IMPORTANT: I AM NOT AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY WITH PINNACLE SYSTEMS, INC OR HAUPPAUGE, INC. NEITHER PINNACLE SYSTEMS NOR HAUPPAUGE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS DRIVER. PLEASE DO NOT BOTHER THEM IF THIS DRIVER IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU.


This page contains an experimental Linux 2.4 driver for the Pinnacle Bungee and the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB. The WinTV PVR USB is a video capture device attached to the USB bus. The purpose is similar to the PCI version (WinTV PVR), but this driver is for the USB version only. Follow this link for a Linux driver for the PCI version. This device has also not much to do with the plain WinTV USB, because the WinTV PVR USB contains a MPEG2 encoder, which the simple WinTV USB does not contain. The higher compression ratio of the WinTV PVR USB gives much better video quality at higher resolutions than the WinTV USB.

Support for the Pinnacle Bungee is still incomplete. Check out this link for a more complete command-line tool for the Bungee.


UPDATE (10/4/2002): High resolution capturing (full D1) works now with 6 MBit/s CBR. The driver makes the current configuration available in /proc/pvrusb/videoX. The firmware is not compiled into the driver any more. Instead it has to be uploaded after inserting the module (instructions below):

Notes:

• You need the WinTV PVR firmware ROM from Hauppauge ("HCWUSB.UPD.ROM" or "USB_MPEG2_POPNOISEFIX.ROM"). I obtained the files by installing the WinTV software on a Windows machine. The files do not contain any copyright notice, but for now I just assume Hauppauge would not want me to distribute them and so I wont.
• You can upload the firmware into the driver after inserting the module using:
  dd if=USB_MPEG2_POPNOISEFIX.ROM of=/proc/pvrusb/firmware bs=256k
  
• To display information about the currently loaded firmware:
  cat /proc/pvrusb/firmware
• The driver attaches itself to /dev/usb/lp0 (yes, the USB printer special file). YES, this is stupid. I will change it soon.
• To save the MPEG2 stream try:
  cat /dev/usb/lp0 > data.mpg
• To watch TV attach a signal to the composite input and use MPlayer:
  mplayer /dev/usb/lp0
• The tuner is not programmed yet. I will probably add tuner support soon.
• I have a WinTV with NTSC tuner. I cannot add PAL tuner support until I get access to a PAL WinTV.

Downloads

• pvrusb-1.2.tar.gz

Contact

• Andreas Gal
  

Last update: 10/1/2002