Sharpee’s Space

Guide to using the USB ATI TV Wonder 600 device with Ubuntu “Lucid” 10.04 (probably applies to other versions as well)

The easy way:
sudo apt-get install me-tv

Run Me-Tv:
me-tv

Select the “US NTSC xxxxxx” frequency file and do a scan.

Tada…

The hard way

From: http://linuxhacksandfixes.blogspot.com/2009/11/watch-tv-with-ati-tv-wonder-600-usb.html

Install the Linux Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) applications:
sudo apt-get install dvb-apps w-scan vlc mplayer

Change into the /lib/firmware folder:
sudo wget http://steventoth.net/linux/hvr1400/xc3028L-v36.fw

Create Channels for USA:
scan /usr/share/dvb/atsc/us-NTSC-center-frequencies-8VSB -o zap -a 0 | tee ~/channels.conf

You will get a bunch of “WARNING” messages.. Dont panic this is just the program letting you know it couldnt find content on that channel (it scans all known US frequencies for TV channels)

Watch HDTV!
vlc ~/channels.conf

Just a quick note here as using this device was actually my first time watching Broadcast HDTV. Using the included antenna is absolutely terrible and you will find the video breaking up constantly unless you are sitting on the transmission tower. Unlike analog television of years ago, you will either get crystal clear picture or nothing at all. If you are serious about using this for on the go tv, get a good portable antenna (if you find one let me know).

Noticed a problem with the XBMC box I have in the family room that the audio / video appeared slightly too fast. I took out my watch and timed a minute of video and found it to off by almost 10 secs. Searching on the internet led me to find that the sample rate of the HDMI interface of 48000Khz was not being handled correctly by the default XBMC config.

Doing the following fixed the problem:
-Setup an ALSA plugin to resample the audio
– Create a file /etc/asound.conf file (make sure the card and device numbers are correct for your system.. Run aplay -l to find the right settings)

hdmi {
type hw
card 1
device 3
}
pcm.hdmiconv {
type plug
slave {
pcm "hw:1,3"
rate 48000
}
}

- In XBMC -> Settings -> System -> Audio -> Device -> Custom -> enter ‘hdmiconv’

- Reboot
- Fixed!

Well, I have been boycotting BlueRay discs for some time now, however, I do get them as gifts from time-to-time and need to play them.  Nowadays I will purchase HD movies streamed online from Amazon using their media library and my Roku, but I received a few more physical BD discs that I need to decrypt this Christmas…

At this point though it is more economicalfor me to re-purchase the titles on Amazon then to spend the time getting the discs decrypted, but for those looking for a challenge:

Here are a few links of interest in playing blue-ray discs from Ubuntu 9.10

The Main Ubuntu Blueray guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

BDRom decryption keys by Movie title:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1293367#post1293367

DumpHD ( Open source ripping program )
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123111

MakeMKV ( Closed Source ripping program )
http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=224

Finally, the MPX subsystem is included in the alpha version of Ubuntu 10.04.   I was able to create three separate mouse pointers on my TabletPC as a test following this guide: http://alec.mooo.com/mpx.php

Why? Because I can and because this is hopefully the beginning of multi-touch support throughout the Gnome Desktop environment.

Last night my wife and I shared the laptop for a while using both the bluetooth mouse and the internal trackpoint.

Having issues with sound in Ubuntu (Pulse Audio), try this well written guide. Fortunately, most of this guide has been implemented in the latest version of Ubuntu 9.10, so wait it out until then or give this link a read.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578

Just thought I would jot down the steps needed to get Mame up and running on my newly upgraded arcade cabinet.

Get SDLMame Source Code (skip the bin package as that wont be compiled for your specific CPU unless you are running Amd64):
http://sdlmame.wallyweek.org/download/

Untar the source into a tmp folder:
tar zxvf sdlmame-source.tar.gz /usr/local/src

Install the following packages for ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libsdl-dev
sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgconf2-dev

Compile:
cd /usr/local/src/sdlmame-1xx
make
Go watch a movie it will take quite a bit of time before it is finished

Install:
sudo make install

pdftk a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf cat output abc.pdf

-or-

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=combinedpdf.pdf -dBATCH 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf