Driver problems for DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital rev2

[chipppy]

I had to replace my TV tuner card (dont ask it involves a 2 year old and a cup of juice).
I was unable to get another Nove-t-500MCE card so I now have a DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital Rev2

I looked into the hardware pages on the Wiki and it sent me to an Aussie Uni page with a fix for the rev1 card but not the rev2 card.
More searching sent me to the Ubuntu forums and yahoo a rev2 card patch that is supposed to work great, with step-by-step instruction.
HOWTO: DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital 4 Rev 1 and Rev2 with remote tutorial
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=6562f24c7352fe58328e2345a3c0d3ef&t=616103

I type in first two lines and all seems to works OK
I type in the third line (apt-get install install mercurial build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`) and I get the following error.

root@*****:~#apt-get install install mercurial build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
Reading package list...Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information...Done
E: Couldn't find package install
root@*****:~#

I tried moving a few spaces around in case I was missing a space or had a space where it wasn't but the same error always comes back

Anyone have any idea what i am doing wrong?

Cheers
chipppy

[tschak909]

remove that second install.

-Thom

[chipppy]

Right removed the second install and the driver install look like it worked.

Tried to follow the quick test steps and the following happened.

root@********:~# apt-get install dvb-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
dvb-utils is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
root@********:~# scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-t/au-Perth > channels.conf
scanning /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-t/au-Perth
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
main:2247: FATAL: failed to open '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0': 2 No such file or directory
root@********:~#

Any ideas on where to go next?
There is dicussion about firmware upgrade for a rev1 card but to not worry about it for a rev2 card.
What everyone thoughts about stepping through the firmware upgrade?
Can this do any damage to the system?  Both computer and/or the TV tuner card.

I am hoping to get this to work so that I can add the steps into the Wiki, once I get this Tv tuner working.

Cheers
chipppy

[indulis]

Chipppy, I have this card working.  As you found, you need to install the latest DVB-T drivers.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DViCO_Dual_Digital_4
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/How_to_build_from_Mercurial
http://www.linuxtv.org/repo/

I am away from my LMCE machine where I have documented some of the steps I had to take.

How do you know the driver install worked OK? I think I found I had to download the firmware as well for the Rev 2 card, though the instructions say you don't.

I found your posts on the Ubuntu forum as well- if you do

Code: [Select]

ls -l /dev/dvb*
do you see the 2 adapters?  /dev/dvb/adapter0 and /dev/dvb/adapter1

Be warned that to get this DVB-T card working properly, I had to do the following
1) Compile a new kernel (not as hard as it sounds) to get a reliable driver for the USB chip on the Dvico card
2) Compile and install the latest DVB-T drivers from the linuxtv web site (also not that hard)
3) Compile and install the LIRC modules for the remote control that I am using (mceusb2, Microsoft remote and USB receiver).  Needed cos there was a new kernel.
4) Compile and install the latest nvidia drivers

If you don't do steps 1, 2, and 3 you may have an unreliable system.  At least I did but that may be a combination of motherboard and the DVB tuner card.  But if you do just step 2 and install the latest DVB-T driver on a standard LMCE 710 install you will at least get the card working to the point where you can see some TV programs, though your server may hang after a day or 2. 

I used kaffeine to test the card, though you can also use mplayer and xine.  I'll have to get my cheat sheet from home to help out more. Testing info here
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DViCO_Dual_Digital_4

See also
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T_PCI_Cards

Don't despair, once you get through these steps you will have learned a lot about LMCE and will also have a reliable working system!

PS I am also in Perth!

[tschak909]

Why is nobody attempting to make device templates for these cards? Maybe if a few of you who claim to have hacking chops would do this, instead of duct taping together your setups, you might make it easier on everyone else.

-Thom

[indulis]

Thom- because to support this tuner device you have to install the latest drivers from the LinuxTV site, and I also had to upgrade and recompile the kernel to get a stable working system.  Though the kernel recompile may not be necessary on all motherboards using this tuner it was mandatory for mine.

Can a device template include downloading code from external sites etc?  I don't know if this is possible, or desirable, esp with 810 on the horizon.

If you have another look at the steps I had to do in the post above, do you think these should be part of a device template?  I was publicly flogged for recompiling LIRC, and Zaerc put "danger! danger!! don't do this" comments on the kernel rebuild page on the wiki, so you can see why the idea of putting anything that had been done into a device template didn't occur to me.

Also, I have had weird boot problems which I have only solved in the last couple of weeks, so did not know if it was the new kernel or something else I had done (it wasn't).  Without resolving what this problem was, there was little point in going further.

I have a working xorg.conf for a Panasonic plasma panel- what can be used from this?  If you can point me to an entry point for the steps to take, I'll start.

