Being as this existing thread (http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/187635-tda10071-based-dvb-s2-receivers.html#post1956538) has evolved into something quite different than where it started, and the title isn't terribly apropos, I'm beginning another here as a follow-in in the more appropriate sub-forum.

To recap, Prof (http://www.prof-tuners.com/eng/) has introduced a series of PCI/USB/PCIe tuners based on the STV0903 chip. This should provide improved capabilities for S/S2 demodulation than previously available. Perhaps even more interestingly, the Linux driver has many capabilities that suggest this chip could provide a decent PC-based blindscanning function. SatelliteAV has announced they are going to be supplying this unit, which up until now was only available for direct import from Hong Kong.

I imported the 7301 (PCI) and 7500 (USB) units and have done some quick testing in Windows with both DVB Dream and DVB Viewer. While I haven't run a stressful set of signals through yet, on the surface both the 7301 and 7500 are doing better on high rate signals than my other PC devices (DVB World 2104 USB and TechnoTrend S2-3200 PCI). I will continue working with these on Windows, but I'm switching my emphasis towards Linux in search of the holy grail of PC-based blindscanning.

Many thanks to tester239, who in the previously mentioned thread was the one originally making the connections between the blindscanning capabilities of the STV0903 and also the inclusion of this chip in the new Prof tuners.

Hmm. I suppose I was wrong about support :) Looks like it's got a cx23883 PCI interface chip ("broadcast decoder"). Need to add a card def in the cx88 drivers. Do you know if we can just use some existing cx23883 firmware from another card, or are they all card specific? Fun times ahead! I'm at a loss right now, since I don't have hardware to test with yet. I've just been trying to more familiarize myself with the DVB-API v5.

That's basically the problem I ran into. However as the Prof 7300 also employs the CX23883 and there appears to be driver support for it, my plan was to see how far I can get in comparing the two.

The cx2388x based tuner cards of any flavor are pretty simple to add base support for since the cx88 driver is fairly mature/stable and there are quite a few cards (not just DVB-S) cards that use that interface chip. In the case of the Prof 7301, the integrated tuner/demodulator module has a chipset in it that also has driver support, so THEORETICALLY one could just write a card definition in cx88-cards.c and map the inputs and GPIO stuff correctly (using windows driver inf data and regspy). In practice, every card typically has their own implementation quirks, but we're in really good shape to get this sucker working.


pendragon: since you have a card already, I encourage you to look at cx88-cards.c and see how the definitions are done (if you haven't already) and see if you can obtain the necessary information to add it (PCI ids, gpio info, what inputs are used and connected, etc etc).

EDIT: in fact, if you look at the output of dmesg, you should see the kernel yelling at you because it knows that you have a cx23883 but no card definition matches, so the driver never attaches.

Which driver never attaches? Linux? How then this card works? Keep in mind, a lot of people of various background read this forum, hence more clear info is always welcome.

At the moment we're talking Linux. The Windows drivers seem to work fine with the Prof devices. Yesterday afternoon I did look at cx88-cards.c for the 7300 (older unit) definitions and they're there, although they are rather generic. This weekend is supposed to be pretty good weather-wise, so I hope to be working on my toroid dishes and master switch, but if I get a little time I plan to start pushing the 7301 farther along.

pendragon

Given your contribution to this forum :), attached below are Prof 7301 Linux Driver files by Igor Liplianin, which are still work in progress, but working well and close to release version, and you're invited to contribute. You have 2 options:

a) Download and install Prof 7301 unofficial Linux driver of July 2009: prof7301_ready_to_install.tar.gz (http://dump.ru/file/3144024)
Instructions are available to install Prof 7301 as a 2-nd sat tuner card, but need translation effort;

OR

b) Download and install DVB-S2 Linux Drivers (http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/s2-liplianin/) by Igor Liplianin
Apply 2 patches of Oct. 2009 attached. There are still minor issue with showing correct signal levels, etc, but everything works.

pendragon

Counting on even bigger contribution from your side :), below is given today's maestro Igor Liplianin's reply to your issue with 2 identical DVB S2 cards in Linux:

"I suggest to open 4 consoles, start szap in two, and mplayer or ffplay in the other two as show below, and see what happen..."

szap -a1 mychannel1 -p
ffplay - </dev/dvb/adapter1/dvr0

szap -a0 mychannel2 -p
ffplay - </dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

Not sure, if he tried similar setup, but we can continue this dialog, and with his help the problem can be resolved for sure, as he wrote most of sat cards current Linux drivers himself and appears to be key expert on the issue. Usually he asks for detail system reports.

pendragon

Given your contribution to this forum :), attached below are Prof 7301 Linux Driver files by Igor Liplianin, which are still work in progress, but working well and close to release version, and you're invited to contribute. You have 2 options:


Big thanks! I had looked around but didn't find anything. Sunday's weather doesn't look as good, now, so maybe that's the day for inside play.


pendragon

Counting on even bigger contribution from your side :), below is given today's maestro Igor Liplianin's reply to your issue with 2 identical DVB S2 cards in Linux:

"I suggest to open 4 consoles, start szap in two, and mplayer or ffplay in the other two as show below, and see what happen..."

Actually I have no problem running two or more 2104s on Linux, and that is the long term destination for those units. At the moment the problem is having two Sage network encoders, for which Windows is the only current option. I solved my problem with a DVB World 2104 (USB) and a TechnoTrend S2-3200 (PCI). mkanet wants to use two identical units for the same purpose, so he has few if any proven options. I can get the two Prof units I have to work together on Windows, but one is USB and the other PCI. I'm hoping to try two of the same type soon.

Someday I'll write a Sage network encoder for Linux and that will let me choose just about anything, but it will have to be able to control my 44x8 switch matrix, have the smarts to run motors, select the best option from multiple dishes and resolve conflicts. It's not at the top of the list for now.

Thanks again for your research!

I have no problem running two or more 2104s on LinuxI can tell you, these drivers are very hard to find, mainly because Prof and TT don't want to pay Igor for his contribution, and due to other marketing considerations.

Do you use the same method to run two 2104s on Linux as Igor suggested? I don't have 2 identical cards at the moment to try, but will be glad to provide him some feedback. Did you try the method he suggested? If you want to improve Prof 7301 drivers in any way, you may want to communicate with Igor in basic English directly here (http://www.forum.free-x.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=644&8ceea2cf).

I can tell you, these drivers are very hard to find, mainly because Prof and TT don't want to pay Igor for his contribution, and due to other marketing considerations.

That's the unfortunate side of open source. I've contributed a lot over many, many years (more like decades) and still am waiting for the first penny.


Do you use the same method to run two 2104s on Linux as Igor suggested? I don't have 2 identical cards at the moment to try, but will be glad to provide him some feedback. Did you try the method he suggested? If you want to improve Prof 7301 drivers in any way, you may want to communicate with Igor in basic English directly here (http://www.forum.free-x.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=644&8ceea2cf).

I tried this several months ago. There's no magic. You plug in two 2104s, they get assigned as different devices and you tell the app which device you want it to use. I hacked together a quick and dirty app that I'm experimenting with and now use a lot for alignment, but it will need to be rewritten before it will useful for anyone else.

pendragon

I think you may want to contribute with Signal scales calibration and some other outstanding issues, since Prof and TT haven't sent Igor the cards samples, while other people having the cards at hand also contributed some code to the drivers above.

P.S. It was reported on another forum that Linux driver (http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/tbs6920_8920_v23_linux_x86_x64.rar) for TBS PCI-E DVB-S2 6920 and PCI DVB-S2 8920 sat cards works well with Prof 8000 PCI-E Card tuner.

