[linux-dvb] Re: Problems with WinTV NOVA-CI

[Andrew de Quincey <adq_dvb@lidskialf.net>]

On Tuesday 14 Dec 2004 21:34, w-thiel@gmx.net wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 04:41:08PM +0200, Werner Hauger wrote:
> > ...
> > 1. The card only delivers data after warm booting Linux from Windoze.
> > If I cold boot Linux, scan will fail with timeouts and xine finds no
> > data on /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0. However tuning with szap works (I get
> > a FE_HAS_LOCK). If I warm boot Linux after having been in Windoze,
> > scan works, and xine picks up data from /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 after
> > tuning with szap -r. Now I also can use VDR with the xine plugin
> > successfully.
> > ...
>
> I'm afraid this is _not_ a Nova-CI related thing:
> this will be a bug that has not been found so far in an upper layer
> of dvb. This also happens with skystar2: "no data" every now and then.
>
> Unfortunately, most of the developers seem to think that this problem
> is related to special cards: imho, I don't think it is.
> Unfortunately, my skills are limited; I tried to help with error reports:
> see the other thread.

The skystar2 uses a totally different PCI chipset (b2c2) which has a hardware 
TS demuxer (although it is possible to tell it to use the software demux). It 
is possible these identical symptoms are caused by something else as it is a 
totally different chipset.

I thought your issues with the saa7146 cards were fixed (apart from having to 
reload the drivers after a cold boot) by adding the reset? 

As for the VDR/FF thing - I'm at a loss to explain what it is since reloading 
the drivers doesn't fix it. 

If it were in an upper layer (i.e. not tied to specific hardware), reloading 
the drivers would fix the saa7146 based budget cards. It does not. Therefore 
it is highly unlikely to be a bug in the upper driver layers. I've been 
through this line of thought several times already :(

I'm out of ideas. As I've said before, for the FF cards at least, until 
someone uses CVS to "go back in time" to find out what change has caused 
this, it is unlikely to be fixed soon. I cannot. I do not have a FF card.

Has anyone tried replicating what VDR does under _windows_? AFAIK none of the 
windows apps use the cards as intensively as VDR does (one FF card to watch 
TV + one budget constantly tuning for EPG). Perhaps it is just a hardware 
fault exposed by constant re-tuning. Although it is highly suspicious that it 
only happens if you have an FF+budget, and not a budget+budget (at least I 
could not replicate it with two budget DVB-T cards).

Now that TT have released BDA drivers, someone could feasibly write a windows 
app to do the EPG scan, whilst using the TT app to do channel zapping to 
check.