[mythtv] Problems with Hauppauge Nova TD Dual Tuner USB Stick and Mythtv, no problems in Windows!

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:32:50 +0100, you wrote:

>On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 02:31:18 +0100, Stephen Worthington  
><stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:23:35 +0100, you wrote:
>>
>>> Another data point. I've been fighting my Nova TD ever since I upgraded 
>>> to
>>> Ubuntu 12.10 with MythTV 0.25.2. Well actually I've been fighting my TD 
>>> ever
>>> since I bought it, but before 12.10 I felt like I was winning.
>>>
>>> My memory fades, but I think the magic fix in the past was setting the
>>> bandwidth to auto. With 12.10/0.25 my MythTV log was full of auto 
>>> bandwidth
>>> not being a valid setting, so I changed to using 8MHz bandwidth and can 
>>> now
>>> occasionally get a lock, but mostly just end up with partial locks.
>>>
>>> Interestingly, tzap has no trouble tuning:
>>>
>>> $ head -n1 channels.conf
>>> BBC ONE Scot:522000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:
>>> QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_32:HIERARCHY_NONE:101:102:4220
>>>
>>> $ tzap -c channels.conf "BBC ONE Scot"
>>> using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
>>> reading channels from file 'channels.conf'
>>> tuning to 522000000 Hz
>>> video pid 0x0065, audio pid 0x0066
>>> status 0f | signal f9ee | snr 00d1 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
>>> status 1f | signal ffff | snr 010f | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | 
>>> FE_HAS_LOCK
>>> ^C
>>>
>>> So something changed, but I'm still struggling to find out what.
>>>
>>> Good luck,
>>> Ed
>>
>> There are options on drivers that can affect things. You set them
>> from the /etc/modprobe.d directory. My Hauppauge WinTV Nova TD-500
>> PCI dual tuner card has one that turns on the low noise amplifier. It
>> is supposed to work automatically now, in current driver versions, but
>> in older drivers it had to be set manually, and caused problems
>> exactly like yours. So maybe it is not turning on automatically and
>> needs to be forced on.
>>
>> You can find the options for drivers by using the modinfo command. You
>> need to know the name of the driver - in my case, it is
>> dvb_usb_dib0700 so the command:
>>
>> modinfo dvb_usb_dib0700
>>
>> produces a big listing with these "parm" values at the end:
>>
>> parm: force_lna_activation:force the activation of
>> Low-Noise-Amplifyer(s) (LNA), if applicable for the device (default:
>> 0=automatic/off). (int)
>> parm: debug:set debugging level (1=info,2=fw,4=fwdata,8=data
>> (or-able)). (int)
>> parm: nb_packet_buffer_size:Set the dib0700 driver data
>> buffer size. This parameter corresponds to the number of TS packets.
>> The actual size of the data buffer corresponds to this parameter
>> multiplied by 188 (def ault: 21) (int)
>> parm: adapter_nr:DVB adapter numbers (array of short)
>>
>> So putting a line like this in a file in /etc/modeprobe.d (eg
>> options-dvb.conf) would force my LNA on:
>>
>> options dvb_usb_dib0700 force_lna_activation=1
>>
>> Your driver name may be different - you can find a list of all the
>> driver names using a command like:
>>
>> modprobe -l | grep dvb-usb
>>
>> There is probably a way of finding driver names from /proc or /sys
>> somewhere (I have never figured that out), and the driver name should
>> show up in dmesg and kern.log when it is loaded. This is from my
>> dmesg:
>>
>> [ 19.287457] usbcore: registered new interface driver
>> dvb_usb_dib0700
>>
>> Some drivers also have debug options there that you can use to make
>> them tell you more about what they are doing.
>
>Also experiment with the tuning delay set in mythtv-setup/Capture Cards.  
>That affects Partial Lock issues. Maybe the upgrade upset the Myth/tuner  
>synchronisation.

Yes, my Hauppauge WinTV Nova TD-500 PCI card is supposed to need a 500
ms tuning delay.  I set it to that and it worked, so I never tried
smaller delays.  Your Nova TD USB stick sounds as though it may be
using very similar hardware and might well need that delay too.