Azurewave AD SP400 CI (VP-1041)

A DVB-S and DVB-S2 PCI card from Azurewave, also known as TwinHan. The Technisat SkyStar HD2 and TerraTec Cinergy S2 PCI HD CI are rebadges of this product, with different PCI subsystem IDs.

Overview/Features

A PCI card which supports DVB-S and DVB-S2 standard definition and high definition digital satellite TV. A common interface unit with a dummy PCI connector and standard faceplate is included (Tip: if the dummy PCI connector were trimmed by a few millimetres it would presumably fit in a PCI express slot too). The hardware supports rotors via DiSEqC 1.2, and the card has a 4-pin molex power connector, ostensibly to draw additional power from the PSU rather than load the PCI bus. A remote control and an infrared receiver cable are included.

It is currently not supported in current releases of Linux. However, experimental support for some of the device's features is available (see below for details).

Components Used

STMicroelectronics STB0899 multistandard demodulator (DVB-S and DVB-S2).

STMicroelectronics STB6100 8PSK/QPSK direct conversion (zero IF) tuner for DVB-S2.

Mantis PCI bridge (VP 1041 + 4046). 144-pin package.

STMicroelectronics LNBP21 LNB supply and control IC.

Identification

Azurewave AD SP400 CI: 1822:4e35 / Subsystem: 1822:0031

Skystar HD2 (a): 1822:4e35 / Subsystem: 1ae4:0001

Skystar HD2 (b): 1822:4e35 / Subsystem: 1ae4:0003

TerraTec Cinergy S2 PCI HD CI: 1822:4e35 / Subsystem: 153b:1179

For the Azurewave AD SP400 CI:

lspci -vvn

05:00.0 0480: 1822:4e35 (rev 01)
       Subsystem: 1822:0031
       Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
       Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
       Latency: 32 (2000ns min, 63750ns max)
       Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
       Region 0: Memory at 55000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]

lspci -vv

05:00.0 Multimedia controller: Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd Mantis DTV PCI Bridge Controller [Ver 1.0] (rev 01)
       Subsystem: Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd Unknown device 0031
       Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
       Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
       Latency: 32 (2000ns min, 63750ns max)
       Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
       Region 0: Memory at 55000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]

Here (http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-February/023821.html) is the output for the Technisat Skystar HD2. It looks like it is a Twinhan VP-1041/Azurewave AD SP400 rebadge. Note that the subsystem ID (1ae4:0001) is different to the one listed above for the Azurewave card (1822:0031). Note also that a different subsystem ID for a Skystar HD2 (1ae4:0003) has been reported for some cards at http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-July/027261.html so perhaps a change needs to be made to allow for this possibility too.

This is the output of lspci -vvn:

01:06.0 0480: 1822:4e35 (rev 01)
       Subsystem: 1ae4:0001
       Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
       Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort-  <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
       Latency: 32 (2000ns min, 63750ns max)
       Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
       Region 0: Memory at e5100000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]

This is the output of lsusb -vv:

01:06.0 Multimedia controller: Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd Mantis DTV PCI Bridge Controller [Ver 1.0] (rev 01)
       Subsystem: Unknown device 1ae4:0001
       Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
       Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
       Latency: 32 (2000ns min, 63750ns max)
       Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
       Region 0: Memory at e5100000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]

Skystar HD2 images:

Making it Work

Firmware

No firmware required.

Drivers

There is currently no in-kernel driver for this card. However, experimental support does exist which has been used successfully with the AD SP400 and the Technisat Skystar HD2.

As of June 2009 the driver for the Mantis PCI bridge has been in development for a staggering three years and nine months (http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/9/14/123), and still has some problems (broken CI for example), despite the fact that the author apparently has documentation (which is not publicly available). A pull request for inclusion in the kernel has still not been issued by its author. The motivations (or lack thereof) and affiliations of the author are unknown, but unfortunately his track record suggests that he has no intention of ever merging the mantis code into the kernel, and every intention of stringing everyone along as long as possible. Currently the only hope for getting support for this card into the Linux kernel is if somebody else independently creates a new driver for the Mantis PCI bridge chip and merges it into the kernel.

Overheating

With some, perhaps all, drivers, temporary overheating of a component (which one?) does occur after some time when running very long frequency scans (for example on the large Hotbird orbital position). The seems to cause i2c errors. Careful design of the driver should be able to eliminate this problem by minimising chip operations (and hence heat generation), lenthening waits (to allow time for heat dissipation), and fully implementing the power management features of all the components.

Clocking

Various claims and counter-claims have been made about whether incorrect clocking can cause damage to any chips on the card. This seems unlikely: no damaged card has ever been actually identified and independently verified.

