DVB Drivers & Kernel Modules

Setting up DVB cards should be straightforward with releases of R5A22 or later. This is because DVB drivers come shipped with 2.6 kernels. If you are using an older version of Knoppmyth that uses a 2.4 kernel then you will have to do lots of extra messing around to get your DVB card working.

This does not necessarily mean that your Tv card will work 'out of the box' with a recent release (though it might!). However if you do have a compatible DVB card it will certainly require significantly less effort to get it working nicely.

You may be surprised to learn that 2.6.13 kernels appear to support a variety of external DVB-T cards (USB/Firewire). There is a kernel compatibility list on here somewhere:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Guides for setting up DVB Cards

1. DVB-T, WinTv? Nova-T

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6511&start=30&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=novat Hauppauge WinTV Nova-S Plus PCI: NovaSPlusHowTo

2. Newer Freecom DVB-T USB sticks

The newer devices report a different USB identifier; on my machine lsusb gives:

ID 14aa:0225 AVerMedia? (again) or C&E

The driver for this is dvb-usb-dtt200u.ko, but the version that comes with R5E50 is out of date and only supports the older versions of the device. I have recompiled the module to include support for the latest version, which can be downloaded from http://www.garybell.me.uk/

<please add any links to guides for other DVB cards>

DVB Utilities

MythTv is currently at a transitional stage for setting up DVB cards, i.e. you may be able to set your card up from the mythtv frontend without any fiddling around with command prompts or external programs. In previous versions, however, you would certainly need to play around with the DVB-tools utilities. These come with R5A16 or later and can be found under /usr/local/share/dvb. Alternatively you can download them from this site:

http://www.linuxtv.org/

Creating channels.conf file for import when scan of channels fails

I had a lot of trouble with both my DVB-T and DVB-S cards when scanning for channels, and there is an alternative way for adding channels to MythTV by creating a channels,conf file that you import instead of scanning channels i mythtv-setup.

First off logon to your mythbox and enter directory /tmp, use the command dvbscan to construct an channels.conf:

dvbscan -a 0 /usr/local/share/dvb/dvb-t/se-Norrkoping > channels.conf

The -a command is selecting wich dvb card to use in my case 0 is my DVB-T card, the /usr/local/share/dvb/dvb-t/se-Norrkoping is the file containg initial tuning data for the scan select one of those files that matches your location, then the output goes to the file channels.ter, if you have a DVB-S card you should use tuning data files located in /usr/local/share/dvb/dvb-s and select the tuning file for your satelite your using.

Edit yout channels.conf file and remove channels you don't want to have imported, then start mythtv-setup and instead of making an full scan of channels select the import channels.conf alternative instead. Enter the filename to import '/tmp/channels.conf' and voila!

// Henrik Andersson 2006-06-19

OTA (Program Guide over the air)

If using DVB-T (digital terrestial) and you live in the UK or Sweden you should be able to grab Tv Guide information from the air rather than rely on an internet connection. For Knoppmyth releases from R5A30 onwards this feature should function automatically. To set this up for previous releases the following links may be helpful.

http://www.darkskiez.co.uk/ http://www.flexion.org/site/index.php?gadget=StaticPage&action=Page&id=42 http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/leek/ukdvb.php

For those using an antique version of Knoppmyth, or for future Knoppmyth historians

Nigel Pearson's guide for setting up DVB

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1357

___

rewritten by Nick Parkinson - 08/03/06

DVB in the USA

using a Technisat sky2pc (skystar2) DVB-S card and R5E50

As with the writer above, I also had no luck getting the Mythtv setup utility to do a "blind scan" of a satellite transopnder. By "blind scan" I mean, telling the receiver card to scan the satellite for channels without telling what transponders are live and what datarates to expect on those transponders. With no ability to "blind scan" I had to feed Myth a file of known-live satellite transponders on the satellites I wanted to look at. As it comes, R5E50 has a few transponder files in the following directory: "/usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s". Unfortunately, these are all for European satellites. So the USA-dweller must create their own transponder files. To do this, I went to www.lyngsat.com and found the satellite I wanted to scan. I navigated to it's page and looked at the transponder list. From the Lyngsat lists, I then navigated to a command line (used CTRL-ALT-F1 and logged in as root) and used a text editor to create my own transponder file. I first looked at one of the European transponder files and cloned the format. Here is a look at one of the European files:

