| Idea behind the dvb-usb-framework |
| ================================= |
| |
| .. note:: |
| |
| #) This documentation is outdated. Please check at the DVB wiki |
| at https://linuxtv.org/wiki for more updated info. |
| |
| #) **deprecated:** Newer DVB USB drivers should use the dvb-usb-v2 framework. |
| |
| In March 2005 I got the new Twinhan USB2.0 DVB-T device. They provided specs |
| and a firmware. |
| |
| Quite keen I wanted to put the driver (with some quirks of course) into dibusb. |
| After reading some specs and doing some USB snooping, it realized, that the |
| dibusb-driver would be a complete mess afterwards. So I decided to do it in a |
| different way: With the help of a dvb-usb-framework. |
| |
| The framework provides generic functions (mostly kernel API calls), such as: |
| |
| - Transport Stream URB handling in conjunction with dvb-demux-feed-control |
| (bulk and isoc are supported) |
| - registering the device for the DVB-API |
| - registering an I2C-adapter if applicable |
| - remote-control/input-device handling |
| - firmware requesting and loading (currently just for the Cypress USB |
| controllers) |
| - other functions/methods which can be shared by several drivers (such as |
| functions for bulk-control-commands) |
| - TODO: a I2C-chunker. It creates device-specific chunks of register-accesses |
| depending on length of a register and the number of values that can be |
| multi-written and multi-read. |
| |
| The source code of the particular DVB USB devices does just the communication |
| with the device via the bus. The connection between the DVB-API-functionality |
| is done via callbacks, assigned in a static device-description (struct |
| dvb_usb_device) each device-driver has to have. |
| |
| For an example have a look in drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/vp7045*. |
| |
| Objective is to migrate all the usb-devices (dibusb, cinergyT2, maybe the |
| ttusb; flexcop-usb already benefits from the generic flexcop-device) to use |
| the dvb-usb-lib. |
| |
| TODO: dynamic enabling and disabling of the pid-filter in regard to number of |
| feeds requested. |
| |
| Supported devices |
| ----------------- |
| |
| See the LinuxTV DVB Wiki at https://linuxtv.org for a complete list of |
| cards/drivers/firmwares: |
| https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB_USB |
| |
| 0. History & News: |
| |
| 2005-06-30 |
| |
| - added support for WideView WT-220U (Thanks to Steve Chang) |
| |
| 2005-05-30 |
| |
| - added basic isochronous support to the dvb-usb-framework |
| - added support for Conexant Hybrid reference design and Nebula |
| DigiTV USB |
| |
| 2005-04-17 |
| |
| - all dibusb devices ported to make use of the dvb-usb-framework |
| |
| 2005-04-02 |
| |
| - re-enabled and improved remote control code. |
| |
| 2005-03-31 |
| |
| - ported the Yakumo/Hama/Typhoon DVB-T USB2.0 device to dvb-usb. |
| |
| 2005-03-30 |
| |
| - first commit of the dvb-usb-module based on the dibusb-source. |
| First device is a new driver for the |
| TwinhanDTV Alpha / MagicBox II USB2.0-only DVB-T device. |
| - (change from dvb-dibusb to dvb-usb) |
| |
| 2005-03-28 |
| |
| - added support for the AVerMedia AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 device |
| (Thanks to Glen Harris and Jiun-Kuei Jung, AVerMedia) |
| |
| 2005-03-14 |
| |
| - added support for the Typhoon/Yakumo/HAMA DVB-T mobile USB2.0 |
| |
| 2005-02-11 |
| |
| - added support for the KWorld/ADSTech Instant DVB-T USB2.0. |
| Thanks a lot to Joachim von Caron |
| |
| 2005-02-02 |
| - added support for the Hauppauge Win-TV Nova-T USB2 |
| |
| 2005-01-31 |
| - distorted streaming is gone for USB1.1 devices |
| |
| 2005-01-13 |
| |
| - moved the mirrored pid_filter_table back to dvb-dibusb |
| first almost working version for HanfTek UMT-010 |
