Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T USB stick problems

[Sian Mountbatten]

The device is recognised by the kernel, but the kernel does not give any
device name (such as /dev/video0). I have not been able to connect
the device to any multimedia program. I've tried me-tv, mplayer2, vlc,
kaffeine, mythtv, xbmc. Initially, I just want to watch TV with it.

--
Sian Mountbatten
Algol 68 specialist

[J G Miller]

On Monday, April 16th, 2012, at 19:13:43h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> The device is recognised by the kernel, but the kernel does not give any
> device name (such as /dev/video0).

You need to post the details from dmesg of what happens when the device
is detected by the kernel.

And remember your first point of reference is

<http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-NOVA-T-Stick>

You need to check the exact tuner model number and whether or not you
have the firmware relevant to that tuner installed in /lib/firmware.

[Sian Mountbatten]

dmesg|grep dvb gives:
---------------------------------------
[82207.946748] usb 1-1.5: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci_hcd
[82208.032861] usb 1-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=2040,
idProduct=7060
[82208.032866] usb 1-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
SerialNumber=3
[82208.032870] usb 1-1.5: Product: Nova-T Stick
[82208.032872] usb 1-1.5: Manufacturer: Hauppauge
[82208.032874] usb 1-1.5: SerialNumber: 4027795686
[82208.033413] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T Stick' in cold state,
will try to load a firmware
[82208.037302] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file
'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
[82208.238611] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[82208.739615] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T Stick' in warm state.
[82208.739662] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to
the software demuxer.
[82208.739777] DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge Nova-T Stick)
[82209.065737] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
[82209.069487] MT2060: successfully identified (IF1 = 1220)
[82209.545508] Registered IR keymap rc-dib0700-rc5
[82209.545649] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/rc/rc1/input7
[82209.545832] rc1: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/rc/rc1
[82209.545943] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 50 msecs.
[82209.545947] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized
and connected.
---------------------------------------
The firmware loaded is correct according to linuxtv.org.

[J G Miller]

On Monday, April 16th, 2012, at 22:23:24h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> dmesg|grep dvb gives:

> [82208.037302] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file
> 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
> [82208.238611] dib0700: firmware started successfully.

So it is all ready to be used then as confirmed by

> [82209.545947] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized
> and connected.

So there should be device files ready for use at

ll /dev/dvb/adapter0/
total 0
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-04-17 00:05 ./
0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 2012-04-17 00:05 ../
0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 0 2012-04-17 00:05 demux0
0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 1 2012-04-17 00:05 dvr0
0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 3 2012-04-17 00:05 frontend0
0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 2 2012-04-17 00:05 net0


And if you do lsusb you should see the device on your
USB bus.

Now just fire up kaffeine and click on 'Digital TV',
and hopefully you can use scan channels in "auto" mode,
and it will find local stations if you have connected a
sufficiently adequate antenna.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 16/04/12 23:09, J G Miller wrote:
> On Monday, April 16th, 2012, at 22:23:24h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>
>> dmesg|grep dvb gives:
>
>> [82208.037302] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file
>> 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
>> [82208.238611] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
>
> So it is all ready to be used then as confirmed by
>
>> [82209.545947] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized
>> and connected.
>
> So there should be device files ready for use at
>
> ll /dev/dvb/adapter0/
> total 0
> 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-04-17 00:05 ./
> 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 2012-04-17 00:05 ../
> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 0 2012-04-17 00:05 demux0
> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 1 2012-04-17 00:05 dvr0
> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 3 2012-04-17 00:05 frontend0
> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 2 2012-04-17 00:05 net0

Yes that is so.

> And if you do lsusb you should see the device on your
> USB bus.
>

lsusb reports a Hauppauge Nova-T Stick 2

> Now just fire up kaffeine and click on 'Digital TV',
> and hopefully you can use scan channels in "auto" mode,
> and it will find local stations if you have connected a
> sufficiently adequate antenna.

I fired up kaffeine, clicked on 'Digital TV' and then on 'Television'
and started a scan. kaffeine emitted the message
kaffeine(17013) DvbDevice::frontendEvent: tuning failed
five times. I have a DigiCom indoor antenna which is quite some size.
During the scan, the signal percentage was about 22%. Does that mean
anything to you?

The scan produced nothing, but tvdigital.com reported that the local
transmitter has a fault which is being repaired, so that may be why I
have no input.

I shall try again tomorrow.

Thank you for your time.

[J G Miller]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:12:18 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> I fired up kaffeine, clicked on 'Digital TV' and then on 'Television'
> and started a scan. kaffeine emitted the message
> kaffeine(17013) DvbDevice::frontendEvent: tuning failed
> five times.

Yes I tried with a Terratec Cinergy T2 USB with Kaffeine and
if it cannot "lock" on a frequency to read the multiplex
information because of no or weak or poor quality signal,
all you get is tuning failed messages.

Kaffeine is not the best for doing scans though.

> I have a DigiCom indoor antenna which is quite some size.

Indoor antennas will only work if you are sufficiently close to the
transmitter or several floors above street level.

> During the scan, the signal percentage was about 22%. Does that mean
> anything to you?

It means it cannot see the signal. With digital signals it is not
just the signal signal strength which is important, but also the
signal quality.

> The scan produced nothing, but tvdigital.com reported that the local
> transmitter has a fault which is being repaired, so that may be why I
> have no input.

Well if there are no signals being transmitted due to a transmitter
fault, your hardware and kaffeine is not going to shew you any
TV picture ;)

> I shall try again tomorrow.

Please do since everything else you have reported shews that your
hardware and software is correctly functioning.

You may also be interested in downloading and compiling w_scan

<http://wirbel.htpc-forum.DE/w_scan/index_en.html>

which can generate station lists configuration files for use
with a variety of programs including mplayer. Instead of
using mplayer directly, smplayer provides a nice interface
for changing TV stations when using mplayer.

w_scan also gives you the multiplex frequencies which you
would need if you want to stream stations with eg mumudvb
over your LAN.

[J G Miller]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:12:18 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> I fired up kaffeine, clicked on 'Digital TV' and then on 'Television'
> and started a scan. kaffeine emitted the message
> kaffeine(17013) DvbDevice::frontendEvent: tuning failed
> five times.

Yes I tried with a Terratec Cinergy T2 USB with Kaffeine and
if it cannot "lock" on a frequency to read the multiplex
information because of no or weak or poor quality signal,
all you get is tuning failed messages.

Kaffeine is not the best for doing scans though.

> I have a DigiCom indoor antenna which is quite some size.

Indoor antennas will only work if you are sufficiently close to the
transmitter or several floors above street level.

> During the scan, the signal percentage was about 22%. Does that mean
> anything to you?

It means it cannot see the signal. With digital signals it is not
just the signal signal strength which is important, but also the
signal quality.

> The scan produced nothing, but tvdigital.com reported that the local
> transmitter has a fault which is being repaired, so that may be why I
> have no input.

Well if there are no signals being transmitted due to a transmitter
fault, your hardware and kaffeine is not going to shew you any
TV picture ;)

> I shall try again tomorrow.

[Sian Mountbatten]

Went to the web-page indicated and could find no file to download. When
I used wget to get the file, it reported Not Found. A Google search for
w_scan gave the same web-site and the wget command, but I could not find
the script. If you have the script, could you send it to me via email as
an attachment?

Sincerely

[J G Miller]

On Tuesday, April 17th, 2012, at 14:02:59h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> On 17/04/12 02:27, J G Miller wrote:
>> On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:12:18 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>>

>> You may also be interested in downloading and compiling w_scan
>>
>> <http://wirbel.htpc-forum.DE/w_scan/index_en.html>
>

> Went to the web-page indicated and could find no file to download.

Oh yes there is, you are just not reading what it says on the page.


QUOTE

ChangeLog:

for Changelog and latest *Download* please look at the
German w_scan page, i will not update this page often.

UNQUOTE

And the link in that text takes you to

<http://wirbel.htpc-forum.DE/w_scan/index2.html>

and there at the bottom of the page is

Download w_scan

which is a link to the latest version

<http://wirbel.htpc-forum.de/w_scan/w_scan-20120415.tar.bz2>


I agree the site layout leaves much to be desired, but the route
to getting the download is present.


Talking of web sites, you mentioned

" ... but tvdigital.com reported ... "

There is no such web site as tvdigital.com

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 17/04/12 15:07, J G Miller wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 17th, 2012, at 14:02:59h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> On 17/04/12 02:27, J G Miller wrote:
>>> On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:12:18 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>>>
>>> You may also be interested in downloading and compiling w_scan
>>>
>>> <http://wirbel.htpc-forum.DE/w_scan/index_en.html>
>>
>> Went to the web-page indicated and could find no file to download.
>
>
> Oh yes there is, you are just not reading what it says on the page.
>
>
> QUOTE
>
> ChangeLog:
>
> for Changelog and latest *Download* please look at the
> German w_scan page, i will not update this page often.
>
> UNQUOTE
>
> And the link in that text takes you to
>
> <http://wirbel.htpc-forum.DE/w_scan/index2.html>
>
> and there at the bottom of the page is
>
> Download w_scan
>
> which is a link to the latest version
>
> <http://wirbel.htpc-forum.de/w_scan/w_scan-20120415.tar.bz2>
>
>
> I agree the site layout leaves much to be desired, but the route
> to getting the download is present.

Quite right and I stand corrected. I have now downloaded the tarball.
Many thanks.

>
> Talking of web sites, you mentioned
>
> " ... but tvdigital.com reported ... "
>
> There is no such web site as tvdigital.com

Quite right. The trouble is that I have done so many searches and surfed
so many web-sites that I've forgotten what I did. Many thanks for
pointing things out. Nothing like some people with their wits around
them. There is a site called www.tvdigital.de, but it's not what I've
been discovering. The digital switchover sites say that my area has
switched over to digital TV. www.ukfree.tv says that my local
transmitter (not the Inverness transmitter which is a relay) is
undergoing engineering works (Rosemarkie) so that is why I'm not getting
a signal.

[J G Miller]

On Tuesday, April 17th, 2012, at 15:43:44h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> I have now downloaded the tarball.

If you need any further assistance in compiling and installing,
just ask. Personally I recommend installing all packages built
from source on a system with a packaging system such as deb or
rpm to go in /usr/local.

And to keep things more manageable to use stow to keep them in
"package" directories under /usr/local/stow.

> There is a site called www.tvdigital.de,

I had not seen that one before now, seems to be financed by
lottery type promotion.

My preference for such a TV program guide is

<http://www.tvtoday.DE/tv-programm/>

For program schedules of UKofGB&NI stations, I would suggest

<http://www.tvguide.co.UK/>

> The digital switchover sites say that my area has
> switched over to digital TV.

Analog transmissions in your area were switched off
in October 2010.

> www.ukfree.tv says that my local transmitter (not the Inverness transmitter

Be advised that information on www.ukfree.tv is not always
entirely accurate.

> which is a relay) is undergoing engineering works (Rosemarkie) so that is
> why I'm not getting a signal.

Yes if Rosemarkie is not transmitting, then not of its relays can transmit
anything. However, it is highly unlikely that all of the multiplexes
are off for over 24 hours and the engineering work is only going to
result in short interruptions.

I suggest that your problem is that you are not getting enough signal
to your USB device from the simple antenna supplied, especially if you
are using it at street level and if the direction towards the transmitter
or relay is obscured by other houses or trees or other large objects.

Do you have a loft or external UHF antenna pointed at Inverness or
Rosemarkie? If so, then you should connect that to your USB stick
and then try doing a scan.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 17/04/12 16:04, J G Miller wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 17th, 2012, at 15:43:44h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>
>> I have now downloaded the tarball.
>
> If you need any further assistance in compiling and installing,
> just ask. Personally I recommend installing all packages built
> from source on a system with a packaging system such as deb or
> rpm to go in /usr/local.

I agree and that's where I put 'em.

> And to keep things more manageable to use stow to keep them in
> "package" directories under /usr/local/stow.

Have just installed stow and will examine the documentation.

> For program schedules of UKofGB&NI stations, I would suggest
>
> <http://www.tvguide.co.UK/>

> Yes if Rosemarkie is not transmitting, then not of its relays can transmit
> anything. However, it is highly unlikely that all of the multiplexes
> are off for over 24 hours and the engineering work is only going to
> result in short interruptions.
>
> I suggest that your problem is that you are not getting enough signal
> to your USB device from the simple antenna supplied, especially if you
> are using it at street level and if the direction towards the transmitter
> or relay is obscured by other houses or trees or other large objects.

I have a Philex DigiTop digital TV antenna which is amplified. My
sitting-room (where the computer is) is on the 1st floor and I am near
the centre of Inverness.

> Do you have a loft or external UHF antenna pointed at Inverness or
> Rosemarkie? If so, then you should connect that to your USB stick
> and then try doing a scan.

I do not have a loft or external UHF antenna.

w_scan
======
I don't understand the output of the program. I've used the -k option to
get o/p suitable for Kaffeine, but am not sure how to get Kaffeine to
use the file. (w_scan -k >channels.dvb).

Your replies are truly helpful. Thank you for taking the time to
consider my problems.

Sincerely

[J G Miller]

On Wednesday, April 18th, 2012, at 00:18:17h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Have just installed stow and will examine the documentation.

