Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

Hi,

I've been trying to use the Portuguese DVB-T transmissions. These are
h264 unencrypted transmissions. I bought an Asus My Cinema U3100 mini,
which seems to be correctly recognized by the dib0700 driver in Ubuntu
10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-22-generic). I can try the latest upstream kernel
to see if anything has changed. From the dmesg:

[ 2118.910130] usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
[ 2119.061233] usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 2119.062384] dvb-usb: found a 'ASUS My Cinema U3100 Mini DVBT Tuner'
in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[ 2119.062396] usb 1-3: firmware: requesting dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw
[ 2119.066293] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
[ 2119.273034] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[ 2119.784908] dvb-usb: found a 'ASUS My Cinema U3100 Mini DVBT Tuner'
in warm state.
[ 2119.785018] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream
to the software demuxer.
[ 2119.785368] DVB: registering new adapter (ASUS My Cinema U3100 Mini
DVBT Tuner)
[ 2120.027066] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
[ 2120.247440] DiB0070: successfully identified
[ 2120.247609] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.7/usb1/1-3/input/input11
[ 2120.247724] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 50 msecs.
[ 2120.247732] dvb-usb: ASUS My Cinema U3100 Mini DVBT Tuner
successfully initialized and connected.

The messages talk about MPEG2 so I don't know if there is anything in
the driver that doesn't work with MPEG4/h264.

dvb-apps doesn't include a scan file for Portugal but the relevant
line seems to be:

T 842000000 8MHz 2/3 1/2 QAM64 8k 1/4 NONE    # RTP1, RTP2, SIC, TVI

This should work for almost everywhere except in the Azores islands
where several frequencies are used. I can submit a full set of files
to be included with dvb-apps. Scanning doesn't usually work:

$ scan /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/pt-Porto -v -o zap > channels.conf
scanning /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/pt-Porto
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
initial transponder 842000000 0 2 1 3 1 3 0
>>> tune to: 842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE
>>> tuning status == 0x1b
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0011
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0000
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0010
dumping lists (0 services)
Done.

There was however one time where it did work. I though it was because
I had set fec_lo to 1/2 where before was NONE but after a reboot it
stopped working again. The time it did work it generated the following
channels.conf:

RTP 1:842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:256:257:1101
RTP 2:842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:512:513:1102
SIC:842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:768:769:1103
TVI:842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:1024:1025:1104
HD:842000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:3840:3841:1111

Using vlc and either this channels.conf or just tuning to 842Mhz
directly no sound or image is obtained and continuous error messages
like these come out:

libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 6, expected
1) for PID 0

Using mplayer produces a similar result:

dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 6 failed with errno 0 when reading 1484 bytes

Any ideas on how to get this working?

Pedro

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Pedro Côrte-Real <pedro@pedrocr.net> wrote:
> I bought an Asus My Cinema U3100 mini,
> which seems to be correctly recognized by the dib0700 driver in Ubuntu
> 10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-22-generic). I can try the latest upstream kernel
> to see if anything has changed.

Just tested the Ubuntu packaged kernel.org git snapshot of 2.6.35
(2010-06-15 15:05) and much the same results happen. Scanning throws
the same timeout and mplayer the same error messages although it now
quits after a while:

"""
$ mplayer dvb://
MPlayer SVN-r1.0~rc3+svn20090426-4.4.3 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing dvb://.
dvb_tune Freq: 842000000
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 6 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 5 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 4 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 3 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 2 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. 1 failed with errno 0 when reading 2048 bytes
dvb_streaming_read, return 0 bytes


Exiting... (End of file)
"""

vlc for some reason no longer shows the error messages but it doesn't
work either.

One thing I forgot to mention before is that femon does show a lock:

pedrocr@nash:~$ femon -H
FE: DiBcom 7000PC (DVBT)
status       | signal   0% | snr   1% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
[... after tuning ...]
status S     | signal  16% | snr   1% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
status S     | signal  25% | snr   1% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
status S     | signal  24% | snr   1% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
status SC    | signal  24% | snr   1% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 6 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 11 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 7 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  23% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
[... after changing to a better and amplified antenna ...]
status  C Y  | signal  66% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK

(Showing snr in % seems very strange here)

One thing I forgot to mention is that I bought the U3100 at a retailer
and it seems to have been opened before so there is a chance it is
broken somehow.

Pedro

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Richard Zidlicky]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:43:09AM +0100, Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:

> status  C Y  | signal  66% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK

the ber is very strange. It should be 0 or very close. 

Did you try kaffeine or w_scan?

Richard

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:43:09AM +0100, Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:
>
>> status  C Y  | signal  66% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
>
> the ber is very strange. It should be 0 or very close.

