Hi folks,
What we are talking about?
--------------------------
1. Hardware:
1.1 Notebook: Lenovo ThinkPad 11e, Intel Celeron N2940
1.2 Frontend: TurboView TBS-5520 Multi-standard TV Tuner USB Box
(http://www.tbs-technology.de, http://tbsdtv.com)
2. Software:
2.1 Package: v4l-utils-2.10.1:
(compiled on my non-standart Slax/Slackware GNU/Linux 3.19.8)
2.1.1 Utility: dvbv5-scan
Errors on Astra 19E2 12363000Hz transponder (details below)
2.1.2 Utility: dvbv5-scan
Produces duplicate entries in connection with 'channel'
output format (deteils below)
Short pretext:
--------------
Firstly, thanks for all your work and time you have spent to create and maintain
this open-source software! The reason I am writing this bug report is that I use
this software package (due to new hardware) a lot and I want to help improve it.
Due to the (in my opinion bad) decision to switch from DVB-T to DVB-T2
transmissions for terrestrial TV here in Germany I invested in some new hardware
and played around. For DVB television and radio decoding I am using MPlayer
(without skin or other graphical toolkit). As you most probably know, MPlayer
has a internal tuning facility (done via mplayer dvb://...) but - so far - this
works only vor DVB-T and DVB-S/S2 (concerning DVB-C/C2 I can not make any
statement, because there is no functioning cable input available). So I decided
to do the tuning part with 'dvbv5-zap' utility and playback the stream via the
'dvr0' device with MPlayer. The result: DVB-T/T2 and DVB-S/S2 are working fine
(with the one restriction, that this German variant "DVB-T2 HD", which is
DVB-T2+HEVC/h.265, needs a lot/far too much resources).
Thanks to the improved 'channels.conf'-format, it is possible to use only one
channels file for the different standards and switch the TBS-5520 directly
with the 'dvbv5-zap' utility between DVB-T/T2 and DVB-S/S2 (very nice!).
Wrong service/audio-pid output on Astra 19.2° East,transponder 12363000 Hz:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On this transponder are some satellite radio stations I am listening from time
to time (BBC Word Service, Radio Nova - during night the "Le Grande Mix"). Now
solely tuning via 'dvbv5-zap' I soon noticed, that the station (service) names
and the AUDIO_PIDs generated with 'dvbv5-scan' are not correct. I repeated the
scan process with this utility, converted it to the older (more compact)
zap-channels.conf-format and compared it with the output of the 'scan' utility
of the 'dvb-apps-1.1.2' package and with 'w_scan' (version 2014-11-22).
In most cases 'dvbv5-scan' does a better job than the other tools, but on this
special transponder (no tv, only radio and some data) only 'scan' does correctly
separate the multiplex, 'w_scan' only produces one service with serveral audio
streams. Comparing serveral scans done with 'dvbv5-scan' on this transponder
shows that the software does find the service names but cannot assign correctly
the appropriate audio-pid (seems to be exchanged randomly)!
Duplicates output in connection with 'channel'-format:
------------------------------------------------------
Using 'dvbv5-scan -I channel ' or 'dvbv5-scan --input-format=channel' produces
duplicate entries when it finds a service on the same transponder. I think this
is not "a big thing", I only report this, because I have observed it and do not
believe that this behaviour was intended.
I have taken a short look into the source code, but - so far -, sorry,
I am not able to deliver the perfect patch instantly :-(
Enclosed are 4 files:
[1] Astra-19.2E-12363000: Scan input file in v5-format for this transponder
(data retrieved from: http://www.astra.de).
[2] Astra_S19E2_12363kHz_scanned-channels.conf: 'dvbv5-scan' output for this
transponder (wiht errors).
[3] Astra_S19E2_12363kHz_correct-channels.conf: Manual corrected channel file
(essentially using audio pids as produced by 'scan')
[4] channels.conf.sat: For comparison output of 'dvbv5-scan', 'scan' and
'w_scan' in v3/zap/mplayer-format.
I hope my descriptions and these files can help to improve this fine software
package. For the case, that someone finds the time and has the knowledge to fix
the code but is not able to scan Astra 19E2, you can mail me [asbase at gmx dot
de] patches or updated source code for compilation and testing.
Best regards
Armin Schneider
P.S.: Some additional observations ...
Channels file field PILOT (DVB-S/S2) blocks MPlayer from playback:
------------------------------------------------------------------
As described above I use 'mplayer /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0' for playback of the
dvb streams. Commenting-out the PILOT entry does "solve" the problem.
Additional available PIDs under DVB-T2 may block MPlayer from playback:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In the case of DVB-T2 zapping only works when PID filter is turned off (i.e.:
dvbv5-zap -P ... <or> dvbv5-zap --all-pids), but this can also have some
negative effects. Since 2016-05-31 in test phase of Germany's DVB-T2
transmissions, the 'Das_Erste_HD' service includes additional PIDs (PID_24
[default for video], PID_0c, PID_0b, PID_06, PID_05) which prevents MPlayer from
playing the stream. (Acually: using option '-P' and zapping to service 'ZDF_HD'
(only PID_24) no problems, but zapping to service 'Das_Erste_HD' again 'ZDF_HD'
played back; sometimes zapping to service 'VOX_HD' (encrypted) playback of
service 'Das_Erste_HD'). Solution: When only PID_24 is delivered it works (so
commenting or deleting the others will do the job - in my case a 'gawk' script
parses the original channels.conf data and creates a temporary "cleaned" one).
The "regular DVB-T2 service" in Germany is planned for the first quarter of
2017; will see what happens then ...
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