RH would see my modem ...

l8r gang
TheFr00n

[JP83]

Just keeping good thread alive.

[Sastraxi]

Looking great, JP. How's the quality of Riva video? I have an Avermedia, the quality is OK, but nothing like my dad's Hauppage WinTV.

[DerekKraan]

I'm having problems with getting video input to work for me. I'm running gentoo 1.4, and I've got an MSI Geforce FX 5600, and it's got vivo. Anyways, I've installed the rivatv module, and tvtime and xawtv, but neither displays the picture. The xawtv displays the picture only partially, and it's as if I were watching it on an ancient TV and the vertical and horizontal hold were going insane, not to mention the horrible colour quality. It's all purple and stuff.

Anyways, the rivatv module didn't want to compile(and it won't compile using emerge either) so I edited the configure script to not add to the warnings when it ran for the two things that it didn't like. First of all it complained that
Checking for kernel dependancies... not found
*** WARNING:
*** Your kernel dependancies are not set up.
*** Please run "make dep" in /lib/modules/2.6.0/build

but when I did that, it told me that it wasn't nessecary at this point. Then it complains that
*** WARNING:
*** If you are going to use the running kernel (compiled
*** with gcc version 3.3.2) with RivaTV (will be compiled
*** with gcc version gcc (GCC) 3.3.2 20031201 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r4, propolice)Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.) you may experience system crashes.

even though I'm 100% sure that the kernel was compiled by the same version of gcc as is being used right now.

What do I do?

[bwkaz]

Either get a non-Gentoo-patched gcc, or ignore the last warning.

That problem is that when the kernel was compiled, it was smart enough to skip all the crap that Gentoo apparently added to their gcc version string (that is, this: "20031201 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r4, propolice)Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.").

However, RivaTV apparently isn't smart enough to skip that, so it thinks the compilers are different.

The first warning is most likely related to the fact that the RivaTV configure script is checking for kernel dependency files that don't even exist anymore in 2.6.0. It's probably just never been updated. Either that, or it's because emerge might be doing a "make clean" in the kernel tree, but that's so horribly broken that I'd hope nobody at Gentoo is that dumb...

[DerekKraan]

Should I just wait til they fix 2.6.0 support in the rivatv driver?

[hard candy]

That problem is that when the kernel was compiled, it was smart enough to skip all the crap that Gentoo apparently added to their gcc version string (that is, this: "20031201 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r4, propolice)Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.").
Could renaming the file and removing all that work? Like add a"-2" and then renaming it back to the original name.

[bwkaz]

That extra stuff is (I think, anyway) what gcc prints when you do gcc -v. You can't really get rid of it without getting rid of your compiler...

DerekKraan -- that might help, I don't know. If you have a 2.4 kernel still bootable, you might try booting to that to see if you have the same problems with it. If not, then yeah, wait until they fix RivaTV. I assume you're using the newest RivaTV version, right?

[DerekKraan]

I'm using 0.8.3, which was released July 5, 2003.

[bwkaz]

That is the newest version... have you tried searching their mailing list archives for (e.g.) "2.6" or something like that?

Does it work anyway if you just ignore both of those warnings?

[DerekKraan]

It works, but it's not near to being usable. The video seems to be in false colour, and the video doesn't hold in one spot. I got it working once, although it was super-slow, and very grainy. I don't remember what I did though.

[bwkaz]

Well that's obviously no good. Hmm... have you tried the RivaTV mailinglist archive search?

[DerekKraan]

I did check a look at the cvs on sourceforge, and it looks like there hasn't been a commit in a long time. Not since 2.6.0 has been released anyhow. I guess I'll just check back every once in a while. It's not life or death that I get this working. The rivatv guys are allowed to have a life too. :rolleyes:

[Penguin4Life]

last night i attempted to install rivatv and its associates to get video input to work. i followed the directions on the site and tried both the latest cvs version and latest release version. i rebuilt my kernel (2.6.5) with v4l support and i2c bit-banging and i2c-core all built in. configure, compilation, and install of rivatv went fine. i did 'modprobe rivatv' and that worked fine too, even auto detected the decoder chip on my board (MSI GeForce4 Ti4200-VTD8X phillips saa7108e decoder chip). however, i plugged in my video source to the card, opened up xawtv and all i got was a screen of blue. maybe it's because theres nothing that really explains what needs to be done to xawtv to get it working properly, the rivatv testers guide explains that it will auto detect the video source. and thinking that maybe it was xaw's fault, i tried running ffmpeg to capture the signal to avi but that did not work either, nothing was recorded. so the big question is, what did i not do? i followed the rivatv testers guide exactly and in theory it should all work right? but it doesnt...if anyone knows what i need to do let me know.


System specs: slackware-current w/ dropline gnome 2.4.3 linux kernel v.2.6.5 vanilla

[bwkaz]

The blue rectangle thing is (I think) indicative of something not working properly with XVideo. Does xawtv -noxv work? If so, then concentrate your efforts on XVideo.

If -noxv doesn't work either, then maybe you need to set up some channels in your ~/.xawtv file? I know I had to, but that may have been because I installed xawtv from source, not via a package manager.

Are you loading the "v4l" module in your XF86Config file? In the "Modules" section, make sure there's a Load "v4l"...

[Penguin4Life]

ah! ok i will certainly try that out as none of that was made known to me before.

[Penguin4Life]

i tried all of your suggestions, all to no avail. i still either got the blue screen after running xawtv after adding 'Load "v4l"' in the modules section or if i ran xawtv -noxv, i got a purpleish/pink screen. i get an error when i run xawtv -noxv that says 'WARNING: Your X-Server has no DGA support.' what is that about?

[Penguin4Life]

anyone??? someone has to know how to get it to work right

[bwkaz]

DGA is a way for programs to render 2D stuff directly into the X server's screen, or something like that.

Inside your XF86Config (or XF86Config-4 if it exists) file, inside the Modules section, there's something that looks like either:

Load "extmod" or:

SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga"
EndSubSection Comment out the option line if it's there, or change it to look like the first sample (with just a Load instead of a SubSection for "extmod"). That should make DGA support load.

I'm not sure if that's the problem or not, but it can't hurt (hopefully...).

Umm.... what else... have you tried the configuration menu of xawtv? Right click (err... I think; maybe it's left click) inside the window, and a menu will pop up. Some of the choices from there may be useful (especially the one that tells xawtv which frequency table to use; I believe the default is European PAL, not NTSC-cable (used in the U.S. if you have cable) or NTSC-airwaves (used in the U.S. if you use an antenna). There are a bunch of other options too.

I think there may even be some relevant information in Documentation/video4linux/bttv/ (a directory inside the kernel source). Maybe some troubleshooting steps or something.

[Penguin4Life]

mdwatts mentioned the documentation in the kernel but i checked it out and theres nothing really of any great value in it. i will try adding 'Load "extmod"' to the modules section. hopefully that will make it work.