TBS 6984 PCI-E DVB-S2 Quad Tuner TV Card

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

This causes it to stop with no signal, even worse. Also does the same with my other tuners.

I reckon that previous setting must be used in conjunction with the setting "mmc/encoders/xxxx/delay_to_wait_after_tuning" in milliseconds.

So, you need to set the fast swap encoder to true, but you must give time to the encoder to produce the data, lets say 2 seconds, so basically all you're live feeds will have a delay of 2 seconds and that will be enough for sage to do a seamless switch.

Eddy

[Oddity]

Thanks again, will give it a try.

Everyone now watching tv so no chance of testing for the moment.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

Thanks again, will give it a try.

Everyone now watching tv so no chance of testing for the moment.

Please support Jahmene

You might want to play with the following settings as well:

videoframe/local_encoding_to_playback_delay
videoframe/safe_fast_file_switching
videoframe/time_to_start_into_tv_file_playback
videoframe/time_wait_for_signal_loss

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

I'm using driver 1.0.1.8

Try this one and see how you get on.

I tried the old drivers 1.0.1.8 that Oddity kindly sent to me and despite it didn't completely solved the yellow icon issue, improved the stability by a long mileage...so overall a huge success.

The fact that the old drivers almost works means that the interrupt mechanism that has changed between the old and the new driver version (according to TBS release notes), made things worse and I suspect this problem is highlighted by having two TBS 6984 running on the same IRQ along with other 8 devices as I mentioned before in this thread. I'm going to inform TBS about this result, so finger crossed, hopefully they will stop suggesting to switch to MedialPortal (with all due respect) .

@Oddity:
The CAM related message is still there, you will notice it during your (OSCAM+ACAMD) native mode testing.

Thanks
Eddy

[Oddity]

I don't know if it applies to PCIe slots but in the ISA days you could use another slot and it would use a different interrupt number, if you have a spare that is.
Glad things have improved and that I did not go to the new drivers.
Also, are you getting any pause between programmes? If not would be keen to see your sage.properties for the TBS tuners.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

I don't know if it applies to PCIe slots but in the ISA days you could use another slot and it would use a different interrupt number, if you have a spare that is.
Glad things have improved and that I did not go to the new drivers.
Also, are you getting any pause between programmes? If not would be keen to see your sage.properties for the TBS tuners.

Unfortunately with ACPI HAL installed you have no choice that accepting what Windows does for you. I tried to switch to "MPS Multiprocessor" with disastrous results, fortunately I did a full HDD backup with Acronis (best software I ever bought) as the restore point didn't work properly...

TBS made a new driver version (1.0.2.4 beta) today for me to try, which is very promising and behaves very similarly to yours 1.0.1.8, in fact they managed to achieve better separation between multiple cards in the system, now when it fails is only between the tuners of the same card.

No pause with natively supported tuners, will post my Sage.properties to your email address...

Thanks
Eddy

[Oddity]

Routerunner, now getting no pause between programs when using live tv from the "Watch Live TV" menu option, still get it if I start watching a program from the guide ( Whilst using DVBe4Sage ).

[routerunner]

TBS upgraded the drivers to 1.0.2.4 today. I had a beta 1.0.2.4 working for about 2 months without issues, so hopefully the drivers should be more mature now.

Eddy

[Oddity]

Glad to hear the card has been working fine.

No problems here with old drivers, but will try the latest ones after xmas, don't want to create any issues.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

Glad to hear the card has been working fine.

No problems here with old drivers, but will try the latest ones after xmas, don't want to create any issues.

Well, the only issue so far (with old and beta drivers, haven't tried with the latest official yet) is that some Italian channels on 13E are normally clear, but sometimes encrypted (ctrl:1 in FRQ files) and that crashes the drivers, the tuners disappear and I have to perform full power cycle removing the power cable as well in order to recover.

I haven't tried to set the "ctrl:3" in the FRQ, as I'm not sure how Sage uses that flag. I have the right "TivuSat" decryption card and was hoping your attempt to use OSCAM and ACAMD natively were successful, I cannot use any network encoder solution like you do as we all cannot stand "the pause".

Eddy

[deanm]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Well, the only issue so far (with old and beta drivers, haven't tried with the latest official yet) is that some Italian channels on 13E are normally clear, but sometimes encrypted (ctrl:1 in FRQ files) and that crashes the drivers, the tuners disappear and I have to perform full power cycle removing the power cable as well in order to recover.

I haven't tried to set the "ctrl:3" in the FRQ, as I'm not sure how Sage uses that flag. I have the right "TivuSat" decryption card and was hoping your attempt to use OSCAM and ACAMD natively were successful, I cannot use any network encoder solution like you do as we all cannot stand "the pause".

Eddy

Try DVBLogic. You don't get a pause. But it's a pain to setup (working on a solution for that ) and has a limit of 4 tuners.

But OSCAM and ACAMD natively sounds interesting

Dean

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

Try DVBLogic. You don't get a pause. But it's a pain to setup (working on a solution for that ) and has a limit of 4 tuners.

But OSCAM and ACAMD natively sounds interesting

Dean,

I'm keeping a close eye to the TBS6985 which the drivers are available already, but the product isn't . The TBS6985 is basically a Quad DVB-S2 tuner with the CAM module and SageTV already recognises the CAM support in the drivers so in theory it should work out of the box (very wishful thinking here).

AFAIK Oddity has made very good progress in using OSCAM + ACAMD natively on Windows 7 x32, but the ACAMD doesn't appear to work reliably in x64. I'm currently running XP x32 so I might have good chances. Any way, next year I would like to work more closely on this and would be ideal to open a sticky thread with the procedure. The ACAMD is open source and therefore the sources are freely available, so it is very likely that I'll get directly involved in the project and keep the software development forward.