The way to use stow is as follows

1) download source code, unpack, and configure using
--prefix=/usr/local (the default) or perhaps --prefix=/usr/local/X11R6
when appropriate

2) compile

3) then instead of doing make install, create directory /usr/local/stow/{package_name}
preferably with package_name including the version number

4) then make prefix=/usr/local/stow/{package_name} install, or if you specified X11R6,
make prefix=/usr/local/stow/{package_name}/X11R6

NB some software packages do not respect the prefix= standard and it is necessary
to set the environmental variable DESTDIR instead to the value of prefix

And sometimes the software package developer respects neither or forgets to
use prefix or DESTDIR for some item and one has to move manually the file to
the stow/{package_name} directory

5) Where it gets complicated is if libtool is involved since libtool insists that
usr be in the path. So in that case one has to install to
/usr/local/stow/{package_name}[/X11R6]/usr/local/{package_name[/X11R6]
and then after install has completed move all the directories up and delete
the empty directories usr/local/stow/{package_name}[/X11R6]/usr/ etc

6) then cd /usr/local/stow and stow -v package_name

7) stow then creates the necessary symbolic links to /usr/local/bin /usr/local/lib etc

This way you keep all the package files in one location and when wishing to uninstall
(eg to replace with a newer version) stow -Dv package_name && rm -fr package_name
and thus no need to have the original makefile around to do make uninstall and hope
that the software developer remembered to list all installed files under the uninstall
target.

You may say that for one or two software packages it is all just to much effort though.
In my case I have actually created an unpack, compile, install, and stow script where
after creating an initial "spec" file, eg for dvb-apps

BUILD_ROOT="/srv/hg"
PACKAGE_NAME="dvb-apps"
INSTALL_ROOT="/usr/local"
DOCUMENT_FILES="README"
MAKE_OPTIONS="ttusb_dec_reset=1 V=1"

build_package_with_makefile_install

I just need to do build_package dvb-apps and everything runs from updating the latest
checkout of the source code, through compiling and installing, to stowing.

> I have a Philex DigiTop digital TV antenna which is amplified. My
> sitting-room (where the computer is) is on the 1st floor and I am near
> the centre of Inverness.

But do you have an unobstructed line of sight view of the Inverness relay?

> I don't understand the output of the program.

w_scan is a little bit complicated. What it does is, by default, assumes DVB-t
and that you are in Germany, and uses the first DVB device it finds and then
starts scanning all frequencies. As it uses Germany by default, this means
it starts its scan in VHF Band III which is not used for TV in the UKofGB&NI.

So you need to do

w_scan -f t -c GB -C UTF-8

^^^^ this is not necessary because default is DVB-t

^^^^^ country code GB

^^^^^^^^^ to stop it complaining about character code

> I've used the -k option to get o/p suitable for Kaffeine

And did you see stations for all multiplexes for Inverness?

> but am not sure how to get Kaffeine to use the file.

Which version of Kaffeine are you using?

If for KDE4 then

cd ~/.kde4/share/apps/kaffeine

mv scanfile.dvb scanfile.original

mv $HOME/channels.conf scanfile.dvb

assuming channels.conf was created in your home directory

Now you need to fire up kaffeine, click on digital tv,
go to menu Television, left click on Configure, click tab
for Device 1 and change source to GB which I think will
be the only entry in the drop down list since you moved the
scanfile.dvb which contained lots of countries out of the way.

Then click OK, then go back to menu Television and this time
click on Channels and then do a rescan, noting that in the
source button above "Start Scan" it should now say "GB"
because it will now use the frequencies from the scan data
you obtained from w_scan instead of doing a full autotune blind
scan of all frequencies from VHF band III to UHF band V

So long as w_scan found some multiplex frequencies, it means that
the signal is there and kaffeine should lock on those frequencies,
consult the NIT and display the list of stations found for
those multiplexes.

My experience is that Kaffeine autoscan is not as good as w_scan
for finding (actually locking on to) weaker signals.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 18/04/12 10:53, J G Miller wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 18th, 2012, at 00:18:17h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> Have just installed stow and will examine the documentation.
>

>> I have a Philex DigiTop digital TV antenna which is amplified. My
>> sitting-room (where the computer is) is on the 1st floor and I am near
>> the centre of Inverness.
>
> But do you have an unobstructed line of sight view of the Inverness relay?

Probably not, because I do not even know where the relay is. If it is at the
BBC site in Inverness, then definitely not. I am pretty sure that I do
not have a line-of-sight view of any TV transmitter.

>> I don't understand the output of the program.
>
> w_scan is a little bit complicated. What it does is, by default, assumes DVB-t
> and that you are in Germany, and uses the first DVB device it finds and then
> starts scanning all frequencies. As it uses Germany by default, this means
> it starts its scan in VHF Band III which is not used for TV in the UKofGB&NI.
>
> So you need to do
>
> w_scan -f t -c GB -C UTF-8
>
> ^^^^ this is not necessary because default is DVB-t
>
> ^^^^^ country code GB
>
> ^^^^^^^^^ to stop it complaining about character code
>
>> I've used the -k option to get o/p suitable for Kaffeine
>
> And did you see stations for all multiplexes for Inverness?
>
>> but am not sure how to get Kaffeine to use the file.
>
> Which version of Kaffeine are you using?

Version 1.2.2

> If for KDE4 then
>
> cd ~/.kde4/share/apps/kaffeine

It's .kde for me.
> mv scanfile.dvb scanfile.original
Done
> mv $HOME/channels.conf scanfile.dvb
No file called channels.conf

> assuming channels.conf was created in your home directory

How would it be created?

dmesg gives this line:
dib0700: rc submit urb failed

What does it mean?

The command:

w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k

gives
-------------------------------------------------
w_scan version 20120415 (compiled for DVB API 5.4)
using settings for UNITED KINGDOM
DVB aerial
DVB-T GB
scan type TERRESTRIAL, channellist 6
output format kaffeine channels.dvb
output charset 'UTF-8'
Info: using DVB adapter auto detection.
main:3206: FATAL: ***** NO USEABLE TERRESTRIAL CARD FOUND. *****
Please check wether dvb driver is loaded and
verify that no dvb application (i.e. vdr) is running.
------------------------------------------------
The kernel, via dmesg, reports:
[ 2.787420] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized
and connected

So I know that the tuner is working. However, no useable terrestrial
card found suggests that there is no i/p worth talking about from the
antenna.

> Now you need to fire up kaffeine, click on digital tv,
> go to menu Television, left click on Configure, click tab
> for Device 1 and change source to GB which I think will
> be the only entry in the drop down list since you moved the
> scanfile.dvb which contained lots of countries out of the way.

No GB, but I found uk-Rosemarkie, which is the local transmitter.

> Then click OK, then go back to menu Television and this time
> click on Channels and then do a rescan, noting that in the
> source button above "Start Scan" it should now say "GB"
> because it will now use the frequencies from the scan data
> you obtained from w_scan instead of doing a full autotune blind
> scan of all frequencies from VHF band III to UHF band V
>
> So long as w_scan found some multiplex frequencies, it means that
> the signal is there and kaffeine should lock on those frequencies,
> consult the NIT and display the list of stations found for
> those multiplexes.
>
> My experience is that Kaffeine autoscan is not as good as w_scan
> for finding (actually locking on to) weaker signals.

Apparently, w_scan is not finding any useable card which is peculiar
because the Hauppauge Nova-T USB stick is recognised and initialised by
the kernel.

Any other ideas?

[Sian Mountbatten]

The command "w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k -a 0" gives

w_scan version 20120415 (compiled for DVB API 5.4)
using settings for UNITED KINGDOM
DVB aerial
DVB-T GB
scan type TERRESTRIAL, channellist 6
output format kaffeine channels.dvb
output charset 'UTF-8'

main:3211: FATAL: failed to open '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0': 16
Device or resource busy

I had rebooted and the only program running was an xterm for w_scan and
icedove to send this message.

[J G Miller]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:58:14 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Version 1.2.2

Okay that is a recent version for KDE4.

> No file called channels.conf

Sorry, you called it channels.dvb.
(The name usually used is channels.conf)

> How would it be created?

When you ran w_scan

> dmesg gives this line:
> dib0700: rc submit urb failed
>
> What does it mean?

Ever thought of doing a web search?

<https://bugzilla.redhat.COM/show_bug.cgi?id=667157>

Looks like a problem related to the IR functionality.

> w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k
>
> gives
> -------------------------------------------------
> w_scan version 20120415 (compiled for DVB API 5.4)
> using settings for UNITED KINGDOM
> DVB aerial
> DVB-T GB
> scan type TERRESTRIAL, channellist 6
> output format kaffeine channels.dvb
> output charset 'UTF-8'
> Info: using DVB adapter auto detection.
> main:3206: FATAL: ***** NO USEABLE TERRESTRIAL CARD FOUND. *****
> Please check wether dvb driver is loaded and
> verify that no dvb application (i.e. vdr) is running.
> ------------------------------------------------
> The kernel, via dmesg, reports:
> [ 2.787420] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized
> and connected
>
> So I know that the tuner is working.

Not necessarily. You need to check whether or not /dev/dvb/adapter0/
is present as previously discussed. _wscan is saying that it cannot find
the adapater 0 (the first DVB device) under /dev/dvb

I have a Terratec Cinergt T2 USB, so when I try with w_scan I get

w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k

w_scan version 20111011 (compiled for DVB API 5.3)

using settings for UNITED KINGDOM
DVB aerial
DVB-T GB

frontend_type DVB-T, channellist 6

output format kaffeine channels.dvb
output charset 'UTF-8'
Info: using DVB adapter auto detection.

/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 -> DVB-T "TerraTec/qanu USB2.0 Highspeed DVB-T Receiver": good :-)
Using DVB-T frontend (adapter */dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0*)

In a previous message you stated

>> ll /dev/dvb/adapter0/
>> total 0
>> 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2012-04-17 00:05 ./
>> 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 2012-04-17 00:05 ../
>> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 0 2012-04-17 00:05 demux0
>> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 1 2012-04-17 00:05 dvr0
>> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 3 2012-04-17 00:05 frontend0
>> 0 crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 212, 2 2012-04-17 00:05 net0
>
> Yes that is so.

So obviously when you ran w_scan this time, you did not
check to see that these device files had been created or were
still present and that the tuner frontend firmware had been
correctly loaded to create the frontend0 device file.

> However, no useable terrestrial card found suggests that there is no
> i/p worth talking about from the antenna.

No it does not, it means that the kernel modules have not been loaded
or that the firmware loading has failed.

> No GB, but I found uk-Rosemarkie, which is the local transmitter.

Because that is the entry in the supplied scanfile.dvb which you did
not replace with the channels.dvb generated by w_scan which you said
you had created in the previous message.

[J G Miller]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:58:14 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> Probably not, because I do not even know where the relay is.

Here are some photographs of the relay.

<http://tx.mb21.co.UK/gallery/inverness.php>

If you are in town, you should not be trying to receive from this relay
as the page indicates, and more importantly the relay only carries the
three PSB multiplexes and not the full six multiplex service.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 00:23:36h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> The command "w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k -a 0" gives

...

> main:3211: FATAL: failed to open '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0': 16
> Device or resource busy

Busy means that the device is being accessed by another program, perhaps
you still have kaffeine running.

You can only use one program eg kaffeine or mplayer or w_scan at a time
to access the device file, so do not try running w_scan if you have another
DVB program running.

You can find out what is using it with

fuser /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0

If necessary use ps -aefw and kill -9 on the PID of the offending process.

For example

fuser /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0

/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0: 6310

ps -aefw | grep 6310

ps -aefw | grep 6310
miller 6310 1 5 00:34 ? 00:06:36 /usr/local/X11R6/bin/gnome-dvb-daemon
miller 23191 23138 0 02:26 pts/4 00:00:00 grep 6310

And whilst gnome-dvb-daemon is running, w_scan will always fail

w_scan

w_scan version 20111011 (compiled for DVB API 5.3)

WARNING: could not guess your country. Falling back to 'DE'
guessing country 'DE', use -c <country> to override
using settings for GERMANY
DVB aerial
DVB-T Europe
frontend_type DVB-T, channellist 4
output format vdr-1.6
WARNING: could not guess your codepage. Falling back to 'UTF-8'
output charset 'UTF-8', use -C <charset> to override

Info: using DVB adapter auto detection.

main:3079: FATAL: ***** NO USEABLE DVB-T CARD FOUND. *****

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 01:21, J G Miller wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:58:14 +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>
>> Probably not, because I do not even know where the relay is.
>
> Here are some photographs of the relay.
>
> <http://tx.mb21.co.UK/gallery/inverness.php>

Very interesting. I know where the BBC is in Inverness and I certainly
do not have line-of-sight view of it.
The only tall building I can see is the cathedral.

> If you are in town, you should not be trying to receive from this relay
> as the page indicates, and more importantly the relay only carries the
> three PSB multiplexes and not the full six multiplex service.

What is a "PSB multiplex"?

I ran the command "fuser /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0", but it gave no
output whatever. However, intrigued, I did a "ps -aefw|less" and
searched for dvb processes and discovered tvheadend and another using
dvb. So I did a "sudo kill -9" on said processes and then ran w_scan
which ran Ok and eventually dumped 8 channels in kaffeine format to
stdout. I then did "echo '" (yes, echo followed by a single-quote) and
then pasted the output followed by another single-quote, redirecting the
echo to channels.dvb. I then moved channels.dvb to
~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine. (I must admit that this is all very
interesting. I have just read the FAQ on the mb21 web-site).

