Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T-500

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WinTV-Nova-T-500

This is a dual tuner DVB-T PCI card from Hauppauge.

It is natively supported under Linux since kernel 2.6.19.

Overview/Features

In actuality, the device's receivers are USB based, but there aren't any USB plugs or sockets involved -- the single PCI card itself sports on board dual USB based receivers that interface with a host USB 2.0 controller (USB to PCI). This unique design is also known as "Bristol".

Components Used

  • 2x Microtune MT2060 tuner
  • 2x DiB3000P DiBcom DVB-T demodulator & USB controller
  • 1x VIA VT8xxx host USB 2.0 controller (USB-to-PCI)
  • A single Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) is present for both channels, but needs to be manually activated (see below).

Some further technical details may be found in DiBcom DiB0700 USB2.0 DVB-T based devices.

Identification

You will find the model name and number on the box, under the bar code. Cards known to work have the following:

  • WinTV-NOVA-T-500 model 289 SL-289-V2.0-UK (in the UK there is also a model 287 - according to Hauppauge UK support this is identical to the model 289 - it is just a PC World/Dixons specific box)
  • WinTV-NOVA-T-500 model 289 SL-289-V2.1-UK ... Note: It would appear that having V2.1 on the box could be either the Nova-T or the unsupported Nova-TD (see below). Most confusing!
  • List incomplete, please add

WinTV-NOVA-TD-500

Note: This is an unsupported revision !!
Warning! WinTV-Nova-TD-500

This card appears to have been released, in low volumes, only in the UK, but unfortunately it seems that Hauppauge is shipping the Diversity* card in regular NOVA-T-500 boxes!

[* 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]. ]

This newer revision can be distinguished by:
On the box:

  • You will find the model name and number under the bar code:
    • WinTV-NOVA-T-500
    • model 289
    • SL-289-V2.1-UK.
  • The box also has a sticker stating it is the diversity option and only suitable for intel cards.
    • To quote one user running the device under Windows: "When i put it in my athlon based XP box it blue screened as soon as i tried to load the drivers. I brought mine from Amazon.co.uk and there was no mention that this card was any different or wouldn't work with non-intel processors."

On the card:

  • it is labeled with the 'Diversity' feature stickers and the actual model number on the printed circuit board is NOVA-TD-500 (WinTV-NOVA-TD-500 DVB-T 68109 LF rev C1B5)
  • the card has two aerial connectors.
  • it uses a DiB0710 host USB controller (USB-to-PCI controller) instead of a VIA controller


The DiBcom DiB0710 controller used by this newer revision was apparently never sold for mass-production and DiBcom has end-of-life'd the chip. Furthermore, DiBcom currently do not plan on providing support for this controller. Consequently, given the low shipping volume and the limited support options, development of a Linux driver for this revision would likely be a waste of effort. [2][3]

Fortunately, for Linux users who have mistakingly received a Diversity variant, Hauppauge are apparently willing to exchange this product to a genuine T-500. Call the UK support line 0207 378 0200 and say you have read this article and bought your product from ebuyer, dabs or wherever.

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

It requires the dib0700 driver. Just use Mercurial by following the How to install DVB device drivers instructions.

Note: These patches still haven't made it into the tree, and have not received a lot of feedback after the latest official merges. Use at your own risk if you feel that you need them. 
     * silence-unknown-keycodes.patch - 513 B
             * When an unknown key code is received (from another remote, like the receiver's or the TV's), it is not eaten and the module keeps yelling about it. This patch stops the yelling.
             * Jonas Anden
             * Post: http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2007-August/019493.html
             * Date: Thu Aug 2 00:28:17 CEST 2007
             * Note: This patch does not apply cleanly on recent trees. But it is an easy one-liner to do by hand
             * Note: This patch is not really a fix. It just limits the effect of a bad behavior
Please report on the list.


