Thema: SmartDVB 0.2.5 RC 1

[jackjavo]

shame that udp to vlc has problems for you ritschibie, i remember testing this thorougly, but maybe vlc has changed there, have you played a bit with the udp buffer settings to see if that changes things? Fact that you don't get the channel you're tuned to might have to do with VLC when it receives the full TS, depends on what VLC does then, maybe just show the first channel it finds in the ts stream? Streaming a single channel should not produce this ofcourse as only those PID's are sent then, so if you have that there that certainly is a bug.

@ymvmif: what sat are you talking about on those frequencies? I'll change those then...

@jurgen: i'm aware of those ttx problems, made that a long time ago and there was a ttx plugin that worked with smartdvb i remember made afterwards (goldenttx if i remember correctly, was on the old dvbn also) which had more features so i left it a bit after that, although i might update that also in the future as correct char handling for more languages/unicode handling is not there and other things and also as you say font resizing is not always right etc etc, it's quite some work though. But it should be pretty easy to overlay that ttx on a real osd as everything right now should be painted on a device context already (made it what that in mind back then, for that ofcourse you couldn't use a plugin in future, unless it were through some module/plugin structure).

[ritschibie]

okay, jackjavo: I've now reduced the streaming to only one ts-stream (unchecking "stream entire transport stream") and now it runs like a charm. VLC 2.0 is stable with that one transport stream over 30 mins now so it should work smoothless! ZDF HD is showing on smartdvb and in VLC. What I noticed is that changing from "main window" to0 "full window" or "floating window" gives 2 or three short flickers. Is this only on my system or is this generally so? Not in any way embarassing, just a note  

Edit: I checked yvmifis corrections. These frequencies are on Astra 19.2 E. Sky Germany is on these frequencies so a special thank to yvmifi for his corrections! 

[jackjavo]

okay ritchibie, i was assuming you were streaming over wire, were u perhaps using wireless and if so what (with wire at least beaing 100mbit you should not have much problems i think so then it's a smart problem)? In such case i can imagine some video problems with vlc when sending the full ts as maybe your wireless just can't handle that (depends, some good ones should easily)...

Well, if you're using vmr9 some short flickering at the moment is normal, as i did that a while back to prevent some video leftovers that were there when changing aspect with vmr9! (might look at that in the future to see if that cannot be done cleaner,  but until now it works, you just have some short flickering when changing aspect ratio with vmr9, if you're talking about evr you shouldn't have that!

Btw i have a user which reports some scanning problems on some satellite with quite low sr it seems (around 4-3000 ks/s american, if it's that at all) any idea if settings like auto-fec etc would affect things here or other matters (jurgen?), or otherwise why there would be problems there, i know bda has problems with sr below 1000 ks/s, but that's not the case here...

[ritschibie]

No, I'm streaming over 127.0.0.1 which is the IP of "my computer". On the contrary, when I stream over my Fritzbox with WLAN, I have no difficulties at all  neither with the entire nor with a single transport stream. Sideffect: With the single transport stream you get the figure with how many Mbit/s a HD channel for example streams.

[jackjavo]

oh that's odd ritchibie as i know some users use that locally without issues too (also full ts), but still, most important is that it streams i guess..
with the blindscanner btw you also can see the transponder bandwith etc interesting things to know indeed!
will not be replying anymore tonight, going to bed early had tiresome personal day's here let's say... time to make some decisions.. best regards and till tomorrow!

[moonchild]

Btw i have a user which reports some scanning problems on some satellite with quite low sr it seems (around 4-3000 ks/s american, if it's that at all) any idea if settings like auto-fec etc would affect things here or other matters (jurgen?), or otherwise why there would be problems there, i know bda has problems with sr below 1000 ks/s, but that's not the case here...

With technotrend s2.1600 i can blindscan 12652 V 3000 on 23.5 E, and watch the channel (some horseracing) with both blindscan and florian bda device.
The card does see a signal at 12641 V 1341, but no pat/cat.
12660 V 477 on 23.5 E gives no signal.