What are the ber and the unc? And does the 0% snr make sense? Why the
% scale for that?

> Did you try kaffeine or w_scan?

I did try both of those. kaffeine I haven't been able to get to work
at all and w_scan found the frequency but not the channels, much like
scan. I'll try those again.

There was something that happened for only a brief moment that allowed
the scan to work but after a reboot it went back to the same. What
could be missing from the frontend/demux config?

Pedro

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Pedro Côrte-Real <pedro@pedrocr.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
>> Did you try kaffeine or w_scan?
>
> I did try both of those. kaffeine I haven't been able to get to work
> at all and w_scan found the frequency but not the channels, much like
> scan. I'll try those again.

I tried both those again with pretty much the same results. Here is kaffeine:

kaffeine(2196) DvbScanFilter::timerEvent: timeout while reading
section; type = 0 pid = 0
kaffeine(2196) DvbScanFilter::timerEvent: timeout while reading
section; type = 2 pid = 17

And here is "w_scan -c PT":

842000: (time: 02:44) (time: 02:47) signal ok:
	QAM_AUTO f = 842000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999
Info: NIT(actual) filter timeout
850000: (time: 03:02)
858000: (time: 03:05)
tune to: QAM_AUTO f = 842000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999
(time: 03:08) Info: PAT filter timeout
Info: SDT(actual) filter timeout
Info: NIT(actual) filter timeout

I wonder if the PT setting here is correct for DVB-T, but it does find
something in the correct frequency but then does a timeout just like
scan.

Pedro

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Richard Zidlicky]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 10:03:16AM +0100, Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:43:09AM +0100, Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:
> >
> >> status  C Y  | signal  66% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 |
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  65% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >> status SC YL | signal  64% | snr   0% | ber 2097151 | unc 0 | FE_HAS_LOCK
> >
> > the ber is very strange. It should be 0 or very close.
> 
> What are the ber and the unc? And does the 0% snr make sense? Why the
> % scale for that?

berr is supposed to be the bit error rate. The values displayed here appear to be
bogus - then again I am not familiar with this particular driver so maybe just the 
error reporting is bogus. The w_scan results also look pretty bad.

Newest kernel is allways worth a try.

Richard

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> berr is supposed to be the bit error rate. The values displayed here appear to be
> bogus - then again I am not familiar with this particular driver so maybe just the
> error reporting is bogus. The w_scan results also look pretty bad.
>
> Newest kernel is allways worth a try.

I have tried a git snapshot of Linus' 2.6.35 kernel. Is there another
non-mainline tree I should try?

Would it help to get some kind of dvbsnoop log of this? I've tried
doing "dvbsnoop  -s pidscan" and "dvbsnoop 0" but didn't get anything
that seemed valid.

Alternatively what is a well supported usb DVB-T tunner? I've also
bought an Avermedia Volar HX and a Gigabyte 7200 which seem to have at
best some half-assed out-of-tree drivers.

Pedro

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Richard Zidlicky]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 02:28:38PM +0100, Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> > berr is supposed to be the bit error rate. The values displayed here appear to be
> > bogus - then again I am not familiar with this particular driver so maybe just the
> > error reporting is bogus. The w_scan results also look pretty bad.
> >
> > Newest kernel is allways worth a try.
> 
> I have tried a git snapshot of Linus' 2.6.35 kernel. Is there another
> non-mainline tree I should try?
> 
> Would it help to get some kind of dvbsnoop log of this? I've tried
> doing "dvbsnoop  -s pidscan" and "dvbsnoop 0" but didn't get anything
> that seemed valid.

did you test the hardware with the evil OS? 

> Alternatively what is a well supported usb DVB-T tunner? I've also
> bought an Avermedia Volar HX and a Gigabyte 7200 which seem to have at
> best some half-assed out-of-tree drivers.

I am using 
 idVendor=2040, idProduct=5500
 WinTV MiniStick
 Manufacturer: Hauppauge Computer Works

works reasonably well, needs a patch to enable remote.

Richard

Re: Trouble getting DVB-T working with Portuguese transmissions

[Pedro Côrte-Real]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:58 PM, Richard Zidlicky <rz@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> did you test the hardware with the evil OS?

I did try that with an old laptop and couldn't get it to work. So it
is quite possible it's a hardware fault.

>> Alternatively what is a well supported usb DVB-T tunner? I've also
>> bought an Avermedia Volar HX and a Gigabyte 7200 which seem to have at
>> best some half-assed out-of-tree drivers.
>
> I am using
>  idVendor=2040, idProduct=5500
>  WinTV MiniStick
>  Manufacturer: Hauppauge Computer Works
>
> works reasonably well, needs a patch to enable remote.

I see Hauppauge seems to be well supported. I may replace it with one
of those then.

Pedro