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1 | .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 |
2 | ||
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3 | FAQ |
4 | === | |
5 | ||
6 | .. note:: | |
7 | ||
8 | This documentation is outdated. Please check at the DVB wiki | |
9 | at https://linuxtv.org/wiki for more updated info. | |
10 | ||
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11 | Some very frequently asked questions about linuxtv-dvb |
12 | ||
13 | 1. The signal seems to die a few seconds after tuning. | |
14 | ||
15 | It's not a bug, it's a feature. Because the frontends have | |
16 | significant power requirements (and hence get very hot), they | |
17 | are powered down if they are unused (i.e. if the frontend device | |
992caacf | 18 | is closed). The dvb-core.o module parameter "dvb_shutdown_timeout" |
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19 | allow you to change the timeout (default 5 seconds). Setting the |
20 | timeout to 0 disables the timeout feature. | |
21 | ||
22 | 2. How can I watch TV? | |
23 | ||
24 | The driver distribution includes some simple utilities which | |
25 | are mainly intended for testing and to demonstrate how the | |
26 | DVB API works. | |
27 | ||
28 | Depending on whether you have a DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T card, use | |
29 | apps/szap/szap, czap or tzap. You must supply a channel list | |
30 | in ~/.[sct]zap/channels.conf. If you are lucky you can just copy | |
31 | one of the supplied channel lists, or you can create a new one | |
32 | by running apps/scan/scan. If you run scan on an unknown network | |
33 | you might have to supply some start data in apps/scan/initial.h. | |
34 | ||
35 | If you have a card with a built-in hardware MPEG-decoder the | |
36 | drivers create a video4linux device (/dev/v4l/video0) which | |
37 | you can use to watch TV with any v4l application. xawtv is known | |
38 | to work. Note that you cannot change channels with xawtv, you | |
39 | have to zap using [sct]zap. If you want a nice application for | |
40 | TV watching and record/playback, have a look at VDR. | |
41 | ||
42 | If your card does not have a hardware MPEG decoder you need | |
43 | a software MPEG decoder. Mplayer or xine are known to work. | |
44 | Newsflash: MythTV also has DVB support now. | |
45 | Note: Only very recent versions of Mplayer and xine can decode. | |
46 | MPEG2 transport streams (TS) directly. Then, run | |
47 | '[sct]zap channelname -r' in one xterm, and keep it running, | |
48 | and start 'mplayer - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0' or | |
49 | 'xine stdin://mpeg2 < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0' in a second xterm. | |
50 | That's all far from perfect, but it seems no one has written | |
51 | a nice DVB application which includes a builtin software MPEG | |
52 | decoder yet. | |
53 | ||
54 | Newsflash: Newest xine directly supports DVB. Just copy your | |
55 | channels.conf to ~/.xine and start 'xine dvb://', or select | |
56 | the DVB button in the xine GUI. Channel switching works using the | |
57 | numpad pgup/pgdown (NP9 / NP3) keys to scroll through the channel osd | |
58 | menu and pressing numpad-enter to switch to the selected channel. | |
59 | ||
60 | Note: Older versions of xine and mplayer understand MPEG program | |
61 | streams (PS) only, and can be used in conjunction with the | |
62 | ts2ps tool from the Metzler Brother's dvb-mpegtools package. | |
63 | ||
64 | 3. Which other DVB applications exist? | |
65 | ||
66 | http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/ | |
67 | Klaus Schmidinger's Video Disk Recorder | |
68 | ||
69 | http://www.metzlerbros.org/dvb/ | |
70 | Metzler Bros. DVB development; alternate drivers and | |
71 | DVB utilities, include dvb-mpegtools and tuxzap. | |
72 | ||
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73 | http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvbtools/ |
74 | Dave Chapman's dvbtools package, including | |
75 | dvbstream and dvbtune | |
76 | ||
77 | http://www.linuxdvb.tv/ | |
78 | Henning Holtschneider's site with many interesting | |
79 | links and docs | |
