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Home >> Support >> Linux

Linux TV applications

Popular applications for use with WinTV under Linux include MythTV, Kaffeine, Xine amd TV Time. Please refer to these applications for information on features supported.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-900, WinTV-HVR-950 and WinTV-HVR-950Q

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-900 series will be in the upcoming kernel 2.6.26 release. Work is under way for the WinTV-HVR-900H.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1200, WinTV-HVR-1500 and WinTV-HVR-1500Q

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1200, WinTV-HVR-1500 and WinTV-HVR-1500Q is under way.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1600

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1600 is in the upcoming kernel 2.6.26 release.

Also, there is WinTV-HVR-1600 Linux support for both the analog TV tuner and the digital TV tuner available at LinuxTV.ORG in the "cx18" section.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1250 and WinTV-HVR-1800

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1250 and WinTV-HVR-1800 is in the current kernel 2.6.25 release.

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1900 and WinTV-HVR-1950

Linux support for the WinTV-HVR-1600 will be in the upcoming kernel 2.6.26 release.

Linux support for the WinTV-PVR-150, WinTV-PVR-250, WinTV-PVR-350 and WinTV-PVR-500

The Linux community has picked up support for the WinTV-PVR-150/250/350/500 in the ivtv project hosted at: http://ivtvdriver.org

The driver is also merged with the entire v4l / dvb tree hosted on linuxtv.org, for interoperability with other device drivers.

The mailing lists and other support lives on ivtvdriver.org

The drivers are now bundled with the mainstream kernel, and work out-of-the-box with any recent Linux distribution, such as Red Hat / Fedora / Ubuntu / Gentoo and all others.

A separate package is no longer required in order to use these products.

These are notes from Kristin Aanestad from Oslo, Norway, regarding his install of the WinTV under Linux:

The required drivers for Hauppauge cards are now a part of the kernel (version 2.2 and newer).

All i had to do was compile a TV application and I was up and running, after loading the modules of course ;)

In the modules directory:
videodev.o
i2c.o
bttv.o
tuner.o

The module directory where these are found will be something like this, the numbers depend on the version of Linux.

The following path is valid for a fresh RedHat6 install:
/lib/modules/2.2.5-15/misc/

If these are found after install, all the user has to do is to download a TV application (xawtv or kWinTV) - read the README and edit the Makefile accordingly - then run "./configure" - "make" and as user root:
"make install"
then still as user root:
/sbin/modprobe bttv.o
/sbin/modprobe tuner.o
then exit as root - write "cd" to be sure they’re in their homedir - and then.......start the TV application.

Voila - it works.

The included bttv driver is old and users should be recommended to read this file from the sourcefile contents:
/usr/src/linux-2.2.5/Documentation/video4linux/bttv/README.Hauppauge
also here the linux-versioning number version dependant of course.

It is fairly easy to upgrade the bttv driver also - the latest release is better. To upgrade it a user who hasn’t previously made a new kernel in the source file directory would need to make a "dummy" configuration file for a new kernel (cd to the kernel source file and then run "xconfig" and just select "modular kernel" - save and exit and NOT make a kernel.)

After that a new bttv driver will compile ok.