DVB-S2 (usb card 461e), pi 3b, tvheadend, configuration

skymoose

Hi,
Forgive me if this is not strictly a tvheadend post, but i'm tearing what little hair i have out trying to get the pi4 to recognise the dvb-s2 461e card (so am not able to get to the tvheadend bit of configuration). I can see from this post https://tvheadend.org/d/6697-how-to-set-up-tvh-with-a-satellite-dvb-s-decoder-freesat that @Martin Underwood seem to have posted with a very similar configuration to me and would love to find out how he (or anyone else) gets the firmware to be recognised.

I have a virgin install of raspberry pi os (debian bookworm 32 bit version) on pi 3b patched up to date. I clone the OpenELEC/dvb-firmware git repo from github and copied dvb-demod-m88ds3103.fw into /lib/firmware on the pi, turned the pi off, inserted the 461e card and the 12v power supply, and then powered on the pi.

root@hn:/lib/firmware# uname -a
Linux arthur 6.6.28+rpt-rpi-v7 #1 SMP Raspbian 1:6.6.28-1+rpt1 (2024-04-22) armv7l GNU/Linux
root@hn:/lib/firmware# ls -l dvb-demod-m88ds3103.fw
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 May  8 17:30 dvb-demod-m88ds3103.fw

lsusb sees the card:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2013:0462 PCTV Systems PCTV 461
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMC9514 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

usb-devices sees the card but shows no driver associated with it:

T:  Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=03 Port=03 Cnt=01 Dev#=  4 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=2013 ProdID=0462 Rev=01.00
S:  Manufacturer=PCTV
S:  Product=PCTV 461
S:  SerialNumber=0014227142
C:  #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=84(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms

Any advice you might be able to offer on how i get this working would be much appreciated. I'm pretty agnostic to whatever distro / software this sits on as the pi is dedicated to this purpose.

Thanks once again and my apologies for being slightly off-topic

chris

davep

This is how usb-devices describes my 461:

T:  Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=02 Cnt=02 Dev#=  4 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=2013 ProdID=0258 Rev=01.00
S:  Manufacturer=PCTV
S:  Product=PCTV 461
S:  SerialNumber=0013961956
C:  #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I:  If#=0x0 Alt= 1 #EPs= 1 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=em28xx

Interesting that mine (maybe 5 years old) has a different Product ID. I wonder if Hauppauge have changed the innards but kept the product name the same.

Use dmesg to see whether the kernel recognises the device and loads the drivers and firmware.

skymoose

Thanks dave,

My dmesg says very little about the card:

[    4.372967] usb 1-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[    4.504661] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=2013, idProduct=0462, bcdDevice= 1.00
[    4.504699] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=1, SerialNumber=2
[    4.504714] usb 1-1.4: Product: PCTV 461
[    4.504725] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: PCTV
[    4.504736] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber: 0014227142
[    4.780204] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem 4b9c933b-b19c-4b01-a496-b41c8f7dac67 ro with ordered data mode. Quota mode: none.

thats the only relevant content i can see

davep

On mine this appears towards the end of the boot sequence:

[   12.171139] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: New device PCTV PCTV 461 @ 480 Mbps (2013:0258, interface 0, class 0)
[   12.172946] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: DVB interface 0 found: isoc
[   12.239052] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: chip ID is em28178
[   12.680805] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: EEPROM ID = 26 00 01 00, EEPROM hash = 0x353c72a0
[   12.681458] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: EEPROM info:
[   12.682152] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0:        microcode start address = 0x0004, boot configuration = 0x01
[   12.698532] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0:        AC97 audio (5 sample rates)
[   12.699242] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0:        500mA max power
[   12.699248] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0:        Table at offset 0x27, strings=0x148c, 0x1874, 0x0a6a
[   12.768154] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: Identified as PCTV DVB-S2 Stick (461e) (card=92)
[   12.768799] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: dvb set to isoc mode.
[   12.775681] usbcore: registered new interface driver em28xx
[   12.817518] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: Binding DVB extension
[   12.878606] i2c i2c-12: Added multiplexed i2c bus 13
[   12.950086] ts2020 13-0060: Montage Technology TS2022 successfully identified
[   12.975514] a8293 12-0008: Allegro A8293 SEC successfully attached
[   12.979151] dvbdev: DVB: registering new adapter (1-1.5:1.0)
[   12.980331] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Montage Technology M88DS3103)...
[   12.981674] dvbdev: dvb_create_media_entity: media entity 'Montage Technology M88DS3103' registered.
[   12.985565] dvbdev: dvb_create_media_entity: media entity 'dvb-demux' registered.
[   12.990732] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: DVB extension successfully initialized
[   12.991543] em28xx: Registered (Em28xx dvb Extension) extension
[   13.027750] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: Registering input extension
[   13.029001] Registered IR keymap rc-pinnacle-pctv-hd
[   13.031096] rc rc0: PCTV DVB-S2 Stick (461e) as /devices/platform/soc/3f980000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/1-1.5:1.0/rc/rc0
[   13.032797] rc rc0: lirc_dev: driver em28xx registered at minor = 0, scancode receiver, no transmitter
[   13.034708] input: PCTV DVB-S2 Stick (461e) as /devices/platform/soc/3f980000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/1-1.5:1.0/rc/rc0/input0
[   13.059837] em28xx 1-1.5:1.0: Input extension successfully initialized
[   13.060830] em28xx: Registered (Em28xx Input Extension) extension

On the back of the device is a sticker with a barcode. The text on mine reads "200000 LF rev B6H9"

skymoose

My sticker says rev BBH9 - i guess that means its much newer since i only just bought it.
I see no reference to the driver that you are seeing (em28xx) in dmesg anywhere - if i do lsmod its not loaded. So i imagine the issue is that this new stick is announcing itself to the kernel with this newer revision no and the kernel basically doesnt know what driver it ought to be associated with.

I've had a chat with hauppauge and was advised to email their tech support email which i have done too - lets see if they respond to me.

davep

According to https://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/wintv10_release_notes.html your device has a 3103C demodulator in place of the 3103.

I'd be interested to know what Hauppauge have to say.

Jonas Lang

A quick read of this may save you tearing any more hair out. According to this the older tuners work under Linux but not the newer ones. https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/13513-known-working-dvb-s-s2-usb-dongle-please/

I doubt any further work has been done on this either. I suggest you read this too. Brad Love has been doing all the Linux work for Hauppauge so if anyone can point you in the right direction he can b-rad-NDi/Ubuntu-media-tree-kernel-builder

skymoose

Heard back from hauppauge.

For anyone else googling, to stop them wasting as much time as I have done, Hauppauge told me that there is no support in the Linux kernel for this firmware.

Jonas Lang

skymoose no surprise there. Between different chipsets and vendor IDs a lot of newer version tuners get overlooked or driver developers just couldn’t be bothered getting newer tuners to work anymore. All their efforts are focussed on IPTV now.