I was chasing feeds today instead of hanging on the roof with my toroids or messing with drivers. This is only an early data point, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the Prof 7500 (USB) unit vs. a DVB World 2104 (USB) on Windows. The link margin was a little thin and we had very high winds. The 2104 did the better job holding lock out of a splitter feeding both. However the only fair comparison in my mind would be with Linux drivers tweaked for best signal performance, assuming it makes a difference.

Some problems with DVB-S2 feeds locking seems to be a known issue, said to be caused by pure MS filters performance in the BDA driver graph in Windows versions earlier than Windows 7. Its suggested to use a WDM driver instead. There may be other issues involved not identified yet due to limited so far customer base for this new device. Prof recommends also to use AltDVB or DVBDream applications with these devices as optimal choice. It was reported also that connecting a high quality DiSEQC Switch improves reception by shifting noise pattern created by 12/18V impulse voltage converter due to higher load. Some mods (http://viaccessfree.biz/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2584&d=1245783535) were also suggested to improve reception. Do you want to try? :)

Yesterday was plain DVB-S, but at a high rate. According to sources there were issues with the uplink that on my spectrum analyzer were very apparent. That wasted most of my link margin, and the high winds were more than my Ku dishes could tolerate. Still with the carriers jumping up and down, the DVB World tuners did an excellent job holding lock. I only had one Prof 7500 running as a comparison off the same splitter as one of the DVB World units, and while it did well, it lost lock more frequently.

I've used both DVB Dream and DVB Viewer on Windows with both Prof units and they work about the same. Both apps have pros and cons, but yesterday I had to use DVB Viewer because it can do something I needed that DVB Dream cannot. I had just run a 24 hour test on another high rate signal with the Prof/2104 units and both were perfect (no transport stream hiccups). But that signal had an easy CNR.

I read about the mods a few days ago on some Russian forum, which looks to be the same link you provided. None of this applies to yesterday because the Prof unit was 'slaved' off the splitter through a DC blocker. I was somewhat dubious about the discussions, and it may have little to do with my system where the receivers at most power some switches and not any LNBs/motors. That means my receivers' current draw is always low. Nevertheless I set up a quick test where I powered a chain of the same types of switches I use all the way up to a LNB. I then compared a couple of signals on the spectrum analyzer using the receiver power and then using an external device to supply the switch/LNB power. It didn't make any difference so my links went into the circular file.

I haven't looked at the Linux drivers to see if there are some tweaking parameters that might make the Prof units perform better under adverse conditions. AGC loop time constants come quickly to mind. This was a particularly stressful test under conditions I rarely experience. Normally I have booming signals, carefully matched levels and a well equalized signal chain. 'Deaf' tuners seem to perform well for me.

Still I don't subscribe to fan boy clubs that declare any technology more than six months old to be garbage. The CX24116s in the DVB World units perform very well for me and newer units will have to establish their reputation by direct comparison with real signals, not by spec sheets and not by 14-year-olds posting on forums. At the moment the score on acid signal tests is only DVB World 1 and Prof 0. This will become clearer in time with more tests and more Prof units to compare. No two of my four DVB World devices perform identically and none clearly performs better than the others under every condition. I select the serial number most appropriate for a particular application, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same will apply to the Prof units.

The Prof BDA interface for DVB Dream has a ridiculous bug in it that prevents using at least DVB World units on the same Windows machine, but other than that I am very impressed with the stability and functionality of the Prof Windows software. It was able to command all the pieces of my complex switching chain out of the box, something the DVB World drivers are finally achieving after a long wait for fixes. I can't say that my TechnoTrend S2-3200 is even there, yet, and it isn't clear that it ever will be.

Getting closer... custom kernel with patches backported to 2.6.31.5


[ 8.964510] cx88[2]/2: subsystem: b034:3034, board: Prof 7301 DVB-S/S2 [card=83]
[ 8.964517] cx88[2]/2: cx2388x based DVB/ATSC card
[ 8.964521] cx8802_alloc_frontends() allocating 1 frontend(s)
[ 8.986364] <6>stv0900_init_internal
[ 8.986372] <6>stv0900_init_internal: Create New Internal Structure!
[ 9.171086] <6>stv0900_st_dvbs2_single
[ 9.176178] <6>stv0900_set_ts_parallel_serial
[ 9.193205] <6>stv0900_set_mclk: Mclk set to 135000000, Quartz = 27000000
[ 9.197570] <6>stv0900_get_mclk_freq: Calculated Mclk = 135000000
[ 9.221839] <6>stv0900_get_mclk_freq: Calculated Mclk = 135000000
[ 9.221843] stv0900_attach: Attaching STV0900 demodulator(0)
[ 9.259813] stb6100_attach: Attaching STB6100
[ 9.261494] DVB: registering new adapter (cx88[2])
[ 9.261512] DVB: registering adapter 2 frontend 0 (STV0900 frontend)...


Having some tuning issues right now.. will advise. I have various engagements today so I may not get back to this until Monday.

CX24116 was introduced (http://broadcastengineering.com/products/conexant-demod-encoder-20040902/) in 2004, and went through multiple revisions, fixing numerous problems widely reported in Europe. Glad if it was finally sufficiently improved. However last year CX started to advertize its replacement CX24118A (http://www.nxp.com/#/pip/pip=[pip=CX24118A_N_2,pfp=53518]|pp=[t=pip,i=CX24118A_N_2]), which already went through a couple of revisions. Jury is still out on the new one for most STB device makers. On the well known forum, you mentioned, that discussion and a few others were btw several electronics engineers, not teens, but they usually tend to criticize everything. Many problems with CX chip were of course attributable to traditional deficiencies of CN consumer sat cards and PC power supplies in general, as well as lower SNR in self-installed systems. Responding to complains, Prof RU has developed a new sat tuner series, based on STMicro STV0903 chip you're testing now, reported to be professionally designed, lock and switch channels much faster and better (S2 and HBR in particular, provided sufficient card quality within targeted cost range), and new driver series.The cards are met with great interest by consumers. Its interesting, what's your opinion about this new chip and the card you are testing, given high SNR advantage of your knowledge based reception setup?

I wasn't referring to that forum as teenagers. They were knowledgeable to a point, and they understood a lot about electronics, but I wasn't all that impressed. It seemed to me an ill-defined search for a solution to an ill-defined problem. Not a lot of hard facts, well designed measurements and clear cause-effect associations. I wasted too much time proving to myself that my intuition was correct. My one error of omission was not putting the Prof tuners on dummy IF and DC loads and looking at the L-band noise spectrum on the SA. I will try to do that sometime soon.

In terms of the CX24116, it is an older chip, but I'm not aware of any dramatic revolutions in the world of DSP since that time (that's my specialty). In terms of PC tuners released five years ago vs. brand new ones, I've only seen a limited number of specifications that can be compared. It seemed the most obvious improvement was in NF, and I can believe that one. However in a well designed sat reception/distribution system, that specification often has little to do with performance. I want to see if there are real improvements that I can quantify on the bench and down the link. Shiny new covers don't do a lot for me unless there's something worthwhile under the hood.

Part of the problem I'm having is I've spent so much time tuning, aligning and tweaking my dishes, switches and distribution system that for the most part there aren't many feeds that are on the edge for me. I have a Pansat 9200HD which has a reputation for being deaf on DVB-S. Works fine for me. The TechnoTrend S2-3200, DVB World 2104 and Prof 7301/7500 seem to get nearly everything I throw at them. I initially seduced myself into believing the Prof units were locking better than the older tuners, but I'm not sure any more. If I pulled out my distro amps, ignored the frequency response of the system paths, put in cheap, unpowered switches and slammed my dishes with a sledgehammer, it's very possible the newer units would provide a better a better lock and a lower BER.

