[TESTING] DVB improvements for Vero 4K take 2

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
46

@sam_nazarko Ok. Don’t I need an antenna for DVB-T (or T2) to work?
Anyway, tried to scan DVB-T with w_scan, and this is what I got (removed the “blank” scanning lines):

osmc@osmc:~$ w_scan -f -t -c DK
w_scan -f -t -c DK
w_scan version 20161022 (compiled for DVB API 5.10)
using settings for DENMARK
DVB aerial
DVB-T Europe
scan type TERRESTRIAL, channellist 4
output format vdr-2.0
WARNING: could not guess your codepage. Falling back to 'UTF-8'
output charset 'UTF-8', use -C <charset> to override
Info: using DVB adapter auto detection.
        /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 -> TERRESTRIAL "Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T)": good :-)
        /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend1 -> TERRESTRIAL "Panasonic MN88473": very good :-))

Using TERRESTRIAL frontend (adapter /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend1)
-_-_-_-_ Getting frontend capabilities-_-_-_-_
Using DVB API 5.10
frontend 'Panasonic MN88473' supports
DVB-T2
INVERSION_AUTO
QAM_AUTO
TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO
GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO
HIERARCHY_AUTO
FEC_AUTO
BANDWIDTH_AUTO not supported, trying 6/7/8 MHz.
FREQ (42.00MHz ... 1002.00MHz)
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Scanning DVB-T...
Scanning 8MHz frequencies...
474000: (time: 00:01.300)         signal ok:    QAM_AUTO f = 474000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0)
        Info: no data from PAT after 2 seconds
        deleting (QAM_AUTO f = 474000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0))
482000: (time: 00:04.740)
554000: (time: 00:22.990)         signal ok:    QAM_AUTO f = 554000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0)
        Info: no data from PAT after 2 seconds
        deleting (QAM_AUTO f = 554000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0))
562000: (time: 00:26.730)
714000: (time: 01:08.150)         signal ok:    QAM_AUTO f = 714000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0)
        Info: no data from PAT after 2 seconds
        deleting (QAM_AUTO f = 714000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999 (0:0:0))
722000: (time: 01:11.730)
Scanning DVB-T2...
474000: (time: 01:49.000)
[...]
ERROR: Sorry - i couldn't get any working frequency/transponder
 Nothing to scan!!

Anything else I can do or try?

47

Could you first try a w_scan without country setting and with stopped tvheadend?

sudo systemctl stop tvheadend
sudo w_scan -f c

Just checked with German cable provider Unitymedia NRW and works great.

Parknet is this side? https://parknet.dk/tv/vejledning/

48

Are you able to reinstall OSMC and then update?
Did you cold boot after updating to ensure the adapter was reset properly?

Sam

51

@JimKnopf @sam_nazarko

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, JimKnopf, you’re right that Parknet is the site you’re referring to.

I just tried doing running the w_scan without country setting and with tvheadend stopped, but it gives the same result. It’s simply not picking up any channels.

ERROR: Sorry - i couldn't get any working frequency/transponder
 Nothing to scan!!

I don’t really want to completely reinstall my OSMC on my Vero 4K (have too much stuff set up, addons, services etc.), so I figured I’d try the same tuner on my clean RPi3 OSMC install. Aaaand - it’s the same situation there. No channels/muxes picked up either by w-scan or tvheadend. So I guess it’s not a driver issue, but more about the OSMC T2 tuner not being able to pick up my DVB-C channels - for some reason…

I then tried going back to my earlier DVB-C tuner, the Terratec Cinergy HTC USB XS HD, just to make sure the channels were actually still coming through the cable. Worked perfectly; 153 services found on tvheadend and w-scan.

What’s interesting then is that I tried plugging in the Terratec Cinergy on my already booted Vero 4K - and it did get picked up just fine and I was able to scan all the channels perfectly! However, I still have the issue with the Vero not being able to (re)boot when I have the Terratec plugged in. It only works when the Vero is completely booted and I plug it in from there. I made this thread about it earlier as you might remember: https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/support-for-terratec-cinergy-usb-xs-tv-tuner/

So: what do I do from here? I’ll be very happy if I could somehow make the Vero able to boot with my Terratec plugged in - or with the OSMC T2 tuner being able to pick up my channels.

