[Solved] UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

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diyhouse
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[Solved] UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

I have a mythtv 0.28.1 (16.04) system running a TBS6982 Dual Freesat receiver and a TBS6285 Quad freeview receiver, with the latest drivers installed.
I have deleted all tuning data,.. ( NOT the cards this time,.. but that does not 'appear' to make a difference ) I have done a basic install and used the following SAT tuning setups as given at the end of this post.

Now I have noticed some channels are missing,.. eg Pick +1 and challenge,... I'm sure there are others,... I have looked at the Mux's locked,.. and they stop around 11680000Hz,... So I have tried the following tune:-
11836000 H 27500000 DVB-S 5/6 QPSK 0.35
But this locks no valid signals....

Am I missing something,... or is there a limit somewhere even though these channels are show as being transmitted un-encrypted.

Can anyone give me some pointers on how can I tune these so-say missing channels.

Many tx

Code: Select all

Freq: 10714000
Polarity: Horizontal
Symbol rate: 22000000
Mod Sys: DVB-S
FEC: 5/6
Modulation: QPSK
Inversion: leave at auto
Rolloff: leave at 0.35
------
Freq: 10847000
Polarity: Vertical
Symbol rate: 23000000
Mod Sys: DVB-S2
FEC: 2/3
Modulation: 8PSK
Inversion: leave at auto
Rolloff: leave at 0.35
Last edited by diyhouse on Mon Mar 26, 2018 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
MikeB2013
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

When you scanning did you see, can't remember the exact wording, but something like "..found n conflicting SCTE channels.." window ?

On my system the missing channels are in there, each has to be selected individually.

I use TBS 6981 and only set Freq 10714000, Symbol rate 22000000, all other values are at default, I have not needed to use Freq 10847000 etc.

Mike
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diyhouse
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Hi Mike Yes,.. I seem to recall some messages like that,.. but I took the options to accept them and include them into the listings...

One other thing,.. Once I have finished my FreeSAT tuning I do a FreeView full retune,.. and this does generate some 248 conflicts which have to all be resolved manually. No sure this is an issue,.. but maybe clutching at straws...

interesting you only do one scan,.. do you get all the channels including the SD and HD channels locked from just one starting point/frequency?

I may give your single scan a go...
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

Yes, I get all SD and HD channels on Freesat using a single scan on 10714000.

My Freeview scans don't have any conflicts. I presume that you are using two different Video Sources, one for Freesat, one for Freeview.

I also use TBS cards, TBS 6280 (dual tuner) for Freeview and TBS 6981 (dual tuner) for Freesat.

If you need to delete your Capture Cards, use the option "Delete all capture cards", not the one "Delete all capture cards on <hostname>", the first ensures a clean database for the channel data. You can delete and re-add your Capture Cards at anytime, without loss of existing tuning data - just remember to reconfigure in Input Connections.
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

ah interesting,.. yes I use two different video sources,... although my freeview scan gives me ( today ) 248 conflicts,.. some of which is due to picking up two transmitters,.. Oxford and Hannington.

I seem to remember,.. from past scans that my freeview scan might remove some of the freeSAT scanned channels,.. but I may be mistaken,....

I must do a FreeSAT scan,.. do an sql data dump of channels,.. followed by a freeView scan.... I think...

But this will need some planning as it takes a long time to do all the scans... and I will start with a "delete all capture cards"
Last edited by diyhouse on Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MikeB2013
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

For your Freeview Video Source, there is an option network id (defaults to -1, which means any transmitter found) and can be set to the network id which if changed to the network id of a specific transmitter will limit the channel scan to that transmitter.

Table dtv_multiplex in mythconverg has the network id of all your multiplexes. Might be worth a try, note I have not used this as I don't have the multiple transmitter issue.

Mike
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diyhouse
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Tx for that pointer Mike,...
Ok step one,... for those following,..

My local networkid is shown as 9018,... my next step will be to use this in a retune ( to save the dozens of conflicts I normally get )

Code: Select all

invoke 
mysql  --user=mythtv --database=mythconverg --password=mypassword
mysql> select networkid from dtv_multiplex where sourceid=2;
+-----------+
| networkid |
+-----------+
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
|      9018 |
+-----------+
9 rows in set (0.00 sec)
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diyhouse
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Hi Mike, el all,.. Well with hopes high I did a full retune of channels this morning,....
did a retune of Freesat having cleared previous card data....
tried doing a single scan from 10417000 with 275... this failed,.. so did 10417000 with 22000000 and auto ,... and this did lock and load lots of channels both SD and HD,... however is did not lock either of the Pick channels... ( I assume this works because one mux links to another,.. or something.. but I dont know for sure )
I then tried some variations around 12207000,... but I could not get anything to lock,... So no Pick channels have locked... I am mystified.