High winds and a weak uplink had me licking my chops. But the 7500 was undisputedly worse than the 2104. It's not the end of the world because this could be a pathological case, but it was slightly disturbing. But this was my best 2104 for locking high rate, low CNR signals and the 7500 was just a random unit from Hong Kong. I am slowly bringing my toroids on line with improvements that have been long in coming. It's possible that the reduced CNR off these dishes may be good diagnostic tools for evaluating new vs. old PC tuners.

So far I've seen negligible improvements in my real life world, but I'm still happy because the Profs perform fine and the drivers work. I would expect if I hit them with a 45000 S2 SR, they would be undoubtedly better than the 2104s. I'm just not running to much of that on the sats I can see. I'm hoping to have a couple of the 7500s and a couple of the 7301s soon so I can get a rough idea of what the unit-to-unit variations are. If the Profs can blindscan, this project will have been worth every penny and minute. Even if they don't, they will give me options I didn't have before.

Of course you're right, the forum talk was at hobbyists level, and they lack testing equipment and advanced reception systems. It almost sounds, you need an average Joe's cheapy Sat reception system separately setup to do new tuners comparison testing when ordered. The second condition - local HBR signal availability - might come faster that we expect. Its unfortunate, true FTA in N/A seems to be mostly hobby for retirees due to luck of content, but I'm sure you managed to involve your own teens in this challenging hobby. :)

Attached is a table of chipsets used in some popular DVB-S2 sat cards.

Hey great bable of chipsets, now about the prof revolution 8000 PCI e and the TT-Budget S2-1600 one is PCIe and the other one is old PCI, here is the link of the specs for the STB6100 (http://www.prof-tuners.com/download/chips/STB_6100.pdf)


now what's the difference between STB6100 and STV6110A?

STB6100 (http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/10839.pdf) supports QPSK/8PSK/16APSK/32APSK modulations and low power STV6110A (http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/14948.pdf) supports QPSK/8PSK. See Tuner Specs for details, and look through STMicro (http://www.st.com/stonline/stappl/productcatalog/app?path=/pages/stcom/PcStComDocumentTableView.showTechlitTreeDocs&level0=131&level1=1424&level2=1003&level3=0&doctype=4&doctypecode=bd&enttype=4&tname=TL_DATA_BRIEFING_TREE_X_DOC&latest=N) site for more info.

See STB6100 (http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/10839.pdf) supporting QPSK/8PSK/16APSK/32APSK modulations and low power STV6110A (http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/14948.pdf) supporting QPSK/8PSK Tuner Specs for details, and look through STMicro (http://www.st.com/stonline/stappl/productcatalog/app?path=/pages/stcom/PcStComDocumentTableView.showTechlitTreeDocs&level0=131&level1=1424&level2=1003&level3=0&doctype=4&doctypecode=bd&enttype=4&tname=TL_DATA_BRIEFING_TREE_X_DOC&latest=N) site for more info.

I see so now with the http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/bd/14947.pdf (STV0903) and http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/bd/11107.pdf (STB0899) so the ultimate convination will be STB6100 with STB0899 right?

I'm waiting for the Prof Revolution prof8000 since it is PCIe but uses STB6100 + STV0903 so I'm waiting to see if is worth it.

Iso the ultimate convination will be STB6100 with STB0899 right?

The STB0899 came out in 2004 I believe. The STV0903 has well superseded it.

So the new STV0903 is better and has all what STB0899 has?

DO you think the best solution right now is STMicro chips?

The best solution is probably a sat card that combines low cost, excellent stability and picture quality, fast channel switching and full channel lineup locking ability offered in your region. It only partially depends on chipsets used. :)

Had a few minutes to play with the Prof 7301 on Linux. This is on a custom, but fairly benign 2.6.28 kernel. Following zamar23's tips, I pulled Igor's latest patch and applied it to a recent snapshot of his. I then applied Andreas Regel's patches for the stv0903. All the hardware seemed to get recognized as tester239 posted, but my kernel panics as soon as I try to tune something.

Next I tried zamar23's ready to install tarball. That shows some differences in the logs when the drivers attach to the 7301, and I had no kernel panics when tuning. In fact I was able to record the full 3840 V 27690 transponder on 58W and all the streams show up fine in TSReader. The tuning status, signal level, CNR and BER are all hosed, however. I had little success in doing a simple transponder scan and when I tried to send DiSEqC commands, there was no positive indication they went out and nothing locked. However I didn't scope the data and didn't split my spectrum analyzer off the line.

I need to compare the two builds I did because Regel's changes look as though they need to be wedged in somehow. There may well be a long road to success as the drivers appear very immature at the moment.

Igor posts new patches to it almost daily. He is getting Prof 7301 card in a couple of weeks, and the driver is going to be officially released shortly after. Its just another driver in a long Linux drivers collection he released over the years. He would finish support for the USB card version as well long ago, if he had the USB card at hand. There may be something you're missing in terms of proper installation. Several testers posted good results with both versions, but they're not finished yet. Pls post your findings with kernel printouts in this (http://www.forum.free-x.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=644) thread, if you want to help finalize the driver. Or, you're welcome to offer your own version. :)

I moved over to Windows for more Prof tuner testing.

To address a common question coming up on forums, I am able to get Prof tuners of different types to run simultaneously on the same Windows machine, but not two of the same. I only tried DVB Dream, but this has always worked well for me with multiple tuners as long as I run separate instances. Thus one 7301 (PCI) and one 7500 (USB) work fine and completely independently, but two 7500s or two 7301s don't. In fact if I have two like tuners connected, Windows shows both devices in the Device Manager, but DVB Dream only lists one available BDA device.

Next I tried to address another question regarding the sensitivity of the Prof tuners relative to other units. I've taken a 'gentle criticism' that I may not be terribly useful in determining this because I normally have plenty of link margin. So I took my smallest Ku dish (a T90 toroid) with a crummy LNB and moved it slightly off 83 W as necessary to generate poor CNRs. The target was RTV and I came up with the following abilities for locking from best to worst:

Prof 7301/Prof 7500 (pretty much a tie)
DVB World 2104
TechnoTrend S2-3200
Pansat 9200HD

Even when all the other tuners had lost lock and were capturing nothing viewable, the Profs were still capturing perfect transport streams. While this is only one test, I was impressed. For those who like to read arbitrary SQ numbers, most of the time my Profs are running with SQs of 99-100%. By the time I got tired of dropping the CNR, I still had a perfect picture at an SQ of 20%. I have no calibration as to what this scale measures or means, and didn't spend much time dwelling on it.

Igor posts new patches to it almost daily. He is getting Prof 7301 card in a couple of weeks, and the driver is going to be officially released shortly after. Its just another driver in a long Linux drivers collection he released over the years. He would finish support for the USB card version as well long ago, if he had the USB card at hand. There may be something you're missing in terms of proper installation. Several testers posted good results with both versions, but they're not finished yet. Pls post your findings with kernel printouts in this (http://www.forum.free-x.de/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=644) thread, if you want to help finalize the driver. Or, you're welcome to offer your own version. :)

I am able to tune and receive streams on this card on Linux, so I doubt there is an installation issue. The driver is simply at an alpha stage and there is nothing wrong with that, and certainly no criticism on my part of Igor's efforts and contributions. To clarify a little more:

Your link is where I picked up Igor's latest patch from a couple of days ago. My first test wasn't completely fair as I tried to incorporate a number of fixes to the stv0903 driver that Igor does not have in his baseline. Some of these appear important for proper blind scan operation, but I did not review each one. My presumption is there is a collision between Igor's baseline, which is more focused on the 7301 and Andreas' which is directed at the TT-1600. Both tuners use the stv0903, and Andreas appears to be much farther along in exploiting this chip's capabilities. It will take more time than I have this weekend to untangle that mess, but I believe a synthesis of the two is the right path to pursue.