Before I ran kaffeine, I changed the position of the antenna so that it
was pointing somewhat towards the BBC site.

Then I ran kaffeine. I clicked on Digital TV, then the Television tab
and then Device 1. No GB, but again I found uk-Rosemarkie (no
Inverness). Then Ok, then Television, Channels and did a scan. No result.

No channels appeared in Kaffeine.
The LED showing amplification was active on the antenna was on.
I've now turned the amplifier control knob to maximum and I'm running
w_scan again. This time, I have omitted the "-a 0". w_scan reported that
/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 mapped to "dib". I've noticed that w_scan
takes about 10 minutes to complete its scan. It issues messages like
"QAM_AUTO f= 665833 kHz" followed by letters and 999 digits. It has now
isseda list of services (Channel 4, E4, Rabbit, More 4, ITV2, Channel
4+1, Gay Rabbit, Channel 5 and STV+1). It's done. channels.dvb now
contains STV, ITV2, Channel 4, E4, Channel 4+1,More 4, Channel 5 and
STV+1. I've noticed that after running kaffeine, it produced another
file called scanfile.dvb which gives 6 lines for uk-Rosemarkie.

I've run kaffeine again, this time from the xterm so that I could see
what output it gave. I did a Channel Scan and the signal was 39% this
time. The Scan results are the same as for w_scan and they show up on
the RHS window. The SNR (whatever that is) is always zero. The Channels
are Channel 4, Channel ..., Channel 5, E4, ITV2, More 4, STV, STV+1. I
had ticked Radio and TV for the Filter. Now what should I do? Do I just
click on OK? I don't want to lose any of the output.

Regards
--
Sian Mountbatten

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 10:54:18h +0100, Sian Mountbatten asked:

> What is a "PSB multiplex"?

Designated by OfCon as "Public Service Broadcast" as opposed
to a COM multiplex which is entirely commercial.

Relays (with the exception of Ferrybridge) do not carry any
COM multiplexes.

> and discovered tvheadend and another using dvb.

May I ask who installed tvheadend on your system and why are
you trying to run it before your configure your DVB reception?

> which ran Ok and eventually dumped 8 channels in kaffeine format to
> stdout.

So instead of dumping them to stdout, just do

w_scan {whatever_options_you_need} > channels.conf

to redirect stdout to channels.conf and create the channels.conf file.

> I then moved channels.dvb to ~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine.

And kaffeine will as far as I am aware totally ignore that file.

Why have you not followed instructions and moved scanfile.dvb
to scanfile.dvb.ORIG and renamed channels.dvb to scanfile.dvb?

Also be advised that if you click the "Update Scan Data Over Internet"
in the Television --> Configure Television -> Configure Options
it will download the latest scanfile data and overwrite
scanfile.dvb

> Before I ran kaffeine, I changed the position of the antenna so that it
> was pointing somewhat towards the BBC site.

Why would you point it to the Inverness relay when I have stated that you
should not be trying to receive from this relay?

Point your antenna at Rosemarkie with the elements horizontal.

> Then I ran kaffeine. I clicked on Digital TV, then the Television tab
> and then Device 1. No GB, but again I found uk-Rosemarkie

Because you had not replaced the default scanfile.dvb with the
output from w_scan.

> I've now turned the amplifier control knob to maximum and I'm running
> w_scan again. This time, I have omitted the "-a 0".

Since you only have one DVB device, you do not actually need to specify
-a 0 as previously explained.

> It has now isseda list of services (Channel 4, E4, Rabbit, More 4, ITV2, Channel
> 4+1, Gay Rabbit, Channel 5 and STV+1). It's done. channels.dvb now
> contains STV, ITV2, Channel 4, E4, Channel 4+1,More 4, Channel 5 and
> STV+1.

Which shows that you are receiving something. These are stations on
PSB-2, only one of the six multiplexes which are transmitted.

So please point your antenna at Rosemarkie and do the scan again.

You can use the SIGNAL and SNR level indicators under START SCAN
as reference point to watch when you move the antenna.

> Now what should I do? Do I just click on OK?

Click the box FREE TO AIR and then click on Add Filtered.

The list of stations will then appear in the left hand pane
and then you can click OK at the bottom and then back in
the main Kaffeine window you will see the list of stations
on the left hand side.

Then double click on one of them and start watching TV.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 00:32, J G Miller wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:58:14 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>> dmesg gives this line:
>> dib0700: rc submit urb failed
>>
>> What does it mean?
>
> Ever thought of doing a web search?
>
> <https://bugzilla.redhat.COM/show_bug.cgi?id=667157>
>
> Looks like a problem related to the IR functionality.

Thank you for your question. I did a web search and got the same
web-page. It never occurred to me to do a web search. Verily, a web
search for such an esoteric matter really does work. In future, when I
have a problem, I shall try web searches if man pages do not provide
solutions.

>> So I know that the tuner is working.
>
> Not necessarily. You need to check whether or not /dev/dvb/adapter0/
> is present as previously discussed. _wscan is saying that it cannot find
> the adapater 0 (the first DVB device) under /dev/dvb

>> No GB, but I found uk-Rosemarkie, which is the local transmitter.
>
> Because that is the entry in the supplied scanfile.dvb which you did
> not replace with the channels.dvb generated by w_scan which you said
> you had created in the previous message.

kaffeine creates its own scanfile.dvb which is the same size as
scanfile.original.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 11:22, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 10:54:18h +0100, Sian Mountbatten asked:
>
>> What is a "PSB multiplex"?
>
> Designated by OfCon as "Public Service Broadcast" as opposed
> to a COM multiplex which is entirely commercial.
>
> Relays (with the exception of Ferrybridge) do not carry any
> COM multiplexes.

Ok, but what is a "multiplex". You are presuming I understand all this,
which I can tell you is not the case.

>> and discovered tvheadend and another using dvb.
>
> May I ask who installed tvheadend on your system and why are
> you trying to run it before your configure your DVB reception?

I installed tvheadend because at the time I had installed xbmc and its
man page said that
tvheadend was one of the backend programs that it supported. Now that I
have deleted mythTV, mysql and xbmc from my system (I am trying to get
just plain TV working before I start VDR functionality), clearly I don't
need tvheadend. I have now purged it from my system (package
hts-tvheadend). I have run ps -aefw and sent it to paste.siduction.org
where you will find the output at
http://paste.siduction.org/20120419104504

>> which ran Ok and eventually dumped 8 channels in kaffeine format to
>> stdout.
>
> So instead of dumping them to stdout, just do
>
> w_scan {whatever_options_you_need}> channels.conf
>
> to redirect stdout to channels.conf and create the channels.conf file.

I did do the redirect, but output it to "channels.dvb" which is what is
required for kaffeine.

>> I then moved channels.dvb to ~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine.
>
> And kaffeine will as far as I am aware totally ignore that file.
>
> Why have you not followed instructions and moved scanfile.dvb
> to scanfile.dvb.ORIG and renamed channels.dvb to scanfile.dvb?

Simply because I got confused. I shall now move channels.dvb to
scanfile.dvb.

> Also be advised that if you click the "Update Scan Data Over Internet"
> in the Television --> Configure Television -> Configure Options
> it will download the latest scanfile data and overwrite
> scanfile.dvb

Thank you.

>> Before I ran kaffeine, I changed the position of the antenna so that it
>> was pointing somewhat towards the BBC site.
>
> Why would you point it to the Inverness relay when I have stated that you
> should not be trying to receive from this relay?
>
> Point your antenna at Rosemarkie with the elements horizontal.

I've now used a compass to try to point the antenna towards Rosemarkie
(somewhat). The elements are more-or-less horizontal.

>> Then I ran kaffeine. I clicked on Digital TV, then the Television tab
>> and then Device 1. No GB, but again I found uk-Rosemarkie
>
> Because you had not replaced the default scanfile.dvb with the
> output from w_scan.
>
>> I've now turned the amplifier control knob to maximum and I'm running
>> w_scan again. This time, I have omitted the "-a 0".
>
> Since you only have one DVB device, you do not actually need to specify
> -a 0 as previously explained.

Thank you again.

>> It has now isseda list of services (Channel 4, E4, Rabbit, More 4, ITV2, Channel
>> 4+1, Gay Rabbit, Channel 5 and STV+1). It's done. channels.dvb now
>> contains STV, ITV2, Channel 4, E4, Channel 4+1,More 4, Channel 5 and
>> STV+1.
>
> Which shows that you are receiving something. These are stations on
> PSB-2, only one of the six multiplexes which are transmitted.
>
> So please point your antenna at Rosemarkie and do the scan again.

Ok, I've moved the antenna to point towards Rosemarkie more-or-less and
I shall now
do another scan with w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -k >channels.dvb and then
move channels.dvb to scanfile.dvb in the kaffeine directory.

w-scan reports that /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 -> TERRESTRIAL "DiBcom
7000PC": good :-)
It says that dibCOM 7000PC supports a number of facilities. It is
scanning now.

> You can use the SIGNAL and SNR level indicators under START SCAN
> as reference point to watch when you move the antenna.
>
>> Now what should I do? Do I just click on OK?
>
> Click the box FREE TO AIR and then click on Add Filtered.

> The list of stations will then appear in the left hand pane
> and then you can click OK at the bottom and then back in
> the main Kaffeine window you will see the list of stations
> on the left hand side.

Not a present: nothing showing.

> Then double click on one of them and start watching TV.

It sounds straightforward. I'm now waiting for w_scan to complete.
Many more services now shown (28 instead of 8). w_scan has now
completed. Looking at the scanfile.dvb generated. Yes, it includes BBC
Radio 1,2,3,4, BBC 6 Music, BBC ONE Scot, BBC TWO Scot BBC NEWS, STV
etc. Looks pretty thorough.

I've copied scanfile.dvb to channels.dvb for safety sake and put a copy
somewhere else as well (~/Documents).

I did a scan in kaffeine, but nothing appeared in the right-hand window.
Clicked the box Free to air and clicked Add Filtered, but nothing
happened. So I looked at the files for kaffeine (in
~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine) and saw that after the scan by kaffeine, the
big scanfile.dvb had been created again. Quit kaffeine. Copied
channels.dvb to scanfile.dvb to refresh with the o/p from w_scan. And
again ran kaffeine. I shall not use the kaffeine scan this time. I've
made the file scanfile.dvb read-only to prevent accidental overwriting.
Clicked channels, ticked Free to air and clicked Add Filtered. No
result. Nothing in either window. Clicked Ok. No channels listed in the
left-hand window.

I must seem stupid to you, but maybe I've got confused. I have to go out
now and will not be back until about 1630 when I shall read anything
you've posted. Many thanks for taking the trouble to help me.

Regards

--
Sian Mountbatten

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 11:54:19h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Thank you for your question. I did a web search and got the same
> web-page. It never occurred to me to do a web search. Verily, a web
> search for such an esoteric matter really does work.

Hopefully some useful advice for you --

If you are doing a web search for a specific string, as in this
case

"rc submit urb failed"

and note that the terms are delimited by double quotes,
then Google (tm) is probably the best web search engine
for finding results matching the exact string.

If you are doing a web search for a topic, then Google is
not the best choice, but you should use an aggregation
search engine which sorts the results into topics, eg

<http://search.yippy.com>

And if you value your privacy and do not want Google
tracking your every search and building up a dossier on you,
then consider using

<http://www.duckduckgo.COM>

There really is no excuse for people continuing to use Google
when there are so many alternatives but people are like sheep
once they get accustomed to something.

And remember that the order of the results you get in a Google
search is determined by how much money corporations have paid
on key words to get their site moved to the head of the list
of results and to get small businesses buried on page 3 or 4
or even higher because most people are too lazy to go past
the first page of results.

[John Hasler]

J G Miller writes:
> And if you value your privacy and do not want Google tracking your

> every search and building up a dossier on you...

I don't think they are building much of a "dossier" on me with no
cookies, no account, and no scripts (not that I care that much anyway).

> <http://www.duckduckgo.COM>

Interesting that they no longer require JS: maybe I'll give them another
chance. They don't seem to have any sort of "advanced search", though.

> And remember that the order of the results you get in a Google search
> is determined by how much money corporations have paid on key words to
> get their site moved to the head of the list of results and to get
> small businesses buried on page 3 or 4 or even higher because most
> people are too lazy to go past the first page of results.

That's not been my experience.
--
John Hasler

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 12:33:34h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Ok, but what is a "multiplex". You are presuming I understand all this,
> which I can tell you is not the case.

Remember analog TV? In analog TV transmission a station broadcasts
its video and audio (and sometimes ancillary services eg teletext)
on a single channel which is actually a frequency range, in Europe
8 MHz wide in the UHF Bands IV and V (approximately 460 - 860 MHz),
numbered as UHF channels 21 - 69.

So in the case of Rosemarkie, BBC-1 Scotland was transmitted on
UHF channel 39, BBC-2 Scotland on 45, stv North on 49, and Channel4
on 42.

It was decided by the government in consultation with technical
bodies that for digital TV, six UHF channels would be allocated
for the terrestrial digital TV service, in addition to the four
(or sometimes five) analog channels already in use, at all main
transmitters plus a number of relay sites covering major population
centers.

In Europe, digital terrestrial television is transmitted using
DVB-t (Digital Video Broadcast terrestrial) and the audio and
video being transmitted at standard definition has been compressed
using MPEG-2 (almost exactly the same as what you have on DVD).

