"Device lacks MPEG encoder" for Hauppauge HVR-1900

Jaap P

Hello,

I got a Hauppauge HVR-1900 (which has a hardware MPEG2 encoder and linux drivers: http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1900) for watching analog tv with tvheadend. I installed all the drivers and firmwares I could find (see attached dmesg output). I'm running on RaspBMC.

To prevent tvheadend going for the DVB adapters I built tvheadend from source (ref babe15958e235ee9ec7b12bf455a908b95532936) and configured as follows:

./configure --disable-linuxdvb --disable-dvbscan

Output is the following:

pi@raspbmc:~/tvheadend$ ./build.linux/tvheadend -C Mar 25 16:06:57 [ INFO]:START: initialising Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: pvrusb2 WinTV HVR-1900 Model 73xxx usb-bcm2708_usb-1.2.4 capabilities: 0x01070001 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #0: 00000000000000ff PAL, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #1: 0000000000000007 PAL-BG, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #2: 0000000000000008 PAL-H, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #3: 0000000000000010 PAL-I, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #4: 00000000000000e0 PAL-DK, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #5: 0000000000ff0000 SECAM, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #6: 0000000000010000 SECAM-B, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #7: 0000000000040000 SECAM-G, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #8: 0000000000080000 SECAM-H, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #9: 0000000000320000 SECAM-DK, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #10: 0000000000400000 SECAM-L, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Standard #11: 0000000000800000 SECAM-Lc, frameperiod: 1/25, 625 lines Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Input #0: television (Tuner), audio:0x0, tuner:0, standard:0000000000000000, Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Input #1: composite (Camera), audio:0x0, tuner:0, standard:0000000000000000, Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Input #2: s-video (Camera), audio:0x0, tuner:0, standard:0000000000000000, Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:v4l: /dev/video0: Format #0: MPEG1/2 [] (compressed) Mar 25 16:07:02 [WARNING]:v4l: /dev/video0: Device lacks MPEG encoder, device skipped Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:CSA: Using 32bit parallel descrambling Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epggrab: module pyepg created Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epggrab: module xmltv created Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: loaded v2 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: channels 0 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: brands 0 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: seasons 0 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: episodes 0 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:epgdb: broadcasts 0 Mar 25 16:07:02 [ INFO]:dvr: Creating new configuration '' Mar 25 16:07:02 [WARNING]:dvr: Output directory for video recording is not yet configured for DVR configuration "". Defaulting to to "/home/pi". This can be changed from the web user interface. Mar 25 16:07:02 [ NOTICE]:START: HTS Tvheadend version 3.5.66~gbabe159 started, running as PID:1354 UID:1000 GID:1000, settings located in '/home/pi/.hts/tvheadend'

Does anyone have any idea's what could be the cause?

TIA

Jaap P

I think I found the cause:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/usb/pvrusb2/pvrusb2-v4l2.c#n109

tvheadend checks the pixelformat to see if mpeg2 is available but for this driver this is always turned off for some reason. Would it be an idea to allow this check to be skipped?

I disabled the check and recompiled and that seems to have helped a bit, but after adding a channel (under services) I get the following message when I try to play it:


Mar 25 18:15:22 [  ERROR]:v4l: /dev/video0: Unable to tune to 479250Hz

When I configure the frequency using v4l2-ctl (from ivtv-utils) and I do "cat /dev/video0 > file.mpg" that produces a valid mpeg file. tvheadend however doesn't seem to apply the frequency at all. Does anyone have experience with this?

Jaap P

Ah, turns out that I entered the frequencies incorrectly (they are in Hz instead of MHz). And now I can watch the channels using VLC! Now to get raspbmc to show anything but a black screen...

Dermot Buckley

Hi Jaap,

Question for you: do you have audio in the channels? Thanks to your posts I was able to get to the same point as you, but the channels all come through xbmc without audio.

Regarding your blank screen: My guess is that you probably need an mpeg2 license to play it on your Pi: http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

Edit: turns out that my no-audio issue is likely unrelated. The standard used where I am (in Argentina) is PAL-Nc, which uses a different offset for audio (i.e. and hence a different audio tuning) - which pvrusb2 (or v4l, I'm not sure) does not implement. At least that's my understanding currently.

Jaap P

If I try to watch tv within Raspbmc I just get a black screen without any audio. I do have the mpeg2 license; this is apparently a known problem in the mpeg2 software (Omxplayer) on the Raspberry Pi: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=148646

So until this issue is fixed (by someone who knows what they're doing :p) I just watch tv through VLC on my laptop or pc and I get both audio as video.

Dermot Buckley

@Jaap: Not directly related, but may be of interest to you: I was able to work around the black screen issue by enabling timeshift in tvh. Not sure why that worked. Also had issues with aspect ratio being detected incorrectly on the Pi, but was able to work around these by forcing stretch mode in xbmc.

hth