LibreELEC 9.2.X video judder and stuttering [renamed]

    Silicon Labs - Wikipedia

    Silicon Laboratories, Inc. (Silicon Labs) is a fabless global technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, other silicon devices and software, which it sells to electronics design engineers and manufacturers in Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, industrial automation, consumer and automotive markets worldwide.

    Si2151-short.pdf

    The Si2151 is the industry's most advanced hybrid TV tuner supporting all worldwide terrestrial and cable TV standards for digital and analog TV reception. Leveraging five generations of field-proven hybrid TV tuner technology, the Si2151 delivers the same or better RF performance as Silicon Labs' Si2157 hybrid TV tuner while further reducing footprint size and bill of materials cost.

    I am not a programmer, I am a hardware person who reads manufacturer's specifications and application notes.

    "The Silicon Labs is not a usb tuner stick. "

    Silicon Labs Si2157 - LinuxTVWiki

    The Silicon Labs is the tuner chip used inside the Hauppauge WinTV Dual Tuner.

    The Silicon Labs Si2157 is a hybrid DVB-T, DVB-T2, DVB-C, ATSC, DTMB and QAM Tuner. There are other very similar tuners on that can be used with same Linux driver: Si2146, Si2147, Si2148 and Si2158.

    Datasheet:

    The link on the webpage is obsolete.

    Si2151-short.pdf

    The Mouser link works:

    Si2157-short-268718.pdf

    Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD - LinuxTVWiki

    Both tuners on Model 01590 device and Model 01595 device are supported since Kernel 4.17 (see commit kernel/git/stable/linux.git - Linux kernel stable tree).

    The Linux Driver is built into the Linux Kernel.

    That is demonstrated because the tuner functionality in LibreELEC is passing a signal.

    The type of digital antenna and cabling used is the difference between reliable reception and dropouts.

    The correct antenna for the region and certified quad core cable will make a difference between reliable reception and dropouts. The tuner in a digital television will respond to weaker signals than the Hauppauge WinTV Dual Tuner. For accurate digital signal strength, a dedicated signal strength meter is required to align the digital antenna.

    Edited once, last by JonasStax (December 20, 2020 at 6:44 AM).

    Quote from JonasStax

    ...the tuner functionality in LibreELEC is passing a signal.

    Well, in general it's true but I don't think the tuner itself is an issue here.

    More likely the demodulator LG LGDT3306a or the Empia EM28274 USB controller which may need a specific settings. I would say it should be possible to make this stick working properly but it's necessary to try everything we recommended here... Connecting through an USB hub with external power supply. Try connecting to both USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 ports. Try both bulk / isochronous transfer modes. Try disabling one tuner. Try another LE build (newest 9.80 nightly or an older 9.2.5 with CrazyCat drivers). And try all possible combinations... Yes it's a lot of testing to do but there should be a solution.

    Edited once, last by ghtester (December 20, 2020 at 10:17 AM).

    Powered Hub coming amazon tomorrow. Will try both modes. Already used both UAB ports. Have a good antenna already, have a high-end RG6 4 shield cable, pointing at CN tower, about a mile away, from up 100 feet in a condo.

    How do you disable one tuner, other than through the tvh software which likely doesn't turn it off, it just doesn't use it?

    That's why I'm wondering if I have purchased a defective tuner. I would feel stupid buying another one and having the same thing happen, hence my post asking for one that everyone agrees just works.

    JO above talked about the the Si2151 as being a very compatible tuner, but I can't find it anywhere to buy.

    Quote

    Connecting through an USB hub with external power supply. Try connecting to both USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 ports. Try both bulk / isochronous transfer modes. Try disabling one tuner. Try another LE build (newest 9.80 nightly or an older 9.2.5 with CrazyCat drivers). And try all possible combinations... Yes it's a lot of testing to do but there should be a solution.

    I have a PI 2, Pi 3 and PI4.

    The PI 2 had some problems with 1080p streams. After a overclock and turning off de-interlacing, it runs finally smoothly.

    The Pi 3 had never such issues. It runs perfectly.