Now because the video and audio has been compressed, it does not
require as much frequency bandwidth to broadcast the information
as with analog.

Thus for a transmission on a particular UHF channel instead of having
just one TV station, it is possible to combine numerous audio and video
streams (all digitally compressed of course) and combine them in a
procedure known as multiplexing, for transmission on a single channel.
The combined contents of multiple TV stations, perhaps some radio,
and perhaps some data are referred to as a "multiplex".

So on multiplex PSB-1 (also known as BBC A) instead of there being
just BBC-1 Scotland, all of the BBC stations (1, 2, CBBC/3, Cbeebies/4,
News, Parliament) are to be found, and radio as well. If you can
receive the multiplex, you can see all of the {unencrypted) stations
on that multiplex.

The second multiplex PSB-2 (also known as D3&4) carries ITV-1, ITV-2,
Channel 4, five etc.

The third multiplex PSB-3 is transmitted using not DVB-t but DVB-t2
(the second generation of DVB-t) and the video is encoded not
with MPEG-2 but with MPEG-4. This combination means that high
definition video streams can be carried in the same frequency space
because they have been more efficiently compressed and transmitted.
Because your Nova stick has only a DVB-t tuner and not a DVB-t2
tuner, you cannot receive PSB-3.

There are in addition three commercial multiplexes which carry entirely
commercial services.

You can see which TV, radio, data service is on which multiplex on
which UHF channel from Rosemarkie at

<http://www.ukfree.TV/txdetail.php?a=NH762623>

Now relay sites such as Inverness which used to broadcast FOUR
analog channels now only broadcast on THREE analog channels and
these carry just the three PSB multiplexes and not the commercial
multiplexes. Hence these are know as "half a Freeview service"
or "Freeview Lite".

> clearly I don't need tvheadend. I have now purged it from my system
> (package hts-tvheadend)

Errrm, I did not intend you to purge it, because it may be useful later on,
just that whilst setting up your system, you must keep it simple so that
one thing does not fight with another, as you find out whilst trying
to use w_scan whilst tvheadend had already started using the device.

I suspect that tvheadend runs as a daemon service and whilst using
kaffeine or another player, you could probably temporarily disable
it (until the next reboot) using

/etc/init.d/tvheadend stop

because it is probably being started automatically at boot time.

But even though you have purged it now, it will be easy to reinstall
later on should you need it.

apt-get install hts-tvheadend

> I did do the redirect, but output it to "channels.dvb" which is what is
> required for kaffeine.

I thought kaffeine needed "scanfile.dvb" ?

> I've now used a compass to try to point the antenna towards Rosemarkie
> (somewhat). The elements are more-or-less horizontal.

Okay, now you are putting things in their proper alignment!

> w-scan reports that /dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 -> TERRESTRIAL "DiBcom
> 7000PC": good :-)

Great!

> Many more services now shown (28 instead of 8). w_scan has now
> completed. Looking at the scanfile.dvb generated. Yes, it includes BBC
> Radio 1,2,3,4, BBC 6 Music, BBC ONE Scot, BBC TWO Scot BBC NEWS, STV
> etc. Looks pretty thorough.

Yay! That is PSB-1 with the BBC. Now the thing is with your antenna
properly aligned and do not turn the gain up too much, no more than
80%, you should be able to get all six multiplexes from Rosemarkie
with about 80 or so radio and TV stations in total.

> I've copied scanfile.dvb to channels.dvb for safety sake and put a copy
> somewhere else as well (~/Documents).

Okay sounds good.

> I must seem stupid to you, but maybe I've got confused.

No it is because it is all a bit "fiddly" at first to get
things up an running and with you not being familiar with
the overall scheme of how things work it probably makes
little sense in what we are trying to do with one program
and then use its output with another.

The hardest part of all this is actually finding the best
location for your indoor antenna (both horizontally
and vertically) and pointing it in the correct direction,
because without an adequately strong and clean signal
you will not get anything or a picture that continually
breaks up. Provided you have just the necessary minimum
signal strength and signal quality, you will get the
same picture quality regardless.

Think of the cliff, either you are safe on top, too near the
edge and things begin to crumble, and too far and you are down
in the sea without any TV at all.

As I explained earlier, Kaffeine is not the best at blind
scanning which is why we are trying to use w_scan
and use the file that that creates as the configuration
file for kaffeine to use.

So let me go through the steps one by one and I will
do the operation here to make certain that all is in order.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

0) ensure that kaffeine and nothing else is running that
will seize your DVB device

1) cd $HOME

2) w_scan -f t -c GB -C UTF 8 > channels.conf

3) cp -pv channels.conf .kde/share/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb
(say yes to overwrite if necessary)

4) start kaffeine

5) click (5) Digital Television

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Aaaaaah, I see what the problem is now.

When kaffeine (KDE4 version) starts up now, it always copies

/usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb

to ${KDEHOME}/share/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb

thus overwriting whatever custom configuration file you have put there.

Anyways scanfile.dvb already has the frequencies for Rosemarkie
so you do not need to alter this file. The reason w_scan got
introduced was because I thought you needed the frequencies for
Inverness, but as we subsequently discovered you should not
be trying to get anything from there.

However w_scan is still a useful tool in verifying that the
DVB frontend is available and working and checking out by
blind scan what frequencies you are actually getting an
adequate signal.

So just forget about making any changes to the scanfile.dvb
and just continue ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

6) Now go to the menu Television

7) Select item Configure Television

8) Click on Device 1 tab

9) Change the tuner timout to 1600 ms

10) Use the dropdown menu for source and change the entry to

uk-Rosemarkie

11) Click OK

12) Go to the menu Television

13) Select the item Channels

14) In the new window see that for source it says
Channel Scan source : uk-Rosemarkie

15) Click the button "Start Scan"

16) Be patient and hope that the tuner starts to
lock on each of the six multiplex frequencies
(the tuning indicator goes green and then
when the NIT table is consulted stations start
to appear in the right hand pane "Scan Results"

17) When it says scanning complete, tick the boxes
X Free to Air
X Radio
X TV

18) Click the button Add Filtered

19) The list of stations in the right hand pane "Scan Results"
should then appear in the left hand pane "Channels"
(except for encrypted ones such as TopUpTV ESPN etc)

20) Then click the OK button

21) Back in the main kaffeine window you should now see these
stations listed in the left hand pane Channel/Number
(if not quite kaffeine and then start kaffeine again)

22) Now double click on a TV station name and after a few
seconds a picture should now appear in the black pane
to the right

23) Double click on this to go full screen

24) Press ESC to quit full screen mode

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sound may be a problem which we will address if necessary
after you confirm you can receive all five DVB-t multiplexes.

> I have to go out now and will not be back until about 1630
> when I shall read anything you've posted.

Hopefully the instructions above, 0, 4-24 (omit 1,2,3
as they are pointless) are sufficiently clear as to how
to proceed.

> Many thanks for taking the trouble to help me.

Thank you for being so patient and persistent (which will
ultimately bring you the reward of digital TV on the PC
and being able to watch BBC Alba).

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012 12:33:34h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> I did do the redirect, but output it to "channels.dvb" which is what is
> required for kaffeine.

Okay I think I have worked out the source of the confusion here.

The current version of Kaffeine in KDE 4 uses a scanfile with
frequencies for transmitters and cable etc and stores the stations
which it finds in an SQlite database.

${KDEHOME}/share/apps/kaffeine/sqlite.db

I think that this was not the case for previous versions
of Kaffeine in KDE 3 which used a channels.dvb file.

The output of w_scan -k which I thought was scanfile data for
Kaffeine in KDE 4 is not that at all, but is still the old
individual stations in the format for Kaffeine in KDE 3.

So you just cannot use w_scan output directly for KDE 4,
but would have to edit it to get the individual frequencies
of each multiplex, then put these in the scanfile format
and append that to the scanfile

/usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb

Since that scanfile does include the frequencies of the multiplexes
broadcast from Rosemarkie, you do not need to do anything with
w_scan for Kaffeine KDE 4.

However it is a good command line check to see if stations are
being received and also you still need w_scan to generate
channels.conf for mplayer and perhaps vdr etc.

Hope that explains the confusion over the file name for Kaffeine.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 14:28, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 12:33:34h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>

Thank you for explaining multiplex. Things are a bit clearer now. :-)

> You can see which TV, radio, data service is on which multiplex on
> which UHF channel from Rosemarkie at
>
> <http://www.ukfree.TV/txdetail.php?a=NH762623>

Thanks for this site: useful data and it definitely says that the
main transmitter is liable to interruption.

> Now relay sites such as Inverness which used to broadcast FOUR
> analog channels now only broadcast on THREE analog channels and
> these carry just the three PSB multiplexes and not the commercial
> multiplexes. Hence these are know as "half a Freeview service"
> or "Freeview Lite".

Thank you. That's something else I understand now.

>> clearly I don't need tvheadend. I have now purged it from my system
>> (package hts-tvheadend)
>
> Errrm, I did not intend you to purge it, because it may be useful later on,
> just that whilst setting up your system, you must keep it simple so that
> one thing does not fight with another, as you find out whilst trying
> to use w_scan whilst tvheadend had already started using the device.
>
> I suspect that tvheadend runs as a daemon service and whilst using
> kaffeine or another player, you could probably temporarily disable
> it (until the next reboot) using
>
> /etc/init.d/tvheadend stop
>
> because it is probably being started automatically at boot time.

Yes, that is clear.

> But even though you have purged it now, it will be easy to reinstall
> later on should you need it.
>
> apt-get install hts-tvheadend

Quite right. I have used a yellow postit (KDE Knotes) to help me to
remember.

>> I did do the redirect, but output it to "channels.dvb" which is what is
>> required for kaffeine.
>
> I thought kaffeine needed "scanfile.dvb" ?

I have the siduction distribution of Linux which is based on Debian sid.
Every day, I need to do
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
This time, the upgrade involved libc6 as well as initramfs-tools,
locales and other important packages.

All right, I have deleted all the kaffeine files in
~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine (including the directory), purged kaffeine
from the system (apt-get purge kaffeine) and re-installed it (apt-get
install kaffeine).
I ran kaffeine, but did not do anything except click on Digital TV. I
exited and the only file was sqlite.db. Then I ran kaffeine and set the
Source for Device 1 on the Configure Television dialog, then OK, then
File->Quit.
The files present are now
config.dvb
epgdata.dvb
playlistsK4
scanfile.dvb
sqlite.db
xine-config
The scanfile.dvb was 262145 bytes. I inspected it and then edited it,
deleting everything except the section for
[dvb-t/uk-Rosemarkie]
That gave 6 entries:
--------------------------------
-# this file is automatically generated from http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps
[date]
2011-04-04
[dvb-t/uk-Rosemarkie]
T 633833000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
T 657833000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 674167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 682167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 706167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 714167000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
---------------------------------
I then issued the following command:
w_scan -k -c GB -C UTF-8 2>w_scan.log >channels.dvb
No output to the terminal until w_scan finished.

Here is the output (go to this site)
http://paste.siduction.org/20120419170632

No more reply until I read your next posting which *does* clear
up the confusion.

> As I explained earlier, Kaffeine is not the best at blind
> scanning which is why we are trying to use w_scan
> and use the file that that creates as the configuration
> file for kaffeine to use.
>
> So let me go through the steps one by one and I will
> do the operation here to make certain that all is in order.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 0) ensure that kaffeine and nothing else is running that
> will seize your DVB device
>
> 1) cd $HOME
>
> 2) w_scan -f t -c GB -C UTF 8> channels.conf
>
> 3) cp -pv channels.conf .kde/share/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb
> (say yes to overwrite if necessary)
>
> 4) start kaffeine
>
> 5) click (5) Digital Television
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Aaaaaah, I see what the problem is now.
>
> When kaffeine (KDE4 version) starts up now, it always copies
>
> /usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb
>
> to ${KDEHOME}/share/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb
>
> thus overwriting whatever custom configuration file you have put there.

Well, that *is* interesting.

> Anyways scanfile.dvb already has the frequencies for Rosemarkie
> so you do not need to alter this file. The reason w_scan got
> introduced was because I thought you needed the frequencies for
> Inverness, but as we subsequently discovered you should not
> be trying to get anything from there.

I suspect that the reason why Inverness is not included in scanfile.dvb
is because it is only a relay so it will be exactly the same as the
Rosemarkie transmitter, don't you think?

> However w_scan is still a useful tool in verifying that the
> DVB frontend is available and working and checking out by
> blind scan what frequencies you are actually getting an
> adequate signal.
>
> So just forget about making any changes to the scanfile.dvb
> and just continue ...
>

Must read your latest response.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 12:35, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 11:54:19h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> Thank you for your question. I did a web search and got the same
>> web-page. It never occurred to me to do a web search. Verily, a web
>> search for such an esoteric matter really does work.
>
> Hopefully some useful advice for you --
>
> If you are doing a web search for a specific string, as in this
> case
>
> "rc submit urb failed"
>
> and note that the terms are delimited by double quotes,
> then Google (tm) is probably the best web search engine
> for finding results matching the exact string.

Yes, I found that it gave a web-page with a link on it to a urb failed
message.

> If you are doing a web search for a topic, then Google is
> not the best choice, but you should use an aggregation
> search engine which sorts the results into topics, eg
>
> <http://search.yippy.com>
>
> And if you value your privacy and do not want Google
> tracking your every search and building up a dossier on you,
> then consider using
>
> <http://www.duckduckgo.COM>
>
> There really is no excuse for people continuing to use Google
> when there are so many alternatives but people are like sheep
> once they get accustomed to something.

