[mythtvnz] Haupauge Nova-TD500

[Mark]

On Fri, 2012-04-13 at 21:25 +1200, Johan Schuld wrote:

> 
> I'm located in New Zealand (h264 encoding on HD Terrestrial TV) and
> ever since I have got hold of this card, it's giving me problems with
> reception. As we have always been in a rental with questional aerials,
> I have always blamed that and kept using DVB-S freeview. In our last
> place I did actually go through the trouble of installing a new
> masthead amp, which helped, but still signal quality issues. We have
> recently purchased a home, and now I'm committed to make it all work
> and get a good setup.
> 
> 
> Basically what I'm seeing is corrupt signals (artifacts). When I
> "re-wind" and play the same piece of recording again it's the same
> which indicates to me it's a receiving problem, not playback.
> 
> 
> So I've been searching the net and forums and I have found other
> people with the same issue, most not being able to fix it and simply
> going for another card. Apparently the card needs a really strong
> signal. Also, the internal low noise amplifier has been reported to be
> a problem (mine was off). Chaning it to "on" (options dvb_usb_dib0700
> force_lna_activation=1) did not appear to make any difference.
> 
> 
> I have borrowed a separate freeview set top box, which gets excellent
> picture. Also Prime (an analog channel from the same transmitter) is
> crystal clear. So my feeling is that I have exhausted all things I can
> do, apart from installing a higher gain antenna and possible a mast
> head amp. Although I'm not convinced as the stb works fine. 
> 
> 
> One thing I don't understand yet is the "Diversity" mode, which seems
> to connect the 2 antenna connectors together so only 1 antenna cable
> is needed (i always had 2 connected). No Idea how to control that in
> Linux, and what the correct setting is anyway.
> 
> 
> There are also reports that this card just does not do h264 with high
> bitrate properly and not to be used in NZ, and that there are versions
> that are faulty or slightly different hardware that makes it not work
> in all situations.
> 
> 
> So put all these variables together and I'm thinking... not worth the
> effort anymore. Has anyone had similar issues with this card? And
> managed to fix it?
> 

I've had problems with mine but have been running it for the past few
years reasonably well on Ubuntu (currently 11.04)
I only have one aerial attached - I'm pretty sure I discovered that
attaching two caused more problems than just one.  Now and again (once a
month probably) I still have problems which I have never been able to
pin down to card, aerial or wiring.

I also have a HVR3000.

my /etc/modprobe.d/options-dvb.conf contains

#Options to fix the order of the /dev/dvb cards
options dvb_usb_dib0700 adapter_nr=0,1
options cx88-dvb adapter_nr=2,3
#enable LNA
options dvb-usb-dib0700 force_lna_activation=1

>From memory firmware (for the TD500) was an issue at some point with at
least one firmware version and I thought I was running an oldish
firmware but this may not be the case any more.  Following is an extract
of the output from dmesg 

[   15.982083] dib0700: loaded with support for 15 different
device-types
[   15.982326] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-TD-500 (84xxx)' in cold
state, will try to load a firmware
[   16.080150] wm8775 0-001b: chip found @ 0x36 (cx88[0])
[   16.086731] cx88[0]/0: registered device video0 [v4l2]
[   16.086765] cx88[0]/0: registered device vbi0
[   16.086795] cx88[0]/0: registered device radio0
[   16.324217] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file
'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
[   16.383325] cx88/2: cx2388x dvb driver version 0.0.8 loaded
[   16.383333] cx88/2: registering cx8802 driver, type: dvb access:
shared
[   16.383353] cx88[0]/2: subsystem: 0070:1402, board: Hauppauge
WinTV-HVR3000 TriMode Analog/DVB-S/DVB-T [card=53]
[   16.383355] cx88[0]/2: cx2388x based DVB/ATSC card
[   16.383357] cx8802_alloc_frontends() allocating 2 frontend(s)
[   16.400660] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) ->
IRQ 16
[   16.400669] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   16.400674] vgaarb: device changed decodes:
PCI:0000:01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[   16.400851] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  270.41.06
Mon Apr 18 14:53:56 PDT 2011
[   16.527999] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[   16.720862] CX24123: detected CX24123
[   16.747037] EXT3-fs: barriers not enabled
[   16.762426] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
[   16.762763] EXT3-fs (sda7): using internal journal
[   16.762767] EXT3-fs (sda7): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
[   16.875776] tuner-simple 0-0061: attaching existing instance
[   16.875780] tuner-simple 0-0061: couldn't set type to 63. Using 78
(Philips FMD1216MEX MK3 Hybrid Tuner) instead
[   16.878138] DVB: registering new adapter (cx88[0])
[   16.878141] DVB: registering adapter 2 frontend 0 (Conexant
CX24123/CX24109)...
[   16.879309] DVB: registering adapsoter 2 frontend 1 (Conexant CX22702
DVB-T)...
[   17.030228] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-TD-500 (84xxx)' in warm
state.
[   17.030286] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to
the software demuxer.
[   17.030455] DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge Nova-TD-500
(84xxx))
[   17.286624] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
[   17.517285] DiB0070: successfully identified

Cheers
Mark