DVB via USB stick and different issues

[LigH]

A few questions came up, partially for me, partially from other users in the German doom9/Gleitz board:

a) Would a USB DVB stick probably submit a whole bouquet to be filtered in the PC, or already filter a programme inside and submit only the relevant video and audio stream(s)? The other user is about to try to measure the USB throughput to discover that, therefore asked for useful software. We found a bunch of good candidates already (e.g. USBlyzer, Free USB Analyzer, Advanced USB Port Monitor).

b) I can't put such a stick into a PC's backside USB port because it is so big, it would cover several more outlets. But in a hub it seems that power supply may be an issue, or the stick may in general be unreliable: Often it disconnects and is not detected upon reconnection, until I remove it for several seconds and try to insert it again several times. I wonder if it may be more reliable in a USB3 hub port (despite being a USB2 stick), or still in a USB2 back port via "extension cord" (despite being outside the USB2 specs). Main problem here will be that I will have to re-install drivers because it would be a different port it is then plugged into, therefore registered as different device (annoying drivers, yeah).

[manolito]

Here's my experience with a Pinnacle Diversity Stick Solo 2001e (DVB-T) connected to a USB2 port of an ancient PC. The USB interface is a separate NEC based USB2 card (PCI) since the mainboard has only a USB1.1 chip.

I have no idea if the tuner sends the whole bouquet to the computer. The recording software I use (DVBViewer and DVBDream) does not let me select a whole bouquet for recording all the channels of a bouquet at once, so I guess it must be filtered before it gets sent to the PC.

I do remember having a few problems when I installed the drivers, but it now has been working for many years without issues. The tuner(s) are from the French company DiBcom SA, the BDA driver is called mod7700.sys. I use an older version 3.7.0.1 from 2007. There are newer versions 5.xx available, but I never bothered to upgrade the drivers.

The driver does behave a little different from other USB device drivers. It does not show a tray icon for safe removal, and upon plugging it in I get the connect chime twice (maybe because there are two tuners). Plugging it in while Windows is running is generally unreliable, sometimes I get a warning that the device only uses USB1.1. So I made it a habit to plug in the stick before I boot into Windows.

I do not have the stick connected when I do not use it because it slows down the computer quite a bit (but this may be due to my old machine).

I installed the drivers while the stick was connected directly to the USB card, but after installation I used an extension cord. A few weeks later I found out by coincidence that the indicators for signal strength and quality both showed much higher values when I connected the stick through a powered USB hub. So I kept it connected via the hub and never had any problems.

I cannot reproduce the trouble you get when connecting the stick through a different USB port (just checked). Windows takes a few seconds to redetect the stick, and then it just works.

All in all I am very happy with this diversity stick, it makes a huge difference in signal quality compared to a single tuner. Too bad that the current DVB-T will be ditched in favor of the HEVC based DVB-T2 in the near future...


Cheers
manolito

[LigH]

I have a TeVii H630 DVB-T(2)/DVB-C/Radio combo stick. It can be connected to either a terrestrial (shipped) antenna or a cable TV outlet; I use the latter method. Switching between DVB-T and DVB-C mode requires the choice of either included DVB software variant or a registry value change and reboot. The shipped DVB software is not useful for anything but switching the mode... (or would you enjoy to scroll through hundreds of programmes because there are no favourites?)

When I remove the stick and put it into a different USB outlet, the driver is not automatically reconfigured; when I start DVBViewer afterwards, it tells me that there is no device available. I know another device (an older b/g WLAN stick) with the same limitation. They did not yet release Linux drivers.

I will still try different ports soon. If the reliably depends a lot on the power support, then it may not be the worst idea to try it on a powered USB3 hub because their output is usually more stable and generous...

P.S.: I wonder which data rate a typical bouquet (multiplex) would have, especially in comparison to the USB 2.0 capacity (max. 480 Mbps); USB 1.x Full Speed (max. 12 Mbps) will certainly allow at most one programme.

[Ghitulescu]

I remember there were chips that sent the whole transponder, whereas others could only send the selected PIDs. The first category could be instructed to provide only a channel (or even elementary streams), whereas the latter could only provide video + audio maybe TXT or other streams.

I believe the latter do no longer exist in production, but may be still found in older computers. For instance older Hauppage had these chips, they could save only MPG or their own format PVA.

[StainlessS]

So far as I remember, "Budget Devices" send whole bouquet, non budget can (EDIT: usually optionally) select channel, so look for that magic phrase in docs. (phrase missing would be ambiguous)
EDIT: Dont remember any alternative name to 'non budget'.