[tschak909]

indulis, if you look at the documentation in the wiki for a device template, or look inside a device template itself, you'll see an entry for "Package" ... this also has a link to Create a New package...

This allows you to create a package that can be managed by MakeRelease, to include any source code, and build instructions for any software needed. LinuxMCE will download and install the package as specified by the template, and you can then put in configuration scripts (run every time), and setup scripts (run when the device is installed) to configure inputs appropriately.

Look at the PVR-150 template for details.

Once we have drivers etc for this, and they are tested, people can work with us core developers to fold any of this stuff into the main distribution.

-Thom

[indulis]

I think my first step would be to set up 8.10 on my machine (I have a reserved partition for this) and test the card.   It may be that with the 8.10 kernel the DVB device drivers will work "out of the box".

If they do, is there still packaging that needs to be done?

[tschak909]

Yes, there will need to be configuration and setup scripts made.

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

I think my first step would be to set up 8.10 on my machine (I have a reserved partition for this) and test the card.   It may be that with the 8.10 kernel the DVB device drivers will work "out of the box".

If they do, is there still packaging that needs to be done?

This card is working under Kubuntu 810 - no template required.

All the best

Andrew

[Marie.O]

totallymaxed,

even if a tuner card is detected and working out of the box, it still needs to be configured within MythTV and/or VDR. The correct way would be, upon detection of the card, lmce should ask me (for VDR), what channels.conf file should be needed for that card. And for MythTV, it should be automatically added in there as well. THAT is one of the beautiful things of lmce that tschak is trying to point out.

[chipppy]

Dont know what it all means but as requested

*****@*****:~$ ls -l /dev/dvb*
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2009-01-28 22:42 adapter0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2009-01-28 22:42 adapter1
*****@*****:~$

I am now trying to get the card working under Ubuntu 8.10.  (keep it simple for the newbie)  once i have got that down pact I shall move onto the next level of harder stuff (kerrnel build etc) unless 8.10 comes out before i get this darn card working.

Also have a problem from mplayer now.  does this help anyone understand what i am doing wrong?

****@****:~$ mplayer /dev/dvb/adapter/dvr0
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz (Family: 6, Model: 23, Stepping: 10)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing /dev/dvb/adapter/dvr0.
File not found: '/dev/dvb/adapter/dvr0'
Failed to open /dev/dvb/adapter/dvr0.


Exiting... (End of file)

All this grief due to a 2 year old and a cup of juice.  Theres a lesson to learned here somewhere, but i just cannot see what it is, anyone spot the lesson

cheers
chipppy

[totallymaxed]

totallymaxed,

even if a tuner card is detected and working out of the box, it still needs to be configured within MythTV and/or VDR. The correct way would be, upon detection of the card, LinuxMCE should ask me (for VDR), what channels.conf file should be needed for that card. And for MythTV, it should be automatically added in there as well. THAT is one of the beautiful things of LinuxMCE that tschak is trying to point out.

Well for vdr we dont want to generate a channels.conf per card... thats crazy (unless it is a different category of card such as a DVB-S or DVB-C card) so we treat those configs as global for the whole TV side of the system. Other than the channels.conf once the DVB card is autodetected by the system there is no other config to do at all in fact.

Andrew

[tschak909]

*hmm* no, you missed the point...

-Thom

[Marie.O]

totallymaxed,

even if a tuner card is detected and working out of the box, it still needs to be configured within MythTV and/or VDR. The correct way would be, upon detection of the card, LinuxMCE should ask me (for VDR), what channels.conf file should be needed for that card. And for MythTV, it should be automatically added in there as well. THAT is one of the beautiful things of LinuxMCE that tschak is trying to point out.

Well for vdr we dont want to generate a channels.conf per card... thats crazy (unless it is a different category of card such as a DVB-S or DVB-C card) so we treat those configs as global for the whole TV side of the system. Other than the channels.conf once the DVB card is autodetected by the system there is no other config to do at all in fact.

Andrew,

yes, we do want to display a nice selection box to the user, if a new device is added to the system, and present a list of channels.conf for this specific card to the user. That is the goal.

We do not want the user to HAVE to go into the web admin to setup the TV part of the system. Yes, we do it now, but that is just something that Tschak would call, duct tape.

To give you an example: I have a three DVB-S card system at home. 2 of the three cards are connected to Astra 19.2. One of the cards is connected to the british Astra satellite (I think 28.2). It would have been really nice, if lmce could have prompted me upon Setup (just like it does for MythTV in the US [If I understand things correct]), what kind of service is connected to each of the cards. That would save the user the trip to the web admin, and give a much better out-of-the-box experience.

This MUST be the goal. Will we be able to fullfill this goal with 0810? I highly doubt it, as we will use 0810 as the building block for future community releases, and still have lots of things to learn. But eventually, we will have that capability in the setup wizard.