Basically the OSCAM works without problem (maybe some issue recovering from sleep) and the DirectShow filter provided with ACAMD is mounted correctly by SageTV, the Dll which makes the "bridge" between SageTV and the DirectShow filter appears to be unstable.

I know you're currently working on DVBLogic for a better solution to make everything stitching up together (got the wink), but I always try the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) solution first, too much complexity in the equation is always the recipe for bigger problems.

Eddy

[Oddity]

routerunner, try the ctrl:3 option in the frq file. It should then tell sage to look for a means to unencrypt. This is where I'm struggling with the acamd etc.

Can you tell me when the .frq is read? I know it is read when you add a tuner or is their a way to force sage to re-read the .frq file?

Willing to work together to find a solution, I'm hoping to have some time during the Xmas period to investigate this again.

I have tried DVBLogic but found the channel tuning and channel set up a real pain in the backside. Dean if you could sort this then may look at it again as it does do what we require. If you know how DVBLogic stores its channel lineups please let me know. If it stores them like XMLTV importer then I could create the channel lineups.

Also the new TBS card looks very interesting as you have already noted Sage does search for a CAM.

[Oddity]

Had a quick look at dvblogic ( v3 which I believe is still the only one you can use with sage).
Remembered why I stopped using it. Channel management is very awkward and slow.
Found the configuration file so could write channel updates to the channel xml section.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

routerunner, try the ctrl:3 option in the frq file. It should then tell sage to look for a means to unencrypt. This is where I'm struggling with the acamd etc.

Does the ctrl:3 support clear channels as well? I guess not. Unfortunately some channels in the Italian lineup are clear/encrypted depending upon the context and/or the rights they have bought to broadcast the content.

Can you tell me when the .frq is read? I know it is read when you add a tuner or is their a way to force sage to re-read the .frq file?

It looks like that every time a channel is tuned, the FRQ file is read back. Try this out, select one of your tuner, change the relevant FRQ file (careful to the tuner enumeration, physical tuner is zero based, logical tuner is one based) and modify the SID of your first channel to an invalid value, go to channel setup, select manual tuning for that channel, is shouldn't work, then restore the SID value and try to re-tune, this time is should work.

Eddy

[deanm]

Originally Posted by Oddity

Had a quick look at dvblogic ( v3 which I believe is still the only one you can use with sage).
Remembered why I stopped using it. Channel management is very awkward and slow.
Found the configuration file so could write channel updates to the channel xml section.

Yes it is a pain. But I have worked out a solution.

But short answer.

There is one master xml file then a separate xml file for each tuner. Can't remember the file names as not at PC.

If a channel frq file changes you have to scan each tuner. (Each tuner frq file is unique) so if you have 4 tuner then you have to scan 4 times.

From the scan you then create the master xml file and assign channel numbers. It then uses the tuner XML file to tuner the channel. If you only create the master XML file the channel will not tune. Even thou the master XML file contains the Channel frq

That is why I can it DVB (un) Logic

Once you have the master xml file you then have to create a frq file for sage



What I have started to create is a way to use DigiGuide as the only place I change channel settings. From this I can the create a file for XMLTV importer them one for DVB(un)logic.

So if I add/change a channel in DigiGuide you don't have to configure anything else. And changes to frqs should auto update.

But I have ran into a problem on matching channels to the frq file. Can only get 50% matching. Starting to Looking at EGP Grabber

Do you know if EPG Grabber can just create a list of channel numbers agaist frq's? Currently using KIng Of Sat but channel names don't match DigiGuide

Not going to have much time to work on this over Xmas.

Dean

[Oddity]

Does the ctrl:3 support clear channels as well? I guess not. Unfortunately some channels in the Italian lineup are clear/encrypted depending upon the context and/or the rights they have bought to broadcast the content.

Yes it should, set ctrl:3 even though it is part time encrypted.

It looks like that every time a channel is tuned, the FRQ file is read back. Try this out, select one of your tuner, change the relevant FRQ file (careful to the tuner enumeration, physical tuner is zero based, logical tuner is one based) and modify the SID of your first channel to an invalid value, go to channel setup, select manual tuning for that channel, is shouldn't work, then restore the SID value and try to re-tune, this time is should work.

Tried this for DVB-T channel as I use the .frq tables. Edited BBC-One Frequency. Saved amended .frq . On sage tuned to channel and it still worked even though the .frq entry was incorrect.

[Oddity]

Dean,
Yes I see how you can do it, XMLTV is easy as I presume you are just modifying the lineups.xml file as I do for DVBe4sage.
DVBLogic is complicated as you have to create a sudo channel in the .frq or XMLTV Importer which DVBLogic then uses as the key to find the correct channel information from its tables. So you have to update multiple files.

EPG Collector will export a channel lineup file which should help you.

I presume the problem for the matching is due to multiple channels having the same channel number - eg BBC and ITV regional channels?
EPG Collector could help here.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Oddity

Tried this for DVB-T channel as I use the .frq tables. Edited BBC-One Frequency. Saved amended .frq . On sage tuned to channel and it still worked even though the .frq entry was incorrect.

Haven't got any DVB-T to try, it seems the behaviour is different depending upon the DVB mode? Can you please try with one tuner of your TBS6984? It does work for me...however if it doesn't I wonder if depends on the "network_type=DVB-S" attribute I manually specified, do you recall? You can find that attribute in the properties file I sent to you. Let me know.

Eddy