DVBSky T680C

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DVB-C and DVB-T/T2 capable USB box by chinese company DVBSky.

Status

Confirmed working with tvheadend and xbmc using custom media stack from DVBSky in Ubuntu 13.04 / 64bit.

Capabilities

  • USB 2.0 (Type B)
  • 12V Power Supply
  • Belling Lee Connector (Cable or Antenna)
  • CI-Slot

USB

  • USB Vendor-ID / Product-ID: 0572:680c "Conexant Systems (Rockwell), Inc."
  • Identifies itself as Sit2 DVB-T2/C

Test case - Hardware - Reception - Comparison

Used as DVB-C device connected to german cable provider Kabel BW (Unitymedia). Replaced a Technotrend TT-connect CT-3650 CI (hardware breakdown, seemed to die of overheating or something). Software used: Ubuntu 13.04 (amd64), TVHeadend and XBMC. PC is an Atom D525-based Zotac Z-Box ID-34 (NVidia ION).

Good reception and quick channel switches. Works very well. Scanning for channels in tvheadend didn't find all the channels at first scan, due to bad reception, however after manually mapping them they worked flawlessly.

Compared to CT-3650 CI: The T680C doesn't warm up, even after hours receiving HD-TV channels (720p). It has in general better reception than the CT-3650 and is able to recive all channels. CT-3650 had frequently problems on the same line and some of the channels could not be used without frequent bit errors. From my point of view the DVBSky T680C works much better and more reliable than the Technotrend CT-3650 CI.

Compared to my GRUNDIG Television (40 VLE 8221 BL): Signal quality of channels looks much better on the GRUNDIG by value, however the channels work exactly the same. The T680C shows less good signal value for some channels but is better able to decode them afterwards / less or none image scatter compared to the Grundig Televisions build-in DVB-C.

Seems to be good hardware.

Not tested

  • Infrared remote (I use the remote from my TV via CEC-USB from Pulse8, so I don't need it)

Software

Device requires installation of custom media stack supplied by DVBSKY (Support Page). In my use case media_build_bst_130627 has been confirmed working in Ubuntu 13.04. Currently this driver seems to be only available from DVBSKY and seems not to be present somewhere else.

Installation (Debian/Ubuntu with distributions Kernel 3.8)

  • Download custom media stack from DVBSKY: http://www.dvbsky.net/Support.html
  • Install headers for your kernel (apt-get install linux-headers build-essential)
  • Unpack custom media stack
  • Back up default media stack from your kernel: cp -R /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media /some/where
  • Remove default media stack from your kernel: rm -R /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media/* (this is required to avoid problems caused by issues with the custom media stack - it's install process doesn't seem to fully work)
  • Change to the unpacked custom media stack, build and install it:
cd media_build-bst
chmod 755 v4l/build_dvbc_x64.sh 
v4l/build_dvbc_x64.sh
less v4l/build_dvbc_x64.sh
make
sudo make install

Afterwards reboot. Device should work with tvheadend.

Hints:

  • This process needs to be performed everytime you update your kernel. Currently there is no dkms-package for this driver. Maybe someone will make one sometime.
  • Execution of one of the v4l/build_dvbc_*.sh scripts is nessasary prior to build. Select the right one for your architecture, example above shows amd64.
  • If everything works well, you should see device initialisation in dmesg and loaded drivers:
$ lsmod | grep dvb
rc_dvbsky              12511  0 
dvb_usb_dvbsky         19111  28 
dvb_usb_v2             23404  1 dvb_usb_dvbsky
dvb_core              106064  2 dvb_usb_v2,dvb_usb_dvbsky
rc_core                22220  4 rc_dvbsky,dvb_usb_v2,dvb_usb_dvbsky
$ dmesg
[...]
[    6.558589] WARNING: You are using an experimental version of the media stack.
[    6.558589]  As the driver is backported to an older kernel, it doesn't offer
[    6.558589]  enough quality for its usage in production.
[    6.558589]  Use it with care.
[    6.558589] Latest git patches (needed if you report a bug to linux-media@vger.kernel.org):
[    6.558589]  a32f7d1ad3744914273c6907204c2ab3b5d496a0 Merge branch 'v4l_for_linus' into staging/for_v3.9
[    6.558589]  6b9e50c463efc5c361496ae6a895cc966ff8025b [media] stv090x: On STV0903 do not set registers of the second path
[    6.558589]  f67102c49a123b32a4469b28407feb52b37144f5 [media] mb86a20s: remove global BER/PER counters if per-layer counters vanish
[    6.564760] lp0: using parport0 (polling).
[    6.631630] WARNING: You are using an experimental version of the media stack.
[    6.631630]  As the driver is backported to an older kernel, it doesn't offer
[    6.631630]  enough quality for its usage in production.
[    6.631630]  Use it with care.
[    6.631630] Latest git patches (needed if you report a bug to linux-media@vger.kernel.org):
[    6.631630]  a32f7d1ad3744914273c6907204c2ab3b5d496a0 Merge branch 'v4l_for_linus' into staging/for_v3.9
[    6.631630]  6b9e50c463efc5c361496ae6a895cc966ff8025b [media] stv090x: On STV0903 do not set registers of the second path
[    6.631630]  f67102c49a123b32a4469b28407feb52b37144f5 [media] mb86a20s: remove global BER/PER counters if per-layer counters vanish
[    6.683010] usb 6-2.4: dvb_usb_v2: found a 'DVBSky T680CI' in warm state
[    6.683228] usb 6-2.4: dvb_usb_v2: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer
[    6.683285] DVB: registering new adapter (DVBSky T680CI)
[    6.733776] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_dvbsky
[    6.798789] usb 6-2.4: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Sit2 DVB-T2/C)...
[    7.014606] Registered IR keymap rc-dvbsky
[    7.014914] input: DVBSky T680CI as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:01:00.0/usb6/6-2/6-2.4/rc/rc0/input9
[    7.015748] rc0: DVBSky T680CI as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:01:00.0/usb6/6-2/6-2.4/rc/rc0
[    7.015768] usb 6-2.4: dvb_usb_v2: schedule remote query interval to 300 msecs
[    7.015782] usb 6-2.4: dvb_usb_v2: 'DVBSky T680CI' successfully initialized and connected
[...]