[pvrusb2] HP / Adaptec AVC-3610 support in PVRUSB2 ?

[Mike Isely]

Greg:

The primary problem for me here is that I can't directly support the 
AVC-3610 because I don't have a sample to test.  So I have to rely on 
others to figure out the differences and/or try changes to the driver.

Generally, if the hardware is compatible enough (i.e. generally follows 
the usual reference design when using the Conexant encoder chip), then 
adding support for it in the pvrusb2 driver usually comes down to:

1. Figuring out how the video grabber chip's inputs are wired (i.e. 
which one is composite vs which one is wired to s-video) and defining a 
routing scheme for it in the driver.

2. Figuring out how to route FM radio audio, if there is an FM radio in 
the device.

3. Adding a definition in pvrusb2-devattr.c to recognize and configure 
the device.

If it is a hybrid device (e.g. OnAir or HVR-1950 type device) then 
there's more work to get the digital side operating, but that is (still) 
not a very common case.  There also might be issues with getting IR 
working if it has an IR receiver - though mostly that complexity has 
involved Hauppauge devices.

At this point, there (still) isn't any support for the AVC-3610 in the 
pvrusb2 driver.  But if you (or anyone) has useful patches to add that 
support, I'll be happy to merge those in.

  -Mike


On Wed, 20 Apr 2011, Greg Tippitt wrote:

>    Mike or Nick,
>    I've read a series of old messages in Sep-Oct 2010 regarding the
>    AVC-3610, but I wasn't clear if the AVC-3610 device might work with
>    PVRUSB or not.  Will they work now, or have you had time to make a
>    guess if they might work in the future?
>    These discontinued AVC-3610's are extremely affordable for a dual tuner
>    ATSC device. If the driver may be working in the near future, or
>    workable with some creativity, I may go ahead and buy one to try out
>    with Unbuntu, as they are cheap enough it's not much of a risk.  I
>    don't program in C, so I'm not any help with the programming of the
>    driver.  I can help with testing, debugging, documentation if you need
>    help.  I worked for 20 years in other languages and am good at hardware
>    configuration.  (I can't believe I just volunteered to do
>    documentation!)
>    I would like to thank you and everyone that works on PVRUSB2. I
>    recently bought a discontinued OnAir Sasem (aka Autumnwave) HDTV USB
>    2.0 tuner on eBay for almost nothing.  Even though the company went out
>    of business, your instructions were so easy to follow for loading the
>    firmware, I had the device working in almost no time at all.  The wait
>    for the device to scan for my local channels took more time that the
>    entire rest of the installation!  Thank you for providing support for
>    these old devices.  Old hardware that is cheap, but still very useful,
>    has enabled me to begin putting together a MythTV system that I could
>    not afford otherwise.  My wife and I are disabled and live on a fixed
>    income, so brand new "tech toys" are normally outside of my budget. You
>    help out lots of people and keep more stuff from going in the landfill.
>    Thanks,
>    Greg
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Mike Isely
isely @ isely (dot) net
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