# Astra 19.2E SDT info service transponder
# freq pol sr fec
S 12551500 V 22000000 5/6

So, I copied this format and made my own, like so.

# AMC3
# S/T freq pol sr fec
S 12140000 V 30000000 3/4
S 12180000 V 30000000 3/4

I saved the file into the directory with the other transponder files: /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/AMC3
First I stopped the Mythtv backend with an ALT-2 keystroke. Then started the Mythtv setup with ATL-S.

The first thing I did was go to the Home screen of Mythtv setup and choose "2. Capture cards". Choose "New Capture Card." For my Technisat DVB-S card (s for satellite), I selected the DVB DTV capture card (v3.x) Card Type option. Myth saw the card as DVB card number 0 and identified the ID as Zarlink VP310 DVB-S Subtype DVB-S. The DiSEqC button is very important here - even if you don't have any DiSEqC switches in your system. Behind this button is the "LNB Configuration" screen. The LNB I have is a linear universal LNB. So, I typed LNB in the Description box and then selected "Universal (Europe)" for the LNB Preset box. These "universal" LNBs have 2 band capability. If you operate in Europe, you use the lower band (with a local oscillator frequency of 9.75 GHz) and if you operate in the USA, you use the high band (with a local oscillator frequency of 10.60 GHz). Last step on the "LNB Configuration" screen is to click FINISH.

Back at the Home screen of Mythtv setup and choose "3. Video Sources". Select "New video source". Give it a name, such as the satellite name you want to setup. Other than the "Video source name" box, I don't think the settings on this screen are very relavant to satellites, but feel free to fill it in. Click FINISH.

Back at the Home screen of Mythtv setup and choose "4. Input Connections". Type a name into the top box - choose something like DVB-Satellite Name and then select the video source. At this point, you have to scan the satellite for channels. Since the Mythtv setup won't scan for channels, will have to exit from the graphic setup windows and do it manually from a command line. Exit from the Mythtv setup with the ESC key. Don't restart the backend yet. I went back to a command line (CTRL-ALT-F1). I was still logged in so I typed

scan -a 0 /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/AMC3 > /home/mythtv/channels.conf

The "-a 0" denotes device 0, since my DVB card was device 0. Now, you need to go back into the Mythtv setup, by using the ALT-F7 keys and then ALT-S keys.

At the Home screen of Mythtv setup, choose "4. Input Connections" again. Choose the input that you set up earlier. Use the arrow keys to go down to the "Scan For Channels" button. Use the arrow keys to go down to the Scan Type box. Choose "Import channels.conf" and enter the location of your file /home/mythtv/channels.conf Use the arrow keys to go down to the"Next" button. When the scan is finshed, the valid channels will be put into your Mythtv channel list. Go back to the Home screen of Mythtv.

To look at the newly entered channels, choose "5. Channel Editor". You can use the arrow keys to move up and down through the list of channels. To view/edit the specifics of a particular channel, hit the ENTER key when the channel is highlighted. You can then change the name and configuration of the channel. When I was done editing, I backed out of the Mythtv setup screens with the ESC key.

When I was back to the main Mythtv screen, I restarted the backend with ALT-3

I was then able to hit the Watch TV button and change channels to one of the new satellite channels.

While it did work, the process was pretty ugly. It's too bad the Mythtv setup screens don't work for scanning in satellite transponders and channels. Maybe someday...

//neutron68 4-1-07