Emtec S830

s830 Inside, back

s830 Inside, front

A DVB-T USB Stick from Emtec.

It is currently not supported under Linux, though some experimental patches exist (see below ... in particular, the user experiences section).

Overview/Features

It features dual tuners, remote control, and 'diversity' tuning capabilities (not sure about the last). Evidently this device is a rebranded YUAN High-Tech Development Co., Ltd Product.

Its says PD-870 on the PCB though emtec sells it as S830, so clearly some rebranding is going on.

Components Used

• 2 x MT2266F (tuners)
• 2 x DiBcom7000PC1-AXXXa-G QGYN8 (demodulators)

Identification

Output from "lsusb -v":

Bus 002 Device 007: ID 1164:1e8c YUAN High-Tech Development Co., Ltd
Device Descriptor:
 bLength                18
 bDescriptorType         1
 bcdUSB               2.00
 bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
 bDeviceSubClass         0
 bDeviceProtocol         0
 bMaxPacketSize0        64
 idVendor           0x1164 YUAN High-Tech Development Co., Ltd
 idProduct          0x1e8c
 bcdDevice            1.00
 iManufacturer           1 YUANRD
 iProduct                2 STK7700D
 iSerial                 3 0000000001
 bNumConfigurations      1
 Configuration Descriptor:
   bLength                 9
   bDescriptorType         2
   wTotalLength           46
   bNumInterfaces          1
   bConfigurationValue     1
   iConfiguration          0
   bmAttributes         0xa0
     (Bus Powered)
     Remote Wakeup
   MaxPower              500mA
   Interface Descriptor:
     bLength                 9
     bDescriptorType         4
     bInterfaceNumber        0
     bAlternateSetting       0
     bNumEndpoints           4
     bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
     bInterfaceSubClass      0
     bInterfaceProtocol      0
     iInterface              0
     Endpoint Descriptor:
       bLength                 7
       bDescriptorType         5
       bEndpointAddress     0x01  EP 1 OUT
       bmAttributes            2
         Transfer Type            Bulk
         Synch Type               None
         Usage Type               Data
       wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
       bInterval               1
     Endpoint Descriptor:
       bLength                 7
       bDescriptorType         5
       bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
       bmAttributes            2
         Transfer Type            Bulk
         Synch Type               None
         Usage Type               Data
       wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
       bInterval               1
     Endpoint Descriptor:
       bLength                 7
       bDescriptorType         5
       bEndpointAddress     0x82  EP 2 IN
       bmAttributes            2
         Transfer Type            Bulk
         Synch Type               None
         Usage Type               Data
       wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
       bInterval               1
     Endpoint Descriptor:
       bLength                 7
       bDescriptorType         5
       bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
       bmAttributes            2
         Transfer Type            Bulk
         Synch Type               None
         Usage Type               Data
       wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
       bInterval               1
Device Qualifier (for other device speed):
 bLength                10
 bDescriptorType         6
 bcdUSB               2.00
 bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
 bDeviceSubClass         0
 bDeviceProtocol         0
 bMaxPacketSize0        64
 bNumConfigurations      1

Making it Work (generic for all dib0700)

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

It requires the dib0700 driver. Just use Mercurial by following the How to Obtain, Build and Install V4L-DVB Device Drivers instructions.

Forcing the activation of LNAs (Low Noise Amplifier)

You may have to force LNA to get this card working:

In /etc/modprobe.d/options add:

options dvb_usb_dib0700 force_lna_activation=1

Disabling the remote control sensor

You may want to disable the remote control sensor if you are using another one and want to avoid error messages in the logs:

In /etc/modprobe.d/options add:

options dvb_usb disable_rc_polling=1

All relevant kernel modules options

In /etc/modprobe.d/options add:

options [module name] [option name]=[setting]

Get the parameters list using

modinfo [name of kernel module]

The debug values are bit fields, with each bit representing a different category. Add values to turn on multiple debugging categories.

