[mythtv-users] PC-TV 290e issue

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:37:19 +0000, you wrote:

>I have recently had problems with reception, as noted by some of my recent posts here.
>
>My reception method consists of two Hauppauge Nova-T USB tuners plus a PC-TV 290e which covers the 
>HD transports we can get here.
>
>At the weekend, I noticed that I only had two tuners registering and played around at the back of 
>the server, moving the stub cable to other USB sockets to try and isolate the fault. No Joy. I have 
>just pulled the 209e and tried it in another box: The result is:
>
>[  606.287833] usb usb1-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
>[  607.255811] usb usb1-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
>[  607.255891] usb usb1-port3: attempt power cycle
>[  608.539779] usb usb1-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
>[  609.507740] usb usb1-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
>[  609.507822] usb usb1-port3: unable to enumerate USB device
>
>When I pulled it I noticed that the device was sticky. The glazed front part seems fine but the 
>plastic at the back and sides is deteriorating, to the point that I can make a dent if I use a 
>fingernail.
>
>A plastic item used for these purposes shouldn't deteriorate that fast! I would recommend that all 
>those who have these - and possibly the 292e as well - have a check to see if the device is still 
>physically sound. Out of sight, out of mind, etc.
>
>So I'm looking to replace this thing and, eventually, the Nova-Ts as well since we'll be going to T2 
>in due course. The two options I have looked so far at are an HDHR, probably a quad (£150 here) or a 
>TBS6205 (about the same) since I do have a spare PCIe slot for it.
>
>There may be other options, anybody like to share experiences? I'm in the UK.

I have two older model PCTV Nano Stick (73e) DVB-T tuners, and they
are also sticky.  But they are still working well.  So I do not think
the sticky plastic is related to the tuner failing.  I also have had
an ancient Hauppauge HVR-900 USB analogue/DVB-T tuner die recently.
Its symptoms were similar to yours, but when I plug it into the NEC
USB 3 PCIe in one of my old PCs, it does power up.  So I think those
symptoms are indicating a power supply problem, possibly bad
capacitors.  The old NEC chipset used on that card is noted for being
able to handle bad USB devices.

I have a TBS6209 8 tuner DVB-T2/T/C card, and the TBS6205 seems to be
using similar technology - it has only one RF input, and is likely to
have an onboard low noise amplifier and splitter to provide the signal
to all four tuners.  The TBS6205 (unlike my TBS6209) also has an RF
output to loop on to more tuners if you need it - that is also likely
to be being fed from the amplifier splitter and will therefore give a
good signal.

The downside of most TBS cards is that there are no builtin drivers in
the kernel - you have to download and compile the drivers every time
the kernel is updated.  You have to install the new kernel, reboot,
then download, compile and install the TBS V4L drivers and reboot
again.  And the download is a full Linux V4L driver set, so if you are
using any other new tuners with drivers that have only been recently
added to the kernel, the TBS V4L drivers may not have that new code
yet.  See here:

https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/wiki

If you can live with that, I do recommend the TBS cards that are using
these new chips.  I also have an 8 tuner TBS6909 DVB-S2 card using a
similar chipset, and they are both great.  They seem to have excellent
sensitivity and the onboard amplifier/splitter is much, much better
than having to do an external amplifier and splitter setup yourself.
It has meant that I can use more of my main aerial signal to give
signal to another PC on the other side of the house.  And a decent
amplifier or amplifier/splitter is not cheap either, so factor that
into the cost of using other boards with separate inputs or only an
onboard splitter.