I think the reference to sheep is a bit harsh. The point is that if you
find that something works, then you will most likely try that again the
next time.

> And remember that the order of the results you get in a Google
> search is determined by how much money corporations have paid
> on key words to get their site moved to the head of the list
> of results and to get small businesses buried on page 3 or 4
> or even higher because most people are too lazy to go past
> the first page of results.

Yes, that's how Google has managed to become very big, with thousands of
employees. I must admit that I rarely go to pages other than the first
page. Subsequent pages don't appear to be all that relevant. And why
Google finds millions of pages is a mystery to me. Surely not millions!!!

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 17:53, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, April 19th, 2012 12:33:34h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>
>> I did do the redirect, but output it to "channels.dvb" which is what is
>> required for kaffeine.

This was based on my limited experience.

> Okay I think I have worked out the source of the confusion here.
>
> The current version of Kaffeine in KDE 4 uses a scanfile with
> frequencies for transmitters and cable etc and stores the stations
> which it finds in an SQlite database.
>
> ${KDEHOME}/share/apps/kaffeine/sqlite.db

Right. The database is mentioned on the kaffeine website and I have
added a Firefox addon which gives a sqlite database manager. The file
sqlite.db contains two tables:
Channels
RecordingSchedule
No records in either table.

> I think that this was not the case for previous versions
> of Kaffeine in KDE 3 which used a channels.dvb file.
>
> The output of w_scan -k which I thought was scanfile data for
> Kaffeine in KDE 4 is not that at all, but is still the old
> individual stations in the format for Kaffeine in KDE 3.
>
> So you just cannot use w_scan output directly for KDE 4,
> but would have to edit it to get the individual frequencies
> of each multiplex, then put these in the scanfile format
> and append that to the scanfile
>
> /usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb
>
> Since that scanfile does include the frequencies of the multiplexes
> broadcast from Rosemarkie, you do not need to do anything with
> w_scan for Kaffeine KDE 4.
>
> However it is a good command line check to see if stations are
> being received and also you still need w_scan to generate
> channels.conf for mplayer and perhaps vdr etc.
>
> Hope that explains the confusion over the file name for Kaffeine.

Yes, it does. I shall now refer to an earlier posting from you about
what to do next.

Regards

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 14:28, J G Miller wrote:
>

> 0) ensure that kaffeine and nothing else is running that

> will seize your DVB device -> Done
>
> 1) cd $HOME -> Done
>
> 2) w_scan -f t -c GB -C UTF 8> channels.conf -> Done

>
> 3) cp -pv channels.conf .kde/share/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb

> (say yes to overwrite if necessary) (wasn't necessary) -> Done
>
> 4) start kaffeine -> Done
>
> 5) click (5) Digital Television -> Done
>
> 6) Now go to the menu Television -> Done
>
> 7) Select item Configure Television -> Done
>
> 8) Click on Device 1 tab -> Done
>
> 9) Change the tuner timout to 1600 ms -> Done

>
> 10) Use the dropdown menu for source and change the entry to
>

> uk-Rosemarkie -> Done
>
> 11) Click OK -> Done
>
> 12) Go to the menu Television -> Done
>
> 13) Select the item Channels -> Done

>
> 14) In the new window see that for source it says
> Channel Scan source : uk-Rosemarkie

It does not. It only says "Terrestrial" (without the quotes) as the only
entry of a drop-down list.

> 15) Click the button "Start Scan" -> Done

>
> 16) Be patient and hope that the tuner starts to
> lock on each of the six multiplex frequencies
> (the tuning indicator goes green and then
> when the NIT table is consulted stations start
> to appear in the right hand pane "Scan Results"

The tuning indicator is green before I click "Start Scan". It says
"Scan data last updated on 08/09/2011". After clicking "Start Scan" that
title changes to "Stop Scan" and a red band appears in the Signal box.
The box with 0% gradually goes yellow and shows an increasing
percentage. The Signal: box varies between 31% and 0%. When the scan has
finished, the right-hand pane has *no* entries in it. It is just blank.

> 17) When it says scanning complete, tick the boxes
> X Free to Air
> X Radio
> X TV

> -> Done

> 18) Click the button Add Filtered

> -> Done

> 19) The list of stations in the right hand pane "Scan Results"
> should then appear in the left hand pane "Channels"
> (except for encrypted ones such as TopUpTV ESPN etc)

There is nothing in the right hand pane and nothing appears in the
left-hand pane.

> 20) Then click the OK button

> -> Done
What else can I do?

> 21) Back in the main kaffeine window you should now see these
> stations listed in the left hand pane Channel/Number
> (if not quite kaffeine and then start kaffeine again)
>
> 22) Now double click on a TV station name and after a few
> seconds a picture should now appear in the black pane
> to the right
>
> 23) Double click on this to go full screen
>
> 24) Press ESC to quit full screen mode
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sound may be a problem which we will address if necessary
> after you confirm you can receive all five DVB-t multiplexes.
>
>> I have to go out now and will not be back until about 1630
>> when I shall read anything you've posted.
>
> Hopefully the instructions above, 0, 4-24 (omit 1,2,3
> as they are pointless) are sufficiently clear as to how
> to proceed.
>
>> Many thanks for taking the trouble to help me.
>
> Thank you for being so patient and persistent (which will
> ultimately bring you the reward of digital TV on the PC
> and being able to watch BBC Alba).

I'm getting nothing from the Kaffeine scan. Maybe we should try another
tv program such as tvtime or me-tv?

Regards
--
Sian Mountbatten

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 18:09:17h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> That's something else I understand now.

Yes it really is the case that the transition to digital TV
in the UKofGB&NI is a highly complex affair and even after
analog switchover, involving two retunes sometime three,
in some regions, it is still necessary to retune the receiver
because of channel shuffling because of neighboring regions changing.

Other countries with just a complicated set of transmitters and
relays have done it all in a much simpler way.

> I have the siduction distribution of Linux which is based on Debian sid.
> Every day, I need to do
> apt-get update
> apt-get dist-upgrade

You like to live dangerously!!!

I am on Linux Mint Debian Edition, basically Debian testing
and run a shell script every day to do the above.

Maybe I should send you a copy? However it does also update
the apt-file indexes as well so that apt-file search works
in an up to date fashion, and plays a beep tune once it
has finished installing the updates.

> All right, I have deleted all the kaffeine files in
> ~/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine (including the directory), purged kaffeine
> from the system (apt-get purge kaffeine) and re-installed it (apt-get
> install kaffeine).

That really was not necessary, but at least you may feel better
have done the reinstall and knowing everything is in a clean state ;)

> The scanfile.dvb was 262145 bytes. I inspected it and then edited it,
> deleting everything except the section for
> [dvb-t/uk-Rosemarkie]
> That gave 6 entries:

And when you fire up kaffeine again, it will have replaced
that trimmed file with the scanfile.dvb from

/usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine/scanfile.dvb

> Here is the output (go to this site)
> http://paste.siduction.org/20120419170632

Okay that is good to see what you are actually managing to receive.

You locked on to two multiplexes PSB-1 (BBC stations) and PSB-2 (stv,
c4/five) on frequencies of 802000 and 746000 respectively.
This actually means 802 MHz and 746 MHz which if you look at the
System I table at

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_channel_frequencies>

corresponds to UHF channels 62 and 55 respectively.

The Inverness relay broadcasts PSB-1 on 62 and PSB-2 on 55
so all the stations you have found are from the Inverness relay.
PSB-3 is DVB-t2 on 59 and because your device does not have
a DVB-t2 tuner, this is why you are only seeing stations from
two multiplexes PSB-1 and PSB-2.

So what you need to do is to find a better location for your
antenna and move it so that there is enough signal from
Rosemarkie for the tuner to lock on to those multiplexes.

If you look carefully at the output of w_scan you will
see it did notice other QAM signals. The DVB multiplexes are
all broadcast at QAM-64 except for PSB-3 the DVB-t2 which
is QAM-256.

This is shewn in the output from w_scan because

Rosemarkie PSB-1 (BBC A) is on UHF 45 corresponding to

666000: (time: 04:42) (time: 04:43) signal ok:
QAM_AUTO f = 666000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999

and Rosemarkie PSB-2 (D3&4) is on UHF 49 corresponding to

698000: (time: 06:33) (time: 06:34) signal ok:
QAM_AUTO f = 698000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999

and Rosemarkie COM-4 (SDN) is on UHF 43 corresponding to

650000: (time: 03:46) (time: 03:47) signal ok:
QAM_AUTO f = 650000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999

and Rosemarkie COM-5 (ArqA) is on UHF 46 corresponding to

674000: (time: 05:28) (time: 05:29) signal ok:
QAM_AUTO f = 674000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999

and Rosemarkie COM-6 (ArqB) is on UHF 50 corresponding to

706000: (time: 07:19) (time: 07:20) signal ok:
QAM_AUTO f = 706000 kHz I999B8C999D999T999G999Y999

In each case the device failed in reading the NIT table,
that is the list of stations, because I suggest the
signal quality was too poor.

There is a possibility that the signal strength is too
strong and the amplifier in the set top antenna is overloading
the USB device.

So the two things you need to try are

1) Turn down the amplification gain to only about 40%
and see if in the output of w_scan you still see signal
found on the above frequencies.

2) Try moving the antenna around the room both in the horizontal
plane and vertical plane to find the best location, with of
course the antenna pointed towards Rosemarkie.

<http://philex.com/assets/images/products/2-1-large.jpg>

You need to point the narrow end towards the transmitter not
the wide end (as far as I am aware).

There is also a possibility that with the antenna pointed in that
direction it does not receive the best signal because of reflections
within the room or from buildings next door and you actually need
to point the antenna somewhat off the bearing for Rosemarkie.

> Must read your latest response.

That response was to explain why the output of w_scan cannot
be used directly with Kaffeine KDE4 version.

Overall the good news is that your USB stick is working and
supported fully under GNU/Linux but you just need to supply
it with a decent signal from an antenna in order to receive
the five DVB-t multiplexes from Rosemarkie.

Otherwise you will miss out on ITV-3, ITV-4, Film 4, Dave, Quest etc and
need to edit the master scanfile.dvb in /usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine
and put in an entry for Inverness and the appropriate frequencies
because the frequencies used for PSB-1 and PSB-2 and PSB-3 from
Inverness are not the same as those for Rosemarkie.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 18:19:00h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> I think the reference to sheep is a bit harsh.

Harsh but fair.

I do not nail people's heads to coffee tables
but have been know to use sarcasm.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 17:53, J G Miller wrote:
> Hope that explains the confusion over the file name for Kaffeine.

The scanfile.dvb file gives six entries for uk-Rosemarkie. Do these
correspond to the six multiplexes you mentioned?

[Sian Mountbatten]

He Hee!

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 20:05:53 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> It does not. It only says "Terrestrial" (without the quotes) as the only
> entry of a drop-down list.

That is okay because you only have a Terrestrial device on your system.

> The tuning indicator is green before I click "Start Scan".

It is darkish green, not bright green for when it locks on to a multiplex ;)

> The box with 0% gradually goes yellow and shows an increasing
> percentage. The Signal: box varies between 31% and 0%.

Because you are not getting enough clean signal from Rosemarkie.

What you should be doing is, while the scan is in progress, try
moving the antenna to get the signal in the box higher than 31%,
probably at least 50 - 60%.

> When the scan has finished, the right-hand pane has *no* entries in it.
> It is just blank.

This is to be expected because it did not lock on to any of the
frequencies for Rosemarkie.

> What else can I do?

As I keep saying, you need to adjust your antenna, or possibly
get something better than an amplified set top, unless you
want to be limited to just PSB-1 and PSB-2 from Inverness as
well as having to add the Inverness frequencies to the master scanfile.dvb.

> I'm getting nothing from the Kaffeine scan. Maybe we should try another
> tv program such as tvtime or me-tv?

That ain't going to improve the signal from the antenna though --
changing cars is no good if there is no gas in the tank of either ;)

If you want instant gratification with just PSB-1 and PSB-2 from
Inverness, install mplayer and smplayer, use w_scan to generate
a channels.conf file in mplayer format, and then put that channels.conf
file in $HOME/.mplayer and then fire up smplayer and choose the TV
option from the "File" menu either from the first icon button or
right clicking on the black area in the window.

[Sian Mountbatten]

Quite right.

> If you want instant gratification

No, no. I'm willing to stick it out. The problem is that the cable from
the antenna to the USB DVB-T stick is not long enough to enable me to
put the antenna on the window sill. So I just have to have it near the
computer. :-( and there's only the one position I can have it. Still,
I've tried turning the antenna: when it is pointing south (away from
Rosemarkie) the signal with full amplification, reaches 39%. There seems
to be no difference with the antenna pointing south or north. No
channels discovered. Maybe the antenna just isn't working. Maybe I
should get a different one.

> with just PSB-1 and PSB-2 from
> Inverness, install mplayer and smplayer, use w_scan to generate
> a channels.conf file in mplayer format, and then put that channels.conf
> file in $HOME/.mplayer and then fire up smplayer and choose the TV
> option from the "File" menu either from the first icon button or
> right clicking on the black area in the window.