    The Pi 4 has still some jittering/running on slow motion and the GUI has some flicker problems.

    I've tried:

    - overclocking

    - turning off de-interlacing (which helped a little. 1080 seems to work now but UHD has still the same problems)

    - setting the total memory to 2024 (have a PI 4 2 GB)

    - setting the graphics memory to 512

    - whitelisting all relevant resolutions

    - tried serval refresh rates

    Overall, nothing really works. The GUI flickering is still a problem and UHD streams are still running not smoothly.

    Could it just be a big malfuction at all PI4s beause even after a years, there is still no real funcional graphics driver?

    PS: retropie has the same GUI flickering problem

    Quote from harry_fine

    How do you disable one tuner, other than through the tvh software which likely doesn't turn it off, it just doesn't use it?

    Yes, if the utility software (through which you are changing the transfer modes etc.) does not allow to do it at hardware level, at least in Tvheadend server uncheck Enabled: checkbox for one of demodulators in Configuration - DVB Inputs - TV adapters - ....ATSC#2 - Basic settings

    It should be possible to do it somehow at driver level but can't say how-to details remotely.

    Quote from harry_fine

    JO above talked about the the Si2151 as being a very compatible tuner, but I can't find it anywhere to buy.

    Si2151 is a radio chip inside your (and many others) TV stick, it's not a complete TV tuner.

    You don't say which LE you are running and which stream is it and it is very important to know what's a current capability of your HW and SW to achieve expected results.

    I wouldn't say all RPi 4 devices are malfunctioning, it's a great piece of HW for such a low price. Most likely, as it is still a bit new device, the SW still needs to be finalized to fully utilize the HW. RPi 3 is already finished in this matter, RPi 4 not yet but the developpers are doing a great job and there are many updates in nightly LE builds so it will be better and better
    Read this post, it's from January so may not reflect the progress, but you may learn something: RE: Raspi 4B 4G stuttering + tearing

    My two cents for the thread:

    I have the following WORKING TV reception system:

    I have a pi4 with an amazon powered hub, which as an independent 5V @4A PSU.

    • Running LibreELEC 9.2.6
    • The pi4 is powered by the hub trough the Header Pins.
    • An external hdd and a tv receiver is connected to the hub, which in turn is connected to a pi4 usb port.


    I've been using the following tv receptors (all with supported libreelec drivers) :

    • tbs 5520se (DVB-S2 + DVB-C combo receiver) = awesome receiver (pity I've lost some money with the others);
    • Hauppauge WINTV SOLO Hd -- works ok in DVB-C. But some small lost frames (reception / green artifacts errors);
    • Geniatech / MyGica DVb-S2 (worst receiver I've ever used. works great for DVB-S, but very sensitive with S2 signals);


    TV playback with TBS is very good.

    I have no lost frames with the following configs:

    • Whitelist 1920x1080 formats
    • Adjust display refresh rate ON Start/Stop
    • Sync playback to display OFF
    • Allow hw acceleration MMAL ON
    • During playback: Deinterlace method: AUTO

    And the following configuration in:
    /storage/.kodi/userdata/advancedsettings.xml

    I hope this helps.

    Quote from harry_fine

    Powered Hub coming amazon tomorrow. Will try both modes. Already used both UAB ports. Have a good antenna already, have a high-end RG6 4 shield cable, pointing at CN tower, about a mile away, from up 100 feet in a condo.

    How do you disable one tuner, other than through the tvh software which likely doesn't turn it off, it just doesn't use it?

    That's why I'm wondering if I have purchased a defective tuner. I would feel stupid buying another one and having the same thing happen, hence my post asking for one that everyone agrees just works.

    JO above talked about the the Si2151 as being a very compatible tuner, but I can't find it anywhere to buy.

    harry_fine,

    I think your hauppauge is not defective. Mine with the RPI4 has the exact problem. I am not sure what the cause of the problem. I was upgrading from a rpi3 which, although finicky, worked with the tuner. I also tried all the suggestions you have read. I ended up keeping the tuner connected to the rpi3 and used the RPI4 TvhClient addon to access. Thinking I just needed to wait for the development to catch up with the RPI4. I was reading this thread to see if the issues were fixed before trying again. Thanks for working on it.

