Linux And The WinTV BT878

The WinTV BT878 is a great card but a little tweaking is needed to get it up and running

I am using the Brooktree Corporation Bt878 card

You can confirm the card you have via lspci | grep -i bt878

this is the output on my card:
0000:00:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 02)
0000:00:0a.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 02)

Make sure the module will be loaded on boot:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

If bttv is not listed in the file add it

Set the options for the module. Create the confiruration file sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/bttv and place the following in it

Load module sudo modprobe bttv

Install tvtime (application to view tv signals) sudo apt-get install tvtime

Run tvtime in scanning mode to scan all active channels and frequencies: tvtime-scanner [NOTE: this takes a few minutes]

Open tvtime and at this point you should have a working black and white tv. To enable colour you need to edit a xml file: sudo gedit ~/.tvtime/tvtime.xml and place the following inside it

In order to get sound routed to your motherboard you need to route the audio out output from the card to your motherboard/sound card sound input...I just ran a Y cable to my speaker input, to get the speakers to accept sound from sound card or tv card.