Documentation/dvb/faq.txt

   1 Some very frequently asked questions about linuxtv-dvb
   2
   3 1. The signal seems to die a few seconds after tuning.
   4
   5         It's not a bug, it's a feature. Because the frontends have
   6         significant power requirements (and hence get very hot), they
   7         are powered down if they are unused (i.e. if the frontend device
   8         is closed). The dvb-core.o module paramter "dvb_shutdown_timeout"
   9         allow you to change the timeout (default 5 seconds). Setting the
  10         timeout to 0 disables the timeout feature.
  11
  12 2. How can I watch TV?
  13
  14         The driver distribution includes some simple utilities which
  15         are mainly intended for testing and to demonstrate how the
  16         DVB API works.
  17
  18         Depending on whether you have a DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T card, use
  19         apps/szap/szap, czap or tzap. You must supply a channel list
  20         in ~/.[sct]zap/channels.conf. If you are lucky you can just copy
  21         one of the supplied channel lists, or you can create a new one
  22         by running apps/scan/scan. If you run scan on an unknown network
  23         you might have to supply some start data in apps/scan/initial.h.
  24
  25         If you have a card with a built-in hardware MPEG-decoder the
  26         drivers create a video4linux device (/dev/v4l/video0) which
  27         you can use to watch TV with any v4l application. xawtv is known
  28         to work. Note that you cannot change channels with xawtv, you
  29         have to zap using [sct]zap. If you want a nice application for
  30         TV watching and record/playback, have a look at VDR.
  31
  32         If your card does not have a hardware MPEG decoder you need
  33         a software MPEG decoder. Mplayer or xine are known to work.
  34         Newsflash: MythTV also has DVB support now.
  35         Note: Only very recent versions of Mplayer and xine can decode.
  36         MPEG2 transport streams (TS) directly. Then, run
  37         '[sct]zap channelname -r' in one xterm, and keep it running,
  38         and start 'mplayer - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0' or
  39         'xine stdin://mpeg2 < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0' in a second xterm.
  40         That's all far from perfect, but it seems no one has written
  41         a nice DVB application which includes a builtin software MPEG
  42         decoder yet.
  43
  44         Newsflash: Newest xine directly supports DVB. Just copy your
  45         channels.conf to ~/.xine and start 'xine dvb://', or select
  46         the DVB button in the xine GUI. Channel switching works using the
  47         numpad pgup/pgdown (NP9 / NP3) keys to scroll through the channel osd
  48         menu and pressing numpad-enter to switch to the selected channel.
  49
  50         Note: Older versions of xine and mplayer understand MPEG program
  51         streams (PS) only, and can be used in conjunction with the
  52         ts2ps tool from the Metzler Brother's dvb-mpegtools package.
  53
  54 3. Which other DVB applications exist?
  55
  56         http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/
  57                 Klaus Schmidinger's Video Disk Recorder
  58
  59         http://www.metzlerbros.org/dvb/
  60                 Metzler Bros. DVB development; alternate drivers and
  61                 DVB utilities, include dvb-mpegtools and tuxzap.
  62
  63         http://www.linuxstb.org/
  64         http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvbtools/
  65                 Dave Chapman's dvbtools package, including
  66                 dvbstream and dvbtune
  67
  68         http://www.linuxdvb.tv/
  69                 Henning Holtschneider's site with many interesting
  70                 links and docs
  71
  72         http://www.dbox2.info/
  73                 LinuxDVB on the dBox2
  74
  75         http://www.tuxbox.org/
  76         http://cvs.tuxbox.org/
  77                 the TuxBox CVS many interesting DVB applications and the dBox2
  78                 DVB source
  79
  80         http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvbsak/
  81                 DVB Swiss Army Knife library and utilities
  82
  83         http://www.nenie.org/misc/mpsys/
  84                 MPSYS: a MPEG2 system library and tools
  85
  86         http://mplayerhq.hu/
  87                 mplayer
  88
  89         http://xine.sourceforge.net/
  90         http://xinehq.de/
  91                 xine
  92
  93         http://www.mythtv.org/
  94                 MythTV - analog TV PVR, but now with DVB support, too
  95                 (with software MPEG decode)
  96
  97         http://dvbsnoop.sourceforge.net/
  98                 DVB sniffer program to monitor, analyze, debug, dump
  99                 or view dvb/mpeg/dsm-cc/mhp stream information (TS,
 100                 PES, SECTION)
 101
 102 4. Can't get a signal tuned correctly
 103
 104         If you are using a Technotrend/Hauppauge DVB-C card *without* analog
 105         module, you might have to use module parameter adac=-1 (dvb-ttpci.o).
 106
 107 5. The dvb_net device doesn't give me any packets at all
 108
 109         Run tcpdump on the dvb0_0 interface. This sets the interface
 110         into promiscous mode so it accepts any packets from the PID
 111         you have configured with the dvbnet utility. Check if there
 112         are any packets with the IP addr and MAC addr you have
 113         configured with ifconfig.
 114
 115         If tcpdump doesn't give you any output, check the statistics
 116         which ifconfig outputs. (Note: If the MAC address is wrong,
 117         dvb_net won't get any input; thus you have to run tcpdump
 118         before checking the statistics.) If there are no packets at
 119         all then maybe the PID is wrong. If there are error packets,
 120         then either the PID is wrong or the stream does not conform to
 121         the MPE standard (EN 301 192, http://www.etsi.org/). You can
 122         use e.g. dvbsnoop for debugging.
 123
 124 6. The dvb_net device doesn't give me any multicast packets
 125
 126         Check your routes if they include the multicast address range.
 127         Additionally make sure that "source validation by reversed path
 128         lookup" is disabled:
 129           $ "echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/dvb0/rp_filter"
 130
 131 7. What the hell are all those modules that need to be loaded?
 132
 133         For a dvb-ttpci av7110 based full-featured card the following
 134         modules are loaded:
 135
 136         - videodev: Video4Linux core module. This is the base module that
 137           gives you access to the "analog" tv picture of the av7110 mpeg2
 138           decoder.
 139
 140         - v4l2-common: common functions for Video4Linux-2 drivers
 141
 142         - v4l1-compat: backward compatiblity layer for Video4Linux-1 legacy
 143           applications
 144
 145         - dvb-core: DVB core module. This provides you with the
 146           /dev/dvb/adapter entries
 147
 148         - saa7146: SAA7146 core driver. This is need to access any SAA7146
 149           based card in your system.
 150
 151         - saa7146_vv: SAA7146 video and vbi functions. These are only needed
 152           for full-featured cards.
 153
 154         - video-buf: capture helper module for the saa7146_vv driver. This
 155           one is responsible to handle capture buffers.
 156
 157         - dvb-ttpci: The main driver for AV7110 based, full-featued
 158           DVB-S/C/T cards
 159
 160 eof