80 | ||
81 | http://www.dbox2.info/ | |
82 | LinuxDVB on the dBox2 | |
83 | ||
c0be9f79 | 84 | http://www.tuxbox.org/ and http://cvs.tuxbox.org/ |
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85 | the TuxBox CVS many interesting DVB applications and the dBox2 |
86 | DVB source | |
87 | ||
991ce92f | 88 | https://linuxtv.org/downloads |
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89 | DVB Swiss Army Knife library and utilities |
90 | ||
91 | http://www.nenie.org/misc/mpsys/ | |
92 | MPSYS: a MPEG2 system library and tools | |
93 | ||
94 | http://mplayerhq.hu/ | |
95 | mplayer | |
96 | ||
c0be9f79 | 97 | http://xine.sourceforge.net/ and http://xinehq.de/ |
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98 | xine |
99 | ||
100 | http://www.mythtv.org/ | |
101 | MythTV - analog TV PVR, but now with DVB support, too | |
102 | (with software MPEG decode) | |
103 | ||
104 | http://dvbsnoop.sourceforge.net/ | |
105 | DVB sniffer program to monitor, analyze, debug, dump | |
106 | or view dvb/mpeg/dsm-cc/mhp stream information (TS, | |
107 | PES, SECTION) | |
108 | ||
109 | 4. Can't get a signal tuned correctly | |
110 | ||
111 | If you are using a Technotrend/Hauppauge DVB-C card *without* analog | |
112 | module, you might have to use module parameter adac=-1 (dvb-ttpci.o). | |
113 | ||
114 | 5. The dvb_net device doesn't give me any packets at all | |
115 | ||
116 | Run tcpdump on the dvb0_0 interface. This sets the interface | |
25985edc | 117 | into promiscuous mode so it accepts any packets from the PID |
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118 | you have configured with the dvbnet utility. Check if there |
119 | are any packets with the IP addr and MAC addr you have | |
120 | configured with ifconfig. | |
121 | ||
122 | If tcpdump doesn't give you any output, check the statistics | |
123 | which ifconfig outputs. (Note: If the MAC address is wrong, | |
124 | dvb_net won't get any input; thus you have to run tcpdump | |
125 | before checking the statistics.) If there are no packets at | |
126 | all then maybe the PID is wrong. If there are error packets, | |
127 | then either the PID is wrong or the stream does not conform to | |
128 | the MPE standard (EN 301 192, http://www.etsi.org/). You can | |
129 | use e.g. dvbsnoop for debugging. | |
130 | ||
131 | 6. The dvb_net device doesn't give me any multicast packets | |
132 | ||
133 | Check your routes if they include the multicast address range. | |
134 | Additionally make sure that "source validation by reversed path | |
135 | lookup" is disabled: | |
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136 | |
137 | .. code-block:: none | |
138 | ||
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139 | $ "echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/dvb0/rp_filter" |
140 | ||
141 | 7. What the hell are all those modules that need to be loaded? | |
142 | ||
143 | For a dvb-ttpci av7110 based full-featured card the following | |
144 | modules are loaded: | |
145 | ||
146 | - videodev: Video4Linux core module. This is the base module that | |
147 | gives you access to the "analog" tv picture of the av7110 mpeg2 | |
148 | decoder. | |
149 | ||
150 | - v4l2-common: common functions for Video4Linux-2 drivers | |
151 | ||
6c28f2c0 | 152 | - v4l1-compat: backward compatibility layer for Video4Linux-1 legacy |
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153 | applications |
154 | ||
155 | - dvb-core: DVB core module. This provides you with the | |
156 | /dev/dvb/adapter entries | |
157 | ||
158 | - saa7146: SAA7146 core driver. This is need to access any SAA7146 | |
159 | based card in your system. | |
160 | ||
161 | - saa7146_vv: SAA7146 video and vbi functions. These are only needed | |
162 | for full-featured cards. | |
163 | ||
c1accaa2 | 164 | - videobuf-dma-sg: capture helper module for the saa7146_vv driver. This |
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165 | one is responsible to handle capture buffers. |
166 | ||
a2ffd275 | 167 | - dvb-ttpci: The main driver for AV7110 based, full-featured |
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168 | DVB-S/C/T cards |
169 |