AVerMedia AVerTV Digi Volar X (A815)

AverMedia DVB-T Volar X

A DVB-T USB device from AVerMedia.

It is perfectly supported in Linux, even the IR remote.

Very powerful at bad conditions but not stable for 24x7 use.

Vendor	Device/Model	Supported	Pictures / URL	E
AVerMedia	AVerTV Digi Volar X (A815)	✔ Yes, in kernel since 2.6.28	[1]

Identification

[root@host] lsusb
...
ID 07ca:a815 AVerMedia Technologies, Inc.
...

Components used

• AF9015-NT
• MXL5003S as a tuner

Installation

Vendor	Device/Model	Supported	Pictures	URL	Interface	USB ID	Hardware	Tuner	Demodulator	USB Bridge	Firmware	Comment	E
AVerMedia	AVerTV Digi Volar X (A815)	✔ Yes, in kernel since 2.6.28		[2]	USB2.0	07ca:a815	Afatech AF9015-NT*, MXL5003S	MXL5003S	af9015	af9015	dvb-usb-af9015.fw

Firmware

Firstly, you need to copy the following firmware dvb-usb-af9015.fw in your /lib/firmware/ directory, or in the directory where your system will search for it.

Drivers

It is supported in the latest v4l-dvb, so you have to download them first. Either getting [3] or using mercury See the How to Obtain, Build and Install V4L-DVB Device Drivers for all the details.

IR Remote Support

The latest developtment version of the driver gives support to the RM-FP remote control (thanks to Jose Alberto Reguero [4]. But there are other remote control versions bundled with the device. RM-KS is one of those. Taking a look into the files that the CDROM driver installs, there are five files named: AP6RMFP.BIN, AP6RMHR.BIN, AP6RMHV.BIN, AP6RMJH.BIN, AP6RMKS.BIN, where the correct IR table to be used with each remote control (FP, HR, HV, JH, KS) is given.

UPDATE: Support for RM-KS remote is already included in this mercury repository [5]

Download and compile the drivers, and then use the option remote=5 when dvb-usb-af9015 module is loaded. In debian that is made adding (as root) a file called, for example, dvb, in the directory /etc/modprobe.d/ with the line

options dvb_usb_af9015 remote=5

LIRC Configuration

First step is to identify the file device associated with our dvb-t device. This is made by command:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices | grep -n10 a815

This command will display an output like this:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=07ca Product=a815 Version=0200
N: Name="IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:13.2-4/ir0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input8
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event8
B: EV=3
B: KEY=3c0110 10200000000000 0 8400 90c0300801 1e060000000000 ffc

The information that we need is the input device number that in this case is /class/input/input8 This means that the device associated whith IR is

/dev/input/event8

ATTENTION! The device number change from PC to other. So this is only an EXAMPLE. So we must modify the lirc configuration that is in /etc/sysconfig/lircd or /etc/lirc/hardware.conf (change from distribution to other) this parameters:

...
DRIVER="devinput"
...
DEVICE="/dev/input/event8"
...

Second step is to generate the codes list by lirc tools. ATTENTION! the files provided by lirc in folder /usr/share/lirc-remotes/avermedia/ not work every time so we need to generate a file manually. We need to stop lirc first by this command:

/etc/init.d/lircd stop

Now we can generate the /etc/lircd.conf with irrecord by this command:

irrecord -H dev/input -f -d /dev/input/eventX ~/lircd.conf
cp ~/lircd.conf /etc/

but first you must replace the X with the number of the device. In my case i have /dev/input/event8 so i put 8. Follow the istructions on screen for build the file. Press RETURN then old down any key of remote control for find GAP value. If the device just choise it's right we can see a progressive dot displaying. We gap search is done we must put a name for the key and press ENTER and then the relative button on remote control. This for all key in the remote control. To end the procedure we con press ENTER.

Some distribution need the file in /etc/lirc/ so we can copy the file in this way:

cp /etc/lircd.conf /etc/lirc/

Finally we restart lirc with:

/etc/init.d/lircd start

We can use the LIRC front-end irkick for settings the remote control keys or build manually the ~/.lircrc file.

We can find a Video Guide here

• http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/control.html
• http://www.lirc.org/html/configure.html

There is a lot of information on how to make lirc work in Hauppauge_WinTV-NOVA-T-Stick#Remote_Control_Support

Possible issues

Due to some problems with the HID devices, in some machines the IR reception is buggy [6] (i.e. irw gets correctly first button pressed, but then gets stuck in a weird loop where the button seems pressed all the time) To solve this, you can create the file /etc/modprobe.d/usbhid containing:

options usbhid quirks=0x07ca:0xa815:0x04

and then execute

$ sudo update-initramfs -u

and reboot. The problem should be solved that way.

Not stable in 24h/7 use. After a few days recordings have a size of 0 bytes. Only known solution: Unplug the device for 10s and do a reboot.

Test your drivers

Once compiled you can try this: Testing_your_DVB_device. Kaffeine seems the easiest/fastest way to check if it works.

Reception Quality

Compared Avermedia DVB-T Volar X vs. Club 3D ZAP250m (one of the best devices in 2006) at bad conditions at the same PC and the same antenna:

Signal strength at 578000000 Hz: 40333 vs. 15420
Signal strength at 690000000 Hz: 28143 vs. 19275

Note: Please note that signal strength is something reported by the device itself. Depending on the driver the values may even be complete bogus. They might help if you want to compare different antennas with the same device, but different devices will report completely different numbers there. The best thing to compare those is to test the received data stream for errors, or check the number of uncorrectable errors on weak stations with a poor antenna. Please read the article on Testing reception quality.

External links

• Product Page

--Pipeta 17:19, 25 January 2009 (CET)