I could certainly try using mplayer, but it requires a lot of options,
so I'll probably need help with that. I've removed the version of w_scan
I downloaded and compiled because I've discovered that there is a Debian
package called w-scan which provides the same capability (I prefer to
use Debian packages where possible because the binaries and other files
go into the right places :-): better than cluttering up my own directory
tree!).

Anyway, I'm doing a w_scan now with the output in mplayer format. I've
succeeded in turning the antenna to point rather nearer Rosemarkie (East
of North).

Regards
--
Sian Mountbatten

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 21:42:13h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>>
>> If you want instant gratification
>
> No, no. I'm willing to stick it out.

Well the point I was alluding to was that at least for the moment
you could actually be watching TV (if you need a fix) but just
PSB-1 and PSB-2 from Inverness using mplayer/smplayer.

> The problem is that the cable from the antenna to the USB DVB-T stick
> is not long enough to enable me to put the antenna on the window sill.

So what you need is an extension lead with a male coaxial plug on one
end and a female coaxial plug on the other. Personally I use a ProfiGold
3 metre extension lead to get from my indoor Hama antenna situated near a window
to get to the PC in another part of the room. It is not the log periodic
design that you have but one of these in black not silver

<http://www.amazon.DE/Hama-Zimmerantenne-digital-analog-silber/dp/B00027YFXE>

As the room appears to be full of standing waves with definite nodes and anti-nodes
I have to position it quite carefully in both the horizontal and vertical planes.

> Maybe the antenna just isn't working. Maybe I should get a different one.

Indoor antennas are notoriously bad and if you cannot get an adequate
signal with the Philex you need a full size one although trying to put it
somewhere unobtrusive indoors can be a problem.

Your options would probably be a small Yagi-Uda or a log periodic.

The gain from a log periodic is less than that of a Yagi-Uda but the
advantages are that it is much more directional and with not having a
large reflector can be easier to position in a more discrete location in doors.

<http://www.aerialsat.COM/prod/vision-log-periodic-a-20-element.html>

If your Philex has an external antenna socket as some set top amplified
antennas bizarrely do, you could even use that as an amplifier if necessary.

I wonder if the above actually costs less than what you paid for the Philex.

You would also need to buy say 5 m of coaxial cable locally and a Belling Lee
plug. I presume you know how to fit a Belling Lee plug to a coaxial cable.

> I could certainly try using mplayer, but it requires a lot of options,
> so I'll probably need help with that.

Actually mplayer can be used quite simply in most cases. Getting it
to play DVDs can be a bit inconvenient though because of the format
of the uri parameter.

But that is why I suggested using the smplayer front end.

With mplayer you have to specify the name of the station eg

mplayer "dvb://BBC One Scotland"

exactly as it is specified in the channels.conf file whereas smplayer
just gives you a menu item of all the stations from channels.conf
upon which to click.

So as I said,

apt-get install mplayer smplayer

w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -M > channels.conf

test -d ${HOME}/.mplayer || mkdir ${HOME}/.mplayer

mv channels.conf ${HOME}/.mplayer

fire up smplayer and you should be good to go for
PSB-1 and PSB-2 from the Inverness relay.

[J G Miller]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:24:57 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> The database is mentioned on the kaffeine website and I have
> added a Firefox addon which gives a sqlite database manager.

You could also install the sqlitebrowser package which offers
a nice GUI for examining contents of sqlite datatabases.

> No records in either table.

Which is to be expected since the scan within Kaffeine did not
lock on to the multiplex, read the NIT table, and then populate
the database with the details for those stations for that frequency.

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 20:12:06h +0100, Sian Mountbatten asked:

> On 19/04/12 17:53, J G Miller wrote:
>> Hope that explains the confusion over the file name for Kaffeine.
>
> The scanfile.dvb file gives six entries for uk-Rosemarkie.
> Do these correspond to the six multiplexes you mentioned?

Exactly! Look at the frequencies

T 633833000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
T 657833000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 674167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 682167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 706167000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM16 2k 1/32 NONE
T 714167000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!


Those frequencies and parameters for the multiplexes are now out of date.

Those are the pre-DSO frequencies and parameters.

The maintainers have not updated for post DSO.

These are the current frequencies and parameters


T 642000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM256 32k 1/32 NONE # [PSB-3 (BBC B) ch 42]
T 650000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE # [COM-4 (SDN) ch 43]
T 666000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE # [PSB-1 (BBC A) ch 45]
T 674000000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE # [COM-5 (Arq A) ch 46]
T 698000000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE # [PSB-2 (D3&4) ch 49]
T 706000000 8MHz 3/4 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE # [COM-4 (Arq B) ch 50]


NB to convert from channel to frequency in MHz

frequency = channel_number \* 8 + 306 MHz

642 = 42 \* 8 + 306
706 = 50 \* 8 + 306


Beware that some multiplexes on other transmitters are transmitted
on +/- channel offsets.


So if you are going to use Kaffeine with predefined scan frequencies
for uk-Rosemarkie rather than the less reliable autoscan, you will
need to edit the master file scanfile.dvb in /usr/share/kde4/apps/kaffeine
and to avoid it being overwritten by updates with the out of date
data, notify the maintainer of Kaffeine to get him to update the file.


Also note that Multiplexes PSB-1,2,3 are transmitted with ERP of 20 kW
whereas Multiplexes COM-4,5,6 are transmitter at half that, ERP of 10 kW

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 19/04/12 23:12, J G Miller wrote:
> On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, at 21:42:13h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>>>
>>> If you want instant gratification
>>
>> No, no. I'm willing to stick it out.
>
> Well the point I was alluding to was that at least for the moment
> you could actually be watching TV (if you need a fix) but just
> PSB-1 and PSB-2 from Inverness using mplayer/smplayer.

I've tried
mplayer tv://1 -vo x11 -ao alsa \
-tv device=/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0
but it simply shows its options and key-mappings and no video at all. In
other words, it does not function.

>> The problem is that the cable from the antenna to the USB DVB-T stick
>> is not long enough to enable me to put the antenna on the window sill.
>
> So what you need is an extension lead with a male coaxial plug on one
> end and a female coaxial plug on the other. Personally I use a ProfiGold
> 3 metre extension lead to get from my indoor Hama antenna situated near a window
> to get to the PC in another part of the room. It is not the log periodic

> design that you have.

I do not have a log periodic from what I've seen of the link you gave.
The UHF antenna is fan-shaped and the metal spikes are attached to a
fan-shaped piece of transparent plastic. It also has two VHF telescopic
antennas, but I don't think they make any difference, because I am using
the TV-OUT socket, not the RF-IN socket.

> <http://www.amazon.DE/Hama-Zimmerantenne-digital-analog-silber/dp/B00027YFXE>

German site; not much use to me 'cos I don't speak german.

> As the room appears to be full of standing waves with definite nodes and anti-nodes
> I have to position it quite carefully in both the horizontal and vertical planes.

Probably the same for all rooms.

>> Maybe the antenna just isn't working. Maybe I should get a different one.
>
> Indoor antennas are notoriously bad and if you cannot get an adequate
> signal with the Philex you need a full size one although trying to put it
> somewhere unobtrusive indoors can be a problem.

I am certainly not going to get a Yagi-Uda antenna which looks to me as
being unsuitable for indoors.

> Your options would probably be a small Yagi-Uda or a log periodic.

Yagi-Uda:
(1) From the picture in Wikipedia, I'd say that it would have to
*very* small.
(2) There is a Debian package called yagiuda for calculating the
performance of a Yagi-Uda antenna.

> The gain from a log periodic is less than that of a Yagi-Uda but the
> advantages are that it is much more directional and with not having a
> large reflector can be easier to position in a more discrete location in doors.
>
> <http://www.aerialsat.COM/prod/vision-log-periodic-a-20-element.html>

That link is to an outside aerial.

> If your Philex has an external antenna socket as some set top amplified
> antennas bizarrely do, you could even use that as an amplifier if necessary.

The Philex has two sockets on the antenna base: RF-IN and TV-OUT. I use
the TV-OUT to connect to the Hauppauge Nova-T.

> I wonder if the above actually costs less than what you paid for the Philex.

I got it second-hand for less than £25.

> You would also need to buy say 5 m of coaxial cable locally and a Belling Lee
> plug. I presume you know how to fit a Belling Lee plug to a coaxial cable.

If it involves soldering, then that's out, 'cos my eyesight is none too
brilliant these days. However, googling for an aerial lead coax male to
male 3m has given me a web site (futureshop.co.uk).

>> I could certainly try using mplayer, but it requires a lot of options,
>> so I'll probably need help with that.
>
> Actually mplayer can be used quite simply in most cases. Getting it
> to play DVDs can be a bit inconvenient though because of the format
> of the uri parameter.
>
> But that is why I suggested using the smplayer front end.
>
> With mplayer you have to specify the name of the station eg
>
> mplayer "dvb://BBC One Scotland"

Well, I tried
mplayer dvb://BBC\ ONE\ Scot
and it worked immediately and it appears that I have TV! So that
certainly suggests that the antenna is working OK, don't you think?

Here we are at 1:01 and I've got a window with what appears to be TV and
there is a female on the right doing deaf and dumb language!
Actually, I had no idea that it was so late! Reading about aerial leads
and replying to your posts has taken a lot of time.

>
> exactly as it is specified in the channels.conf file whereas smplayer
> just gives you a menu item of all the stations from channels.conf
> upon which to click.
>
> So as I said,
>
> apt-get install mplayer smplayer
>
> w_scan -c GB -C UTF-8 -M> channels.conf
>
> test -d ${HOME}/.mplayer || mkdir ${HOME}/.mplayer
>
> mv channels.conf ${HOME}/.mplayer
>
> fire up smplayer and you should be good to go for
> PSB-1 and PSB-2 from the Inverness relay.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 01:03:48h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:

> I've tried
> mplayer tv://1 -vo x11 -ao alsa \
> -tv device=/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0
> but it simply shows its options and key-mappings and no video at all. In
> other words, it does not function.

Yes because that invocation will not work until you have a channels.conf
file in place and using tv: means (as far as I recall) ANALOG tv not
DVB television.

> I do not have a log periodic from what I've seen of the link you gave.

Aha, there are two general style of log periodic antenna, and the one
I shewed you is the more usual style as seen on roof tops, but the other
style

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Schwarzbeck_UHALP_9108_A.jpg>

is just like the "fan" style that you describe for your Philex.

> It also has two VHF telescopic antennas, but I don't think they make any difference

Obviously not for UHF reception but they are there so that you could use it
as an antenna for FM (VHF Band II) and DAB (VHF Band III) broadcasts.

> because I am using the TV-OUT socket, not the RF-IN socket.

So it does have an RF-in socket which means you could use it as an amplifier
with a full size antenna if necessary.

> German site; not much use to me 'cos I don't speak german.

Cue the cliche line about if it were not for the Russians or Americans
we would all be speaking German. ;)

> I am certainly not going to get a Yagi-Uda antenna which looks to me as
> being unsuitable for indoors.

Many moons ago, I once used one indoors pointing out of a window in
Sunderland and was amazed to discover in the summer in the evening
that I could watch (then analog) TV from Lopik, Netherlands and even
Cuxhaven, Schleswig-Holstein on a regular basis.

One evening I even watched the news on Grampian TV.

Admittedly it was a small FUBA with a powerful masthead amplifier attached.

> That link is to an outside aerial.

That is what I said -- a full size antenna.

> If it involves soldering, then that's out

You should always solder the inner conductor but most people do not bother.

> Well, I tried
> mplayer dvb://BBC\ ONE\ Scot
> and it worked immediately and it appears that I have TV!

Well I did say you had to have the text the same as in channels.conf

> So that certainly suggests that the antenna is working OK, don't you think?

There was no doubt that the antenna was picking up PSB-1 and PSB-2 from
the Inverness relay. But if you want COM-4, COM-5, and COM-6 from
Rosemarkie, something better is required or better positioning of the
Philex since it is getting something on other frequencies, but just
not enough strong enough or clean enough signal.

[Sian Mountbatten]

Done that. But because I'm getting TV output from mplayer2 I don't need
to use Kaffeine any more. I've had o/p from BBC\ THREE, STV, STV+1 and
BBC\ NEWS so far. This is amazing! Progress at last!

>
> Also note that Multiplexes PSB-1,2,3 are transmitted with ERP of 20 kW
> whereas Multiplexes COM-4,5,6 are transmitter at half that, ERP of 10 kW
>

TVM
--
Sian Mountbatten
ex-Algol 68 specialist

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 01:30, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 01:03:48h +0100, Sian Mountbatten explained:
>
>> I've tried
>> mplayer tv://1 -vo x11 -ao alsa \
>> -tv device=/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0
>> but it simply shows its options and key-mappings and no video at all. In
>> other words, it does not function.
>
> Yes because that invocation will not work until you have a channels.conf
> file in place and using tv: means (as far as I recall) ANALOG tv not
> DVB television.

Yes, see below about using mplayer2 with dvb://etc.

>> Well, I tried
>> mplayer dvb://BBC\ ONE\ Scot
>> and it worked immediately and it appears that I have TV!
>
> Well I did say you had to have the text the same as in channels.conf

So you did. And it works. Could you suggest a channel in PSB-3 for me to
check whether I'm getting a signal?

>> So that certainly suggests that the antenna is working OK, don't you think?
>
> There was no doubt that the antenna was picking up PSB-1 and PSB-2 from
> the Inverness relay.

The aerial is directed at the Rosemarkie transmitter rather than the

Inverness relay.

