Getting TVheadend to work

    It seems to be working ^

    Indeed but what is registered on dvb0. Is that reflected in the adaptors configuration in TVH I wonder. You’d need to see exactly how the DVB adapters are configured in TVH before proceeding any further. Is that a twin tuner for both DVB T and DVB S. if so the DVB S will need to be disabled in TVH in order for the DVB T to work correctly.

    PSU is fine, no undervoltage warning in the log.

    Different time stamps in the same log?

    Code
    2024-06-23 13:04:45.721 T:1282     info <general>: Loading skin file: DialogConfirm.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
========== journalctl -a -b -0 ==========
Feb 28 03:26:04.560062 LibreELEC kernel: Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0000000000 [0x410fd083]

    PS: Ah, it has no internal clock, so time is wrong until NTP gets it.

    LE seems to get data for the first frequencies, but afterwards no more data are coming in.

    Maybe undervoltage inside of the receiver?

    Please provide a product link of your DiBkom 7000PC. Does it have an optional PSU, which you can plug in?

    Quote from Da Flex

    LE seems to get data for the first frequencies, but afterwards no more data are coming in.

    Maybe undervoltage inside of the receiver?

    Please provide a product link of your DiBkom 7000PC. Does it have an optional PSU, which you can plug in?

    The log indicates a Sony Play TV (sold for PS3 DVB-T reception) which is a dual DVB-T tuner USB DVB-T tuner (not T2, not S/S2 - not sure about DVB-C) and like most USB DVB-T (and T2) tuners is bus-powered with no separate power input option.

    With a decent (i.e. official Pi Foundation) PSU on a Pi it should be fine (I've run like that in the past)

    You usually only see external power inputs on DVB-S/S2 USB DVB tuners because they need additional power to drive an LNB, every DVB-T/T2/C USB tuner I've had since the mid-00s has been bus-powered - and I have a LOT of them...

    I ran 3 x Sony Play TVs for a while on an x86 Debian box to constantly tune all 6 UK national DVB-T muxes with no problems. (They were available for <£10 on eBay at one point - which wasn't bad value for a dual T tuner)

    Next step is to find out if the OP is tuning the right frequencies for their location, and getting services mapped etc.

    I have most models of Pi, a Play TV and some time today - so if the OP posts their exact set-up I can replicate in the UK from a blank uSD card on.

    So Billzilla which city are you in in which country, what model of Pi and what LE build are you running?

    I can see both DVB-T tuners in the TVH web if grabs you posted, but all scans have FAILed - which suggests one of these :

    1. The frequencies being scanned are wrong - or the settings for them like 16QAM vs 64QAM vs QPSK etc. are wrong

    2. The antenna connection isn't working (or an LNA setting isn't being set when it is needed ? Some DVB-T tuners have a Low Noise Amp option to boost the signal which can be enabled or disabled in the adaptor settings)

    3. The DVB-T tuner isn't being configured properly when it's detected by Linux and the OS thinks it's working when it isn't.

    4. The DVB-T tuner isn't being powered well enough by the Pi.

    Edited 2 times, last by noggin (June 24, 2024 at 9:31 AM).

    I think we’ve asked enough questions and requests from the OP and are now repeating each other.

    In the absence of any response we must assume that either a) the OP has resolved the issue and has not reported back here to acknowledge that fact or b) he has given up and moved on.

    Might be worth waiting for a response back from the OP first before posting any further advice/instructions.

    Yeah I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of responses. I'll first try a dedicated power supply to the tuner and if that doesn't work I'll try to tackle some of the other suggestions & questions here.
    Thanks so far!

    Quote from Billzilla

    Thanks, but I'm about 16,500 km from the UK and so not likely to pick up any signals from there.

    If you let me know where you are (nearest major city) (I guess in Australia or New Zealand?) - I can probably help track down the right frequencies to double check your TV Headend initial settings.

    Quote from Billzilla

    No, I use a VPN that virtually places me in HK. :)
    I'm actually on the Gold Coast, Australia.


    If you're in Aus - then enter your details here https://myswitch.digitalready.gov.au and you will get a couple of options on the left including "Channels for" and "More Coverage Information".

    The first of these will give you a list of channels and the frequencies those muxes are on.

    If you're happy to screen shot that list we can help ensure you have the right muxes set-up in TV Headend. The second will let you know the various transmitters that you could be receiving - but I expect the first choice of the website for your postcode is what you should expect to be receiving in most cases (and if your transmitters use Single Frequency Networks within the same area the frequencies may be the same anyway)

    e.g. me just typing in Gold Coast QLD gives me these frequencies (dated 2016 - so it may be out of date - but equally stuff doesn't change hugely quickly in telly). Your post code may suggest a different transmitter which may be using different frequencies for your area. But here's what I got :

    This shows that this Gold Coast transmitter, Mount Tamborine, is in a UHF area, with SBS's mux on 613.5MHz, ABC's on 620.5MHz, Seven's on 627.5MHz, Nine's on 648.5MHz, Ten's on 641.5MHz and (not on the screen shot) Prime's on 655.5MHz, NBN's on 662.5MHz and Southern Cross's on 669.5MHz.

    If this is your transmitter - I don't think I see any of these frequencies in your TV Headend screen shot mux list - so that might explain why all of them fail to scan.