When I switched to Igor's pure baseline, I had no system stability issues and had some ability to tune and receive transport streams on my default dish (all DiSEqC positions at 1). But DiSEqC commands didn't seem to work and I couldn't run scan. I didn't start this project to participate in driver development, although if I find anything I'll be happy to send it to Igor. I'm going to put a little more time into this, but if it looks like a more robust driver is down the road, I may wait for that to happen. I've already earned my stripes in driver coding over the past 35+ years.

I'll post their your published findings and the suggestion to integrate Andreas (http://home.arcor.de/andreas.regel/about.htm)' Blind Scan efforts (http://powarman.dyndns.org/hg/v4l-dvb). This part will probably take time, since it looks like a pioneering effort in sat cards. Sure, this groundbreaking work to add hardware blindscan to a new sat card series would be much easier to accomplish with your help, and would increase Linux popularity among FTA sat card fans, which are in large numbers around the Globe. :)

I dug up an old tool that makes drilling down differences in a file tree somewhat easier. This pointed out the most obvious difference between the version that works for me and the one that doesn't is they are using different drivers for the stv0903 chip.

The baseline that works for me is an unmodified build of zamar23's "ready to install" tarball that apparently dates from July 2009. My previous post may have misidentified the source as I now have no idea where it came from. This version uses a specific stv0903.* driver. Tuning sort of works and it doesn't crash, but that's about all. The debug messages are a little different from the following version.

The baseline that didn't work for me was based on Igor's latest with his most recent 7301 patch and a merge of the Andreas changes. This baseline uses the stv0900.* driver while Andreas patched a third driver called stv090x.*, meaning many of the changes I applied are likely not having any effect. I see the same debug messages as tester239 at initialization, and whenever I try to tune, the kernel panics. tester239 also mentions 'tuning issues', but did not provide any specific detail.

It would appear that sometime after July 2009, the stv0903 and stv0900 drivers were merged. The stv090x driver seems to be targeted at the TT-1600, where a fair amount of work has been done on blindscanning. At this point I'm a little unclear where to apply time with these separate efforts proceeding. I may try a more virgin pull from Igor to see if that works any better.

It seems to be quite typical to use others' modules in open source development, tossing them back-en-force and around. At the end nobody actually knows, where this thing came from, but amazingly enough it "just works". It might be that Igor added Andreas code to his own making it more universal. Basically, he seems to already have done the same thing before you did it again. :)

Perhaps Igor incorporated the essence of Andreas' changes into the stv0900 driver. I have not done a comparison. What concerns me is Andreas posted the changes on 14 Oct and I have not seen any consequent action from Igor. He may have already done the work beforehand, but in the world of Linux I have seen so much duplication of effort and wasting of time that I always tend to take the cynical route in the absence of any real information.

I started from Igor's latest baseline and applied the two patches: snr-str-1.patch from 17 Oct and prof_7301.patch from 27 Oct. Things are a little unclear about the first patch from Igor's 7301 thread, but I looked at the code and it wasn't there before. Builds fine, loads the drivers fine and crashes the system when I try to tune.

So I pulled an earlier baseline from Igor from around 27 Sept and applied the patches. This actually allows me to tune to a certain degree. It's not terribly reliable but I was able to scan 58W some of the time. The most obvious problem when it works is it doesn't seem able to select H. Everything is always V. I rebooted the machine to Windows immediately and H & V selection worked fine there. Went back to Linux and had the same problem.

I did try again to send DiSEqC commands to my switches as that would help a lot in troubleshooting. But there never was an indication that it worked, perhaps because the tuning can be so erratic.

There is some progress, but I'd be generous to call this alpha quality. I know the song and dance about Linux, but here I am spending hours just to compile a driver that works. From what I can tell there is marginal baseline control as I can never apply the patches cleanly, regardless of the version I choose. Not all the files are in sync. Don't count on blindscanning anytime soon at this rate.

I assume you installed S2 API, and used Igor's szap-s2 (http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/szap-s2) scanner or s2scan with parameter n specified to scan TPs and tune to channels?
Try also this (http://udev.netup.ru/hg/v4l-dvb-commits) Igor's depository, and apply the attached below patch to it.

"L@@K! Assembled with this. Everything works. :angel:"
Typical config: Kubuntu 9.04+VDR 1.7.9+S2API+VDPAU(GeForce 9500)+xine-0.9.3 DVB-S2 Prof-7301


It looks like he's working on several drivers for sat cards of different make at the same time. It's business as usual given the popularity of sat cards, higher demand for Linux drivers on low end PC hardware, and much higher demand for sat cards in general in Europe. May be the solution will have to wait until Prof adds blindscan support for its Windows drivers based on STMicro docs Igor doesn't have access to.

Here's also the thread (http://www.vdr-portal.de/board/thread.php?threadid=84517) on Linux driver development progress for TT S2-1600 for those interested to take part.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I thought Igor had incorporated S2API into the repository at:

s2-liplianin: Summary (http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/s2-liplianin/)

If I use that through the latest update (changeset 13255) and add the patch for the 7301 (mine is a little newer than the one you list and has a few more changes in it), the kernel panics on tuning. If instead I start with an earlier version from 27 Sep (changeset 13249) and apply the 7301 patch, the system doesn't crash and I have some tuning capability. But it is rather flakey. There may very well be differences in the code Igor and his merry band are running, but I think I've made a decent effort to get close. It may be that we also have different standards for software maturity.

In my reading it appears the S2API is still a work in progress and only a subset of apps have incorporated it. The developers are very proud they have not documented it, yet. I suppose the most practical approach with Linux is to read the kernel and module code, but frankly when I'm writing an app I'd rather not shoot at a moving target. My understanding was the S2API added capabilities through a different interface mechanism, and that it did not incorporate all the previous API functionality. Thus if one had an app that worked with the old API, it would of necessity continue to function. Anecdotally it seems people continue to have more success using the old API than the new, which is perfectly fine while the S2API details get ironed out. As I have no desperate need for S2API, I tried apps that only employ the old API. This could be the root of the problem, but then the problem would not be mine if I understand the S2API concept.

I can try Igor's commit repository, but I'm already convinced this part of the Linux tree is rather chaotic and whatever works today probably won't work tomorrow. It will be all worked out in time, but I don't have a lot of desire to join the fray and become another headless chicken running around like I have for the past few days. If I had wanted to do V4L driver development, I would already be there. What I want to do is enhance my blindscanning capabilities and am willing to work and contribute to the Linux cause. So far I have done nothing in that direction, and the prospects for near-term success appear gloomier than when I first looked.

Igor does what he wants and for the most part the world benefits. But the Linux world is fraught with personalities, politics, power plays, egos and the like and the subculture of V4L is no different. I would not be surprised if good work, like stv0903 blindscanning, is being ignored and wheels reinvented for reasons other than technical. If one reads through the stv090x driver, it is clear that a lot of work has gone into the blindscanning code and I'm inclined to believe a fair amount of it works on the TT S2-1600. Whether they had access to STMicro documentation or if someone figured it out doesn't really matter. There is a good understanding of the stv0903 in the wild. I don't have the same comfort factor with Igor's stv0900 driver. I'm not actually criticizing Igor, but the process, because I believe this could have been brought to 'market' faster with better cooperation. One recurring problem I've had with Linux over the past decade is that hardware is often obsolete by the time the software that supports it is becoming mature. As a consumer this does not breed confidence.

I can't agree with you more. Another problem is that in the region Igor targets his drivers for and where they're mostly early tested, blindscan is not the first priority if popular at all. Try contact Prof tech support about it. They answered me 4 months ago that blindscan for these cards is of interest to very few people if any, and they can't commit resources on something like that in this turbulent time. Period...