| found out, that Yakumo/HAMA/Typhoon are predecessors of the HanfTek UMT-010 |
| |
| 2005-01-10 |
| |
| - refactoring completed, now everything is very delightful |
| |
| - tuner quirks for some weird devices (Artec T1 AN2235 device has sometimes a |
| Panasonic Tuner assembled). Tunerprobing implemented. |
| Thanks a lot to Gunnar Wittich. |
| |
| 2004-12-29 |
| |
| - after several days of struggling around bug of no returning URBs fixed. |
| |
| 2004-12-26 |
| |
| - refactored the dibusb-driver, splitted into separate files |
| - i2c-probing enabled |
| |
| 2004-12-06 |
| |
| - possibility for demod i2c-address probing |
| - new usb IDs (Compro, Artec) |
| |
| 2004-11-23 |
| |
| - merged changes from DiB3000MC_ver2.1 |
| - revised the debugging |
| - possibility to deliver the complete TS for USB2.0 |
| |
| 2004-11-21 |
| |
| - first working version of the dib3000mc/p frontend driver. |
| |
| 2004-11-12 |
| |
| - added additional remote control keys. Thanks to Uwe Hanke. |
| |
| 2004-11-07 |
| |
| - added remote control support. Thanks to David Matthews. |
| |
| 2004-11-05 |
| |
| - added support for a new devices (Grandtec/Avermedia/Artec) |
| - merged my changes (for dib3000mb/dibusb) to the FE_REFACTORING, because it became HEAD |
| - moved transfer control (pid filter, fifo control) from usb driver to frontend, it seems |
| better settled there (added xfer_ops-struct) |
| - created a common files for frontends (mc/p/mb) |
| |
| 2004-09-28 |
| |
| - added support for a new device (Unknown, vendor ID is Hyper-Paltek) |
| |
| 2004-09-20 |
| |
| - added support for a new device (Compro DVB-U2000), thanks |
| to Amaury Demol for reporting |
| - changed usb TS transfer method (several urbs, stopping transfer |
| before setting a new pid) |
| |
| 2004-09-13 |
| |
| - added support for a new device (Artec T1 USB TVBOX), thanks |
| to Christian Motschke for reporting |
| |
| 2004-09-05 |
| |
| - released the dibusb device and dib3000mb-frontend driver |
| (old news for vp7041.c) |
| |
| 2004-07-15 |
| |
| - found out, by accident, that the device has a TUA6010XS for PLL |
| |
| 2004-07-12 |
| |
| - figured out, that the driver should also work with the |
| CTS Portable (Chinese Television System) |
| |
| 2004-07-08 |
| |
| - firmware-extraction-2.422-problem solved, driver is now working |
| properly with firmware extracted from 2.422 |
| - #if for 2.6.4 (dvb), compile issue |
| - changed firmware handling, see vp7041.txt sec 1.1 |
| |
| 2004-07-02 |
| |
| - some tuner modifications, v0.1, cleanups, first public |
| |
| 2004-06-28 |
| |
| - now using the dvb_dmx_swfilter_packets, everything runs fine now |
| |
| 2004-06-27 |
| |
| - able to watch and switching channels (pre-alpha) |
| - no section filtering yet |
| |
| 2004-06-06 |
| |
| - first TS received, but kernel oops :/ |
| |
| 2004-05-14 |
| |
| - firmware loader is working |
| |
| 2004-05-11 |
| |
| - start writing the driver |
| |
| How to use? |
| ----------- |
| |
| Firmware |
| ~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| Most of the USB drivers need to download a firmware to the device before start |
| working. |
| |
| Have a look at the Wikipage for the DVB-USB-drivers to find out, which firmware |
| you need for your device: |
| |
| https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB_USB |
| |
| Compiling |
| ~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| Since the driver is in the linux kernel, activating the driver in |
| your favorite config-environment should sufficient. I recommend |
| to compile the driver as module. Hotplug does the rest. |
| |
| If you use dvb-kernel enter the build-2.6 directory run 'make' and 'insmod.sh |
| load' afterwards. |
| |
| Loading the drivers |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| Hotplug is able to load the driver, when it is needed (because you plugged |