From my experiance low sr transponders are harder to tune, lof drift by lnb does not help at all

BTW, what sat-card is that user using?

[Jürgen]

In fact scanning low signal rate (part) transponders is pretty hard to do.
LOF drift / offset is just one possible aspect, but it is important.
This is getting extra hard, if entries in transponder lists aren't precise, and the station scanned before also has a nominal frequency offset.
This leads to an AFT offset in the tuner, and this may stay active partly even on the next tuning attempt.

Did not yet read through BDA specs, as I don't have them here.
Are there standard controls to reset AFT and perhaps also AGC?

Depending on the tuner in use, also the time to get a lock onto a small signal may be noticeably longer.
Timings and type of AFT and AGC circuits are hardware depending.
And due to this, narrow signals of the same field strength may (but not must) result in smaller detector output and by this prolong reaction time. 
In such as case, AutoFEC may need even more time, if the tuner tried to reset gain and fine tuning controls on each switching.
 
For example, lock timing has to be set to at least 8000 ms for my Cinergy S2 HD USB.
For DVB-S2 SCPC this should best be set to 10 000 ms.
But then, I don't have problems on scanning even below 2000 ksps.

[jackjavo]

@moonchild: yes the blindscan.dev module should be much better for low sr as crazycat has that covered (also SR rates below 1000 ks/s for which i might add some support lateron in smartdvb as the normal .ini's don't allow for this some kind of exception needs to be made).

The --> "Help" --> "About SmartDVB" message box collides with a special feature of my Labtec Wireless Desktop software, the screen magnifying glass feature.

Oh i just see this remarkt, i'll look at this ofcourse, strange, so other dialog's don't do this then (about message is just another dialog, odd)..

Are there standard controls to reset AFT and perhaps also AGC?

don't think so never seen them also not in the direct interfaces bda provides (dunno about the newer pbda will check that, but don't think so, bda is rather high level in that sense, hence why crazycat probably had to do things the way he does and is able to do also ofcourse).
Thanks for the info anyways, as i probably can at least disable options like auto-fec on low sr using some threshold there, and also perhaps play with the timeouts when tuning such low SR to allow more locks (maybe even special low sr timeouts for the scanners? or otherwise internal?, at least worth testing and looking at in the future especially now with such a capable low sr interface as most feedhunters will like that and it's not that much work also, also when tuning there are internal timeouts now which are not configurable, maybe i should make them configurable or at least make them dependent on sr too)..

don't have that much time today i'm afraid, but haven't heard many problems as of yet from this test so maybe it's getting there finally after a hecktic period for me, i'm glad about that...

[moonchild]

Well, let me say what a wonderfull job you have done. Can't even start to imagine how much work and effort was involved. Thank you!

[Jürgen]

Are there standard controls to reset AFT and perhaps also AGC?

don't think so never seen them also not in the direct interfaces bda provides

This is yet another reason, to avoid switching pola to often on a scan.
Reason is, (multiswitches, cables and) output stage amplifiers often give slightly different gains for each reception plane, and an existing AGC unit had to compensate this, too.
The level before is supposed to be more similar, if taken from the same switching state.
Depending on the hardware in use, AGC may either come from the narrow tuned signal (more or less) or from a wide mix of transponders.
Also possible, some tuners might use a combination of both.
First method is good for the signal intended to tune to, second is used against producing general overdrive and extra mixing products, that might cause interference.
Usually this is not documented anywhere.

But as a TV mechanic I have already seen this on STBs.
Had my meters on several of those over the years.
Good ones may use more than one AGC (detecting) stage.
This is why (total) timings may have to relate with the slowest stage and conditions, at least for DXing.

Modern tuners may use software / firmware emulation for AGC (and AFT) detection, making things even more complicated (and sometimes less reliable).