Btw, blindscan is the exciting feature, but what is the objective demand for it in sat cards in NA? How many people here are FTA thinking inclined - anyone did market research on this?

What I see from AZBox success, FTA community is hungry for something challenging and exciting to play with, but Linux HTPC remains a remote undertaking, and AZBox fits the transfer bill as intermediary btw familiar and unknown. However, for the silent majority a convenient "easy button" box would probably do better, if only it can show more fan at the moment.

Returning to Linux drivers, despite your critique his drivers are wildly popular with available in that region sat cards choice, which is much broader than in NA, and recommended for all practical purposes on every local forum. Here's an example from German C'T Magazine (http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Mit-Linux-auf-Empfang-292096.html). To organize work better, you're welcome to communicate with him and Andreus. I merely suggested available sources at the moment, nothing more. :).

I've been pretty busy with school/tv/work and that probably isn't going to change much. I've gotten my new PLL Ku lnb installed, and the 7301 drivers compiled and attaching.. but tuning does not work at all. I may just end up waiting for a stable base driver and then see about blind scanning and such after that. I still don't quite get the drivers.. Kernel stuff can be a bit over my head at times. Attempting to tune/lock with the 7301 gives me a bugus return value of 0xe7f7 or something crazy like that. Like I said, I haven't had much time to dive into this.

One good thing though: Even if the DVB API v5 doesn't support scanning and changing acquisition methods (which SUCKS, honestly) one can still write an easy blind-scan utility if the driver automagically will find the symbol rate given a broad number and a known frequency. This would just be a simple loop through frequencies, jumping the size of the bandwidth every time a transponder is found and locked on to. Assuming once the demod locks it will return the _proper_ symbol rate, not the one you fudged, this should work just fine. In fact, I've already written a program to do that.. *cough* automated lyngsat clone *cough*

Hope to hear more good news about this card.. :)

I guess you didn't expect for the modules code not being finalized. Interesting read: Linux Device Drivers (http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/).

I guess you didn't expect for the modules code not being finalized. Interesting read: Linux Device Drivers (http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/).


I'm not quite sure I follow you. Yes, I'm quite aware that the code available is very preliminary and didn't really expect anything to work out of the box. If time hasn't been so short lately, I might have played around with it more, and (at the very least) figured how I got an invalid return value and what it means.. beyond that, I don't know much about the hardware so I'm kinda in the dark as to what is expected and the proper way of interfacing with the demodulator. I never got any emails back from vendors or driver authors so :(


On another note, I'd use the latest kernel available from the repo, but my satellite system is a production system and I need to keep it somewhat stable. If I had a secondary test system, I'd be all for getting the super-latest kernel and patching that.. might have had better luck.

Haven't even had much time to _watch_ anything from the dish let alone futz around with kernel drivers. Hell, I still need to get that damn Unity 4000 box playing nice. Sigh, this hobby is best left for someone with more time (or better time management :D)

On another note, I'd use the latest kernel available from the repo, but my satellite system is a production system and I need to keep it somewhat stable. If I had a secondary test system, I'd be all for getting the super-latest kernel and patching that.. might have had better luck.

Not that it matters, but you don't need a bleeding edge kernel for this hardware. You can use Igor's v4l repository for just the dvb driver modules and add the necessary patches.

To organize work better, you're welcome to communicate with him and Andreus. I merely suggested available sources at the moment, nothing more. :).

I certainly appreciate your digging around for patches and the like, and working the other forums. Without your apparent multilingual abilities I would have been hard pressed to locate the necessary pieces. I'm not planning on giving up, and I had the two stv0903 driver codes lined up earlier for comparisons. There are definitely some different approaches taken.

It will take some thought before choosing which course to take. In view of politics I would lean a little to figuring out how to fit the right pieces into Igor's driver, but I'm still tempted to switch the couplings and see how the other driver performs.

Not that it matters, but you don't need a bleeding edge kernel for this hardware. You can use Igor's v4l repository for just the dvb driver modules and add the necessary patches.


Good to know. Next time I get to play with it, I'll pull from his repo for the base dvb/v4l stuff and patch from there.

If you want to use the latest kernel, its suggested to install gcc 4.3 ( apt-get install gcc-4.3 g++-4.3 ) и fix version in Make.config to ensure compatibility of current VDR version, otherwise there may be problems with getting channel picture, etc. Use szap-s2 to scan channels, when using Igor's driver. Try driver version from his commit repo.

Interesting pic posted on High Bit Rate DVB-S2 8psk signal reception with Prof-7301:
12591V43200 – 2/3 DVB-S2/8PSK from Intelsat 4 (72.0E) - calculated card data output rate higher than 85Mb/s. :)

Note to the future:

There is a related thread here (http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-pc-dvb-discussion/192642-multiple-prof-cards-same-pc.html#post2006400) that started on the specific topic of running identical Prof tuners on the same machine and branched into a variety of other useful discussions regarding Prof support and the maturity of their products.

From my perspective I started with three significant problems I was having with Prof 7301 and 7500 tuners on Windows:

1. Using DVB Dream with Prof tuners requires that no other vendor tuners are installed
2. Can't get two 7301 or two 7500 tuners to work on the same system
3. DVB Dream not stable with 7500; 7301 works fine.

The current state of resolutions are:

1. Problem verified repeatedly. Some other codes like DVB Viewer do not have this issue. The problem appears related to Prof's bda.dev module, which crashes when DVB Dream starts up and there is a non-Prof tuner installed. DVB Dream will operate the Prof tuners and start up with other vendor tuners if the default DVB Dream bda.dev module is used instead. However this module cannot send out DiSEqC commands through Prof tuners. Prof's bda.dev module does this part correctly or there would be little reason to use it.

2. Tried many suggestions, including some by Prof. I couldn't get anything to work. I had already got a 7301 and 7500 running together. That is no issue. I'm not sure everyone at Prof agrees if this can be done. Many other vendors have the same problem in different flavors, so this is nothing terribly unique. I would like to see this work, but it doesn't directly affect me as I have other workarounds.

3. The 7500 stability problem manifested itself using DVB Dream 1.4i on XP SP2. zamar23 suggested trying this with a beta copy of DVB Dream and on SP3. That combination seems more stable. Time will tell if the problem is gone or merely reduced in frequency.

There was one other useful fallout regarding which apps work with Prof. So far I have tried DVB Dream, DVB Viewer, AltDVB, ProgDVB and My Theatre and all work to some extent. Only the first two clearly have the ability to send DiSEqC 1.0 and 1.1 commands for stacked switches. The others may have some or all of this ability, but I wasn't able to get them to send the commands reliably on my first outing.

Interesting finds. It seems like Prof needs to further refine their drivers for the new cards, and ensure better compatibility with various DVB viewing applications. In particular for multiple sat card devices running on the same PC. Sure, this thing can be said about any new card from another manufacturer as well, and multiple devices support seems to be a common challenge. It just because Prof cards offer attractive package of lower price and advanced chipsets combo, they were selected for tests, as I understand. Another finding, I guess, is that DVB App vendors should ensure faster and smarter, more universal support integration for new advanced devices.

Hey great bable of chipsets, now about the prof revolution 8000 PCI e and the TT-Budget S2-1600 one is PCIe and the other one is old PCI, here is the link of the specs for the STB6100


now what's the difference between STB6100 and STV6110A?


I work in PTG.

Our "tuner box" supplier sad:



STB6110A is cheaper and lower power consumption than STB6100. In our test, the QPSK performance of STB6110A is good and the 8PSK performance is not qulified as our standard. We think STB6110A is not suitable for DVB-S2 application. But we will do more tests on STB6110A and will also use new version STB6110 if ST push it out.

Therefore we use STB6100 tuner for Prof Revolution at current moment.