    If you want a solution now, I know the rpi3 works with this tuner when purchasing the hw acceleration license. I am not sure if buying a rpi3 with a license is still an option but it may be the cheapest option. Make sure not to enable ota epg as it caused me problems again. It you want an epg use the addon from here: GitHub - edit4ever/script.module.zap2epg: zap2epg - EPG grabber for USA/Canada

    Hauppauge Support:

    Support: Running WinTV TV tuners and HD PVR 2 under Linux

    Hauppauge Support | Linux

    Hauppauge Support | Linux

    Hauppauge technical support has been testing with the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4, which work "out of the box" with Raspbian OS 4.19 or later with these Hauppauge TV tuners: WinTV-soloHD (Europe/ANZ), WinTV-dualHD (North America and Europe), WinTV-HVR-955Q (North America) and the 461e/WinTV-Nova-S2.

    Hauppauge Support | Linux

    The current version of OpenELEC 6.0.1 Kernel also has support out of the box for the WinTV-dualHD (both North America and European versions) plus the WinTV-HVR-955Q. All Hauppauge drivers and firmware are included as part of the OpenElec distribution, so you don't need to add the firmwer. Just plug your Hauppauge TV tuner into a USB port and fire up OpenElec.

    Considering the OpenELEC 6.0.1 Kernel is five years old, the current LibreELEC Kernel should contain the same drivers and firmware.


    The simplest solution is install Raspbian OS 4.19 or later.

    Quote from ghtester

    More likely the demodulator LG LGDT3306a or the Empia EM28274 USB controller which may need a specific settings.

    LG LGDT3306a source code:

    lgdt3306a.c source code [linux/drivers/media/dvb-frontends/lgdt3306a.c] - Woboq Code Browser

    Empia EM28274 USB controller:

    28XXX – USB TV – eMPIA Technology

    em28xx: add support for Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD DVB tuner - Patchwork

    I suspect the WinTV TV tuner is picking up radio frequency (RF) noise.

    The regulations for external TV antennas and cable boxes in the USA is the shield must be earthed to an independent electrode before entry into the house. The main reason stated is protection from lightning strikes.

    USA Only:

    How to Ground a TV Antenna:

    Cord-Cutting 101: How to Ground a TV Antenna - The Solid Signal Blog

    Grounding White Paper.pdf

    How I Grounded My Outdoor Antenna | Grounded Reason

    Earthing system - Wikipedia.

    Regulations:

    In the United States, National Electrical Code and Canadian Electrical Code the feed from the distribution transformer uses a combined neutral and grounding conductor, but within the structure separate neutral and protective earth conductors are used (TN-C-S). The neutral must be connected to earth only on the supply side of the customer's disconnecting switch.

    Electronic equipment are sensitive to RF noise. A non-grounded TV antenna, digital TV, audio amplifier, switched mode power supply combination will cause issues because the earth shield is floating, acts like a broad band antenna, radiates the RF through the ground plane on the printed circuit next into the digital input circuitry. The quickest solution is wrap some aluminium foil around the USB tuner and the F connector F connector - Wikipedia then earth to an earthed power outlet.

    If both grounding systems are missing on the Raspberry Pi, the tuner is a good RF receiver.

    Edited once, last by JonasStax (December 22, 2020 at 4:33 AM).

    To ensure future readers do not get discouraged from using the hauppauge tuner and to close out my efforts on using the hauppauge dual tuner on the RPI4, I upgraded to Libreelec 10 and the tuner is now working as it did on the rpi3. I have converted over to using only the RPI4 for both tvheadend client and server on the RPI4 . Make sure to disable all locations in tvheadend where ota epg is an option. It you want an epg use the addon from here: GitHub - edit4ever/script.module.zap2epg: zap2epg - EPG grabber for USA/Canada

    Edited once, last by Hagertyoh (August 30, 2021 at 2:44 AM).