Next did a full freeview scan,.. ( with hope that I would not get the multitude of duplicates, having set the network Id to 9018. ).
Ok,.. so not 248 duplicates this time,.. only 206 :-( ... )
It would seem that even some of the local transmitters have the same networkid,.... I guess to 'so-say' link them together...
However,.. deleting the unwanted Mux's and doing a re-tune existing mux's.. this seemed to work today, ( so a def Plus for the day!! ),.. previously when I tried this,.. freqid was missed off,.. now this was in days where I would shift freeview and freesat channels up 1000 and 50000 respectively,.. and then shift them down,.. but that was some years ago,.. and a 'bug' may have been fixed..
One 'funny' I noticed,.. is that I have some differently formatted channel numbers,.. can anyone explain this as I have not seen these before,.. as far as I know.

So still still no Pick tuned from FreeSAT... just the FreeView broadcast... I am curious,.. as to why I cannot scan or add a Mux from 12207000Hz... is this a feature I do not understand,.. can I add a single Mux,.. or do a scan from a set freq. for it to be locked,.. or am I missing the obvious...

Sorry lots of questions,... but many thanks for feeding back on what your doing and achieving.... this does give me hope..

Code: Select all

+-----------+--------+-----------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+---------------------+---------------------+
| channum   | chanid | serviceid | visible | sourceid | freqid | mplexid | xmltvid | callsign            | name                |
+-----------+--------+-----------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+---------------------+---------------------+
| __41168   |  43168 |     41168 |       0 |        2 | 31     |     145 |         | Trans World Radio   | Trans World Radio   |
| __6209    |   8209 |      6209 |       0 |        2 | 53     |     148 |         | BBC Gloucestershire | BBC Gloucestershire |
| __42-8600 |  11020 |      8600 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 11020               |                     |
| 1         |   2001 |     12928 |       0 |        2 | 50     |     152 |         | 5STAR               | 5STAR               |
| 42-8271   |  10691 |      8271 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10691               |                     |
| 42-8325   |  10745 |      8325 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10745               |                     |
| 42-8330   |  10750 |      8330 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10750               |                     |
| 42-8370   |  10790 |      8370 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10790               |                     |
| 42-8384   |  10804 |      8384 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10804               |                     |
| 42-8385   |  10805 |      8385 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10805               |                     |
| 42-8442   |  10862 |      8442 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10862               |                     |
| 42-8448   |  10868 |      8448 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10868               |                     |
| 42-8452   |  10872 |      8452 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10872               |                     |
| 42-8500   |  10920 |      8500 |       0 |        2 | 42     |     157 |         | 10920               |                     |
| 100       |   6171 |      4171 |       1 |        2 | 53     |     148 | 68104   | BBC ONE Oxford      | BBC ONE Oxford      |
| 122       |   2029 |     16032 |       1 |        2 | 50     |     152 | 17154   | BBC TWO             | BBC TWO 
MikeB2013
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

For Freeview there is another way to scan (as transmitters seen to have same network_id) when you get reception from multiple transmitters, this is to get the Frequency data for each of the multiplexes for specific transmitter, typically PSB1,PSB2,PSB3,COM4,COM5,COM6,COM7 and COM8.

This is available, in your case, at https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Oxford and https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Hannington

The following is based on my Xubuntu 16.04 install with mythtv version 29 (mythtv 0.28 is similar)

Based on my own transmitter Sandy Heath, doing a Full Scan (Tuned) on PSB1 multiplex should give all the other SD multiplex channels as well. The HD multiplexes will each have to scanned separately, again using Full Scan (Tuned). The Frequency data on the Freeview pages is in MHz, mythtv needs Hz, so just add six zeros after the first 3 digits of the Frequency (you should be able to ignore any decimals), e.g. C45 (666.0MHz) needs to input as 666000000 for mythtv Frequency, Bandwidth 8 MHz and Mod Sys DVB-T (for SD) or DVB-T2 (for HD). Note that some tuner drivers are more intelligent than others, e.g. auto switch between DVB-T and DVB-T2 and also work out Bandwidth. I have assumed "dumb" drivers, in that Frequency, Bandwidth and Mod Sys should be explicitly be set, leave everything else at default.

Before doing Full Scan (Tuned) you need to:
1. Stop mythbackend (sudo systemctl stop mythtv-backend.service). This is vital otherwise scanning will not work, as mythbackend will still control the tuners, mythtv-setup requires exclusive access to tuners when scanning.