Welcome Prof representative on this forum. Your continuous presence would definitely allow it a lot faster to clear up issues and questions FTA fans have about new Prof cards line up. :up

From my perspective I started with three significant problems I was having with Prof 7301 and 7500 tuners on Windows:

1. Using DVB Dream with Prof tuners requires that no other vendor tuners are installed
2. Can't get two 7301 or two 7500 tuners to work on the same system
3. DVB Dream not stable with 7500; 7301 works fine.


With regard to #3, I had fairly regular crashes with DVB Dream 1.4i, a 7500 tuner and XP SP2. Substituting a 7301 tuner is very reliable by comparison. Based on suggestions, I updated DVB Dream to the latest beta and XP to SP3. That is better, but it turns out I'm still seeing app/system crashes with the 7500, just at a lower rate. I also ran the release version of DVB Dream on XP SP3 and that fails about the same. So far SP3 is better than SP2 for XP, but it doesn't matter whether I use the release or beta DVB Dream. The 7500 crashes both at about the same rate.

I did try a rather limited test, only because I don't have units to burn and waste testing time. Instead of using Prof's bda.dev module for DVB Dream, I tried the latest standard bda.dev module posted on the DVB Dream site with DVB Dream 1.4i and a 7500 for nearly three days. This didn't crash at all. One loses DiSEqC functionality in this configuration, therefore it is only useful to me in identifying where the problems might be. It might be a fluke result, but this starts to point the finger at Prof's custom bda.dev module. Some further evidence is that DVB Viewer and a 7500 have never crashed that app or operating system.

From a user point of view, I'm inclined to view Prof's custom DVB Dream bda.dev module as rather shoddy, because all evidence to date suggests it may be the common element for the #1 and #3 problems. That's a real shame because the hardware works so well.

boke some posts for "Experience with the Prof 7300 PC card" off to a new thread

I don't know if this is a final solution to one of the problems I reported with the 7500, but I've had a successful test over the past few days. On my production Sage media server, I swapped out an older DVB World 2104 and TechnoTrend S2-3200 for one each of the Prof 7301 and 7500. This system is running XP SP3 with all the latest updates and two copies of DVB Dream 1.4i running from separate folders.

Before this on a test system, the 7301 always ran reliably but the 7500 less so. I did find updating XP from SP2 to SP3 helped the 7500 stability, but I still had occasional DVB Dream freezes where it looked as though the USB box went deaf and mute. My Sage server runs an identical motherboard configuration, but prior to moving the tuners I tried different DVB Dream module configurations until I discovered one that worked:

chltools
levellog
sageddmodule
signaldisplay
simosd
streamrecorder

All but the Sage module are part of a standard DD installation. However I had been running the ddosd module instead of simosd for the past year with the DVB Dream and TechnoTrend tuners. Making that one switch for the Prof cards stabilized the 7500. I'm not able to explain why this would change anything, but it's possible it somehow reduces or eliminates a race condition.

Prof has new Windows beta drivers for the 7301 and 7500 posted at:

Index of /download/beta (http://prof-tuners.com/download/beta/)

I haven't had a chance to try these on my test system. At the moment I'm working on the Prof tuners with Linux, but I'll report back anything I find on the Windows side when I get the opportunity.

I just ordered a Prof Red 7300 (advertised with a tux logo). I want to use this on my Karamic box, and i am wondering will it work? my kernel is 2.6.31-11 generic.. The machine is kinda old.. MSI K8n Neo v2.0h, AMD 64 3700+ (2.4GHz single core), 1GB DDR PC3200 ram.. 1TB+ for storage, and a Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT. I also need to figure out if this Phase 3 DTV dish that is connected to 1 DTV receiver can be used in any way. It has internal disqec and 4 outputs.

Prof has new Windows beta drivers for the 7301 and 7500 posted at:

Index of /download/beta (http://prof-tuners.com/download/beta/)

I haven't had a chance to try these on my test system. At the moment I'm working on the Prof tuners with Linux, but I'll report back anything I find on the Windows side when I get the opportunity.

Pedro, I'd be interested in what you find with those windows drivers. I have a 7301 on order. I'm encouraged with the time these people are putting into the drivers. Have you heard if there is anything going on with the blind scan for these revolution devices?

I just ordered a Prof Red 7300 (advertised with a tux logo). I want to use this on my Karamic box, and i am wondering will it work?

I've seen the code for the Linux drivers, but I don't have this tuner. You might try the thread that is specifically for the 7300. This thread is for the newer generation tuners (7301, 7500, 8000).


Pedro, I'd be interested in what you find with those windows drivers. I have a 7301 on order. I'm encouraged with the time these people are putting into the drivers. Have you heard if there is anything going on with the blind scan for these revolution devices?

Sometime back SatelliteAV said there was development work going on for a Windows blind scan solution. That was the last I heard. My personal interest is in a Linux blind scan and when I get spare moments I'm working on the drivers to do that. As it stands, the functional driver development being done by others has got the 7301 to an early alpha state. It kind of works, but with quirks and bugs. There are actually two drivers for the stv0903 (the part that does the blind scan), each with pluses and minuses. My focus is trying to combine the best of each and see if I can get the vestiges of blind scan to work. It's going to take awhile.

Ok, thats similar to what SatelliteAV told me when I inquired about buying a Prof from them, they were working with the manufacturer to develop the blind scan. Although SatelliteAV is listed as a seller of Prof Devices in North America, I still can't find the product on their site so they must still be in the development stage.
Is it possible the Linux driver you are working on may someday be public?

Is it possible the Linux driver you are working on may someday be public?

If I can make it work I plan to publish the source code/patches. Whether that would ever make it into the official Linux distribution is a matter for their traditional politics. I'm sick of watching the power plays that bury some of the most competent technical efforts, so I only plan to send the changes to the appropriate person and leave it at that.

Realize the driver changes are only one half of the blind scanning picture. I expect to be working on the other half, too, but that could turn out so highly specialized to my needs that it would not be of much use for others. It's still too soon to tell.


Although SatelliteAV is listed as a seller of Prof Devices in North America, I still can't find the product on their site so they must still be in the development stage.

If SatelliteAV is not yet selling them, you can order them directly from Prof on their website's store. That's how I got the four I'm working with.

If SatelliteAV is not yet selling them, you can order them directly from Prof on their website's store. That's how I got the four I'm working with.

Thanks, I ordered a 7301 from the Prof website last week.

Having some issues with this card. Prof7500 doesn't show on Dvbdream Devices.
On Mytheatre, Positioner and USALS wont work and with DVB-S2, the signals show very low and unable to scan, even though signal is very strong on regular DVB.

Anyone else having these problems? I am running windows Vista32.

regards

Having some issues with this card. Prof7500 doesn't show on Dvbdream Devices.
On Mytheatre, Positioner and USALS wont work and with DVB-S2, the signals show very low and unable to scan, even though signal is very strong on regular DVB.

Anyone else having these problems? I am running windows Vista32.

regards

If you are not already using it, I would install DVBDream 1.5 beta 7. It worked much better for me than 1.4i, especially with one of my PC's that runs Vista. You can download it from DD Beta Tests :: View topic - v1.5 Beta 7 (08.06.2009) (http://www.dvbdream.org/betatest/viewtopic.php?t=357)

Having some issues with this card. Prof7500 doesn't show on Dvbdream Devices.

Did you install the Prof bda.dev module?

Did you install the Prof bda.dev module?

Yes, and I got Progdvb and Mytheatre to work.

Yes, and I got Progdvb and Mytheatre to work.

Even with the default DVB Dream bda.dev module, you should be able to see the 7500 in the devices dialog box. It won't command DiSEqC, but you can get it to tune. Have you tried a virgin install of 1.4i? Do you have any other PC tuner drivers installed?