    If you delete all the muxes in the list you have and manually add one - say ABC - you may find that scanning it will add the other multiplex frequencies automatically (it's an option in DVB-T to do that and it's done in the UK. When I add the BBC PSB1 SD mux in London, all the other DVB-T mux frequencies automatically appear. If not just add all the muxes manually.

    I don't know that Mount Tamborine IS your Gold Coast transmitter - but hopefully this will give you a starting point.

    I believe Australia uses 7MHz wide channels, DVB-T (not T2) with 8k carriers, 64QAM modulation, with FEC of 3/4 and GI of 1/16 suggested (though I don't know if all muxes use these settings) - though depending on your DibCom tuner driver you may find that you can leave a lot of these on Auto anyway - though 7MHz and DVB-T are likely to be needed to be explicitly set, and 8k is probably a given. (Some low power broadcasters may use 16QAM or QPSK rather than 64QAM - local TV in the UK uses QPSK for instance)


    Shout if you need any help with manually entering muxes etc.

    Edited 4 times, last by noggin (June 30, 2024 at 10:00 AM).

    Those are the frequencies working in Australia with NextPVR's tuning files for Windows DVB and also SAT>IP with forced 7Mhz wide spacing. We have found auto wasn't working well with all tuners.

    Worldwide everyone agrees the Linux dtv-scanning-tables suck and the fact that they need to be submitted via the Linux media mailing list sure doesn't help users.

    Just a thought: What about installing something like w_scan to see if it can find any muxes?

    https://docs.tvheadend.org/documentation/setup/muxes-scan-files/using-w_scan-scan-files

    • New

    Back after a break, I ran out of steam trying to make all this work.
    And I'm pretty much there again now.

    I fitted a Pi TV Hat to the Pi to try to eliminate any chance of odd gears causing a problem. Swapped over the TV coax cables to find what seemed to be the best one. Rebooted the Pi many times.

    Maybe a tiny bit closer but I still have no idea where to go from here. So I've recorded a video of the TVHeadend setup and in it you can see the scanning progress bar quickly go from 0 to 37% and then stay there from about the 30 second mark to about the 1:05 minute mark, just did that to show that the scanning stops there and doesn't progress any further, even if I leave it for half an hour or so.
    Lemme know if I'm doing anything wrong please.

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    • New

    You're still using the pre-defined muxes in the set-up wizard. They're out of date. Don't use this method for set-up.

    You need to add your muxes manually as I explained previously.

    I always bail out of the set-up wizard after setting English as my language, and then take over manually. (Keeping the frequency tables up to date for every country around the world has not been something the small number of TV Headend devs have been able to do - and users aren't updating it with pull requests to github either)

    Because you've got a tonne of rogue stuff in your networks and muxes tables I'd start from scratch or at least delete the stuff you've already added. (You added repeat networks which is why your network and mux view is so busy)

    In the configuration-DVB inputs-network tab delete all the networks that are currently there, and add a new DVB-T network (This 'network' is a TV platform - nothing to do with computer network). You want to create a new DVB-T network with a name of your chosing - e.g. OTA, Terrestrial, Freeview etc. You don't need a different network for ABC, Seven, Ten, Nine etc.

    In the configuration-DVB inputs-muxes tab if there are still existing muxes then delete them (though deleting the networks should have deleted the muxes associated with them) and add new ones with the right frequencies to the network you created in the steb above. (The post I made earlier has the current frequencies for the area you live in I think - they're different to the ones you are adding automatically with the out of date channel list the set-up is using).

    Note that you need to use the frequency in Hz - so ABC on 620.5MHz = 620500000. You need to select delivery system as DVB-T, and probably need to select bandwidth as 7MHz. You may also need to set constellation as QAM/64, Transmision Mode as 8k, and possibly Guard Interval as 1/16 (I've NEVER had to set Guard Interval manually) - though often leaving everything but delivery system, frequency and bandwidth to Auto works fine with most tuners

    In the configuration-DVB inputs-TV adaptors tab - add your network to your DVB adaptor and enable it.

    Select your network in configuration-DVB inputs-network and click 'Force Scan' to force it to tune the frequencies/muxes you've manually added. (It may already be scanning - but it doesn't help to kick it into doing it)

    In the configuration-DVB inputs-muxes tab you'll see whether it's OK (tuned and found services) or Failed (Pending means it hasn't tuned yet)

    In the configuration-DVB inputs-services tab you'll see the tuned TV channels. Click 'Map services' to map them to the Logical Chanel Number that Australia uses for each channel (i.e. the channel numbers everyone in Aus uses - ABC on 2, SBS on 3, Ten on 1, Nine on 9 etc.). In Kodi you'll also need to enable using channel numbers in the Live TV Settings in Kodi System settings - if you want standard channel numbers in Kodi.

    Edited 10 times, last by noggin (September 1, 2024 at 12:35 PM).

    • New

    Okay will do, thanks again. A bit of a medical hiccup today, I'll try to do all that this week some time.
    I can't understand why it's needed though, as the first time I set it all up with the first pc-based box the auto scan worked fine and did so right up until the box failed. Then just over a week later when this pi box was setup the frequencies had all changed coincidentally in that week? Seems unlikely.