Note: the current drivers are close to stable at the moment (2008-01-25). Occasional USB disconnects may still be experienced. The disconnects were caused by disabling the pull-down resistors or unintentional writes from the dib0700 bridge to the usb bus when accidentally hitting the end of a SOF packet. Why and when this happens can only be debugged by the dibcom firmware guys [4] . Other possible reasons for bad behavior could be bad reception (check your aerial, cabling, splitters and low-cost amplifiers) and EIT scanning. Search the linux-dvb mailing list for more information and current problems being experienced.

On-board amplifier

You may want/need to turn on the on-board amplifier: 

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

Add: 

options dvb-usb-dib0700 force_lna_activation=1


Sample kernel output

[   30.965645] dib0700: loaded with support for 5 different device-types
[   30.965925] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[   31.008899] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-dib0700-03-pre1.fw'
[   31.206081] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[   31.711176] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T' in warm state.
[   31.711222] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[   31.711325] DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T)
[   31.831535] DVB: registering frontend 0 (DiBcom 3000MC/P)...
[   31.854890] MT2060: successfully identified (IF1 = 1220)
[   32.388673] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[   32.388853] DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T)
[   32.394293] DVB: registering frontend 1 (DiBcom 3000MC/P)...
[   32.398790] MT2060: successfully identified (IF1 = 1220)
[   32.959607] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /class/input/input4
[   32.959633] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 150 msecs.
[   32.959637] dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T successfully initialized and connected.
[   32.959657] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_dib0700


Remote control

Grey top, black bottom, 45 buttons, snowboard shape.


Support for the tuners on the card was implemented earlier than support for the remote control - as a result you may find the tuners work but the IR-receiver for the remote control is not detected. You can check the installed version of the driver has detected the remote control by looking in the 'dmesg' output for a line similar to: 

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

(where X will vary depending in your system configuration).

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-0000:00:0d.2-1/ir0
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.2/usb8/8-1/input/input6
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event6 
B: EV=3
B: KEY=14afc336 284284d 0 0 0 4 80058000 2190 40000801 9e96c0 0 900200 ffd

If the IR receiver is not detected but you can see the detection of the tuners (see earlier in this page) then you will need to patch your kernel with the latest mercurial v4l-dvb sources (see [5]). This was required even with Gentoo kernel 2.6.23-r3.


The remote control gives output into 

/dev/input/eventX

where X is variable and depends on your system.

LIRC will use it without needing a special kernel module. use the following driver: 

dev/input

Here is a proper lircd.conf file: 

#
# brand:                       Hauppauge NOVA-T-500
# model no. of remote control: Hauppage Nova-T-500 Snowboard Shape Silver over Black
#

begin remote

 name  NOVA-T500
 bits           16
 eps            30
 aeps          100

 one             0     0
 zero            0     0
 pre_data_bits   16
 pre_data       0x1
 gap          199999
 toggle_bit      0


     begin codes
         Go                       0x0162
         Power                    0x0074
         TV                       0x0179
         Videos                   0x0189
         Music                    0x0188
         Pictures                 0x00E2
         Guide                    0x016D
         Radio                    0x0181
         ArrowUp                  0x0067
         ArrowLeft                0x0069
         OK                       0x0160
         ArrowRight               0x006A
         ArrowDown                0x006C
         BackExit                 0x009E
         Menu                     0x008B
         VolumeUp                 0x0073
         VolumeDown               0x0072
         PrevCh                   0x016B
         Mute                     0x0071
         ChannelUp                0x0192
         ChannelDown              0x0193
         Record                   0x00A7
         Rewind                   0x00A8
         SkipBack                 0x0195
         Play                     0x00CF
         Pause                    0x0077
         Stop                     0x0080
         Fwdwind                  0x00D0
         SkipFwd                  0x0197
         1                        0x0002
         2                        0x0003
         3                        0x0004
         4                        0x0005
         5                        0x0006
         6                        0x0007
         7                        0x0008
         8                        0x0009
         9                        0x000A
         *                        0x0037
         0                        0x000B
         #                        0x0029
         Red                      0x018E
         Green                    0x018F
         Yellow                   0x0190
         Blue                     0x0191
     end codes

end remote

External Links

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