[linux-dvb] Re: dvb technotrend budget won't work, please help me!

[Benjamin Adler <benadler@gmx.net>]

Am Saturday 03 July 2004 14:10 schrieb Christophe Thommeret:
> Le Samedi 3 Juillet 2004 01:57, Benjamin Adler a écrit :
> > Hello!
> >
> > I bought a Technotrend DVB-C PCI budget card on eBay
> > (http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5100217074) and have
> > now tried for more than two weeks to make it work with linux. I have
> > really tried many different things, two different computers, many many
> > kernel versions, looking for tutorials or asking people on irc for help.
> > Noone could help me.
> >
> > The dvb-c-card has a Philips SAA 7146A H chip, a Vista VES 1820 chip and
> > the tuner is labeled "TDBE2-032A 082113A". The card works fine in windows
> > XP. I have built the corresponding options into my gentoo-patched-2.6.7
> > kernel. Compiling as modules doesn't make a difference. After booting,
> > dmesg tells me:

[snip]

> maybe your card can't do inversion_auto.
> try "scan -i 0 dvb-c/de-wtnet"

Hello!

Unfortunately, the error is still quite similar:

	scanning dvb-c/de-wtnet
	using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
	initial transponder 450000000 6875000 0 3
	>>> tune to: 450000000:INVERSION_OFF:6875000:FEC_NONE:QAM_64
	WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
	>>> tune to: 450000000:INVERSION_OFF:6875000:FEC_NONE:QAM_64 (tuning failed)
	WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
	ERROR: initial tuning failed
	dumping lists (0 services)
	Done.

In the meantime, I have found linuxstb.org and dvbtune, which seems to do the 
same thing(?). Since I have read that my provider uses 450MHz with a 
Symbolrate of 6875k, I changed the symbolrate from 6900k to 6875k and removed 
the comment in front of the 450000000 line in the scan_ge_c.sh script.

After scanning on the 450M frequency for 12 hours(!) and finding nothing, I 
stopped the script. All I got was

	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
	polling....
	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS:
	polling....

repeated and repeated over twelve hours. Scanning all the other frequencies 
only took a couple hours (all freqs except 450MHz) but didn't get me any 
channels either.

When dvbtune started a scan, it said
	Using DVB card "VES1820 based DVB-C frontend"
	tuning DVB-C to 346000000, srate=6875000

, then the scan was working for quite some time (about an hour). This is some 
typical output:

	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
	polling....
	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS:
	polling....
	polling....
	polling....
	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
	polling....
	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
	polling....

At the very end of the scan (for that frequency), I always got some signal, 
looking like this,

	Getting frontend event
	FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_LOCK FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI FE_HAS_SYNC
	Event:  Frequency: 346000000
	        SymbolRate: 6875000
	        FEC_inner:  0
	Bit error rate: 10485750
	Signal strength: 46003
	SNR: 43947
	FE_STATUS:
	Nothing to read from fd_pat
	Nothing to read from fd_sdt

then the scan ended.

Now my questions :o)

 - Is it normal for scanning to take this long? What is dvbtune doing for 12 
hours when it has only one frequency and one symbolrate given to scan?

 - In case I ever get this working, is there a cli-program that simply writes 
the mpeg-stream (audio and video) from the dvb-card to disk?

- What FE_-Status-Thingies show up when a channel actually is received?

- What are good and bad values for Bit error rate, SNR and Signal strength?

- What could be the problem, why am I not finding any channels? It works in 
windows, so it can't be a cable problem.

I hope you can give me a hint, I'm really stuck :(

thanks,
Ben Adler