Suppose, extra timings for SCPC and other low / non standard SR signals are a pretty good idea.  
Another possible way, add extra timings after any kind of switching. Allow AGC and AFT to react...

[jackjavo]

Another possible way, add extra timings after any kind of switching. Allow AGC and AFT to react.

okay, but this will slow down tuning for sure then especially on cascaded setups where switching is done often (maybe too often atm, still can optimize that i think) (and the current switch delays cannot be used like that?)..

Oh and thanks for that info on SPSC also, didn't realise that, i already thought about adding like multiple timeout selections in the scanner (let's say profile like, so simple timeouts selections like fast/safe/feedhunter/low sr etc whatever that's something simple that can help then and maybe also incorporate that then in the actual tuning) and about SPSC, has already been requested by feedhunters but didn't want to add it yet for this version as it was enough for now, but already know how to implement that with the crazycat so that will be there for sure in the future (even though it's not much used yet i gather, but still sounds like interesting technology, also energy saving wise i heard).

thanks moonchild, i gather you too haven't found much issues then? Well i'll release this this week then if nothing else comes up as my fingers are also starting to itch (don't like all this holding off)! thanks again guys for your help here, i wouldn't have been able to get here without your input and interest in this!

[Jürgen]

...and the current switch delays cannot be used like that?

Of course they can.
But then scanning may last far longer than necessary, as one had to select the worst case timing as default.

Regarding switching, this could be improved by first scanning all horizontals of a band and position, and then all verticals related.

DiSEqC controls may also require extra time, specially on future hardware, that also uses DiSEqC (only) for pola and band switching.
For sure, this will come one day.
So DiSEqC timings from the settings must start first, if sent at that time. After these are over, or if not used at that time, the lock timing had to start.

Please note, reaching lock state is not always a reliable criterium to stop the timing, as in some rare but real situations, a tuner may lose lock again for a moment, if either AGC or AFT is still adjusting.
This will mainly happen after LOF switching or after leaving a really strong signal for a weak / narrow one.
Though, when tuning to a full / wide transponder, such is not supposed to happen, regardless if the transponder tuned to before was wide or SCPC.

30°W is a good example for a position, that may take benefit from more complex settings, as there are true DX signals there, heading towards the other side of the ocean, but not exactly zero on huge dishes over here, plus tons of ever changing SCPC, and a wide variety of really strong signals with different SR and FEC, all both on DVB-S and DVB-S2.  
As you can see in the Transponder News thread, there are frequent changes on that position, so users have to scan there quite often.
Not effecting me though, as I don't really need that bird. Testing purposes only ATM, and subject to changes at any time.
And for sure I will change some older LNB cables and LNBs for all the same new type occasionally, to reduce level differences.
Once spring time reaches my place and I'll find the time...

To avoid irritating the normal user, perhaps some kind of user profiles may indeed be helpful.

[jackjavo]

okay thanks jurgen, interesting info indeed and i will for sure look at these things and had already thought about more profile like things here and there, and for sure for the timings as such things are also not hard to do..
release is taking a bit longer as some problems have popped up (got reports that the install process was kinda buggy i guess noone including me went back to test that recently so that should be better now, didn't report that stuff here as you guys probably just re-install ofcourse, and also some bandstacked dishpro problems, which ofcourse i also don't have to report here for testing, but other than that nothing new). I'll still send the new current test to anyone that wants it here (not sure if everyone having blindscan problems here with switches has the current fixes for that, i think only moonchild was busy with that and he tested that for me so diseqc 1.1 should work better now also with the blindscanner)..
best regards once again,
jackjavo

[Snoop]

I have a little noughty problem:
When I start SmartDVB or change the channel I get thousands of little messageboxes telling me alternately "UpdateEITEventQuery: Error inserting eitevent" and "database disk image is malformed" ... what can I do against that?

[SiLæncer]

Lösch doch mal die ´smarteit.db´ im Smartdvb Hauptverzeichnis.