2. Delete any existing Transports for your Freeview Video Source using mythtv-setup Channel Editor Edit Transports (just makes sure there are no transports from any previous scans).

3. Now you use Channel Scan (still within Channel Editor), make sure Video Source is set to whatever name you gave to Freeview Video Source.

For Freesat issue, Pick is on:
Frequency 12207000
Polarity Vertical
Symbol Rate 27500000
FEC 5/6
Mod Sys DVB-S

Again, some drivers may more intelligent than others, on my TBS tuners I only have to set Frequency, Polarity and Symbol Rate, everything else is handled by the driver, but you can set the others (FEC and Mod Sys) it does no harm.

I would just do Full Scan (Tuned) with Pick data, this will take a while. If your previous scans did find Frequency for Pick, you could try Scan of existing single transport (Transport drop down should have 12207000 available for selection). All my scans have Pick in the Conflicting SCTE channel pop up.

Mike
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diyhouse
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Mike,.. Many thanks for taking the time to respond... you have given me some additional stuff beyond what I have previously have done/used,...
I will give this a go over the weekend when I will have some time to dedicate to a full retune scan etc...

I will try again,... but I'm pretty sure I tried those values for pick,.. but need to verify. But it failed previously,... One other comment,... I do not get any mux's above 12MHz,.. it sort of tops out at 11.8MHz... area... ie it does not seem to pass the encrypted sky channels... But we shall see.

Tx and Rgds
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Hi Mike,.. Many thanks for your input so far,.. Just to let you know... I have continued the retune..

1st Starting with FreeView,.. I cleared out all Mux's and then tried to tune from a known Mux,.. PSB1, on 730.2MHz... Hoping to find other associated Mux's... This method failed...
Thinking my numbers were off or a setting incorrect... I did a full scan,.. deleted unwanted Mux's and left just the 730.2MHz Mux,... did a full tune again,.. from known Mux,.. and to pull in any new found Mux's... This to failed.
I then tried several other options and variations,.. of tuning against a known Mux,.. with the option set to include new found associated Mux's... These all failed for me,.. So I concluded I was not going to get that tuning method to work.
I then tried a second plan to tune for each Mux one by one... knowing the input frequencies... and some patience,... this did work and gave me all the channels I wanted without tthe duplicates and repeats from other Transmitters,... ( In my initial full tune,.. I had more 'rogue' Mux's than proper Oxford Ones.. )
But All correct Mux's now tuned.... ( I will see how things go when I do re-scan,.. as I extensively change the channel Number in order to get them to match up with the SAT channels... )
2nd Stage was to retune FreeSAT,.. and yes a single scan picked up all the required channels,... But not the Pick and Quest channels...
For some reason,.. if I tune with the frequencies given in flysat and the Kingofsat,.. with the options given,.. I get 80% signal,.. but never any 'LOCKED' feedback.... I have tried various auto settings,.. but none seem to work and lock...

Any more thoughts,... my head is going round in circles with all this channel tuning and fixing channel Numbers for FreeView/SAT... and XMLTV ids... :D :D
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

Good that Freeview scan seems to be sorted, now for Freesat.

I use the following urls for UK Satellite data, mainly lyngsat.
http://en.kingofsat.net/pos-28.2E.php
https://www.lyngsat.com/Astra-2E-2F-2G.html

Can you confirm the mythtv version you have - just post the terminal output from "mythbackend --version" I need to confirm that you are running the most up to date version of mythtv 0.28 i.e. mythtv fixes/0.28 and not the original install from Ubuntu repository (it only contains a very old version).

Can you also provide details of the drivers for your cards e.g. TBS closed or open source and which version.

And finally can you paste the output from the following mysql command in a terminal (you will be prompted to enter the mythtv password). This will give a list of all channels found.

Code: Select all

mysql -umythtv -p mythconverg  -e "select name,channum,serviceid,sourceid from channel order by sourceid,name;"
Mike
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diyhouse
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by diyhouse »

Hi mike tx for getting back so quickly..
Yes I have used those urls myself for frequency and other SAT info...

I use the latest 'Standard' TBS drivers,...... dated 30th March 2017.... which was current a few days ago when I looked..

Txt file attached of channel listing... too long for thread...

So this is the detailed version Stuff,... So 28.1+ I think from what I am reading...