> But if you want COM-4, COM-5, and COM-6 from
> Rosemarkie, something better is required or better positioning of the
> Philex since it is getting something on other frequencies, but just
> not enough strong enough or clean enough signal.

I've managed to get "More\ 4".

Regards

[J G Miller]

On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 01:45:33h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Could you suggest a channel in PSB-3 for me to
> check whether I'm getting a signal?

How many times do I have to repeat this --

PSB-3 is broadcast using DVB-t2 not DVB-t

The Hauppauge USB stick which you have, only has a DVB-t tuner.

You will *not* be able to receive any multiplexes (qv PSB-3)
which broadcast with DVB-t2.

And in the years following DSO, there will be a push to change
all multiplexes from DVB-t to DVB-t2 so people who only have
DVB-t tuners will have to upgrade their receivers.

> The aerial is directed at the Rosemarkie transmitter rather than the
> Inverness relay.

But look at the frequencies in channel.conf and you will see that
they correspond to Inverness not Rosemarkie.

> I've managed to get "More\ 4".

So? More 4 is on PSB-2. You are still not receiving any of the
COM-4, COM-5, COM-6 from Rosemarkie because either the position
of your antenna is wrong, or much more probable, that it is not
suitable for pulling in a sufficiently strong and clean signal
from the more distant transmitter. After all w_scan did detect
signals from Rosemarkie, but just could not lock on to any of them.

Incidentally if you get one station on a multiplex, you receive
all (unencrypted) stations on that multiplex.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 11:34, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 01:45:33h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> Could you suggest a channel in PSB-3 for me to
>> check whether I'm getting a signal?
>
> How many times do I have to repeat this --
>
> PSB-3 is broadcast using DVB-t2 not DVB-t
>
> The Hauppauge USB stick which you have, only has a DVB-t tuner.
>
> You will *not* be able to receive any multiplexes (qv PSB-3)
> which broadcast with DVB-t2.

Thank you for telling me. The information got lost amongst everything
else you told me.

> And in the years following DSO, there will be a push to change
> all multiplexes from DVB-t to DVB-t2 so people who only have
> DVB-t tuners will have to upgrade their receivers.

Can a DVB-t2 tuner receive *all* the multiplexers? Maybe I should get a
DVB-t2 tuner now.

>> The aerial is directed at the Rosemarkie transmitter rather than the
>> Inverness relay.
>
> But look at the frequencies in channel.conf and you will see that
> they correspond to Inverness not Rosemarkie.

Where did you get the data for Inverness and Rosemarkie?

>> I've managed to get "More\ 4".
>
> So? More 4 is on PSB-2.

Thanks.

> You are still not receiving any of the
> COM-4, COM-5, COM-6 from Rosemarkie because either the position
> of your antenna is wrong, or much more probable, that it is not
> suitable for pulling in a sufficiently strong and clean signal
> from the more distant transmitter. After all w_scan did detect
> signals from Rosemarkie, but just could not lock on to any of them.
>
> Incidentally if you get one station on a multiplex, you receive
> all (unencrypted) stations on that multiplex.

Which I suppose is why I can get 19 channels.

Thank you very much for your help.

Incidentally, I notice that the actual TV picture is quite small and
when I press 'f' to get fullscreen, the program uses the full screen,
but the picture does not change: there is a small picture with lots of
black around it. Does that mean that it is impossible to make the moving
part of the picture bigger?

Regards

[J G Miller]

On Friday, 20 Apr 2012 11:57:58 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> The information got lost amongst everything else you told me.

Yes digital tv is like that lots of incomprehensible initialisms
QAM, QPSK, SR, FEC, and all sorts of special cases, due to all the
different parameters which can be used in the transmission mode,
and also in the video eg MPEG-2, MPEG-4/x.264 or audio encoding
MP2, AAC etc.

> Can a DVB-t2 tuner receive *all* the multiplexers?

Yes a DVB-t2 tuner is backwards compatible to DVB-t.

> Maybe I should get a DVB-t2 tuner now.

Unless you absolutely need it now in order to watch/record
BBC One, BBC HD, stv HD, or Channel 4 HD, my advice would be
to wait for the price to come down. Noises have been made
in France for a change there to DVB-t2, so once another major
population country introduces DVB-t2 transmissions, the
manufacturers will start churning them out as USB sticks
and the price will drop.

Otherwise about the only USB model available is

<http://www.amazon.co.UK/PCTV-Systems-DVB-T2-nanoStick-Tuner/dp/B004C1176E>

To be honest, if I had been in your position of not already owning a
DVB-t USB stick, I would not have bought the Nova-T but bought the above.

You need to do your homework before you buy these techno-devices.

The really good news about this model though is

<http://www.linuxtv.ORG/wiki/index.php/DVB-T2_USB_Devices>

it is supported by modules in the Linux kernel 3.0 and above.

> Where did you get the data for Inverness and Rosemarkie?

Inverness -- <http://www.ukfree.TV/shutdowndetail.php?tx=NH667447>

Rosemarkie -- <http://www.ukfree.TV/shutdowndetail.php?tx=NH762623>

You should have had both of these in your bookmarks for some time now.

> Which I suppose is why I can get 19 channels.

Exactly -- with analog TV, one station per UHF channel; with digital
TV, one multiplex per UHF channel, but maybe up to 9 TV stations.

> Incidentally, I notice that the actual TV picture is quite small and
> when I press 'f' to get fullscreen, the program uses the full screen,
> but the picture does not change

That is a problem that happens with mplayer sometimes because of the
interaction with the X server and depending on the display interface used.
You should by default be using Xv.

If quitting mplayer and restarting mplayer does not fix the problem, then you
can try using the 'w' and 'e' keys to adjust the size of the picture.

Also why not install smplayer to use as a GUI front end to mplayer because
it makes channel changing so much easier?

> Does that mean that it is impossible to make the moving part of the picture bigger?

No normally, pressing F on video files or TV gives you the full screen picture,
constrained by the aspect ratio of the display. Very occasionally it does
not behave which I think maybe an intermittent "bug" in the state of the X server.

What is the aspect ratio and resolution of your monitor and have you set up
Xorg server to provide a matching resolution on your screen?

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 16/04/12 21:43, J G Miller wrote:
> On Monday, April 16th, 2012, at 19:13:43h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> The device is recognised by the kernel, but the kernel does not give any
>> device name (such as /dev/video0).
>
> You need to post the details from dmesg of what happens when the device
> is detected by the kernel.
>
> And remember your first point of reference is
>
> <http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-NOVA-T-Stick>

Thanks.

> You need to check the exact tuner model number and whether or not you
> have the firmware relevant to that tuner installed in /lib/firmware.

I do.

mplayer2 (aka mplayer when installed) runs Ok with
mplayer2 dvb://channel -vo x11 -ao alsa -geometry 50\%:50\%
although I admit that the options are stored in the config file in
~/.mplayer2:
ao=alsa
vo=x11
geometry=50%:50%

Because I had problems with firefox not responding, I deleted my
~/.mozilla directory which was a really stupid thing to do because I've
lost all the passwords that firefox was remembering for me as well as
all the bookmarks. Ah well, I just have to accept that occasionally I do
something really stupid.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 12:49:41h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> mplayer2 (aka mplayer when installed) runs Ok with
> mplayer2 dvb://channel -vo x11 -ao alsa -geometry 50\%:50\%
> although I admit that the options are stored in the config file in
> ~/.mplayer2:
> ao=alsa
> vo=x11
> geometry=50%:50%

Like I said, you should be using the xv interface. x11 is slow
and is probably the reason why "f" full screen does not work.

If you have your options specified in /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf then
you do not need to specify them on the command line.

I still use mplayer (compiled from SVN source) not mplayer2 so I do not
know if that uses /etc/mplayer or /etc/mplayer2

Also *if* you have pulseaudio installed, alsa may well be getting
redirected to pulseaudio in the configuration file

/usr/share/alsa/pulse-alsa.conf

so specifying ao=alsa is pointless

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 12:32, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, 20 Apr 2012 11:57:58 +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> The information got lost amongst everything else you told me.
>
> Yes digital tv is like that lots of incomprehensible initialisms
> QAM, QPSK, SR, FEC, and all sorts of special cases, due to all the
> different parameters which can be used in the transmission mode,
> and also in the video eg MPEG-2, MPEG-4/x.264 or audio encoding
> MP2, AAC etc.
>
>> Can a DVB-t2 tuner receive *all* the multiplexers?
>
> Yes a DVB-t2 tuner is backwards compatible to DVB-t.
>
>> Maybe I should get a DVB-t2 tuner now.
>
> Unless you absolutely need it now in order to watch/record
> BBC One, BBC HD, stv HD, or Channel 4 HD, my advice would be
> to wait for the price to come down. Noises have been made
> in France for a change there to DVB-t2, so once another major
> population country introduces DVB-t2 transmissions, the
> manufacturers will start churning them out as USB sticks
> and the price will drop.
>
> Otherwise about the only USB model available is
>
> <http://www.amazon.co.UK/PCTV-Systems-DVB-T2-nanoStick-Tuner/dp/B004C1176E>
>
> To be honest, if I had been in your position of not already owning a
> DVB-t USB stick, I would not have bought the Nova-T but bought the above.
>
> You need to do your homework before you buy these techno-devices.

I checked the Linux support for USB DVB-T devices and I decided that the
Hauppauge Nova-T stick was my best bet. As it is, I got it second-hand
and that goes for the antenna as well (second-hand, that is). Of course,
I didn't know about DVB-T2 then.

> The really good news about this model though is
>
> <http://www.linuxtv.ORG/wiki/index.php/DVB-T2_USB_Devices>
>
> it is supported by modules in the Linux kernel 3.0 and above.

So I gather. The odd thing about that web-page is that it says that no
DVB-T2 devices are supported and yet, in the table above that, it
mentions that the DVB-T2 nanostick IS supported.

Amazon sell it for £54.99 although third-parties sell it for £49.97.

>> Where did you get the data for Inverness and Rosemarkie?
>
> Inverness --<http://www.ukfree.TV/shutdowndetail.php?tx=NH667447>
>
> Rosemarkie --<http://www.ukfree.TV/shutdowndetail.php?tx=NH762623>
>
> You should have had both of these in your bookmarks for some time now.

I'm not as familiar with Freeview TV as you are. You have obviously been
familiar with www.ukfree.tv for some time whereas for me it is a new
web-site.

>> Which I suppose is why I can get 19 channels.
>
> Exactly -- with analog TV, one station per UHF channel; with digital
> TV, one multiplex per UHF channel, but maybe up to 9 TV stations.

I am getting to grips with the new nomenclature :-)

>> Incidentally, I notice that the actual TV picture is quite small and
>> when I press 'f' to get fullscreen, the program uses the full screen,
>> but the picture does not change
>
> That is a problem that happens with mplayer sometimes because of the
> interaction with the X server and depending on the display interface used.
> You should by default be using Xv.
>
> If quitting mplayer and restarting mplayer does not fix the problem, then you
> can try using the 'w' and 'e' keys to adjust the size of the picture.

I didn't know that. I have found that the man page for mplayer2 is
rather complicated. I altered the config file for mplayer2 to use xv
instead of x11 and when I make the window maximised, I got a much bigger
picture which froze. After that, only the mouse worked, but no mouse
clicks and I had to do a h/w restart.

> Also why not install smplayer to use as a GUI front end to mplayer because
> it makes channel changing so much easier?
>
>> Does that mean that it is impossible to make the moving part of the picture bigger?
>
> No normally, pressing F on video files or TV gives you the full screen picture,
> constrained by the aspect ratio of the display. Very occasionally it does
> not behave which I think maybe an intermittent "bug" in the state of the X server.
>
> What is the aspect ratio and resolution of your monitor and have you set up
> Xorg server to provide a matching resolution on your screen?

My monitor is 1440x900. The KDE4 system settings give that size with a
refresh of 59.9 Hz.

I have not altered the configuration of the Xorg server since it was
installed. In fact, AFAIK, all configuration is done via the KDE4 System
Settings.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 13:22, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 12:49:41h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> mplayer2 (aka mplayer when installed) runs Ok with
>> mplayer2 dvb://channel -vo x11 -ao alsa -geometry 50\%:50\%
>> although I admit that the options are stored in the config file in
>> ~/.mplayer2:
>> ao=alsa
>> vo=x11
>> geometry=50%:50%
>
> Like I said, you should be using the xv interface. x11 is slow
> and is probably the reason why "f" full screen does not work.
>
> If you have your options specified in /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf then
> you do not need to specify them on the command line.
>
> I still use mplayer (compiled from SVN source) not mplayer2 so I do not
> know if that uses /etc/mplayer or /etc/mplayer2

Neither, it so happens.

> Also *if* you have pulseaudio installed, alsa may well be getting
> redirected to pulseaudio in the configuration file
>
> /usr/share/alsa/pulse-alsa.conf
>
> so specifying ao=alsa is pointless

I have now installed pulseaudio so the file you mentioned has now been
created. There are no files for mplayer (or mplayer2) in the /etc tree.

smplayer2 comes up as a (small) window. Open->TV->Edit ... gives a
window entitled TV/Radio list. There is a New item button which when
pressed gives an empty line with three empty boxes. What now?

[J G Miller]

On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 14:12:15h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> As it is, I got it second-hand and that goes for the antenna

Well you probably got a good deal on the USB stick, but as for
the antenna, I am afraid to say that it is probably a poor choice.