Thanks in advance!

52

Or, if anyone of you have any suggestions to another USB DVB-C tuner that is confirmed to be working on the Vero 4K, I’d be happy to know about it, too!

53

@Hetoft:

With your test you proved that the cable connection in the wall and specific cable seem to be OK; that was my suspicion that the signal strength is too low.

Except to ask whether you’re on latest greatest OSMC release, I’ve not further ideas what could be the reason w_scan is not detecting anything senseful using the the DVB-C tuner.
Might be the OSMC dongle has a problem, @sam_nazarko can we test this from remote?

Regarding Parknet I would create some dvb-scan table template at /usr/share/tvheadend/data/dvb-scan/dvb-c, perhaps name it dk-Parknet. Content should be

[CHANNEL]
DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBC/ANNEX_A
FREQUENCY = 450000000
SYMBOL_RATE = 6875000
INNER_FEC = AUTO
MODULATION = QAM/64
INVERSION = AUTO

If the NIT (network information table) is sent on this mux stream, tvheadend will learn all other muxes while first scan and the documentation of Parknet suggerates this to be.
The network id is just a filter but you can add that in the network item within tvheadend; don’t know whether this really affects the scan.

54

Thanks for the quick reply, Jim.

I am on the absolutely latest version of OSMC. I did what’s said in the first post of this thread, and just to make sure, I just ran “sudo apt-get update”, and also tried searching for updates manually in OSMC, but there are no more updates or newer versions to be had at the moment.

Funny you mention making a custom template; I’d actually already done that! Just did it again however, with the exact settings you posted, and here’s the result that tvheadend gives me:

2018-06-19 11:42:13.422 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400
2018-06-19 11:42:15.426 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400
2018-06-19 11:42:22.425 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400
2018-06-19 11:42:22.437 mpegts: 450MHz in Parknet - tuning on Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1
2018-06-19 11:42:22.437 epggrab: 450MHz in Parknet - registering mux for OTA EPG
2018-06-19 11:42:22.438 subscription: 0001: "scan" subscribing to mux "450MHz", weight: 5, adapter: "Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1", network: "Parknet", service: "Raw PID Subscription"
2018-06-19 11:42:25.403 linuxdvb: Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1 - poll TIMEOUT
2018-06-19 11:42:27.436 mpegts: 450MHz in Parknet - scan no data, failed
2018-06-19 11:42:27.436 subscription: 0001: "scan" unsubscribing
2018-06-19 11:42:28.431 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400

I tried the exact same settings using my Terratec Cinergy HTC USB XS HD, and all my channels appear. Thus, the fault or incompatibility seems to be with the OSMC tuner (also since my RPi3 with a clean OSMC gave the same result).

Here is the result of “lsusb” (I also tried with nothing else plugged in, and bypassing my USB hub, plugging the tuner straight into the Vero, but didn’t make any difference):

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 2252:1037
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 15f4:0131 HanfTek
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0bc2:aa10 Seagate RSS LLC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bc2:aa12 Seagate RSS LLC
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

and here is the result of “dmesg | grep -i dvb”

