VDR not working at all

[justdeb]

Hi All,

I tried to setup VDR and went through several different examples including this link.
* http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/VDR

I get all the way through the example and everything goes through perfectly, except that when i try and watch live TV in the manner it suggests - i get a no signal message on the screen and that is it.

I then opened the VDR admin site and tried to see whether i get a picture - again no picture.  If i do a clean install on my core and try to use mythtv it works perfectly.

I use the nova-T 500 card and it works beautifully under mythtv. I just want to try VDR and compare the 2.

Can anyone suggest what might be causing it not to work for me as i can't see why it should not work.

TIA
Justin

[totallymaxed]

Hi All,

I tried to setup VDR and went through several different examples including this link.
* http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/VDR

I get all the way through the example and everything goes through perfectly, except that when i try and watch live TV in the manner it suggests - i get a no signal message on the screen and that is it.

I then opened the VDR admin site and tried to see whether i get a picture - again no picture.  If i do a clean install on my core and try to use mythtv it works perfectly.

I use the nova-T 500 card and it works beautifully under mythtv. I just want to try VDR and compare the 2.

Can anyone suggest what might be causing it not to work for me as i can't see why it should not work.

TIA
Justin

Hmmm... are you running the setup wizard each time to 'swap' between Myth & vdr? If you are I expect the problem is in the scripts that get run from the setup wizard. There was a problem related to swapping between the two before rc2 was released... maybe that problem did not get resolved.

There are two ways around this - fix the script or avoid swapping between the two.

If you have not done to much customisation after installing your Core and your setup is not too complex the simple way forward would be to install from the DVD again and use the option retain your /home directory (ie not the one that retains your settings & /home). Then in the setup wizard after the install choose vdr and assuming your T500 is detected (which it should be) all you need to do is generate channels.conf as per the wiki instructions (and optionally do the vdradmin-am install too of course) and your done.

All the best

Andrew

[justdeb]

Hi Andrew,

I came across that issue in one of older posts and have just done a clean install in this case to load VDR. Everything was detected and i was able to scan for channels etc and all appeared to be working based on the instructions in the wiki. Alas when i went to vdr admin to try and view a picture i got nothing. Similarly from the core if i tried to watch tv i get the msg no signal.

I reformatted the core again and loaded mythtv option during the install and after some minor configuration settings for australia it works perfectly. I am just surprised that mythtv works without issue and yet i couldn't get VDR running.

There must be something simple or obvious that i am missing or failing to do.

I suppose my question is really focused around whether there is any benefit going to vdr over mythv?

Regards

Justin

[nite_man]

Hi Justin,

My first guessing is about plugins. Check their order when you restart VDR. Also you can find useful information in the /var/log/message or /var/log/syslog. Try to restart VDR and watch the logs.

As I understand watching TV via VDRAdmin interface is possible only if you run LiveTV on your core.

What else ... if you can scan channels that means that DVB card is ok. Check the logs. Maybe you'll find something there.

[colinjones]

Justin

You say you can tune - you are using scan -o vdr for this aren't you? And redirecting the output to a channels.conf file? Then using the web admin to upload this file into VDR? When it scans, you see it mentioning the TV chanels one by one and it generates a file that has an entry for each station?

When in VDR, call up the EPG - it must list these channels (rather than the default European ones) and that will confirm that VDR recognises the file you uploaded.

You can also do a scan and display TV from the KDE desktop in Kaffiene.

To restart VDR as Michael suggests: sudo /etc/init.d/vdr restart whilst you run tail -f /var/log/<logfilename> in another ssh session

[justdeb]

Hi all,

I am using scan -o vdras per the instructions in the wiki (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/VDR) and selecting au-Brisbane as it is my locality. I do see the scan listing chanels one by one.

I will check the epg later and let you know what it shows.       

i will do as michael suggested and post results in a short while.

Rgds

Justin     

[totallymaxed]

Hi Justin,

My first guessing is about plugins. Check their order when you restart VDR. Also you can find useful information in the /var/log/message or /var/log/syslog. Try to restart VDR and watch the logs.

As I understand watching TV via VDRAdmin interface is possible only if you run LiveTV on your core.

What else ... if you can scan channels that means that DVB card is ok. Check the logs. Maybe you'll find something there.

Your right Michael vdradmin-am will only show a Live TV pic if there is one currently displayed on the Core.

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Hi all,

I am using scan -o vdras per the instructions in the wiki (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/VDR) and selecting au-Brisbane as it is my locality. I do see the scan listing chanels one by one.

I will check the epg later and let you know what it shows.       

i will do as michael suggested and post results in a short while.

Rgds

Justin     

Also try changing to another channel... do you see the correct channel name appear in the vdr channel info box at the bottom of the screen? When you change channel you may find that the Live picture works.

Andrew

[justdeb]

Hi,

I finally bit the bullet and reformatted the box again and only chose to install VDR from menu.

You say you can tune - you are using scan -o vdr for this aren't you? And redirecting the output to a channels.conf file? Then using the web admin to upload this file into VDR? When it scans, you see it mentioning the TV chanels one by one and it generates a file that has an entry for each station?
 - YES however there is no channel 7 data.

