Digital Devices CI and DVB-C with CI+ in germany does not work and will not: Continuity counter error

Anonymous

After playing around for more than 18 month trying to get a working setup the time is right to share this experience.

Short:

Using a CI+ card in an CI Slot will not work: using the CI+ card with "CI only functions" is not possible with tvheadend.

Hardware:

DVB-C , Digital Devices Cine CTv7, Digital Devices Duoflex CI, CI+ card.

After the ddci support was merged into tvh the expectations where that a least some channels may be decrypted. Thats right - but

there are errors which will not disapear. Especially the CC errors occur only when descambling.

tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: H264

 #6891Continuity counter error (total 18)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3

#6892 Continuity counter error (total 19)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: H264

 #6891 Continuity counter error (total 19)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3

#6892 Continuity counter error (total 20)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: H264

 #6891 Continuity counter error (total 20)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3

#6892 Continuity counter error (total 21)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: H264

 #6891 Continuity counter error (total 21)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3

#6892 Continuity counter error (total 22)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: H264

 #6891 Continuity counter error (total 23)
tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3

#6892 Continuity counter error (total 24)

tvheadend[ ]: TS: DVB-C Network/346MHz/SAT.1 HD: AC3 @ #6892 Continuity counter error (total 25)

I have triedevery combination of : kernel (3 / 4 / 5) / in tree modules / out of tree modules / module parameters

Nope: there is no way to get rid of the problems.

I have tried another HW Base (BX Board / HX Board / HP Board / AMD / Intel ).

I tried CI-Slot powering from PCI, powering with Y cables: everything.

I have analysed the DVB-C stream coming in: no errors - the cc errors remain.

Everybody is going to tell you that "Continuity counter error" are weak signal or reception errors.
Maybe - I have checked every connection, I bought news cables, I switched to another amplifier. There areno

errors for not encrypted streams even if the bandwidht ismuch higher. Descramling gives: Continuity counter error.

I have tried to send the encrypted stream from one TVH instance (without CAM) to an TVH instance
where a CAM is available: Continuity counter error on the instance where decryption is done - no

errors while getting the stream from the reception card.

Very bad situation: the unencrypted channels are working like a charm with the DD Hardware. Encrypted channels

in Germany within DVB-C are nearly not usable.

The CI Spec says that CI+ Modules shall work in CI Slots for non CI+ functions: but there are problems.

M. Bergmann

I know, you won't like the answer, but: Forget it!

Some time ago I bought a an Alphacrypt Light Module, a programmer and a Digital Devices Octopus Twin CI v4, altogether cost around 250 € and I never managed to use it!
Then I bought an Easymouse2-Reader for just 20€, installed Oscam and everything works without problems ...
A hardware module seemed the more elegant solution to me and I feared the complexity of installing Oscam, but indeed it was quite easy.
Decyrpting HD+ channels like Sat.1 or RTL takes about 400 milliseconds.

Flole

The interesting question (from a programmers point of view) is: Why does it not work? What exactly is causing packets to get lost here. The idea is to forward the encrypted stream to the slot and then receive the unencrypted stream, right? So there are 2 places where things could go wrong: Sending to the module or receiving from the module. I would assume that the packet count might be a good hint here, at least is something is really missing.

Does it work with any other software? It might not be a tvheadend problem at all.

Anonymous

M. Bergmann wrote:

> I know, you won't like the answer, but: Forget it!

:) I know: there is a solution.

> Some time ago I bought a an Alphacrypt Light Module, a programmer and a Digital Devices Octopus Twin CI v4, altogether cost around 250 € and I never managed to use it!

I've tested the behaviour with an Octopus Net M4 with CI Slots: the non CI+ channels (Pro 7 HD / Sat 1 HD / K1 HD)

where working without problems ! I've seen for hours not a single CC error.

Digital devices uses a kernel 3.17 which is heavily patched on atmel and uses "there own" code. (It's

funny to look into the Octopus Code: you can look back in the DVB history.)

Problem: OctoNet is a SAT>IP box and within SAT>IP descrambling is client-ony. So you have to use a parameter for
the ci-slot within the the rtps request (x_ci=1). TVH as frontend does not work, because the special paramters are

not there: so frontend calls from TVH will fail, because the OctoBox needs the ci parameter.

But I have to have a single frontend to all clients. Yes - m3u channel list may work: brrrr.

Its really bad: the DD drivers work flawlessly for alle non-encrypted channels - but there is something rotten

for streams which are running thru the cam.

(I'll try the other solution.)

Anonymous

Flole Systems wrote:

> The interesting question (from a programmers point of view) is: Why does it not work? What exactly is causing packets to get lost here. The idea is to forward the encrypted stream to the slot and then receive the unencrypted stream, right? So there are 2 places where things could go wrong: Sending to the module or receiving from the module. I would assume that the packet count might be a good hint here, at least is something is really missing.

Exactly this has been done with the test above: send the encrypted stream from one TVH instance (without CAM) to an
TVH instance where a CAM is available: Continuity counter error on the instance where decryption is done - no errors

while getting the stream from the reception card.

and suddently you are deep within PID handling and tsdemux.c ........

> Does it work with any other software? It might not be a tvheadend problem at all.

Yes. Octonet works / dd-tv on windows works for all non CI+ channels.

M. Bergmann

[Exkurs]
Flo, melde dich bitte bei mir per Mail.
[/Exkurs]

Luka Karinja

It works with minisatip. You can just install minisatip and use it as a sat2ip tuner in tvheadend.
With a little research and the right certificates from enigma CI+ 1.3 also works with a recent minisatip

Anonymous

Hmmm. Wait...... clone, ddci=1, etc....

Wonderful : non encrypted channels can be called out-of-the-box.

While calling encrypted channels the log proves that something is happening.

I'll try it.

.... next day ......

OK: minisatip decrypts nearly out-of-the-box.

From an tvh frontend I scanned the spectrum with minisatip on another box. In contrary

to an thv-thv setup the tvh-msi setup works also without problems.

After the encrypted channels have been scanned I can call them directly from the tvh

frontend without using a crappy m3u solution.

There are only a couple of minor shortcomings:

- I have to use the first slot of the Digital Devices Duoflex CI.

Smells like the implementation is coded for the one-slot-CI.

- When selecting another crypt channel the first channal stops.

Hmm.

- It (currently) works only for non CI+ channels

Fine - that was my expectation for the out-of-box behaviour.

- There are no problems with PIN issues on msi.

- There are basicalyno ContinuityCounter Errors
After 5 hours of cont. streaming the decrypted stream I have only seen

a couple of errors: usually when the advertising block starts.

****************************************************************************************

O.K.: That fully confirms a lot of my assumptions. Maybe I should write an HOWTO.

Thx.

Luka Karinja

for multi channel decoding you need a CI module that supports it. like Alphacrypt etc.
to get full CI working take a look at this thread, just look at how and where to put the certificates, support is already in minisatip: https://minisatip.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=419

Teun Florens

Tom W wrote:

> O.K.: That fully confirms a lot of my assumptions. Maybe I should write an HOWTO.

Please do!

Anonymous

Addendum:

In the meanwhile I have disabled all descrambling activities within tvheadend and

switched to "the other solution".

No errors anymore. NO errors. More channels and: MTD.

Switching back to the "tvheadend ddci solution" every 10-15 seconds the cc errors are back.