[mythtv-users] will Nova-T 500 work?

[Henrik Beckman]

Almost every card loads firmware from a file, sound more like a design bug
or use of substandard components.


/Henrik


On 5/25/07, Ashley Bostock <abostock at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The original singer tuner nova-t cards required firmware to be loaded on
> the card each boot up which meant that, on a machine which turns itself on
> and off for recording, after several months the flash on the card would die
> a slow death taking longer to load each boot. Eventually dying completely
> with it just erroring unable to write at all and the card was useless. I had
> this happen on 3 cards I owned and also 2 a friend had.
>
> The second version of the nova-t change some chipset on the card and
> didn't require firmware loading, I still have these cards working fine today
> (got the originals replaced with these).
>
> So being that the nova-t 500 requires firmware loading does that mean it
> will have the same problem? or was the original problem something like a
> kernel bug that used to kill the cards somehow?
>
> Ash.
>
> On 4/23/07, Ben Lancaster <lists at benlancaster.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> > 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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> >
>
>
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