Even with the default DVB Dream bda.dev module, you should be able to see the 7500 in the devices dialog box. It won't command DiSEqC, but you can get it to tune. Have you tried a virgin install of 1.4i? Do you have any other PC tuner drivers installed?

The Prof7500 is not showing up in the devices box. I reinstalled DD1.5i, after uninstalling 1.4i.
Previously I had the twinhan 1025 card, it was removed along with its software.

I'm grasping for straws. I haven't had any problems like this on Vista or XP.

1. Make sure your OS is fully updated to the latest µSoft patches. This can make a big difference.

2. The Prof DD bda.dev module can be sensitive to the presence of other tuner drivers, even when the other device isn't attached. I had to do the usual tricks to get rid of the hidden devices (set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, etc.) and physically delete the associated files.

3. When you do a virgin install of DD, throw away all the files in the DD Devices folder. Only put Prof's bda.dev module in the Devices folder.

What shows in the "Devices" dialog box for DD? Could you perhaps post a screenshot?

I'm grasping for straws. I haven't had any problems like this on Vista or XP.

1. Make sure your OS is fully updated to the latest µSoft patches. This can make a big difference.

2. The Prof DD bda.dev module can be sensitive to the presence of other tuner drivers, even when the other device isn't attached. I had to do the usual tricks to get rid of the hidden devices (set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, etc.) and physically delete the associated files.

3. When you do a virgin install of DD, throw away all the files in the DD Devices folder. Only put Prof's bda.dev module in the Devices folder.

What shows in the "Devices" dialog box for DD? Could you perhaps post a screenshot?

The dialog box shows "File" under device but no Prof. Its showing in the device manager, under "sound, video and game controllers". I have mytheatre working, unfortunately I cant move the antenna.

The dialog box shows "File" under device but no Prof. Its showing in the device manager, under "sound, video and game controllers". I have mytheatre working, unfortunately I cant move the antenna.

I'm not following the "File" part at all. See the screenshot of how it should look under Vista/DD 1.4i. Could you post a shot of what you're seeing?

Finally got DD 1.4 to work but not DD 1.5. I am still unable to get the S2 signals and unable to use positioner.

regards

Finally got DD 1.4 to work but not DD 1.5. I am still unable to get the S2 signals and unable to use positioner.

DD 1.5 is still unstable. Some things work a lot better, but overall there are a number of show stoppers for me. That is true for any of the PC tuners I have, not just the Prof units.

I have DD 1.4/Prof 7301 & 7500 receiving S2 signals without any problems, and sending all forms of DiSEqC commands. Posting a screenshot of your DD Device dialog box might help figure out what is different between our setups. What is in your DD Devices folder?

DD 1.5 is still unstable. Some things work a lot better, but overall there are a number of show stoppers for me. That is true for any of the PC tuners I have, not just the Prof units.

I have DD 1.4/Prof 7301 & 7500 receiving S2 signals without any problems, and sending all forms of DiSEqC commands. Posting a screenshot of your DD Device dialog box might help figure out what is different between our setups. What is in your DD Devices folder?


I didn't modify the device folder.

Pendragon, I know you were working on the linux drivers to see if you could get the demodulator to do blindscan. Have you had any progress on this? I would throw in my efforts if i had the skills to do so. Thanks for all your information and input.

I didn't modify the device folder.

Try taking everything out of the devices folder, except for the bda.dev module that is on the Prof installer CD. The bda.dev module that installs with DD does not have the capability of DiSEqC commanding, and may lack S2 also.

Pendragon, I know you were working on the linux drivers to see if you could get the demodulator to do blindscan. Have you had any progress on this? I would throw in my efforts if i had the skills to do so. Thanks for all your information and input.

I put that project on hold a couple of weeks ago to finish my outdoor dish cabling before the weather really gets miserable, and to write software to drive my spectrum analyzer for ultra-fast coarse blindscanning. I expect to finish both this weekend and pick up the Linux drivers again.

I'm having a real good feeling about the capabilities of the STV0903 to do blindscanning, but I don't know how fast and accurate it will be. At the moment the biggest problem is stabilizing the drivers so they are reliable enough to use. When I last tested them, they were rather pathetic, but things can change fast in Linux land. If I need to I'll work on that first.

Well, my Prof 7301 arrived Friday and I played with it a bit over the weekend. I've found it works very well with Dvbviewer, DisEqC works well, channel changing is very fast and it has no problem with my Gbox positioner. TransEdit on the other hand recognized the Prof 7301 but wouldn't give me DisEqC control. A quick query on the Dvbviewer forum found the solution, tell TransEdit the Prof is a TBS device and everything worked fine. I'm not sure what the relationship is between those devices?
I loaded Dvbdream 1.5 Beta 7 and selected the bda.dev file and the Prof tuned no problem. Channel changes are very slow, 6-8 seconds, longer of course when switching my DisEqC switch. The card works well with my positioner, I use raw commands.
I loaded the bda_prof.dev file in the device folder but couldn't get Dvbdream to start at all. Access violation errors and a couple of times it froze the computer on initialization and re-booted the machine. I un-installed the Dvbdream beta version and loaded 141.i but no difference, still freezing problems. Its probably something I'm doing...or not doing.
I'm interested in how sensitive the tuner is, later this week I should have more time to play with it and test it. I did try to lock a low SR signal (1860) without luck but I'm not sure if the signal was even there for sure.
So far I really like the Prof 7301, the fact it works well with my favourite dvb application Dvbviewer is a plus too.

Any of you badasses capturing S2 with this mofo??? :)

The best DVB-S and DVB-S2 tuners I have. Haven't found a S2 feed the Profs couldn't handle.

My 7301 will leave Charlotte today and should be delivered tomorrow.

My 7301 will leave Charlotte today and should be delivered tomorrow.

Time to play!!:D

My 7301 will leave Charlotte today and should be delivered tomorrow.

Who's the vendor in Charlotte and how much are they getting for a 7301?

Thanks,
Jim

Who's the vendor in Charlotte and how much are they getting for a 7301?

Thanks,
Jim
The DHL hub is in Charlotte...it came from Hong Kong...

How long did it take to come from Hong Kong? I place an order Nov 27 for a 7500.
I haven't got it yet or any shipping info.

Thanks

How long did it take to come from Hong Kong? I place an order Nov 27 for a 7500.
I haven't got it yet or any shipping info.

Thanks

I ordered mine on Nov 17 and got it Dec 4, a little over 2 weeks. I was concerned at the 2 week mark and sent an e-mail, I received a reply but it was through a translator, very hard to understand. Anyway they did deliver but it took a while.

How long did it take to come from Hong Kong? I place an order Nov 27 for a 7500.
I haven't got it yet or any shipping info.

Thanks
I placed the order December 7th and received it today. I opted for DHL expedited shipping...costed about 11 bucks more but I wanted to see where it was. You should have got an email from Prof with a login and password when the order was processed.

I went the cheapo route, 10 day shipping, it was a few days over. I didn't get any info after ordering, no login or password although there was reference to that being done.

I sent them an email and they replied with tracking nbr. They shipped it out Dec 12.

tell TransEdit the Prof is a TBS device and everything worked fine. I'm not sure what the relationship is between those devices?


Not sure, but I dug around awhile back.
http://www.turbosight.com
TBS Technologies|Q-Box|DVB-S2|DVB-S|PCI-E (http://www.tbsdtv.com/)
QBox DVB (http://www.qboxdvb.com/)
Prof Tuners Group DVB-S DVB-S2 6200 7300 1100 7500 8000 7301 (http://www.prof-tuners.com)
MatchBoxPro Pictures (http://www.dmsiusa.com/matchbox.html)
and probably more.

