pctv 292e tripplestick no HD channels in mythtv

[halucigenia]

Hi, I recently purchased a new pctv 292e tripplestick as I was having issues with my pctv 290e missing recordings every so often and having to reboot to get it back up and running.

I was of the understanding that the 292e was supported in linux kernels >=3.16 so after upgrading I gave it a shot. I had to download a firmware file - dvb-demod-si2168-02.fw to get it working as this did not seem to be available after the upgrade. I can tune to HD channels OK using dvbv5-scan no problem but mythtv will not pick up any HD channels when I scan for channels from the input connections for this source.

Is there anyone else using this tuner successfully for HD in mythtv or anyone working on getting it functional for mythtv?

[deadite66]

re: the 290e recording problem there is a long running usb problem.
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72891
this might be your problem.

luckily it seems to happen early in the morning when not i'm recording anything.

using a program called sec (simple event correlator) and usbreset i've have a script to automaticly reset the dongle and mythbackend, it works for me but may not be convenient for others.

/etc/default/sec

Code: Select all

#Defaults for sec
RUN_DAEMON="yes"
DAEMON_ARGS="-conf=/etc/sec.conf -input=/var/log/kern.log -pid=/var/run/sec.pid -detach -syslog=daemon -log=/var/log/sec.log"

/etc/sec.conf

Code: Select all

type=Single
ptype=RegExp
pattern=.*submit of urb 0 failed.*
 desc=$0
 action=pipe '%s details:$0' mail -s 'Possible DVB-T2 Problem' lee@Fusion; shellcmd /root/reset-usb-dvb.sh

reset-usb-dvb.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
stop mythtv-backend
/usr/local/bin/usbreset $(lsusb | awk -F '[ :]' ' /PCTV/ { print "/dev/bus/usb/"$2"/"$4 } '|sed -n '1p')
sleep 2
/usr/local/bin/usbreset $(lsusb | awk -F '[ :]' ' /PCTV/ { print "/dev/bus/usb/"$2"/"$4 } '|sed -n '2p')
sleep 4
start mythtv-backend

usbreset available here http://askubuntu.com/questions/645/how- ... mmand-line

[halucigenia]

Thanks deadite66 I will try your script next time it happens.
It's interesting that the bug report mentions EIT scanning as since I have set up the Atlas grabber I have disabled any EIT scanning on all my sources, maybe that will help also.

I guess buying the 292e as a waste of money until I can get HD working then.

[stuartm]

Some hardware or their drivers are unable to cope with determining tuning information such as modulation automatically. MythTV will generally try to give the hardware the most specific information possible for this reason, but this information isn't always available.

In the UK the HD multiplexes (group of channels) switched to a new modulation, 256-QAM, after the digital switchover was complete. This modulation was not previously valid for DVB-T, it was added to the specification only recently (it's not even in the most recent released version of the DVB SI specification from this May).

To cut a long story short, I've just this minute pushed a change to 0.27-fixes which may help in scanning the HD channels (those using 256-QAM) with hardware that doesn't support automatic detection.

If you are unable to upgrade to the latest 0.27-fixes or the change doesn't help, then you can always try a scan where you manually enter the frequency and modulation of the HD multiplexes. Frequency information for different transmitters can be found on sites such as ukfree.tv

[halucigenia]

thanks stuartm, but after a few updates and more testing the 292e is still not tuning into HD channels even if I try and do a scan manually entering the parameters.

[deadite66]

Lots of movement on the submit urb bug thread this week, hopefully we can see it resolved soon(ish).

[deadite66]

Compiled a kernel with the patch Alan Stern offered and so far so good, no submit urb errors.

[stuartm]

Great news

[halucigenia]

Yes, great news, but I just needed to use deadite66's usbreset command today for the first time (I have had to reboot for other reasons since starting this thread) and it worked. But when will I no longer need it, will it be in a kernel update soon?

[deadite66]

3.18 will likely get released this sunday, but 3.16.7 works nicely for me so i patched and compiled that.

[halucigenia]

I just found this :-

This is a fork of MythTV created by David Matthews.

The fixes/0.27 branch is my "production" branch. It includes a number of
my patches. Other branches are either inherited from the original or
are branches of master designed for pull requests.

dvbt2support. This branch contains code to support DVB-T2 on tuners that
do not auto-switch between DVB-T and DVB-T2. It has been submitted as a
pull request and trac ticket (January 2015).

https://github.com/dcjm/mythtv
Also see
https://www.marc.info/?l=mythtv-users&m ... 503839&w=1
For a discussion on how this development came to be.
So, It looks like there is development for DVB-T2 devices that "do not auto-switch" like the pctv 292e.
I don't know how long it will take to get into the main fixes/0.27 branch but I will try and compile the fork myself and see how it works.

[Carrot Cruncher]

Hi. First post and apologies for bumping a fairly old thread. Does anyone know if there is any progress on this as I've just bought a PCTV 292e Tripplestick without realising this limitation in MythTV.

There doesn't appear to have been any update on the trac ticket (https://code.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/12342) or pull request (https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/pull/90) for some months now.

I'm just wondering if the functionality is likely to be coming soon to MythTV, or should I consider returning the 292e in favour of something that supports auto switching. Thanks.

[stuarta]

We need to look at pulling that code in. todo_list++

[Carrot Cruncher]

Thanks for responding. I'm just an end user but if there is anything I can do to help, just let me know. Cheers.

[stuarta]

I've taken the plunge and bought one of these, so i'll work on getting this sorted out.

Cheers
Stuart