TerraTec Cinergy DT USB XS Diversity

TerraTec-DT-USB-XS-Diversity-Stick

A DVB-T USB device from TerraTec.

It is supported under Linux.

Overview/Features

features two tuners, and have two antennas. You'll have adapter0 and adapter1 in /dev/dvb, which you can use separately.

The "Diversity" option is a hardware based feature that allows for the device's two receivers to be configured in a combined use mode to achieve better reception on a single channel. The diversity feature of the DiBcom demodulators is currently not implemented in the Linux-DVB drivers, so only the dual tuner configuration is presently supported on such devices [1].

It seems that either this tuner stick does not have a very sensitive tuner, or the small antennas that come with it are simply insufficient for real-life use, unless one lives next door to a broadcast tower and has a direct line-of-sight to it. It is thus likely that an external antenna with a builtin amplifier is needed when this tuner is used.

Identification

This device's USB ID is 005a:0ccd.

(The device shown here is: Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0ccd:005a TerraTec Electronic GmbH, don't know if the ID has to be swapped to be read correctly, though)

Other Images

• 

  front

• 

  back

• 

  Input plugs

Making it work

Firmware

August 21, 2008 - New firmware file fixing the last cause for i2c errors and disconnects and providing a new, more modular i2c request formatting.

You will need the dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw firmware file in /lib/firmware or the relevant place for your distribution.

You may need to change the name of the file to dvb-usb-dib0700-1.10.fw or create a link until the driver code reflects that change.

For archival purposes: dvb-usb-dib0700-1.10.fw firmware file

August 29,2008 - Issues with Firmware 1.20. Some issues have been found with the latest version of the firmware. Users may wish to continue to use 1.10 unless they have patched their v4l-dvb code with dib0700_new_i2c_api.patch.

November 15,2008 - Issues with Firmware 1.20.

• The above mentioned dib0700_new_12c_api.patch is not available discretely but is now rolled into the mercurial drivers
• dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw firmware file is now stable for reception, but remote control functionality is broken; any key press is repeated until the next key is pressed. The only way to get remote control functionality presently is to roll back to 1.10 firmware and suffer the occasional disconnect.
• The mercurial drivers have been changed so they now load 1.20 firmware. To revert to 1.10 firmware you need to rename your firmware file to dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw or provide a link of that name.
• To avoid spurious remote control signals with 1.20 firmware, you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/options or from Ubuntu onwards /etc/modprobe.d/options.confand add:

options dvb_usb disable-rc-polling=1

November 28,2008 - i2c errors. Changes were made to the remote control drivers on November 16,2008 to correct the repeat key problem. The card is generally stable for dual tuner reception and remote control function with Firmware 1.20.

November 10,2009 - mt2060 I2C write failed. Possible regression of a driver bug raised against Ubuntu running 2.6.27-14 and 2.6.31-2.17 causing mt2060 I2C errors in MythTV useage with firmware 1.20. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/397696 Recommend check the kernel extensions listed here for Low Noise Activation and rc_polling are loaded with correct config file name for your distribution, EIT listings information is turned off until a suitable delay (500ms-1000ms)is added to a single card (not both) and the card has correctly been added to the database as two tuners (no additional NULL entries) in the mythtv recordcard table.

Drivers

Use drivers from Mercurial following the How to install DVB device drivers instructions.

Specific to the model

TerraTec-DT-USB-XS-Diversity-Remote

The remote does not seem to be supported right now, even if the IR-receiver is registered and all devices are set up correctly. There seems to be a problem with the toggle bit [2].

The dcb-usb-dib0700 module needs to be loaded with the option dvb_usb_dib0700_ir_proto=0 to set the IR protocol to NEC.

To force loading the modul with this option create/edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/dvb and add the line

options dvb-usb-dib0700 dvb_usb_dib0700_ir_proto=0

Then run the command update-modules (as root) to rebuild the file /etc/modprobe.conf. This file is used by modprobe when loading modules.

Sample kernel output

From 2.6.23-tuxonice-r6 (gentoo) with drivers compiled from repository 11th Feb 08:

$ dmesg | grep -i dvb
dvb-usb: found a 'Terratec Cinergy DT XS Diversity' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.10.fw'
dvb-usb: found a 'Terratec Cinergy DT XS Diversity' in warm state.
dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
DVB: registering new adapter (Terratec Cinergy DT XS Diversity)
DVB: registering frontend 0 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
DVB: registering new adapter (Terratec Cinergy DT XS Diversity)
DVB: registering frontend 1 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /class/input/input6
dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 150 msecs.
dvb-usb: Terratec Cinergy DT XS Diversity successfully initialized and connected.
usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_dib0700

User experiences

Date: 22.8. 2007

Distro: Ubuntu Feisty, AMD64

Kernel: 2.6.20-16-generic

The drivers shipping with Feisty are not recent enough, so installed the current v4l-dvb distribution ([3]. It can be downloaded through Mercurial's web interface (see 'bz2' & 'gz'). Otherwise, you'd have to install & use Mercurial to fetch the source.

Downloaded the new dvb-usb-dib0700-03-pre1.fw firmware from [4] & copied it to /lib/firmware (if that does not work, flash the stick with the latest firmware from Terratec on a Windows PC).

After these steps, the stick works - I was able to find channels & get TV out of them.

Update: 19.11. 2007

Tuners using the dvb-usb-dib0700 module may be unable to tune to a particular channel multiplex while receiving others just fine. This appears to be a fairly common problem that is caused by some sort of amplifier setting not getting used when it should; look for lines with "filter timeout" when running 'scan', if you are missing all channels of a particular multiplex.

In short, if experiencing this problem, try setting the following (in /etc/modprobe.d/options or /etc/modules.conf):

dvb_usb_dib0700.force_lna_activation=1

After the module has been reloaded, you might be able to find and view the missing channels :-) You can check /sys/module/dvb_usb_dib0700/parameters/force_lna_activation on your system to make sure the parameter has been set.

Finally, this stick works just fine on 32-bit Ubuntu Gutsy as well.

---

(note: the following is likely dated by now)

openSUSE 10.2 (i586) Kernel 2.6.22.1-ccj51-default

Compiling the driver vv4.tgz from http://www.chez.com/treza/mt2266.htm

(on my system a netdevice.h was needed in /lib/modules/2.6.22.1-ccj51-default/build/include/linux)

Copying the firmware dvb-usb-dib0700-01.fw to /lib/firmware

Reboot, connect the stick, kaffeine, enjoy.

Update: 3.2.2008

Tuner works partially fine with Kernel 2.6.24-gentoo + xorg-server-1.4 + kaffeine 0.8.6 with xine-lib-1.1.10

In 2.6.24 (vanilla) kernel you need to load "mt2266" module manually. The "dvb_usb_dib0700" module is usually autoloaded when you put the stick in place. "mt2266" must be loaded first.

Unfortunatly the Diversity Mode (two tuners running as one for better receive) doesn't work. Furthermore the Windows receiver has a mucher better receive quality :-(. I.e. in Windows Im getting all 23(24) channels, in Linux only 19(20).

External links

• TerraTec product page