> I didn't know about DVB-T2 then.

DVB-t2 is big news though and the UKofGB&NI is the first state
in the world to implement DVB-t2 for regular broadcast transmissions
(PSB-3). Some of the Nordic countries have now added DVB-t2 for
secondary services, although at least one of them has declared
a strict timetable for conversion of all transmissions from
DVB-t to DVB-t2. France which does have HD transmissions but
DVB-t/MPEG-4 has considered the transition to DVB-t2 but has
decided not to do anything until analog switch off is finally
completed this year. Surprisingly, Germany appears to have
been quiet on this issue entirely, but as is probably typical,
it will stay quiet, and then a decision will be announced and
everything changed and put into place fairly quickly. However
it should be noted that in Germany, only about 10-20% of
viewers receive TV by the terrestrial antenna.

> The odd thing about that web-page is that it says that no
> DVB-T2 devices are supported and yet

Because one person edits one part of the Wiki page and forgets
to change the other part.

> in the table above that, it mentions that the DVB-T2 nanostick IS supported.

The entry specific for that device mentions the level of support
which is the important and significant thing, not a general statement
elsewhere.

> I'm not as familiar with Freeview TV as you are.

To be honest, I first got into Freeview TV back in the summer
of 2003 when I purchased a Hauppauge DEC 200T USB for my parents
which was not actually connected to a PC but to the TV as a
"set top box" until the SONY VTX-D800U became available a
few years later, and finally only one remote was needed and
the MHEG features (red button services) could be accessed.

> You have obviously been familiar with www.ukfree.tv for some time

Have you been to <http://www.freeview.co.UK> to download and print
out the latest PDF document of the EPG listing?

> I am getting to grips with the new nomenclature :-)

Well we all have to start at the beginning and gradually
learn the language. Ever considered learning German? ;)

> I have found that the man page for mplayer2 is rather complicated.

Complicated?

The man page for mplayer/mplayer2 is almost unintelligible for new users,
and the explanation of how to use some of the options is not at all clear.

The problem is, mplayer has so many parameters and options,
trying to just locate the relevant section is quite a task.

> I altered the config file for mplayer2 to use xv
> instead of x11 and when I make the window maximised,
> I got a much bigger picture which froze.

EEK!

That does not sound good and appears to be a hardware/software problem.

I have an old Radeon 9200 with the troublesome Xorg radeon driver
and rarely have ever had such a thing happen. (Lockups with
gl programs were at one stage with a particular kernel version
and Xorg server version a regular event however.)

So what needs to be known is what is your graphics card,
are you loading any kernel modules for it for hardware acceleration,
and what Xorg module for the graphics card is set in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
if you have one.

If the X11 server is locking up with full screen mplayer, it is
likely to have problems with other applications as well which
want to use the xv interface.

Also, try doing a check with glxinfo for accelerated graphics support.

glxinfo | grep DRI

and see if you can run glxgears and get a decent frame rate.
I only get about 50 fps but on a modern PC you should get
maybe 200 fps or more.

> My monitor is 1440x900.

That is a very odd or unusual or non standard size.

Usually monitors would be 4:3 1280x1024, 1600x1200
and 16:10 1680x1050, 1920x1080
(and a few good ones 1920x1200).

Is it in fact a laptop monitor?

> The KDE4 system settings give that size with a refresh of 59.9 Hz.

Oh so you are running KDE4 desktop. I wonder if that could possibly
cause a problem with xv interface to mplayer because of all the KDE4
special effects.

I would suggest logging out, and then when you login again using
KDM I presume, instead of selecting default or KDE4 desktop,
you select the failsafe to get just an X Terminal Emulator
and nothing else, not even a window manager. Then try running
mplayer again via xv and see if it locks up again.

But KDE4? I thought you were a big fan of FVWM.

> I have not altered the configuration of the Xorg server since it was
> installed.

All default Xorg server installations are now done "on the fly"
without an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

I use one to make sure I always get what I want on this
Viewsonic 1680x1050 monitor and having an in place configuration
does not let me down with unexpected surprises.

[J G Miller]

On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 14:31:52h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:

> Neither, it so happens.

Because it has not been created. Just to explain, files in /etc
affect all users, obviously a config file in your $HOME applies
only to you. So you only need /etc/mplayer{2?)/ directory
and configuration files there if you want all users on your system
to have sensible defaults.

QUOTE

The system-wide configuration file 'mplayer.conf' is in your
configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/local/etc/mplayer),
the user specific one is '~/.mplayer/config'

UNQUOTE

> I have now installed pulseaudio

Did you really want to do that?

Many people hate pulseaudio with a vengeance.

Just to explain, from the bottom layer upwards

sound hardware
kernel modules (ALSA snd modules are distribution standard)
interface files in /dev/snd
ALSA library for userspace and ALSA programs
Pulseaudio

Pulseaudio sits on top of ALSA and as far as the user is concerned
there is just one sound output, mixed from all current sounds,
and one master volume control.

Some audio programs now only work by default through the Pulseaudio
library, so if you wish to use them, obviously you need pulseaudio installed.

The other advantage is that if you are playing more than one sound at a time,
eg watching TV and trying to play an mp3, one of the applications would block
until the sound device became free (unless you had set up ALSA's internal
source mixer dmix in /etc/alsaconf or your $HOME/.asoundrc).

> smplayer2 comes up as a (small) window. Open->TV->Edit ...

Under Edit there should a horizontal line followed by a vertical
list of all your TV stations.

You did remember to move channels.conf into your ${HOME}/.mplayer
or is it ${HOME}/.mplayer2 directory otherwise smplayer{2} cannot
find the list of stations?

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 15:29, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 14:31:52h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> Neither, it so happens.
>
> Because it has not been created. Just to explain, files in /etc
> affect all users, obviously a config file in your $HOME applies
> only to you. So you only need /etc/mplayer{2?)/ directory
> and configuration files there if you want all users on your system
> to have sensible defaults.
>
> QUOTE
>
> The system-wide configuration file 'mplayer.conf' is in your
> configuration directory (e.g. /etc/mplayer or /usr/local/etc/mplayer),
> the user specific one is '~/.mplayer/config'
>
> UNQUOTE
>
>> I have now installed pulseaudio
>
> Did you really want to do that?

Only because you mentioned it so it seemed a good idea. I shall now
purge it and just use ALSA. I don't mind doing that. I'm trying to have
an installation which will work. Incidentally, mplayer2 with xv as the
video output has video and audio uncoupled. The video moves very slowly
while the sound continues. The video looks as though the frame rate is
very slow: the picture moves in small jerks. Whether it is fullscreen or
not, the same behaviour occurs. At least it doesn't freeze.

> Many people hate pulseaudio with a vengeance.
>
> Just to explain, from the bottom layer upwards
>
> sound hardware
> kernel modules (ALSA snd modules are distribution standard)
> interface files in /dev/snd
> ALSA library for userspace and ALSA programs
> Pulseaudio
>
> Pulseaudio sits on top of ALSA and as far as the user is concerned
> there is just one sound output, mixed from all current sounds,
> and one master volume control.
>
> Some audio programs now only work by default through the Pulseaudio
> library, so if you wish to use them, obviously you need pulseaudio installed.

I don't know which programs use pulseaudio. The only multimedia programs
I use are deadbeef (audio player), mplayer2 (for TV), Kaffeine and vlc
(for DVDs). That's it really.

> The other advantage is that if you are playing more than one sound at a time,
> eg watching TV and trying to play an mp3, one of the applications would block
> until the sound device became free (unless you had set up ALSA's internal
> source mixer dmix in /etc/alsaconf or your $HOME/.asoundrc).
>
>> smplayer2 comes up as a (small) window. Open->TV->Edit ...
>
> Under Edit there should a horizontal line followed by a vertical
> list of all your TV stations.

Nope. Nothing in the edit box.

> You did remember to move channels.conf into your ${HOME}/.mplayer
> or is it ${HOME}/.mplayer2 directory otherwise smplayer{2} cannot
> find the list of stations?

I copied channels.conf (made with the -M option for w_scan) to
~/.mplayer2 and ~/.smplayer2. Same file in both directories. It's quite
small (<4KB) so no point in using a symbolic link.

[Sian Mountbatten]

On 20/04/12 14:57, J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, April 20th, 2012, at 14:12:15h +0100, Sian Mountbatten wrote:
>
>> As it is, I got it second-hand and that goes for the antenna
>
> Well you probably got a good deal on the USB stick, but as for
> the antenna, I am afraid to say that it is probably a poor choice.

Have you ideas about indoor antannas? I notice that Which? has 2 best
buys, one of which looks like the UVF part of the Philex Digitop.
Needless to say, Which? did not test my antenna.

>> You have obviously been familiar with www.ukfree.tv for some time
>
> Have you been to<http://www.freeview.co.UK> to download and print
> out the latest PDF document of the EPG listing?
>
>> I am getting to grips with the new nomenclature :-)
>
> Well we all have to start at the beginning and gradually
> learn the language. Ever considered learning German? ;)

Not really. I've tried a few languages, but am only good at French and
Esperanto (fluent in the latter). Why German?

>> I have found that the man page for mplayer2 is rather complicated.
>
> Complicated?
>
> The man page for mplayer/mplayer2 is almost unintelligible for new users,
> and the explanation of how to use some of the options is not at all clear.
>
> The problem is, mplayer has so many parameters and options,
> trying to just locate the relevant section is quite a task.
>
>> I altered the config file for mplayer2 to use xv
>> instead of x11 and when I make the window maximised,
>> I got a much bigger picture which froze.
>
> EEK!
>
> That does not sound good and appears to be a hardware/software problem.

I recently bought a new computer from the computer consultants whose
router, the one I use to connect via WiFi, is on the floor beneath my
sitting-room. The computer has an Intel Core i5-2400 3.1GHz which should
be fast enough (it's quadricore so four threads can operate
simultaneously), but I've already had one error message from mplayer2
saying that my computer is SLOW.

> I have an old Radeon 9200 with the troublesome Xorg radeon driver
> and rarely have ever had such a thing happen. (Lockups with
> gl programs were at one stage with a particular kernel version
> and Xorg server version a regular event however.)

The GPU is Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. I've had comments about that in
#siduction (irc) 'cos it's not state-of-the-art. I also have an SSD
(solid state drive) instead of a hard disk (120GB).

WiFi: TP-Link 150Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter model TL-WN781ND
(all this probably means more to you than it does to me :-)).

> So what needs to be known is what is your graphics card,
> are you loading any kernel modules for it for hardware acceleration,
> and what Xorg module for the graphics card is set in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> if you have one.

I don't have one.

> If the X11 server is locking up with full screen mplayer, it is
> likely to have problems with other applications as well which
> want to use the xv interface.

I'm not aware of using such applications. I use sometimes VLC and
sometimes Kaffeine to view DVDs and I occasionally had screen freeze
with VLC. A hardware restart and reload of the program usually worked.

> Also, try doing a check with glxinfo for accelerated graphics support.
>
> glxinfo | grep DRI

That produces no output.

> and see if you can run glxgears and get a decent frame rate.
> I only get about 50 fps but on a modern PC you should get
> maybe 200 fps or more.

glxgears runs Ok and produces 1019.160 FPS

>> My monitor is 1440x900.
>
> That is a very odd or unusual or non standard size.
>
> Usually monitors would be 4:3 1280x1024, 1600x1200
> and 16:10 1680x1050, 1920x1080
> (and a few good ones 1920x1200).
>
> Is it in fact a laptop monitor?

No. I wanted a standard size monitor but the guy downstairs installed
this one. Seeing that I've got to spend some of my savings or my housing
benefit and my pension credit will get clobbered, I'll do a search for a
standard size Flat Screen. Here goes. A first search gives one 1600x1200
at £551 (NEC) and another £192 (Dell). What do you reckon?

>> The KDE4 system settings give that size with a refresh of 59.9 Hz.
>
> Oh so you are running KDE4 desktop. I wonder if that could possibly
> cause a problem with xv interface to mplayer because of all the KDE4
> special effects.
>
> I would suggest logging out, and then when you login again using
> KDM I presume, instead of selecting default or KDE4 desktop,
> you select the failsafe to get just an X Terminal Emulator
> and nothing else, not even a window manager. Then try running
> mplayer again via xv and see if it locks up again.

Right, I'll try that. The failsafe failed to materialise. I just got the
login screen again. So I am now running with fluxbox as the window
manager. It's a real lightweight WM: no elaborate KDE4 desktop/plasma
workspace. mplayer2 still gives the same characteristics as on KDE4. So
I'll go back to KDE4 now.

> But KDE4? I thought you were a big fan of FVWM.

Actually, I used fvwm for quite a time, but a lot of the functionality
of KDE4 is rather useful: for example, being able to use the Left Win
key as a compose key to make accented characters. I cannot do that with
fluxbox, fvwm or any other desktop. Before I started using KDE for real,
I tried using fvwm and no desktop, but I missed the KDE desktop. And
fvwm, while very configurable, needs a *lot* of learning to get it to do
things as I wanted. Its man page is enormous.

>> I have not altered the configuration of the Xorg server since it was
>> installed.
>
> All default Xorg server installations are now done "on the fly"
> without an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
>
> I use one to make sure I always get what I want on this
> Viewsonic 1680x1050 monitor and having an in place configuration
> does not let me down with unexpected surprises.

Incidentally, whereabouts R U?