| in the device). |
| |
| If you want to enable debug output, you have to load the driver manually and |
| from within the dvb-kernel cvs repository. |
| |
| first have a look, which debug level are available: |
| |
| .. code-block:: none |
| |
| # modinfo dvb-usb |
| # modinfo dvb-usb-vp7045 |
| |
| etc. |
| |
| .. code-block:: none |
| |
| modprobe dvb-usb debug=<level> |
| modprobe dvb-usb-vp7045 debug=<level> |
| etc. |
| |
| should do the trick. |
| |
| When the driver is loaded successfully, the firmware file was in |
| the right place and the device is connected, the "Power"-LED should be |
| turned on. |
| |
| At this point you should be able to start a dvb-capable application. I'm use |
| (t|s)zap, mplayer and dvbscan to test the basics. VDR-xine provides the |
| long-term test scenario. |
| |
| Known problems and bugs |
| ----------------------- |
| |
| - Don't remove the USB device while running an DVB application, your system |
| will go crazy or die most likely. |
| |
| Adding support for devices |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| TODO |
| |
| USB1.1 Bandwidth limitation |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| A lot of the currently supported devices are USB1.1 and thus they have a |
| maximum bandwidth of about 5-6 MBit/s when connected to a USB2.0 hub. |
| This is not enough for receiving the complete transport stream of a |
| DVB-T channel (which is about 16 MBit/s). Normally this is not a |
| problem, if you only want to watch TV (this does not apply for HDTV), |
| but watching a channel while recording another channel on the same |
| frequency simply does not work very well. This applies to all USB1.1 |
| DVB-T devices, not just the dvb-usb-devices) |
| |
| The bug, where the TS is distorted by a heavy usage of the device is gone |
| definitely. All dvb-usb-devices I was using (Twinhan, Kworld, DiBcom) are |
| working like charm now with VDR. Sometimes I even was able to record a channel |
| and watch another one. |
| |
| Comments |
| ~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| Patches, comments and suggestions are very very welcome. |
| |
| 3. Acknowledgements |
| ------------------- |
| |
| Amaury Demol (Amaury.Demol@parrot.com) and Francois Kanounnikoff from DiBcom for |
| providing specs, code and help, on which the dvb-dibusb, dib3000mb and |
| dib3000mc are based. |
| |
| David Matthews for identifying a new device type (Artec T1 with AN2235) |
| and for extending dibusb with remote control event handling. Thank you. |
| |
| Alex Woods for frequently answering question about usb and dvb |
| stuff, a big thank you. |
| |
| Bernd Wagner for helping with huge bug reports and discussions. |
| |
| Gunnar Wittich and Joachim von Caron for their trust for providing |
| root-shells on their machines to implement support for new devices. |
| |
| Allan Third and Michael Hutchinson for their help to write the Nebula |
| digitv-driver. |
| |
| Glen Harris for bringing up, that there is a new dibusb-device and Jiun-Kuei |
| Jung from AVerMedia who kindly provided a special firmware to get the device |
| up and running in Linux. |
| |
| Jennifer Chen, Jeff and Jack from Twinhan for kindly supporting by |
| writing the vp7045-driver. |
| |
| Steve Chang from WideView for providing information for new devices and |
| firmware files. |
| |
| Michael Paxton for submitting remote control keymaps. |
| |
| Some guys on the linux-dvb mailing list for encouraging me. |
| |
| Peter Schildmann >peter.schildmann-nospam-at-web.de< for his |
| user-level firmware loader, which saves a lot of time |
| (when writing the vp7041 driver) |
| |
| Ulf Hermenau for helping me out with traditional chinese. |
| |
| André Smoktun and Christian Frömmel for supporting me with |
| hardware and listening to my problems very patiently. |
