TerraTec Cinergy DT USB XS Diversity

A DVB-T USB device from TerraTec.

subsystem ID: 005a:0ccd

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.

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 ([2]. 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 [3] & 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.

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(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