August DVB-T210

derp derp · 2014-02-11T22:48:40+00:00

Hi. Was wondering if this was compatible with tvheadend as there's not much information from users about this device. Does anyone have one? Is it working wel...

Olli Salonen

Under Windows 8.1 with the drivers downloaded from August website and the Arcsoft Totalmedia software I can find all the channels, including the HD channels that are in the 586 MHz frequency band here. However, when I try to view any of those HD channels the picture is horribly pixelated. In Linux I cannot find any channels at all at @586 MHz (my w_scan result was attached to this thread already earlier). Jukka, does the thing work ok for you even in Windows for the Finnish HD channels?

Here in Southern Finland all the HD channels are put in the mux that's at 586000kHz. Maybe the bandwidth of that MUX is too much for the HW or the driver. All the SD channels (at other frequencies) work ok under Linux and Windows for me. The PCTV NanoStick 290e works for all SD and HD channels in Linux and Windows using the same software and same antenna. Signal strength indicators show a good signal on both tuners in the Windows software.

Jukka Pirinen

Yes in Windows it works fine, heres example stream recorded with VLC (31s, 37Mbit/s, 132MB)

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~bogey/august_dvb-t210/raw_windows.ts

Operator is DNA, only YLE TV1 HD and YLE TV2 HD are free view.

Olli Salonen

Ah, so you have the VHF frequency DNA channels. From Digita UHF frequencies you get also YLE Fem HD btw :) I wonder if there's a difference how these work. Unfortunately I don't have a VHF antenna to test the DNA channels...

Justin H

I've been looking in the Windows & Linux USB capture logs for patterns & even in just the first 5 URB transfers I can see what look like big differences in register accesses. I don't know what these registers do, or if they're going to make any difference - some might, some might not.

Windows Linux 08 6c 02 00 00 08 6c 02 00 00 -- Reset? 09 01 01 6c d3 09 01 01 6c fd 08 6c 02 d3 00 09 01 01 6c db 08 6c 02 00 04 08 6c 02 db 01 09 01 01 6c 10 09 01 10 60 00

Going through my windows capture log, I find things like


000072:  OUT: 0000000 us 0544414 ms BULK[00001] >>> 08 6c 02 ad 00

but cannot find 08 6c 02 ad XX in the linux USB log anywhere.

I think the sequences starting 0x08 are I2C writes, and 0x09 are I2C reads. Presumably the CXD2820 device is I2C master, and anything going to address 6c (0x08 0x6c) is the TDA18122 tuner.

Whatever is happening I think the setup of the tuner & demod chips is close enough to allow DVB-T to work but not close enough for DVB-T2.

NOTE: I am not a linux driver hacking expert by any means, so take all this as a pet theory ;-)

Ingmar Nurmiste

Hello,

I tried to take some logs for the August DVB-T210.

Country: Finland

Frequency: E35 586MHz

I got this info from the broadcasting company (Digita.fi):

Capacity: SD - MPEG2 2,5Mb/s, HD - MPEG4 7Mb/s
Bandwidth: 8MHz
Modulation: 64 - QAM
FFT: 8K extended
G/I: 1/8

FEC: 4/5

Not sure if this can be trusted as the mux contains 3 HD channels and 1 SD channel, can 64QAM really carry that data rate?

I will attach dmesg from attaching the dongle and during scanning, w_scan log and its output file. Also VLC messages when tuned to HD channel (got static grey screen) + dvbtune output. I used Linux Mint with daily kernel 3.14.0-999-generic from 10th of April.

Hope it helps.

Ingmar

Jukka Pirinen

What is that setting ts_mode?


        .i2c_address = 0x6c, /* (0xd8 >> 1) */
        .ts_mode = 0x38,

I see linux it does it with

08 6C 02 70 38

but that is not seen anywhere in windows sniff logs..

Also in windows it also sends many times to

08 6E 02 00 XX

that's not happening in Linux.

Justin H

I can't find any TS mode setting from windows either. Maybe they're relying on the default TS mode when the chip powers up. Crope says to try commenting out the cxd 2820r init which sets it

Jukka Pirinen

I commented ts_mode out and now it sets it

08 6c 02 70 00

URB data in stream is now having only 0 and 1

Justin H

I think to try not writing anything at all to register 0x70 is what crope means :-)

That is, do not call cxd 2820 init at all

Justin H

CrazyCat, I see in the code that the TS mode is set to 0x38 .. is this done to engage a certain mode in the FX2 controller?

