[mythtv-users] will Nova-T 500 work?
Ben Lancaster
lists at benlancaster.co.uk
Mon Apr 23 22:44:37 UTC 2007
On 23 Apr 2007, at 22:53, Nick Morrott wrote:
> On 23/04/07, Frank Mckinney <krush_groove83 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all, soon-to-be new user here...
>>
>> I'm building up a system and in an enthusiastic impulse eBaying
>> spree I
>> purchased a Nova-T 500 tuner card without doing a lot of research
>> if it will
>> work or not. In doing much reading after I got the card I've found
>> out the
>> 500 is from an older generation of cards, and the preferred
>> Hauppage card
>> seems to be the PVR 350 or 150. So basically I'm just checking of
>> the Nova-T
>> 500 will be okay, relatively easy to set up, etc.?
>
> There have been many recent threads on this and the linux-dvb lists
> about problems using the Nova-T 500 which have hopefully been ironed
> out now (USB disconnects) - you need to ensure you use the very latest
> kernel for your chosen distro, and follow (and read the archives of)
> these two lists closely. I'm not certain if all the problems have been
> fixed - perhaps a Nova-T 500 user could chime in here :)
Nova-T 500 user chiming in!
I've been using a Nova-T 500 for a few months now, and now that the
USB Disconnects problem is fixed, I'm very happy with the card indeed
and considering a second already. It tunes quickly, and because it's
two-tuners-on-one-board, you don't get the signal strength dip that
you get from splitting your signal into two for two cards.
>> Not truly impressive specs but everything apart from the CPU and
>> tuner card
>> was free (yay Freecycle!). I'm hoping to make the MythTV box a
>> backend and
>> use an Xbox system as a frontend. Which brings to mind my next
>> question for
>> another post...
>>
>> Anyway, I'd really appreciate if anyone can point me to a guide,
>> walkthrough, etc., about using the Nova-T 500, or just tell me
>> simple 'yes,
>> it will work' :)
>
> I can't provide a specific guide, but the card should be set up like
> any other DVB card in Linux (use correct drivers etc), only you
> configure it twice in MythTV because it's a dual tuner.
Make sure you're using a recent 2.6.20 (2.6.20-3 and above I believe,
or more specifically 2.6.20-1.2300 or higher on FC based systems)
kernel as they contain the USB disconnects fix. You'll also need a
firmware for the card, in this instance dvb-usb-dib0700-01.fw, which
you need to drop into /lib/firmware/ - a bit of googling will help
you find that. The good news is that it seems the firmware is under
active development, so you may well see improvements with new Kernels
as time goes on, although personally this is the best card of the few
I've tried so I'm not sure that there's really much room for
improvement.
>> If it matters, I'm in the UK and planning to connect everything to
>> either a
>> Freeview aerial (one reason for the Nova-T 500) and/or a Sky
>> digibox...
>
> Either way is possible - DVB is easiest because you don't need another
> capture card (you'd need an analogue card such as a PVR-150 to record
> from Sky) and you can also get your listings over the air using the
> EIT program listings.
I've found EIT to be a little slower and less reliable on this card
in the past when compared to my Compro DVB-T300 card, but that might
be related to the (now fixed) USB Disconnects issue that you've heard
about. DVB Radio and MHEG (interactive TV) also work well and are
nice and responsive, although I don't know if that's a software/
driver thing as opposed to a hardware thing.
Interested to hear how you get on using it on Ubuntu - piece of cake
on Fedora.
Ben
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