TBS6205

TBS6205 PCI-E low profile DVB-T2 Quad TV Tuner Card, is a DVB-T2 PCIe Card from TBS Technologies. It is an update to the TBS6285 card for DVB T2 reception countries, such as UK, Sweden. It supports watching or recording four different channels .This DVB T2 PC TV card is ready with windows BDA driver and Linux driver. It’s ideal for watching UK Freeview SD and HD channels on PC.

Overview/Features

• 1 x PCI Express Interface
• Low profile design
• Four DVB T/T2 Freeview SD& HD Channels Receiving
• DiSEqC 2.x Compliant
• Linux Support
• Windows BDA driver and Linux Driver ready

Components Used

• Si2158 (Tuner)
• Si2168 (Demod)
• SAA7160

Identification

# lspci -vvvnn
03:00.0 Multimedia controller [0480]: Philips Semiconductors SAA7160 [1131:7160] (rev 02)
       Subsystem: Device [6285:0001]
       Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
       Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
       Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
       Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 45
       Region 0: Memory at fdf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
       Capabilities: [40] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/32 Maskable- 64bit+
               Address: 00000000fee0300c  Data: 4191
       Capabilities: [50] Express (v1) Endpoint, MSI 00
               DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <256ns, L1 <1us
                       ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE- FLReset-
               DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
                       RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
                       MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes
               DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr- TransPend-
               LnkCap: Port #1, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <4us, L1 <64us
                       ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
               LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 128 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk-
                       ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
               LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, TrErr- Train- SlotClk- DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
       Capabilities: [74] Power Management version 2
               Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot-,D3cold-)
               Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
       Capabilities: [80] Vendor Specific Information: Len=50 <?>
       Capabilities: [100 v1] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0000 Rev=0 Len=088 <?>
       Kernel driver in use: SAA716x TBS

Making it Work

It supports MythTV mythbuntu building: s

  1. Update the install with update/upgrade
  2. Install TBS drivers as per TBS6285 instructions
  3. nothing was added to the /var/log/syslog or dmesg output
  4. reboot the system
  5. I found "disagrees about version of symbol dvb_frontend_detach" messages in the dmesg output, so follow instructions for this at the TBS forum [1]
     a. cd to the "tbs-linux-drivers" subdirectory
     b. move or delete the contents of the kernel library drivers/media subdirectory using 
        "sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname-r)/kernel/drivers/media ~/.media.bak" or 
        "rm -Rf /lib/modules/3.8.0-29-generic/kernel/drivers/media" (this is for Ubuntu based systems)
     c. reinstall drivers using "sudo make install"
     d. reboot the system

This gives working card drivers loaded and seen during the boot sequence.

When the kernel is updated (due to security updates), then I found the TBS help wiki's fedora installation instructions useful. These are:

  1. cd to the "tbs-linux-drivers" subdirectory
  2. move or delete the contents of the kernel library drivers/media subdirectory using 
     "sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media ~/.media.bak" or 
     "rm -Rf /lib/modules/3.8.0-29-generic/kernel/drivers/media" (this is for Ubuntu based systems)
  3. Reconfigure the drivers. For this I found the following steps which worked for me.
     a. clean out the code and reset the installation kernel data using the "sudo make distclean" command
     b. rerun the installation settings script with the "sudo ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh" command
     c. configure the driver settings (this is a guess) using the "sudo make release" command
     d. configure the driver settings (this is a guess) using the "sudo make menuconfig" command. 
        I enabled the "Enable drivers not supported by this kernel" which on hindsight should be left unchecked. 
        The fedora instructions said to just exit this. 
  4. rebuild the driver using the "sudo make" command (this will take a while)
  5. reinstall drivers using the "sudo make install" command
  6. load newly installed driver using the "sudo modprobe -v tbs62x0fe" command
  7. reboot the system

The installation now uses and installs to the latest kernel's "/lib/modules/" directory.

Linux Drivers Download

• TBS Download Center

External Links

• TBS Website
• TBS Technologies Support forum
• Where to buy

Company Profile

TBS Technologies is a company which specializes in developing, manufacturing and marketing of digital TV tuner cards for PC. Main products include PC cards for DVB S/S2, DVB-T/T2, DVB-C with single, dual, and quad tuner, CAM CI box for DVB-S2, USB TV Box for DVB-S/S2,DVB-T/T2,DVB-C. Most TV tuner products are Linux driver ready up to the latest kernel.