All have almost identical products. The matchbox driver works with my Qbox DVB-S USB. ;-)

Regardless what their websites claim, all above products are designed and manufactured by TBS China under different labels, some with different chipsets or somewhat customized drivers depending on the product label. Contribution of the label owners vary a bit.

I've been playing around with the Prof today and found I have no DiSEqC control with DVBViewer. Tuner is fast in tuning but initial tests show the TT 3200 is beating it by a bit. Detuning the dish to the point of errors shows the Prof with errors on all PIDS while the TT hangs on with a scant few errors. I don't have any way of attenuating the signal with any control so it could be that the TT can handle noise better than the Prof. But to be able to use it as the main tuner in the computer it must be able to control a DiSEqC switch.

I've been playing around with the Prof today and found I have no DiSEqC control with DVBViewer.

The latest beta of DVBViewer sends DiSEqC commands through my Prof units. I wasn't able to get the release version to work, if that's what you're using.

I'm using the beta as well, 4.3.1.45 Beta, DiSeQc works fine. What OS are you using?, Windows XP Pro here.
Edit: Just tried Diseqc with Dvbviewer 4.2.1.0 and it works ok. Have you tried TransEdit?

Transedit doesn't switch either. I can switch back to the TT and Transedit works fine. I tested 3 different switches (Spaun. EMP-C and a 10 way uncommitted). I did a fresh install of 4.2.1.0 today...OS is XP Home with SP3. I tried the Prof beta driver and that didn't work either. I'll test it more tomorrow.

***UPDATE*** DiSEqC works fine now in DVBViewer but still a no go in Transedit.

Your mention of the Spaun switch made me remember the Prof would not reliably switch mine either. I changed it out for a cheapo no name Diseqc switch and it works fine now. I had forgotton about that. I put the Spaun SAR 411F back in this afternoon and its the same behaviour, switches occasionally but not all the time and once in a while it re-boots the computer, the Spaun might be taking a bit more power than the Prof is delivering, it seems to work fine with my other cards.

Re: TransEdit, are you using the latest 3.51.0? That one has been fixed so the Prof 7301 is recognized as vendor.0=13 in Transedit.ini. I'm also using Prof 7301 beta drivers 1.1.2.0

Re: TransEdit, are you using the latest 3.51.0? That one has been fixed so the Prof 7301 is recognized as vendor.0=13 in Transedit.ini. I'm also using Prof 7301 beta drivers 1.1.2.0
I'm getting old and forgetful, at least that's what my wife tells me. I had changed the transedit.ini to .0=13, but I forgot to change the version back to 3.5.1.0...now it works! ...at least what I can test as we got 14 inches of snow today and some of the dishes are full of snow.

well its a simple question ? should i buy a BLSA or 3 prof cards and concentrate on the same drivers as this thread. im a year out of driver development but i would be willing to work on something useful. and i have a big hardon image of 35 of my BIG dishes all blindscanning s2 static. i need enthusiasm if anyone asks.

crackt out,.

If you want and can do something useful, don't follow the crowd. Buy the latest model of DVBWorld PCI-e or USB sat tuner, based on Montage (http://www.montage-tech.com/Product_DS3000_2.htm) DVB-S2 tuner and demod that also supports Blind Scan, and try add this capability to DVBWorld Windows drivers. Ask DVBWorld by PM, if they can provide you with required docs to access the chipset's capabilities. They were quite happy to support Linux driver development for their product line.

well its a simple question ? should i buy a BLSA or 3 prof cards and concentrate on the same drivers as this thread. im a year out of driver development but i would be willing to work on something useful. and i have a big hardon image of 35 of my BIG dishes all blindscanning s2 static. i need enthusiasm if anyone asks.

Simple questions sometimes have complicated answers. It does depend on what you want: a spectrum analyzer or a blindscanning receiver. They are completely different animals.

Spectrum analyzers can be useful for blindscanning to a point, but their utility more covers system design, tuning, optimization and troubleshooting. I would have a hard time living without a bench SA. It is far more important than any blindscanning receiver to me. Does the BLSA do the job? I don't know but a number of people have been very happy with them. However it is rather dated technology and one cannot expect it to be a drop in substitute for a real SA.

The Prof cards need to be viewed as what they can do today. They are the highest performing PC tuners I have tested, and can lock signals under difficult conditions where the others can't. The Prof tuners have the potential for hardware blindscanning, but for the moment this has not been demonstrated. The shortest path I see for Prof blindscanning is on Linux. When I started this project some weeks back, the Linux drivers were barely usable. I took some time out to work on other projects, and there has been good progress made in the interim with basic driver functionality. I'm now taking serious steps forward, but don't expect any imminent announcements from me.

The DVB World devices may also be good candidates for blindscanning as zamar points out. I waited and waited for them to become available here, but that only happened very recently. For me personally, the train left the station a couple of months ago. I have been investing time figuring out how the STV0903 demod works and until something demonstrably better comes along, I plan to stay for the ride.

Actually, Montage DVB-S2 chipset has better published specs than the one above of STMicro. STV0903 has however well hidden DSS Legacy signal decoding capability similar to older Twinhan 1020A, which is not activated in Prof drivers. I guess, the only way to find if something better already came along in terms of signal locking is for someone well equipped (in a broader term) to test the new DVBWord (http://www.worlddvb.com/product/htm/DVB-S2pcie2006.htm) devices (http://www.worlddvb.com/product/htm/dvb-s2%20usb%20ca%20ci.htm) rigorously. :)

Actually, Montage DVB-S2 chipset has better published specs than the one above of STMicro.

I'm not aware of any published specs of either chipset that say anything meaningful about signal performance. For example, perhaps BER vs. CNR for a variety of SRs. Or at least maybe minimum acquisition of lock CNR vs. SR. Instead we get almost no specs at all, and what we do get is window dressing of no consequence. STB receiver spec sheets do exactly the same thing. This is a standard technique in the world of electronics that has been a pet peeve of mine for nearly 40 years - find some technical claim that makes the herds of sheep believe they have the better product.


I guess, the only way to find if something better already came along in terms of signal locking is for someone well equipped (in a broader term) to test the new DVBWord rigorously. :)

Precisely. I did a number of head-to-head competitions between the previous generation DVB World and TechnoTrend products vs. the new Prof tuners to see if there was any improvement. It was substantial and verifiable. If one had just looked at the spec sheets, it would have been easy to conclude there was no point of even doing the tests.

Without useful specs, we are reduced to third party testing. Unfortunately in the world of FTA, people tend to lack the resources and or the knowledge (or both) to perform fair tests. I have a lot of test equipment and a long history of professional signal processing/RF work, but I am painfully aware that I could do a lot better with more resources. For my part I try to directly and simultaneously compare products under the same, solid signal conditions. But I see a lot of anecdotal advice offered on forums and even professionally that makes me cringe because it is rarely backed by scientific evidence.

Talking about particular specs you mentioned, the result also depends in part on how artfully a driver developer exploited known to him fine tuning programming options of a selected chipset, and where co-operation with the chipset manufacturer went to at that point of discovery of chipset weaknesses and improvement opportunities.

Talking about particular specs you mentioned, the result also depends in part on how artfully a driver developer exploited known to him fine tuning programming options of a selected chipset, and where co-operation with the chipset manufacturer went to at that point of discovery of chipset weaknesses and improvement opportunities.

Frankly as a consumer I should not care how well the driver developer and chip manufacturer cooperate or not, or whether they extract the best possible results from a hardware and software design. If specs like I suggested were published, all companies involved in a particular product would be incentivized to do their best and work together, and we could choose the best of the fruit.

But this will never happen in the current climate, and many products are rushed to market with serious design flaws and drivers that are never finished before the next generations are released. The best I can hope for is people who have the equipment and skills to directly compare the options will publicly differentiate the wizards from the charlatans. I do my part as best as I can, but I will not play Don Quixote.