[    4.072949] usb 1-2.1.3: Product: dvbt2
[    4.072953] usb 1-2.1.3: Manufacturer: astrometadvbt2
[    4.306987] usb 1-2.1.3: dvb_usb_v2: found a 'OSMC Engineering DVB-T2' in warm state
[    4.381220] usb 1-2.1.3: dvb_usb_v2: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer
[    4.381255] dvbdev: DVB: registering new adapter (OSMC Engineering DVB-T2)
[    4.382242] dvbdev: dvb_create_media_entity: media entity 'dvb-demux' registered.
[    4.494909] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T))...
[    4.494931] dvbdev: dvb_create_media_entity: media entity 'Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T)' registered.
[    4.495095] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 1 (Panasonic MN88473)...
[    4.495111] dvbdev: dvb_create_media_entity: media entity 'Panasonic MN88473' registered.
[    4.584203] rc rc1: OSMC Engineering DVB-T2 as /devices/c9000000.dwc3/xhci-hcd.0.auto/usb1/1-2/1-2.1/1-2.1.3/rc/rc1
[    4.584311] input: OSMC Engineering DVB-T2 as /devices/c9000000.dwc3/xhci-hcd.0.auto/usb1/1-2/1-2.1/1-2.1.3/rc/rc1/input5
[    4.597061] rc rc1: lirc_dev: driver ir-lirc-codec (dvb_usb_rtl28xxu) registered at minor = 1
[    4.597087] usb 1-2.1.3: dvb_usb_v2: schedule remote query interval to 200 msecs
[    4.605236] usb 1-2.1.3: dvb_usb_v2: 'OSMC Engineering DVB-T2' successfully initialized and connected
[    4.605361] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
[   28.197386] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: adapter 0 frontend 0 frequency 0 out of range (174000000..862000000)
[   28.757180] mn88473 1-0018: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-demod-mn88473-01.fw'
[   29.426961] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: adapter 0 frontend 1 frequency 0 out of range (42000000..1002000000)
[  127.016931] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: adapter 0 frontend 0 frequency 0 out of range (174000000..862000000)
[  127.673030] usb 1-2.1.3: DVB: adapter 0 frontend 1 frequency 0 out of range (42000000..1002000000)

Is there anything else I can do or provide you with?

55

My dmesg output looks exact the same. I think we have to wait for @sam_nazarko and/or other ideas.

56

Very odd. All those messages are the same as I get (except I get the frequency out of range messages only once). Could you post the adapter settings?

ls ~/.hts/tvheadend/input/linuxdvb/adapters
cat ~/.hts/tvheadend/input/linuxdvb/adapters/9d84dad05c885fe8d8a91db0bf0c47ce

BTW, to get up to date you need sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

58

Hi Graham, thanks for the reply.

I had already run “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade” in the beginning. Did it again just now; no new updates.

My adapter settings:

osmc@osmc:~$ ls ~/.hts/tvheadend/input/linuxdvb/adapters
374dfbde2337aa4ad054475a194767c8  9d84dad05c885fe8d8a91db0bf0c47ce

and

osmc@osmc:~$ cat ~/.hts/tvheadend/input/linuxdvb/adapters/9d84dad05c885fe8d8a91db0bf0c47ce
{
        "rootpath": "/dev/dvb/adapter0",
        "frontends": {
                "DVB-C #1": {
                        "pids_max": 32,
                        "pids_use_all": true,
                        "powersave": false,
                        "tune_repeats": 0,
                        "skip_bytes": 0,
                        "ibuf_size": 188000,
                        "status_period": 1000,
                        "old_status": false,
                        "enabled": true,
                        "priority": 0,
                        "spriority": 0,
                        "displayname": "Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1",
                        "ota_epg": true,
                        "initscan": true,
                        "idlescan": true,
                        "free_weight": 0,
                        "remove_scrambled": false,
                        "networks": [
                                "9739070e81f44dfc0fcddbc798f4e2fe"
                        ],
                        "linked": "",
                        "type": "DVB-C",
                        "uuid": "ced02f532a13a57cb17aeea58d247f7b"
                },
                "DVB-T #1": {
                        "lna": true,
                        "pids_max": 32,
                        "pids_use_all": true,
                        "powersave": false,
                        "tune_repeats": 0,
                        "skip_bytes": 0,
                        "ibuf_size": 188000,
                        "status_period": 1000,
                        "old_status": false,
                        "enabled": true,
                        "priority": 0,
                        "spriority": 0,
                        "displayname": "Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-T #1",
                        "ota_epg": true,
                        "initscan": true,
                        "idlescan": true,
                        "free_weight": 0,
                        "remove_scrambled": false,
                        "networks": [
                        ],
                        "linked": "",
                        "type": "DVB-T",
                        "uuid": "76786b0aad3ff4e1938d928c8182f677"
                },
                "DVB-T #0": {
                        "lna": false,
                        "pids_max": 32,
                        "pids_use_all": true,
                        "powersave": false,
                        "tune_repeats": 0,
                        "skip_bytes": 0,
                        "ibuf_size": 188000,
                        "status_period": 1000,
                        "old_status": false,
                        "enabled": false,
                        "priority": 0,
                        "spriority": 0,
                        "displayname": "Realtek RTL2832 (DVB-T) #0 : DVB-T #0",
                        "ota_epg": true,
                        "initscan": true,
                        "idlescan": true,
                        "free_weight": 0,
                        "remove_scrambled": false,
                        "networks": [
                        ],
                        "linked": "",
                        "type": "DVB-T",
                        "uuid": "2ae4a544423be4944b1e5a02d297317c"
                }
        }
}