I'm trying to put USB analyzer dumps of register settings from Windows into Linux code now to see if I can kick this tuner into working for our 38Mb+ DVB-T2 transports, but not having much luck so far (no lock)

Crazy Cat

tsmode is ok, default parallel mode (i think 0x30 is same).

check new patch - some additional tsconfig register initialization in cxd2820r driver and changed initial fx2 firmware cmds in dw2102.

Justin H

Thanks crazycat, but with the ts220.patch applied on top of a git checkout of media_tree, this is actually worse now.

while zap is tuned to a DVB-T2 mux, dvbtraffic is reporting only 23Mbits/sec where previously it showed 38Mbits/sec - but in all cases the PIDs dvbtraffic reports are junk.

Justin H

I was just thinking, maybe it'd make things easier if I set up my system so somebody can login remotely. If you don't have access to a high bitrate dvb-t2 mux it might speed things up.

Looking at the bus sniffs from Linux & windows again, the last thing before the mpeg data starts coming in is the 36 03 00 command - stream start. In the Linux USB sniffs I've seen it's earlier. Could this be important?

Gavin Ridgway

I've been following this thread with interest for the last week or so. I have both a PCTV 290e and the August T220. However, the driver software I'm using is stuff I've written myself, based on the Linux source code as I don't have access to most of the device data sheets. The driver software is 'user space' (i.e. not a kernel driver, so it's easier to debug) and doesn't even target Linux.

The software for the 290e works perfectly. However, and unsurprisingly, the T220 only works with a DVB-T mux. The transport stream from a T2 mux is garbled and sometimes even VLC crashes when attempting to play it.

I've looked over CrazyCat's latest patch for the T220 and also the 'usblyzer' CSV file provided by Jukka Pirinen. On a hunch that the 'ts_mode' is wrong, I checked Jukka's CSV file and sure enough, I can see a I2C write sequence:

08 6C 02 71 E4

which CrazyCat has added to his latest patch. However, a little further down in the file is:

08 6C 02 71 BC

So, instead of setting register 70 to 0x38 or 0xE4, I've tried it with 0xBC.

For the first time I've been able to record the transport stream for a DVB-T2 mux (about 150Mb in 30 seconds - I'm in UK, so these are the Freeview HD channels).

The original Linux source for the Sony CXD2028R has in it's header:

#define CXD2820R_TS_SERIAL 0x08
#define CXD2820R_TS_SERIAL_MSB 0x28
#define CXD2820R_TS_PARALLEL 0x30

#define CXD2820R_TS_PARALLEL_MSB 0x70

for 'ts_mode' settings. I've no idea what 0xBC means. Anyone else want to give this 'ts_mode' a go? Anyone know the meaning of these settings?

Justin H

Hi Gavin.

I probably won't have a chance to test this register change right away, but believe me I'll get onto it as soon as I can (problems with my HTPC in the lounge) !

Cheers very much - I've been poring over those logs for ages - I suppose I went number blind after a while

Crazy Cat

reg 0x70
bit 4 - parallel or serial TS bus
bit 5 - bit order for serial mode

bit 3 - bit order for parallel mode

reg 0x71
bit 4 - TS clock inversion setting (0: Falling/Negative edge, 1: Rising/Positive edge)

Gavin Ridgway

Hi CrazyCat,

Thanks for describing these registers.

I've copied what the Windows driver appears to be doing from the CSV log - not setting register 70 at all and setting 71 to 0xBC.

Perhaps I need to experiment with setting register 70 also - unless you know what the power-on default is for this register?

Cheers,

Gavin

Crazy Cat

Default parallel mode, so driver not touch it.
Look like important only TS clock inversion bit (must be 0, but default is 1).
And 0x71 reg diffrent for DVB-T/C and T2.
TS clock inversion is 0x71 bit 4 for T/C, and bit 6 for T2.

So need add bool config option for cxd2820r and clear only this bits on demod init.

Second edition patch ready :) Please test in DVB-T and T2 mode. And DVB-C, if possible.

Justin H

IT WORKS! IT WORKS! IT WORKS!

Did I mention that it now works? ;-)

Brilliant - tunes dvb-t & dvb-t2 just fine. BER seems to wander a little, but in my earlier register poking I managed to get a zap to lock with a solid 0 BER on the same frequency.. I'll do more testing & then see if I can reproduce the improvement.

Thanks crazycat :-D

Gavin Ridgway

Thanks for explaining what these registers actually do, CrazyCat.

I've applied similar changes to my driver source and it works for T and T2 (I can't check C as I don't have it).

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