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

[Ashley Bostock]

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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