Anything else?

59

Try disabling the DVB-T #1 and then disabling the Terratec (ie delete the file 374dfbde2337aa4ad054475a194767c8).

60

@grahamh How do I disable the DVB-T #1? From within tvheadend?
Also, my Terratec is not plugged in, but do I still need to delete the file? If so, where is that file located?

61

It’s the Panasonic DVB-T tuner - yes disable it from the webui. Try that first and re-boot.

It’s in the adapters directory which you listed above.

rm ~/.hts/tvheadend/input/linuxdvb/adapters/374dfbde2337aa4ad054475a194767c8

62

Thanks. Just did both - deleted the file, disabled both the DVB-T’s, rebooted. But still no channels found with w-scan, and still same result in tvheadend:

2018-06-19 12:51:22.528 mpegts: 450MHz in Parknet - tuning on Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1
2018-06-19 12:51:22.528 subscription: 0001: "scan" subscribing to mux "450MHz", weight: 6, adapter: "Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1", network: "Parknet", service: "Raw PID Subscription"
2018-06-19 12:51:23.475 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400
2018-06-19 12:51:25.509 linuxdvb: Panasonic MN88473 #0 : DVB-C #1 - poll TIMEOUT
2018-06-19 12:51:27.528 mpegts: 450MHz in Parknet - scan no data, failed
2018-06-19 12:51:27.528 subscription: 0001: "scan" unsubscribing
2018-06-19 12:51:29.473 http: 192.168.0.118: HTTP/1.1 POST /api/mpegts/input/network_list -- 400
63

@Hetoft Is there any chance that the IEC cable is not inserted deep enough into the female connector of the OSMC dongle?
It behaves as if there would be not a signal at all.

65

It’s looking like you may have a defective stick. Unless it’s something obvious like @JimKnopf suggests, better email sales@osmc.tv.

66

That COULD actually be it (feel pretty stupid if that’s the case). I inserted it as far as it will go, but I’m not sure if it’s all the way inserted. It doesn’t really “stick” in place. My cable has this plastic thing around the connector, so maybe that’s in the way.

Pictures:
https://imgur.com/a/JYrVmPK

I didn’t have this issue with the Terratec, because that used a small, separate connector (the metal part in this picture: http://4news.it/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/cinergyterratec240908.jpg), which made it easy to plug it in.

Maybe I can try to get a hold on an extension cable or something which doesn’t have this plastic thing…

If this is the case and that will make it work, then I am so sorry for wasting your time.

68

The central connector looks rather distorted. Try squeezing it a bit with a pair of pliers.

1 Like
69

Tried that, no change at all. I might go and buy one of these later today or tomorrow, just to try it out: https://www.elextra.dk/details/H20560/bnc-hun-til-coaxtv-han - it looks as though that might be able to go in an bit further.

70

That won’t help unless you have a BNC socket to fit it to. I doubt it is a matter of how deep the plug goes in, TBH.