Is TBS-6281 SE a decent choice?

Anders Gustafsson

Ie: https://tbs-technology.de/shop/DVB-T2-C-Dual-Tuner-PCIe-Terrestrial-or-cable-TV-card-LP-TBS-6281-SE

This is a dual PCI tuner. Price is reasonable (just over 100€ ex VAT) and the Linux support appears good: https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS6281

Unless anyone else has any objections, then I will probably order one next week.

Ron L

Before you commit to TBS if you have never compiled media drivers before using media_build system I would suggest you give it a try first to see if it is something you can live with. If you are accustomed to accepting every new kernel update from your distro you may come to find the process tedious. Since you are in Europe, you have option to purchase a device with kernel in mainline. Mind you I've purchased two DVB devices with driver in mainline listed as working in the wiki that actually do not work, so no guarantees there either.

The tbsdtv not only builds TBS drivers, but they regularly pull in linuxtv mainline drivers as well. You compile all drivers, both TBS and mainline into your existing kernel using media_build system. There are normally at least 2 or 3 drivers in mainline linuxtv that do not compile and cause the build to fail. You have to stop, sort out the driver causing the error and disable it in the config. Once you've done that 2 or 3 times the build finally completes and you install the media modules and reboot.

When you update your kernel those extra modules get left behind and you have to repeat this process for the new kernel.

Because of broken drivers in mainline I've had to do this for as long as I've had DVB devices. It's a pain. If there is a device that actually works with the driver in mainline that you can purchase I would pick it.

The TBS DVB-S2 device I have is the first one I've bought that actually worked bug free without patching a driver. Unfortunately due to Linux politics I'm still compiling media drivers.

Anders Gustafsson

Thanks. Yes, I have been forced to compile and even modify drivers in the past, but I treat the tvh server as pretty much an appliance and rarely upgrade. The last upgrade was over a year ago to get to kernel 5. The system has been running since. I have never used the media_build system, but I will check it out.

Anders Gustafsson

OK. Got the card today. Latest Linux driver seems to be TBS Linux Driver v170330. Then just follow this? https://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9875

Ron L

I think that info is outdated. Look at this...

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

Anders Gustafsson

Thanks! What does this do?


sed -i -r 's/(^CONFIG.*_RC.*=)./\1n/g' v4l/.config
sed -i -r 's/(^CONFIG.*_IR.*=)./\1n/g' v4l/.config

FWIW, this is what I did tonight and yes, I tested on a scratch machine :)

cd /usr/src git clone https://github.com/tbsdtv/media_build.git git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media.git -b latest ./media cd media_build make dir DIR=../media make allyesconfig make -j4

Boom: v5.5_vb2_kmap.patch

Ran into this: https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/issues/266

Also here: https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media/issues/236

File is in backports folder, v5.5_vb2_kmap.patch

Removed, two places, from backports.txt

Can't locate Proc/ProcessTable.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Proc::ProcessTable module) (@INC contains: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.26.1/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.26.1 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.26.1/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.26.1 /usr/lib/perl5/5.26.1/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/5.26.1 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl) at ./scripts/rmmod.pl line 4. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./scripts/rmmod.pl line 4.

Installed perl-Proc-ProcessTable through yast

make install

curl -L http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/linux/tbs-tuner-firmwares_v1.0.tar.bz2 | tar -jxvf - -C /lib/firmware/

reboot

Both tuners visible in tvh

Ron L


Thanks! What does this do?

sed -i -r 's/(^CONFIG.*_RC.*=)./\1n/g' v4l/.config
sed -i -r 's/(^CONFIG.*_IR.*=)./\1n/g' v4l/.config

That is editing the config file. My regex knowledge is limited but I'd say it's removing all the RC and IR modules for remote control from the config. I gather they were not building.

Sounds like you are up and running now. That's good.

Anders Gustafsson

Yes. At least on the test hardware. I might try moving the card to production and just copy over the needed files first.

Anders Gustafsson

Hooked it up in the basement where the DVB-T cable comes in. Appears to work. I had to configure the muxes manually, but that was the case with the original server as well. Signal -48dBm and s/n 35.3dB.Programmes play just fine in VLC.

Now I just have to take a deep breath and move the card to the real server :)

Anders Gustafsson

Done. This is how:


cd /usr/src
git clone https://github.com/tbsdtv/media_build.git
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media.git -b latest ./media
cd media_build
make dir DIR=../media
make allyesconfig
make -j4
sudo make install

curl -L http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/linux/tbs-tuner-firmwares_v1.0.tar.bz2 | tar -jxvf - -C /lib/firmware/

Anders Gustafsson

The card has been very stable, especially after I upgraded OpenSuse so I added another one. I now have one for DVB-T2 and another for DVB-C. I have disabled my USB tuners and will remove them completely.

I had some issues, as usual, with the Leap 15.4 upgrade because of backports, but once I removed the offending backport:

edit media_build/backports/backports.txt:
[5.14.1023]
#add v5.14_bus_void_return.patch