Code: Select all

fred@mythtv0:~$ mythfrontend --version
xprop:  unable to open display ''
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version : v0.28.1-69-g5d9b8f1
MythTV Branch : fixes/0.28
Network Protocol : 88
Library API : 0.28.20161120-1
QT Version : 5.5.1
Options compiled in:
 linux profile use_hidesyms using_alsa using_oss using_pulse using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_crystalhd using_dvb using_firewire using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_vbox using_ceton using_hdpvr using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_libcec using_libcrypto using_libdns_sd using_libfftw3 using_libxml2 using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl using_opengl_video using_opengl_themepainter using_qtwebkit using_qtscript using_qtdbus using_sdl using_taglib using_v4l2 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_profiletype using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_freetype2 using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vaapi using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_mheg using_libass using_libxml2
fred@mythtv0:~$ mythbackend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version : v0.28.1-69-g5d9b8f1
MythTV Branch : fixes/0.28
Network Protocol : 88
Library API : 0.28.20161120-1
QT Version : 5.5.1
Options compiled in:
 linux profile use_hidesyms using_alsa using_oss using_pulse using_pulseoutput using_backend using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_crystalhd using_dvb using_firewire using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_vbox using_ceton using_hdpvr using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_libcec using_libcrypto using_libdns_sd using_libfftw3 using_libxml2 using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl using_opengl_video using_opengl_themepainter using_qtwebkit using_qtscript using_qtdbus using_sdl using_taglib using_v4l2 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_profiletype using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_bindings_php using_freetype2 using_mythtranscode using_opengl using_vaapi using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_mheg using_libass using_libxml2
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MikeB2013
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by MikeB2013 »

You are missing quite a few Freesat channels. When I scan on a TBS 6981 I get around 500 channels, you have around 370.

You mythtv version is almost upto date, there is an update from a few hours ago (the automatic build system has recently been retriggered, as it was stuck due the Ubuntu build farm being upgraded to handle Meltdown/Spectre mediations). Although I doubt the latest update will cure you Freesat scanning issue.

The TBS Drivers (which are closed source) in tbs-linux-drivers_v170330.zip do not even build on a current and fully up to date Xubuntu 16.04 LTS installation running mythtv fixes/0.28, which has the 4.13.0-32 kernel. I suspect you are still on a 4.10 series kernel (you can check by doing "uname -a" in a terminal session"). The 4.13 kernel series was recently added to 16.04 LTS to mitigate Meltdown/Spectre issues.

TBS support page (https://www.tbsdtv.com/download/?path=3_13) does not even list a linux driver for TBS 6982. TBS support does have the tbs-linux-drivers_v170330.zip for TBS 6285 (your Freeview tuner) . This suggests to me you need to use TBS open source drivers at https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/wiki

Here are my notes on how install the latest TBS open source drivers (they are essentially the same, just reordered to avoid having to troubleshoot build failures and symbols errors on reboot as on the wiki page.

Code: Select all

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git libproc-processtable-perl
sudo apt upgrade  
sudo reboot  				# only really needed if new kernel installed by sudo apt upgrade
#after the reboot
mkdir tbs_open_source_drivers
cd tbs_open_source_drivers
git clone https://github.com/tbsdtv/media_build.git
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media.git -b latest ./media
cd media_build
make dir DIR=../media
make allyesconfig
make -j4      # make sure no build failures, if there are sort them out  before doing the next steps.
sudo rm -rf /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/     # makes sure no hangovers for running kernel from previous installs
sudo make install
sudo reboot

As I don't have a TBS 6982 I don't know which driver it uses, my TBS 6981 needs firmware at https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/w ... 7-firmware

Note it does no harm to install the CX24117 firmware (Getting firmware from the Linux driver)

Mike
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Re: UK FreeSAT Tuning Question...

Post by alien878 »

Not sure if it is the same, but I had some issues with initial scanning for channels with my TBS 8922 on Astra.

Basically, I got it to work by first doing a tuned scan. This brought in some channels and MUXes. I then did 2 or 3 more scan of all known MUXes until nothing more is pulled in. It was as if new MUXes were not scanned until the next scan.

As for fixing the channel IDs (and getting rid of all the useless ones), I created a sql script that does it and looks something like this:

Code: Select all

update channel set channum="",visible=0,useonairguide=0;
update channel set channum=1,visible=1,useonairguide=1 where chanid=12150;
update channel set channum=2,visible=1,useonairguide=1 where chanid=22100;
...
Then, after a re-scan (needed as channels changes every once in a while), I just re-run the script after adding/removing the channels that have changed.

I built the script with the output of:

Code: Select all

SELECT DISTINCT channum,chanid,name,callsign,useonairguide,visible,icon FROM channel ORDER BY channum + 0;
A pain to build the first time, but once it works, fixing everything after a re-scan is easy.
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