Mantis/S2API driver

DVB-S2 support in the Linux kernel is provided by API version 5.0, also known as S2API (and not multiproto). This API was released in kernel version 2.6.28 (but a driver for this card was not). For this reason a driver with S2API (rather than multiproto) support is strongly recommended. An S2API-based driver for the Azurewave AD-SP 400/Technisat Skystar HD2 may be installed as follows:

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

cd v4l-dvb/v4l
make
sudo make install
sudo reboot

Alternatively, try this driver:

hg clone http://jusst.de/hg/mantis-v4l
ln -s mantis-v4l s2   [the scan-s2 and szap-s2 Makefiles expect this]
cd mantis-v4l
make
sudo make install
sudo reboot

Scan for channels with scan-s2:

hg clone http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/scan-s2
cd scan-s2
[check the INCLUDE line in the Makefile is OK]
make
./scan-s2 [options] -o zap dvb-s/[satellitefile] > ~/channels.conf

and tune with szap-s2:

hg clone http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/szap-s2
cd szap-s2
[check the INCLUDE line in the Makefile is OK]
make
./szap-s2 [options] -c ~/channels.conf [channel]

Or install one of the main multimedia applications like Kaffeine or MythTV.

Twinhan Driver

Twinhan provides a tarball containing a rather old v4l-dvb linux driver and a version of dvb-apps on their website:

http://www.twinhan.com/download_driver&software.asp

http://www.twinhan.com/files/AW/Linux/AZLinux_v1.4.2_CI_FC6.tar.gz

It uses an ioctl to switch between DVB-S and DVB-S2 modes. An application to do this called 'switch' is supplied. Multiproto is not required.

It was released for kernel 2.6.18, and the Fedora Core 6 distribution, so considerable work would be needed to port it to the latest kernel. Some preliminary work on this has been reported, and locking has been reported to be better than the multiproto driver, see http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-October/029642.html.

Whilst it is encouraging that Twinhan bothered to put a Linux driver on their website, it is almost useless to end users. It does not compile with current kernels -- it was not released in the kernel and did not benefit from the future-proofing that that provides. It also offers no open-source CI support. If Twinhan would like to cooperate with the whole community to develop first-class future-proof open-source support for this card in the form of a released in-kernel Linux driver it would greatly benefit them and their customers.

Mantis/Multiproto Driver

A driver based on the obsolete multiproto API is available in the mantis tree at http://jusst.de/hg/mantis.

Obtain mantis/multiproto:

hg clone http://jusst.de/hg/mantis

Compile and install.

It has been reported that (reference?) the Technisat will not be recognised as a frontend unless the value of the MANTIS_VP_1041_DVB_S2 #define in mantis_vp1041.h is changed from 0x0031 to 0x0001 to suit the different subsystem ID. Even with this change the card currently will not tune unless placed in DVB-S2 mode first using szap, even if the channel you want is DVB-S (Can someone please recheck this and report, stating driver version etc?).

As described in http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-August/027897.html and http://www.munz.li/?p=47 if you have an 0003 card then change one line in mantis_vp1041.h to

#define TECHNISAT_SKYSTAR_HD2 0×0003

This has been fixed in the liplianin-s2 driver (see this patch http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-October/029912.html).

UPDATE 28 Jan 2008: multiproto was updated to sync with the latest dvb-v4l. For 2.6.24 kernel see http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-January/023457.html

UPDATE 11 Feb 2008: Initial support for Mantis VP-1041 was added to multiproto. See the changeset http://jusst.de/hg/mantis/rev/ef56e97c3613. However some problems were reported: http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-February/023824.html, http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-February/023855.html.

UPDATE 21 Feb 2008: The Technisat Skystar HD2 has been reported as working (http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-February/023940.html). Note the necessary procedure with szap given in the post and the #define change mentioned above.

UPDATE 24 Feb 2008: The mantis tree has been updated to support the subsystem IDs of the SkyStar HD2, manual changes to the tree are no longer needed to get the card recognised at boot time. It now tunes successfully to both DVB-S and DVB-S2 transponders using the replacement szap.c described below. It is not necessary to use the multiproto tree as described above, use "hg clone http://jusst.de/hg/mantis", no patches are required. It is unclear whether DiSEqC switches and rotors are being driven correctly and/or with sufficient current http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-February/024060.html.

