TBS 6920 remote

TBS 6920 remote

[Tony Houghton]

I've got a TBS 6920 PCI-E DVB-S2 card, which explicitly claims Linux
compatibility on the box. It works as a satellite receiver, but I get no
response from the remote control (trying to read /dev/input/event5). I
think this is its entry in /proc/bus/input/devices:

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0006 Version=0000
N: Name="Video Bus"
P: Phys=LNXVIDEO/video/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A03:00/device:12/LNXVIDEO:00/input/input5
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event5 
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=3e000b00000000 0 0 0

And lspci -v:

03:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23885 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Device 6920:8888
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
	Memory at fea00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
	Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
	Capabilities: [90] Vital Product Data
	Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [200] Virtual Channel
	Kernel driver in use: cx23885


Is there an extra module I need to load to make it work, or is any work
being done on this if it isn't supported yet? Is there anything I can do
to help? I'm an experienced C programmer, but not a kernel hacker.

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Simon Jones]

On 3 February 2012 17:12, Tony Houghton <h@realh.co.uk> wrote:
> I've got a TBS 6920 PCI-E DVB-S2 card, which explicitly claims Linux
> compatibility on the box. It works as a satellite receiver, but I get no
> response from the remote control (trying to read /dev/input/event5). I
> think this is its entry in /proc/bus/input/devices:

TBS have there own media tree for their cards, they do not submit the
drivers upstream for inclusion in the kernel, if you go to the
manufacturer site you'll get support from their forums. But it has
been very well known they have issues with remote support.

I don't develop for linux media system, am just letting you know for
information.

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Tony Houghton]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:28:59 +0000
Simon Jones <sijones2010@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3 February 2012 17:12, Tony Houghton <h@realh.co.uk> wrote:
> > I've got a TBS 6920 PCI-E DVB-S2 card, which explicitly claims Linux
> > compatibility on the box. It works as a satellite receiver, but I get no
> > response from the remote control (trying to read /dev/input/event5). I
> > think this is its entry in /proc/bus/input/devices:
> 
> TBS have there own media tree for their cards, they do not submit the
> drivers upstream for inclusion in the kernel, if you go to the
> manufacturer site you'll get support from their forums. But it has
> been very well known they have issues with remote support.

Thanks. It seems that there was a bug in their driver which prevented
some keys from working, but AFIACT it's fixed now. The code is GPL so is
it just lack of interest/demand that's stopped it from going into the
main kernel?

I think I'll pass on having to maintain a 3rd party driver whenever the
Debian kernel upgrades. The remote is missing some quite important keys
like Play, so they seem to have only considered it for live viewing, not
for PVRs. I'll probably end up buying a separate USB remote or
continuing to use a portable keyboard.

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Simon Jones]

> Thanks. It seems that there was a bug in their driver which prevented
> some keys from working, but AFIACT it's fixed now. The code is GPL so is
> it just lack of interest/demand that's stopped it from going into the
> main kernel?

They have an NDA with a chip supplier so can't release the full
source, I think there is a binary blob somewhere that makes it so you
can't include them.

> I think I'll pass on having to maintain a 3rd party driver whenever the
> Debian kernel upgrades. The remote is missing some quite important keys
> like Play, so they seem to have only considered it for live viewing, not
> for PVRs. I'll probably end up buying a separate USB remote or
> continuing to use a portable keyboard.

I have an MCE remote, ebay has HP remote and receiver cheap enough,
they are also rc6 encoding so you can use one-for-all remote etc easy
enough, and drivers are in kernel so only a manor change to lirc to
get it working.

You don't have to use lirc but I couldn't be bothered trying to map
the keys in X.

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Tony Houghton]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 11:48:43 +0000
Simon Jones <sijones2010@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Thanks. It seems that there was a bug in their driver which
> > prevented some keys from working, but AFIACT it's fixed now. The
> > code is GPL so is it just lack of interest/demand that's stopped it
> > from going into the main kernel?
> 
> They have an NDA with a chip supplier so can't release the full
> source, I think there is a binary blob somewhere that makes it so you
> can't include them.

The 6920 uses a Conexant chipset and everything except the remote works
with a standard kernel, but I did have to install the firmware manually.
Is the binary part for the remote? I would have thought it was only for
other chipsets.

> > I think I'll pass on having to maintain a 3rd party driver whenever
> > the Debian kernel upgrades. The remote is missing some quite
> > important keys like Play, so they seem to have only considered it
> > for live viewing, not for PVRs. I'll probably end up buying a
> > separate USB remote or continuing to use a portable keyboard.
> 
> I have an MCE remote, ebay has HP remote and receiver cheap enough,
> they are also rc6 encoding so you can use one-for-all remote etc easy
> enough, and drivers are in kernel so only a manor change to lirc to
> get it working.

Ah yes, those HP ones look serviceable and affordable, thanks.

> You don't have to use lirc but I couldn't be bothered trying to map
> the keys in X.

It would be better if more applications had a nice frontend to "train"
them to use certain keys, either as the remote appearing as a keyboard,
or by reading input events (which is very easy).

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Simon Jones]

>
> The 6920 uses a Conexant chipset and everything except the remote works
> with a standard kernel, but I did have to install the firmware manually.
> Is the binary part for the remote? I would have thought it was only for
> other chipsets.

Apologies then, I thought they were still maintaining a separate tree,
maybe am confusing myself with a different manufacturer that wouldn't
release the source.

Re: TBS 6920 remote

[Tony Houghton]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 14:25:33 +0000
Simon Jones <sijones2010@gmail.com> wrote:

> > The 6920 uses a Conexant chipset and everything except the remote
> > works with a standard kernel, but I did have to install the
> > firmware manually. Is the binary part for the remote? I would have
> > thought it was only for other chipsets.
> 
> Apologies then, I thought they were still maintaining a separate tree,
> maybe am confusing myself with a different manufacturer that wouldn't
> release the source.

They do seem to be maintaining their own tree, but the tarball (which is
within a zip) containing the driver code has a GPL COPYING file. There
may be some closed source drivers for other products in their range
somewhere in there, and if there is a version/copy of the Conexant
drivers in there perhaps it's modified to support their remote or
supplied just for completeness.