Recently I received my order of the OSMC DVB-T2/DVB-C TV USB dongle; it’s a really nicely designed little package
I was hoping to use it on a Raspberry Pi 4B (Raspbian) running TVHeadend, and connect to that server from the TVH client on OSMC running on a different Raspberry Pi (2B).
When I attempt to use it on the Pi4 (Raspbian)… I seem to be having issues similar to those some people here had back in 2017/18. The dongle appears in the Pi4 with just the Realtek DVB-T tuner, i.e. Sony DVB-T2 tuners are not picked up by the system. However, it’s a little worse than just that, because even the Realtek tuner does not seem to work reliably. For example, when I do a “generic auto scan” it pick up (some) channels broadcast from a mux that’s considerably further away than the one I have my aerial pointed at, but nothing from the one that’s closer to me. If I try to tune to specifically scan the mux that’s closer (which my main TV picks up with 98% signal strength) the scan just fails. Also after attempting some scans the tuner seems to lock up, and then won’t scan anymore. This occurs whether it’s connected to a powered hub or not. I’m guessing it’s a driver issue.
When I connect it to my Pi2 (OSMC)… all three tuners show up in TVHeadend, and using the Sony DVB-T one I can scan and receive the nearby mux, HD/SD are all working with no issues whatsoever. I must however connect it to a powered hub* for smooth operation, otherwise I get what appears to be decoding glitches every 5 seconds or so (SD or HD), so I guess it needs more power than my Pi 2 is delivering to it.
*Edit: Actually I had set it and tested it on the Pi2 just before starting to write this post and it appeared to be working perfectly (via the powered hub). I left it playing in the other room while I wrote, and when I returned to it was glitching as before. During playback the system seems to be under pretty minimal stress CPU/Memory-wise, so not sure why it seems perfect before and there are now issues.
Suggestion: listing the system requirements on the product page would help buyers make a better informed purchases. I understand, from OSMC’s perspective, the aim is to ensure this device works correctly for all OSMC systems (whether running on OSMC hardware, a Pi, or other), and indeed that seems to be the case (edit: although perhaps not on my Pi2). But it would be useful to mention if it also works with plain Raspbian, or if this is explicitly not supported. Also it would be useful to list the minimum power requirements of the tuner, as some may not already have a powered hub and would need to factor that into a buying decision.
Question: is there any easy way to get the dongle working on Raspbian Buster (on a Pi4)? I am aware that OSMC does not currently support the Pi4, but that it probably will do quite soon.