[mythtv-users] Scanning dvb-s Nova-S Plus

[Nick Morrott]

On 29/06/2008, Paul <thannet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>  I'm fighting in the dark here, not found any reference that I could
>  understand to setup these two tuner cards. So far I think I am doing the
>  following properly, but assume I am not by the error message.
>
>  paul at vs:~$ scan
>  -a3 /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/Astra-28.2E
>  > .szap/channels.conf
>  scanning /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/Astra-28.2E
>  using '/dev/dvb/adapter3/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter3/demux0'
>  initial transponder 10773000 H 22000000 5
>  initial transponder 11778000 V 27500000 2
>  WARNING: frontend type (OFDM) is not compatible with requested tuning
>  type (QPSK)
>  WARNING: frontend type (OFDM) is not compatible with requested tuning
>  type (QPSK)
>  ERROR: initial tuning failed
>  dumping lists (0 services)
>  Done.

Are you sure that /dev/dvb/adapter3/ is your DVB-S card? Do you have 4
DVB tuners in the system? Numbering starts from zero, and so far you
have mentioned only the Nova-T 500 and the Nova-S Plus.

When using scandvb from the dvb-apps packages on an old F7 box, I do
not need to specify any LNB settings on the command-line:

# scandvb -a 0 -x 0 -n /usr/share/dvb-apps/dvb-s/Astra-28.2E

(the DVB-S card is /dev/dvb/adapter0/)

>  Also be interested to know if I can assign certain channels to certain
>  tuners ?

In mythtv-setup, you create a videosource containing all the channels
you want to receive on a particular capture card input. In the case of
five, you would make sure this is available in your videosource
attached to your Nova-T 500 inputs. You can have the same channel on
multiple videosources, and the MythTV scheduler will determine which
is the best card to use at record time.

Channels are matched on XMLTVID by the scheduler, and it's best to try
use the same listings source for channels available on multiple
videosources, to ensure they have the same programming information. I
use EIT for radio and DVB-S channels (that are not yet carried by the
RT feed) and use the RT feed for everything else.

> Reason I ask is that I still have my working Nova-T 500 in this
>  backend (working fine, apart from crap freeview signal) And 5 is not on
>  Freesat yet. How would one go about configuring Myth to do that? Also is

When you create your videosource for the DVB-T channels, the channel
scanner will (or should) find five amongst the list of available
channels. As long as that channel is assigned to your DVB-T
videosource, MythTV will be able to record it on your DVB-T inputs
(i.e. not yet on your DVB-S card)

>  the EIT data working with DVB-S ? Or to I have to struggle with the
>  Radio times listings ? If I do, can I use both EIT & RT ?

Latest 0.21-fixes contains Freesat improvements that provide more
listings data than the previously available now/next DVB-S data for
Freesat channels. DVB-T EIT is quite stable on MythTV and provides a
week of rolling listings. The Radio Times feed (I maintain the XMLTV
uk_rt grabber) provides 14 days of listings for ~ 300 channels in
total, and is my preferred choice (more detailed information, many
channel carried etc) but it does require an internet connection. EIT
obviously works over-the-air, and if you don't have Sky/Virgin, you
can get away with using the EIT data for most of the popular channels.

The channel scanner in MythTV can handle both DVB-T and DVB-S, but is
not stable and may crash during scanning. I have found that if this
happens, re-entering the videosources page and opting to rescan
existing transports, rather than a full rescan, can pick up any
channels missed before the crash.

I successfully use both of the cards you have mentioned - so hopefully
you'll be up and running soon.

Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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