Kodi Community Forum

Hey Guys,
I am looking to install this usb dvb-t card but I have no idea what driver to install. I have checked linuxtv.org but I cannot see this model there.
Does anyone have an idea?
thanks alot

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Mini-Digital-TV-S...43bd3f345a

I can't promise compatibility, but a bit of detective work shows up this:

http://dvbtusb.en.hisupplier.com/product...DVB-T.html

... which identifies the tuner as a Microtune MXL5003S silicon tuner.

Turning to linuxtv.org, I found this:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/E3C_EC168

Specifically, the DUTV009 SinoVideo 3420A-2. Now, it looks the same, albeit labelled differently, but it has that same Microtune chipset in it.

There's an external link that says "no Linux driver", but that's five years out of date. The very next tuner on the linuxtv page, though (the SinoVideo SV3420D), seems to have the same tuner chip and does state that the driver is the same as the 3420A and that "the Linux driver should work for all revisions". There are then some other promising-sounding links to wander off and inspect.

I guess it's your call whether it's worth a punt for EUR20, or whether it's safer to spend twice that and get something from Hauppauge or similar.

Thanks a million Prof Yaffle!

That was a very helpful reply. I actually had this device in a drawer for months when I got it on offer for under €10. I never even imagined it would be compatiable with xbmcbuntu until I stumbled on to some threads today. I have a bravia tv with doesnt pick up all the available channels (olny mpeg-2) so it would be great to get this working.

I am gonna try and find a driver for SV3420D then and install it. I dont see any links to the driver in that page but I will have a google around.
Thanks alot

edit: i notice there is a sticker on the packaging that says "BlazeVideo" and when I go to the website there is a page for drivers : http://www.blazevideo.com/driver/
Is it possible to use any of these in ubuntu? They say its windows only.

No, I don't think Windows drivers are any use at all (unless, of course, you want to run Windows!). I guess the only way to really test this is to plug it in and see what dmseg says...

One comment: "doesn't pick up all the available channels (only mpeg-2)" - your missing channels aren't MPEG4/H.264, are they? I don't know the Irish DVB system, but I'll just raise an eyebrow in case you're hoping to get DVB-T2 signals (e.g. the BBC HD channels on this side of the water). If that's the case then I'd put good money on this stick not supporting those; there's only one DVB-T2 USB stick that I know of (the PCTV-290e) and this ain't it.

All the Irish channels are on mpeg4 but the tv is a few years old at this stage and only supports mpeg2. I live on the border and close to 2 transmitters so we can pick up all the channels good on the other tvs. I was going to buy a digital box but then I thought it would be nice to get this working - or i like the look of the PCTV-290e you mentioned. I might buy that but I would like to try the one i got first.

So far all I did was download "dvb-usb-af9015.fw" and paste it into the /lib/firmware folder. Before I did that i was getting an error similar to this (this is not my message i copied it from another forum - i did not note the message before I added the firmware)
[ 8.035155] dvb-usb: did not find the firmware file. (dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw) Please see linux/Documentation/dvb/ for more details on firmware-problems. (-2)

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 15a4:9016 Afatech Technologies, Inc. AF9015 DVB-T USB2.0 stick

dmesg | grep 'usb'
[ 0.620797] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 0.620804] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 0.620824] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 1.424587] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd
[ 1.668532] usb 2-1: new high speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd
[ 1.900580] usb 1-1.1: new high speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd
[ 2.100547] usb 2-1.4: new full speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd
[ 2.272758] usb 1-1.1.2: new high speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[ 2.408404] input: Afatech DVB-T 2 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1.2/1-1.1.2:1.1/input/input3
[ 2.408462] generic-usb 0003:15A4:9016.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.01 Keyboard [Afatech DVB-T 2] on usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.1.2/input1
[ 2.408474] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[ 2.408475] usbhid: USB HID core driver
[ 7.517033] dvb-usb: found a 'Afatech AF9015 DVB-T USB2.0 stick' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[ 7.603311] input: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (045e:006d) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/rc/rc0/input4
[ 7.603358] rc0: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (045e:006d) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/rc/rc0
[ 7.604225] mceusb 2-1.4:1.0: Registered Microsoft Microsoft IR Transceiver on usb2:3
[ 7.604242] usbcore: registered new interface driver mceusb
[ 8.132400] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-af9015.fw'
[ 8.184617] rc rc0: lirc_dev: driver ir-lirc-codec (mceusb) registered at minor = 0
[ 8.199749] dvb-usb: found a 'Afatech AF9015 DVB-T USB2.0 stick' in warm state.
[ 8.199814] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[ 8.560385] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1.2/rc/rc1/input5
[ 8.560441] rc1: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1.2/rc/rc1
[ 8.560443] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 500 msecs.
[ 8.560446] dvb-usb: Afatech AF9015 DVB-T USB2.0 stick successfully initialized and connected.
[ 8.568933] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_af9015