dib3000mc

debug

Turn on debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

buggy_sfn_workaround

Enable work-around for buggy SFNs

Values: integer

Default: 0 (disabled)

mt2060

debug

Turn on debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

dvb_usb_dib0700

force_lna_activation

Force the activation of LNAs (Low Noise Amplifier), if applicable for the device

Values: integer

Default: 0 (automatic/off)

dvb_usb_dib0700_ir_proto

Set IR protocol

Values: integer 0=NEC, 1=RC5, 2=RC6

Default: 1

debug

Set debugging level

Values: integer (bitmap) 1=info, 2=fw, 4=fwdata, 8=data

Default: 0 (none)

dvb_usb

debug

Set debugging level

Values: integer (bitmap) 1=info, 2=xfer, 4=pll, 8=ts, 16=err, 32=rc, 64=fw, 128=mem, 256=uxfer

Default: 0 (none)

disable_rc_polling

Disable remote control polling

Values: integer

Default: 0 (enabled)

force_pid_filter_usage

Force all DVB USB devices to use a PID filter, if any

Values: integer

Default: 0 (disabled)

dvb_core

dvb_net_debug

Enable debug messages

Values: integer

Default: 0 (disabled)

frontend_debug

Turn on frontend core debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

dvb_shutdown_timeout

Wait n seconds after close() before suspending hardware

Values: integer

Default: 0

dvb_force_auto_inversion

Set whether INVERSION_AUTO is forced on

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

dvb_override_tune_delay

Wait n milliseconds for lock after a tuning attempt

Values: integer

Default: 0

dvb_powerdown_on_sleep

Turn LNB power off on sleep

Values: integer

Default: 1 (enabled)

cam_debug

Enable verbose debug messages

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

debug

Turn on debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0

dvbdev_debug

Turn on device debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

dibx000_common

debug

Turn on debugging

Values: integer

Default: 0 (off)

Remote control support

Using evdev

As long as the evdev module is loaded, a remote that is recogniced as hid device will be treated as a usb keyboard and this means that you can avoid using lirc.

However, many of the keys on your remote may generate keycodes which are not mapped to anything, by default.

In X you can use xev to find the keycodes and xmodmap to map them to useful symbols. Unfortunately, some keys may generate keycodes that X doesn't recognize at all and the device does not support keymaps, or this would be easy to fix.

Using LIRC

Usually remote controls in linux are managed by the lirc software collection.

To get lirc up and running you need to configure some things.

• Settings for the hardware
  • Where does lirc get its input from? aka. the DEVICE. E.g. /dev/input/event3
  • How to handle the input? aka. the DRIVER. E.g. devinput
• Settings for mapping driver output generated by your remote (a bunch of hex numbers) to key names (something like 0..9, Volume+, Next, Record)
• Settings for mapping key presses to actions (usually located in your .lircrc)

Mythubuntu case

On mythubuntu 10.10, you just have to add this line in /etc/udev/rules.d/65-persistent-hauppauge.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="input", KERNEL=="event*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2040", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8400", SYMLINK+="lirc0"

Device/driver settings

Find the IR receiver's device by looking in the dmesg output for a line similar to:

input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /class/input/input4

Additionally, the IR receiver will be listed if you execute the command:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

For example:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=2040 Product=9950 Version=0100
N: Name="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:07:01.2-1/ir0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event4 
B: EV=3
B: KEY=14afc336 284284d00000000 0 480058000 219040000801 9e96c000000000 90020000000ffd

In this example, the remote control gives output into /dev/input/event4.

The event number depends on your particular system and can vary.

Eventually this event number can even vary at every reboot.

You could create a new udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/65-persistent-hauppauge.rules.

KERNEL=="event*", ATTRS{name}=="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver", SYMLINK+="input/dvb-ir"

This would make IR receivers handled by the usb_dvb framework always always be linked to /dev/input/dvb-ir.

But Linux systems running recent udev will automatically create non-varying names, a nicer and automatic way of providing a stable input event name:

$ ls -la /dev/input/by-path/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 140 2008-02-07 20:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 280 2008-02-07 20:31 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.0-event-kbd -> ../event1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.1-event-mouse -> ../event2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-0000:00:1a.1-usb-0:2:1.1-mouse -> ../mouse1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 pci-4-1--event-ir -> ../event4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 2008-02-07 20:31 platform-pcspkr-event-spkr -> ../event3

LIRC will use it without needing a special kernel module. use the dev/input (or devinput. Check this with the command "lircd --device=help".) driver and specify the input event device in /etc/lirc/hardware.conf

# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
# Arguments which will be used when launching lircd
LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
#START_LIRCMD=false

#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES=true

# Run "lircd --driver=help" for a list of supported drivers.
DRIVER="dev/input"
# If DEVICE is set to /dev/lirc and devfs is in use /dev/lirc/0 will be
# automatically used instead
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/input/by-path/pci-4-1--event-ir"
MODULES=""

# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCD_CONF="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"
LIRCMD_CONF=""

If you have REMOTE and TRANSMITTER sections in your hardware.conf file, they should look like this:

#Chosen Remote Control
REMOTE="Terratec Cinergy DT USB XS Diversity"
REMOTE_MODULES=""
REMOTE_DRIVER="devinput"
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/input/by-path/pci-1-5-event-ir"
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Chosen IR Transmitter
TRANSMITTER="None"
TRANSMITTER_MODULES=""
TRANSMITTER_DRIVER=""
TRANSMITTER_DEVICE=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_CONF=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_ARGS=""

Remote key setup

See device specific section below or try [1].

Sample .lircrc

A sample .lircrc can be found LircrcExample here.

Keys repeated twice

But there is still the problem of the key repeats for it, so that each keypress will be repeated twice. The patches, as mentioned above, may not work, but a workaround is possilbe. It is described in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4253678

Simply add config = echo " > /dev/null before the main config in .mythtv/lircrc or .lircrc

 begin
  prog = mythtv
  button = Mute
  config = echo " > /dev/null
  config = |
  ...
 end

So each 2nd keypress will be suppressed. This works in some application but not others (e.g. vlc).

Alternatively there is a patch for the kernel driver that solves it, it can be found here.

Finally if that doesn't work and you have the silver remote (A415-HPG-WE-A ) then changing the lircd.conf line as follows can prevent the duplicate key presses. This has the side-effect of disabling key repeats for the remote entirely. Change toggle_bit_mask 0x80000000 to toggle_bit_mask 0x00000000

Note: do not try to comment out (using #) any line in this file, or lirc won't work anymore.

Do NOT do this:

 #toggle_bit_mask 0x80000000
 toggle_bit_mask 0x00000000

Replace the original line instead.

Specific to the model

The usb stick comes with an Irda Remote

A patch which adds the usbid for this device to the required LinuxTV drivers is available here.

Sample kernel output

[  183.731819] usb 2-7: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[  183.798267] usb 2-7: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  183.880076] dib0700: loaded with support for 5 different device-types
[  183.880182] dvb-usb: found a 'EMTEC S830 TD Stick' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[  183.903331] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.10.fw'
[  184.008207] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[  184.259443] dvb-usb: found a 'EMTEC S830 TD Stick' in warm state.
[  184.259497] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[  184.259585] DVB: registering new adapter (EMTEC S830 TD Stick)
[  184.378936] DVB: registering frontend 2 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
[  184.400418] MT2266: successfully identified
[  184.482671] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[  184.482792] DVB: registering new adapter (EMTEC S830 TD Stick)
[  184.559678] DVB: registering frontend 3 (DiBcom 7000PC)...
[  184.561611] MT2266: successfully identified
[  184.642628] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /class/input/input8
[  184.642653] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 150 msecs.
[  184.642658] dvb-usb: EMTEC S830 TD Stick successfully initialized and connected.
[  184.643047] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_dib0700

User Experiences

So far unsuccessful. After adding the usbid, as described in the patch above, the same results are obtained as the user in that original mailinglist post .... i.e. the led on the device goes on, the driver modules are loaded, but no lock on frequencies is obtained.

It should be behaving like a Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Diversity (PCTV 2000e USB), but attempting to tune to a frequency from a valid channels.conf file (obtained from a working DVB-T card) results in no lock being established:

$ tzap -a 3 -c /home/waldo/Desktop/channels.conf "een"
using '/dev/dvb/adapter3/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter3/demux0'
tuning to 482000000 Hz
video pid 0x1011, audio pid 0x1012
status 00 | signal fc25 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal f1e4 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal dfe9 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal e1b9 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 00 | signal e9cd | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal dcc9 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal e207 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |
status 01 | signal db09 | snr 0000 | ber 001fffff | unc 00000000 |