Nebula DigiTV PCI
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A DVB-T PCI card produced and sold by Nebula.
It is supported under Linux.
Overview/Features
Several versions of this card exist. The main difference is the demodulator chip:
Old board: ATI NXT6000
New board: Zarlink MT352
Components Used
- Alps TDED4 (tuner (tin box))
- ATI Nxt6000 [1] (demodulator)
- Conexant Fusion 878A (A/V decoder and PCI bridge)
Identification
Output of lspci -vnn:
05:06.0 Multimedia video controller [0400]: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture [109e:036e] (rev 11)
Subsystem: Nebula Electronics Ltd. DigiTV PCI [0071:0101]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 64 (4000ns min, 10000ns max)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 22
Region 0: Memory at f8fff000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: bttv
Kernel modules: bttv
05:06.1 Multimedia controller [0480]: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture[109e:0878] (rev 11)
Subsystem: Nebula Electronics Ltd. DigiTV PCI [0071:0101]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 64 (1000ns min, 63750ns max)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 22
Region 0: Memory at f8ffe000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: bt878
Kernel modules: bt878
Making it Work
Firmware
Drivers
(old version) just works with linux kernel 2.6.16. Direct comparison with AirStar 2 PCI / Air2PC DVB PCI showed sigificant errors with drivers for DigiTv.
Successfully used with MythTV v0.19 to watch standard and high definition dvb free to air.
kernel config
( I use menuconfig for kernel configuration) Select DVB:
│ Symbol: DVB [=y] │ Prompt: DVB For Linux │ Defined at drivers/media/dvb/Kconfig:7 │ Depends on: NET && INET │ Location: │ -> Device Drivers │ -> Multimedia devices │ -> Digital Video Broadcasting Devices
Then select DVB_CORE:
| Symbol: DVB_CORE [=m] │ Prompt: DVB Core Support │ Defined at drivers/media/dvb/dvb-core/Kconfig:1 │ Depends on: DVB │ Location: │ -> Device Drivers │ -> Multimedia devices │ -> Digital Video Broadcasting Devices │ -> DVB For Linux (DVB [=y]) │ Selects: CRC32
Then DVB_BT8XX:
| Symbol: DVB_BT8XX [=m] │ Prompt: BT8xx based PCI cards │ Defined at drivers/media/dvb/bt8xx/Kconfig:1 │ Depends on: DVB_CORE && PCI && VIDEO_BT848 │ Location: │ -> Device Drivers │ -> Multimedia devices │ -> Digital Video Broadcasting Devices │ -> DVB For Linux (DVB [=y]) │ -> DVB Core Support (DVB_CORE [=m]) │ Selects: DVB_MT352 && DVB_SP887X && DVB_NXT6000 && DVB_CX24110 && DVB_OR51211 && DVB_LGDT330X │ Selected by: VIDEO_BT848_DVB && VIDEO_DEV && VIDEO_BT848 && DVB_CORE
This selects:
│ Symbol: DVB_NXT6000 [=m] │ Prompt: NxtWave Communications NXT6000 based │ Defined at drivers/media/dvb/frontends/Kconfig:107 │ Depends on: DVB_CORE │ Location: │ -> Device Drivers │ -> Multimedia devices │ -> Digital Video Broadcasting Devices │ -> DVB For Linux (DVB [=y]) │ -> DVB Core Support (DVB_CORE [=m]) │ -> Customise DVB Frontends │ Selected by: DVB_USB_DIGITV && DVB_USB || DVB_BT8XX && DVB_CORE && PCI && VIDEO_BT848
Possble problems
- LOTS of debug messates- this can be turned off via a module parameters.
- Ignore IRQ - not sure.
- Side by side comparison with AirStar 2 PCI/ Air2PC DVB PCI showed signifcantly more errors in DigiTV's reception. (With antenna taken to DigiTv in, coax from DigiTv out to AirStar 2 PCI - signal was confirmed in optimal range from antenna).