I then went into the tvheadend interface and it allowed me to select "Afatech AF9013 DVB-T" (previously it was greyed out). I then selected the nearest mast to me and after the scan it found nothing
So I think the driver must be the wrong type (?)
By the way is that how the driver for the device is installed? Just download a firmware file to that folder?

I think drivers come in two parts - what's in the kernel or in the v4l subsystem, and then there's the firmware. So this says that you had the former, and added the latter.

If it shows up in tvh's interface, check two things:

1. That the adapter is enabled in the web interface (first check box) - it's easier to overlook than you'd realise

2. That the mux frequencies that were added are correct. There's a long-standing problem with out-of-date mux information in tvh's source, and it's quite likely that your channels have all been shuffled around onto different frequencies. It may be that the tuner can thus see these channels, but can't pull any digital signals from them if they're not actually correct carrier signals.

That looks like the right firmware, and kernel support has been there since 2.6.x for many implementations around this chip (http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Afatech_AF9015).

The driver and firmware seem to initialise fine. I have a af9015 tuner (leadtek winfast gold)and the driver for it became unusable somewhere around Ubuntu 10.04 and it sat in a draw for 2 years. I recently upgraded the antenna cabling to my back end (mythbuntu 12.04 with 3.8 kernel) and though I'd give them another go as I had read that the driver had a rewrite. With the v4l drivers from about 2weeks ago and the dvb dongle has been working flawlesssly through multiple suspend/resume cycles. A long winded way of saying upgrade your kernel and/or install the v4l drivers.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback.

this is my kernel:

xbmc@xbmc:~$ uname -r
3.0.0-32-generic-pae

Professor Yaffle I found websites which gives me the frequency, bandwidth etc. and added them manually so they should be right.

It's strange I don't see any enable checkbox in the tv adapter tab. I was following another guide and he mentioned that too. I only have the following options:

Adapter configuration

Adapter name: Afatech AF9013 DVB-T
Autodetect muxes: (TICKED)
Idle scanning: (TICKED)
Monitor signal quality: (UNTICKED)
Write full DVB MUX to disk: (UNTICKED)
NIT-o Network ID: 0

[SAVE BUTTON]

The aerial that comes with the usb is pretty small and flimsy- could it be that its not picking anything up at all? I might try it on my windows machine and see if I can get any receiption. if not i look forward to stamping on it and getting the PCTV-290e

I wouldn't trust a portable aerial , have you got a proper one you can test with? Also are there any error messages in dmesg after the adapted has been plugged in and the computer running for a while?

You are right not to trust the portable aerial. I installed it on my windows 7 laptop and it recognised the device straight away and installed the driver. I then did scan in windows media center and it found nothing. Im kinda glad as at least I know now it wasn't my settings in xbmc.
I ordered the Hauppauge usb stick now and hopefully it will let me use the main aerial cable somehow.
Thanks alot for the help with that and you might wanna avoid the forums in a few days when I try to get my new one working :p

edit: oh yeah. when I pulled it out of my laptop it gave a blue screen with a memory dump.....

Ah, it doesn't have a normal connector (I know that's not the right term), maybe look on eBay for an adapter?

If you need a search term the mini plug is mcx

p.s. I really don't like the af9015 as it get too darn hot better of with an ite it9135 based device (ite purchased/merged with afatech so it's a newer model).
just search for "mini dvb-t usb" on ebay almost all of the tiny dongles are it9135 based.