Trident TM6000

Roadmap

DVB-T seems to be working fairly well in an experimental driver. The next step will consist in porting the driver to the v4l-dvb-experimental tree of Markus Rechberger, so that the module for the XC3028 tuner can be re-used.

Developers

Michel Ludwig (michel.ludwig gmail.com)

Acknowledgements

The hosting of the driver files and Subversion repository has been generously provided by François Beerten! Thanks a lot!

Devices

Driver development in progress:

• Freecom DVB-T & Analog TV USB Stick (USB Id 14aa:0620)
• Moka Hybrid TV receiver (USB Id 14aa:0620)

Chips used:

• Tuner: Xceive XC3028
• Demodulator: Zarlink ZL10353
• USB bridge + Video decoder: TM6000 from Trident Shanghai

Experimental Driver

• Due to high demand, the experimental driver is now available to the public. It provides basic DVB-T support.

Disclaimer: The experimental was never intended to be released. The code contains lots of ugly hacks and no guarantee can given that it is even working at all. Moreover, despite the fact that the driver has been used for several months, the extremely unlikely case of causing hardware damage cannot be fully excluded! In summary, you are using the driver at your own risk!

Additional Warning: It is recommanded to disconnect the USB stick after having stopped watching TV as there is currently no instruction implemented to disable the decoding of the TV signal.

• Compilation/Installation Instructions

In short, the driver code needs to be checked out from the Subversion repository and copied into a v4l-dvb tree. More detailed instructions are given below.

Please note that you need both the Mercurial and Subversion version control systems installed on your system.

Step 1: Clone a v4l-dvb tree in a directory of your choice

$hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

Step 2: Apply the Makefile patch to the tree (which allows to build the driver later on)

$ cd v4l-dvb
$ wget http://colabti.de/~feb/tm6000-makefile-dvb-tree.patch
$ patch -p1 < tm6000-makefile-dvb-tree.patch

Step 3: Check the driver ouf the Subversion repository

$ cd linux/drivers/media/video/
$ svn co svn://colabti.de/branches/tm6000

Step 4: Compile everything

$ cd ../../../../
$ make

Step 5: Install everything

$ su -c "make install"

Step 6: Remove all the V4L/DVB modules that are currently loaded, or alternatively reboot the system

• Firmware

The firmware necessary for the device currently needs to be extracted from the driver files on the installation CD.

Step 1: Copy the file "tridvid.sys" from the CD into a directory of your choice

Step 2: Extract the firmware files

$dd if=tridvid.sys ibs=1 skip=145441 count=2632 of=tm6000-firmware1
$dd if=tridvid.sys ibs=1 skip=148089 count=3870 of=tm6000-firmware2

Step 3: Copy the firmware files to the firmware directory

$su -c "cp tm6000-firmware1 /lib/firmware; cp tm6000-firmware2 /lib/firmware"

• If the compilation and the extraction of the firmware was successful, you should be able to watch TV via DVB-T now! If you want, you can report your geographical location to the developers, so that a list which contains the locations where the driver is working can be kept.

Look-Alikes

Devices which look like this one:

• Yakumo QuickStick TV Easy. Article and photos of the PCB: http://www.svethardware.cz/art_doc-153F40C514B8C470C125723F0072F0DD.html