When in VDR, call up the EPG - it must list these channels (rather than the default European ones) and that will confirm that VDR recognises the file you uploaded.

- I get nothing - i don't even get an option. I also notice if you try and change channels as suggested - i still get nothing.

You can also do a scan and display TV from the KDE desktop in Kaffiene.

- Tried that and got the channels to scan - again no channel 7 - but it was there and the channel information was on screen as well.

I also noted that when i do the following "Now that you have a good 'channels.conf' for your local DVB-T transmitter you need to load it into VDR. So just upload the new 'channels.conf' file using LinuxMCE's Web Admin site - go to Advanced –> Configuration –> VDR and use the 'Browse' button next to 'Upload custom file' to find where you created your 'channels.conf' file and click 'Upload'. Now restart vdr from the console"
- I upload the file and i get a little msg in green at the top of the screen which say 'provider updated'. That is basically - i come back to the same screen again and i now have all of the european dvb-t conf files and an option to choose on of them.

I had a look through the logs - but they seemed to be ok - is there a specific list of entries i should try and find ?

At this point it seems as though there is something fundamentally wrong in what i am doing or the vdr instructions are incomplete in the wiki as i get tv perfectly in myth (but no epg info) and also get picture in Kaffine.

Any other things i should be looking at ?

Regards

Justin

[nite_man]

Justin, do following:
- open two terminal windows (on the box or via ssh);
- in the first one run tail command:

Code: [Select]

tail -f /var/log/message- in the second one restart VDR:

Code: [Select]

sudo /etc/init.d/vdr restart- post here VDR messages

[colinjones]

Justin - if you are in Sydney, I have found even as close as Newtown I have difficulty getting Channel 7 (and SBS) as their signals are weak. What you are seeing suggests that scan is unable to lock on to those signals. In Kaffine, when you should be able to see the signal strength for Channel 7 as it scans past it. If it is significantly lower than the other channels then that could be the reason. I have found that my DVB-T card is pretty signal insensitive (Nova T 500), and I needed to get a signal booster and switch on the LNA in the card to reliably get 7 and SBS.

You didn't mention whether you restarted VDR or at least reloaded the router after uploading. Follow niteman's instructions to do that. Also, I have noticed several times that uploading a channels.conf file as you detailed doesn't work the first time. If that happens to me, I simply reupload it again, restart VDR and that usually fixes it. Perhaps just reload the router anyway.

[indulis]

Test being able to see your channel using kaffeine or mplayer e.g. mplayer dvb:// once you've tuned the tuner with say tzap.  You will have to install dvb-utils and dvbstream packages (sudo apt-get dvb-utils dvbstream) and generate a channels.conf file using scan point scan to the au-Sydney example.
scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-t/YOUR_COUTRY_CODE-YOUR_LOCATION

Though you have probably already done this, as your tuning is working.

[justdeb]

Hi All,

I tried Nite_man's  suggestion to open terminal session and i get the following information

Sep 22 21:47:48 dcerouter runvdr: stopping after fatal fail (vdr: error while reading '/var/lib/vdr/channels.conf')
Sep 22 21:47:50 dcerouter kernel: [75529.729137] printk: 249 messages suppressed.
Sep 22 21:47:50 dcerouter kernel: [75529.729142] rtc: lost some interrupts at 1024Hz.

That is basically all i get.

Given that the message is pointing to something wrong in /var/lib/vdr/channels.conf i decided to copy the contents of it.

# Australia / Brisbane (Mt Coot-tha transmitters)
# T freq bw fec_hi fec_lo mod transmission-mode guard-interval hierarchy
# ABC
T 226500000 7MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/16 NONE
# Seven
T 177500000 7MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/8 NONE
# Nine
T 191625000 7MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/16 NONE
# Ten
T 219500000 7MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/16 NONE
# SBS
T 585625000 7MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/8 NONE

I am surprised that it is looking here given that my file is sitting in /root/home/channels.conf. I also copied this file to /root/usr/pluto/templates/vdr/channels.conf which is the same directory as the other european templates.

Have i missed something ?
Regards

Justin

[nite_man]

Justin, you should upload channels.conf via admin web interface. in that case that file will be placed in the right directory - /var/lib/vdr/. Also symlink will be created in the /etc/vdr/.

[justdeb]

Hi all,

i just went through the instructions again and also added in something that indulis said

You will have to install dvb-utils and dvbstream packages (sudo apt-get dvb-utils dvbstream)

I did this as i have been through the instructions a number of times and it does not mention the dvbstream packages. Sure enough i added them as well and finished the instructions as per the wiki.

VDR is now working perfectly except for channel 7 - but i can live with that for now.

Should this step need to be added into the wiki as it appears in my case was the missing piece of the puzzle?

Question - I use the nov-t500 dual dvb-t card - should this now work on both cards or are there some additional steps that need to be done to ensure both tuners are working ?

Thanks to everyones help to date
Regards

Justin