HOWTO : MyGica D689 USB HDTV dongle and VideoLan on Ubuntu 10.04

*** UPDATED ON AUGUST 6, 2010 (GMT +8) ***

Hardware and software used in this tutorial :

CPU - Intel Quad Core Q9550
RAM - 8GB DDR2 800
Hard Drive - 500GB x 4 on Hardware RAID 10
HDTV - MyGica D689 HDTV USB dongle (v3.0)
Display card - nVidia GeForce 8500GT
Monitor - 4:3 LCD monitor
Operating system - Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop AMD64

Step 1 :

Make sure you have installed the nVidia driver from repository.

"System" - "Administration" - "Hardware driver" - Select "Recommended"

Step 2 :

sudo apt-get install mercurial

hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
cd v4l-dvb
make

Step 2a :

You may require to make some change on the following file.

nano v4l-dvb/linux/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/cxusb.c

Locate "cxusb_d680_dmb_drain_video(adap->dev);" and commend it with "//" just in front of that entry.

Step 2b :

If you encounter an error on making FIREDTV module, you should do the following to fix it.

nano v4l/.config

Locate "CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=m" and change it to "CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=n". Save and conduct the following command again.

make

Step 2c :

sudo make install

Step 3 :

Download the Hong Kong TV Channels at here. Save somewhere on your computer. VideoLan requires it for watching HDTV.

Step 4 :

Insert your MyGica D689.

lsusb

The output should be :

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0572:d811 Conexant Systems (Rockwell), Inc.

Step 5 :

Install VideoLan and related packages.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install x264 vlc mencoder qt4-qtconfig
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras quicktime-utils quicktime-x11utils libdvdnav4 libdvdread4 libdvdcss2 non-free-codecs faad


Or, you may require to reboot your system when necessary.

Step 6 :

Run "VideoLan" and select the previous downloaded "vlc_tvlist.xspf" at the "Playlist".

Select "Average" on "Deinterlace" from "Video".

*My system should set "Average" on "Deinterlace" for TV playback. I think it is because of my unsupported nVidia GeForce 8500GT. Newer nVidia should work better.

Remarks :

As my system is using nVidia GeForce 8500GT which does not support HD playback, the CPU loading is quiet high and the screen may interfere for sometimes but not often. It is acceptable.

That's all! See you.