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[David Sydney]

Hi there - happy new year for those who are using the Gregorian calendar!

I am realaively new to Linux (few months) and moved across because I can setup activity under virtual machines that I can recover, copy etc far easier. I have set up KVM/QEMU virtual machines with GPU passthrough. In addition to my machine specs on my signature I have an older, but perfectly fine Compro VideoMate E900 TV Tuner video capture PCI card which I have also passed through directly to the Win10 guest machine I have created. I have used documented edits to the VM XML file to "hide" the hypervisor - so that Windows 10 thinks it is running on a native machine.

Here is the problem. Although I can see the tuner card in device manager, and I get no error and "device is working properly" JRiver cannot see the card when I install - unlike the native Windows 10 installation I had previously where it worked fine. I posted over in the TV forum under "Lost Tuner" https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,134098.msg932052.html#msg932052 - but I do believe it is a Windows problem. I am posting here because no one with a straight Win10 setup would be experiencing this.

Anyone else messing with VMs and particulary VMs with Windows 10 guest, and JRiver installation that can share their experience? Running JRiver in a VM? PS. I have setup up VMs in VirtualBox before (MacOS, Win7, XP, 98 etc) but the VirtualBox environment does not allow hardware pass through so I have never tried to install JRiver in a VM until now.?

David

[bob]

MC linux ONLY supports networked tuners. Like HDHomeRun.

[David Sydney]

Thanks Bob, the host is Linux but the vm is Windows 10 that I'm trying install JRiver on. So it should be the same as Bare metal windows install. I know Iam in the minority here, but didn't think I was by myself!🤔

[mattkhan]

My server is running in a Windows VM on Linux, I have passed hardware through to it before though not a TV tuner. This is purely guesswork but I recall MC is quite picky about what sort of tuner device it will work with so is the device appearing to windows as a different type of device? Are you able to compare it running bare metal Vs in your VM? Can you post what that looks like?

[David Sydney]

Thanks Mattkhan. The device shows up the same in both straight windows and in Windows VM on Linux (dual boot setup). Then inside Windows on bare metal install the devices are picked up by JRiver and show in the Settings, Television, manage devices... while the Windows VM version has a blank list?

[JimH]

Did you consider a Silicon dust HDHomerun?  It's a network tuner.

[David Sydney]

Thanks Jim,

Yes indeed that is an option I did look at. You can appreciate though before I spend A$220 on a new device I am trying to exhaust all problem solving a technical glitch that does not allow the system to see an otherwise functioning card. I know the card is working.

My latest theory is that the Tuner card is behaving like GPU cards setup; where Linux grabs the card and attaches the driver and although it appears as though the host has let the card go, to then be assigned in the VM for Windows drivers (because it appears fine in Device manager), it has not really let it go at all which is similar to what occurs with GPUs. Thus I need to not only have the GPU pinned to the Linux host stub drivers on boot up so they can be handed successfully to the VM, but also I need to load this tuner card in the same way somehow? I have successfully built a Linux host, with KVM/QEMU Win10, setup so Windows does not know it is running in a VM, with full access to my GPU hardware which is passed-through. This tuner card was the last piece of the puzzle in having the VMs accessing all of the PC hardware that I choose to pass through to them.

Problem is; I am new to Linux and I don't want to go through relearning how to fix the tuner setup by breaking the GPU pass through for the interim at this moment. I will give this a crack at some point and update this post with the details if successful for the sake of learning for others who come after me.

There are many reasons why I am moving to a host system running full hardware access VMs underneath running Windows, MacOS or anything else I wish - not the least of which is the Microsoft adware & spyware built into Windows 10/11. So I am sure there will be others who also go down this path in the months/years to come.

[bob]

A wild guess but perhaps Port access? Even if it's memory mapped it may be using ports.

[zybex]

You may need to enable Device Virtualization in BIOS. It's usually called Intel VT-d or AMD IOMMU.

[mattkhan]

does the same card work when passed through to a Linux VM?
Does the card work in some other software in the same windows VM? e.g. mpc-be

Basically I would try some different configurations to see what works and what doesn't in order to try to narrow down where the problem lies

[David Sydney]

Thanks for the feedback - some good tips there.

Mattkhan - I do not have any Linux software that will run the card - although I have not looked extensively I must admit. In the same VM the native (very basic) VideoPro software does not see the card either. I will try some other combinations in both Windows and Linux when I find some software that calls on the hardware.

Bob - Not sure how to change ports for it, but the card does share an IRQ line with something else, but there are another 10 or so devices that have similar sharing. It seems to be a common thing now. But I will look closer at this aspect.

Zybex - Yes I have virtualisation and IOMMU turned on in BIOS, in addition I have update Grub and mkinitcpio loaders to pull in the right modules to get hardware pass through to work for the GPU. So that part is sorted as I have VMs and other hardware running fine with GPU passed through not avail to the host. Just the tuner card does not want to play ball.

Anyway I did see 1 or 2 other posts where people have had similar issues with other TV Tuner cards - it may be something that is never completely has an explanation - so I will have to keep on the trial/error process trail.

Thanks again. David