UPDATE 25 Mar 2008: mantis tree needs new szap, because of an API change. use offical dvb-apps hg tree (hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps). as of March 25 i need a patch to get the card working correctly (http://de.pastebin.ca/957250)

UPDATE 18 May 2008: szap from mantis tree works with the following patch: http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-April/025137.html

UPDATE 27 Sep 2008: A possible solution to locking and scanning problems with the multiproto driver has been posted here: http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-September/029361.html.

Sample kernel output

This is for a Skystar HD2 (1ae4:0003)

Mantis 0000:02:0c.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 20
irq: 20, latency: 64
 memory: 0xf1bff000, mmio: 0xf8910000
found a VP-1041 PCI DSS/DVB-S/DVB-S2 device on (02:0c.0),
    Mantis Rev 1 [1ae4:0003], irq: 20, latency: 64
    memory: 0xf1bff000, mmio: 0xf8910000
    MAC Address=[00:08:c9:e0:3c:de]
mantis_alloc_buffers (0): DMA=0x35d70000 cpu=0xf5d70000 size=65536
mantis_alloc_buffers (0): RISC=0x35cef000 cpu=0xf5cef000 size=1000
DVB: registering new adapter (Mantis dvb adapter)
stb0899_attach: Attaching STB0899
mantis_frontend_init (0): found STB0899 DVB-S/DVB-S2 frontend @0x68
stb6100_attach: Attaching STB6100
DVB: registering adapter 7 frontend 0 (STB0899 Multistandard)...
mantis_ca_init (0): Registering EN50221 device
mantis_ca_init (0): Registered EN50221 device
mantis_hif_init (0): Adapter(0) Initializing Mantis Host Interface

Common Interface support

Preliminary support exists, but a number of problems have been reported. http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-October/029659.html.

Tuner / DiSEqC / Player support

provide details of how to use with VDR, MythTV and Kaffeine here -- this means you

Kaffeine

The SVN version of Kaffeine supports DVB-S2 scanning and tuning (using S2API) and HD TV playback using the latest xine-lib.

Scan and szap

Scan(-s2) is used to obtain a list of available channels (the channels.conf file).

Szap(-s2) is used to tune the receiver to one of those channels.

For the s2-liplianin S2API driver obtain scan-s2 and szap-s2.

hg clone http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/scan-s2
hg clone http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/szap-s2

See above for more details.

For multiproto obtain scan from http://jusst.de/manu/scan.tar.bz2 and slot in the util/scan directory of hg http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps/. Fix up the .h includes to come from the earlier multiproto compilation.

UPDATE 18. June 2008: to get scan to work use this description: http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TerraTec_Cinergy_S2_PCI_HD_CI#Install_dvb-apps_.28scan.2Fszap2_based_on_DVB_API_3.3.29_.28Testing_based_on_revision_1200.29

For multiproto obtain szap.c from http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/szap.c. Update it with the patch from http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-April/025137.html and compile it in util/szap according to http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2007-October/021474.html

UPDATE 18. June 2008: szap.c doesn't need to be patched anymore like stated above, it compiles fine downloaded from http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/szap.c.

UPDATE 1st Aug 2008: see the suggestion here http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-August/027541.html to use the scan/szap patch here http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/attachments/20080605/05429f5c/attachment-0003.obj.

Using scan, szap and mplayer

Use scan to create a channels.conf file. Then use szap to tune to a channel by running the following command in a terminal:

szap -r -p -i -a 0 -l UNIVERSAL -t 0 -c channels.conf "channelname"

or for DVB-S2:

szap -r -p -i -a 0 -l UNIVERSAL -t 2 -c channels.conf

then type the following (for example) to tune to an HD channel:

ASTRA HD+

and then use mplayer to view the video stream:

mplayer - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

(assuming the card is your adapter number 0)

Without the interactive -i option szap tunes and locks but is unkillable (with ctrl-c or kill) to change to another channel. Interactively type channel names in the terminal to tune to each one.

Without the -p option DVB-S2 streams are not playable.

For processors which are not fast enough to decode H.264 in real time you might try something like this (dual core: threads=2, quad core: threads=4)

mplayer -lavdopts fast:threads=2:skipframe=nonref -framedrop - < /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

provide details of how to use with DiSEqC -- this means you

Mythtv

A patch for mythtv can be found at this location: [1]

IR Remote Control Support

IR-Remote support is included in the mantis driver of s2-liplianin.

In my case it works with inputlirc and you can find the device in /dev/input/event*. The support is only tested with TerraTec Cinergy S2 HD PCI

For more information about inputlirc and the patch:

http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Lirc
http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/s2-liplianin/rev/601d245d689f

External Links

• Twinhan AD-SP400 product page

• Linux Mantis Driver information

• Short Howto on SkyStar HD2