1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3 Idea behind the dvb-usb-framework 4 ================================= 5 6 .. note:: 7 8 #) This documentation is outdated. Please check at the DVB wiki 9 at https://linuxtv.org/wiki for more updated info. 10 11 #) **deprecated:** Newer DVB USB drivers should use the dvb-usb-v2 framework. 12 13 In March 2005 I got the new Twinhan USB2.0 DVB-T device. They provided specs 14 and a firmware. 15 16 Quite keen I wanted to put the driver (with some quirks of course) into dibusb. 17 After reading some specs and doing some USB snooping, it realized, that the 18 dibusb-driver would be a complete mess afterwards. So I decided to do it in a 19 different way: With the help of a dvb-usb-framework. 20 21 The framework provides generic functions (mostly kernel API calls), such as: 22 23 - Transport Stream URB handling in conjunction with dvb-demux-feed-control 24 (bulk and isoc are supported) 25 - registering the device for the DVB-API 26 - registering an I2C-adapter if applicable 27 - remote-control/input-device handling 28 - firmware requesting and loading (currently just for the Cypress USB 29 controllers) 30 - other functions/methods which can be shared by several drivers (such as 31 functions for bulk-control-commands) 32 - TODO: a I2C-chunker. It creates device-specific chunks of register-accesses 33 depending on length of a register and the number of values that can be 34 multi-written and multi-read. 35 36 The source code of the particular DVB USB devices does just the communication 37 with the device via the bus. The connection between the DVB-API-functionality 38 is done via callbacks, assigned in a static device-description (struct 39 dvb_usb_device) each device-driver has to have. 40 41 For an example have a look in drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/vp7045*. 42 43 Objective is to migrate all the usb-devices (dibusb, cinergyT2, maybe the 44 ttusb; flexcop-usb already benefits from the generic flexcop-device) to use 45 the dvb-usb-lib. 46 47 TODO: dynamic enabling and disabling of the pid-filter in regard to number of 48 feeds requested. 49 50 Supported devices 51 ----------------- 52 53 See the LinuxTV DVB Wiki at https://linuxtv.org for a complete list of 54 cards/drivers/firmwares: 55 https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB_USB 56 57 0. History & News: 58 59 2005-06-30 60 61 - added support for WideView WT-220U (Thanks to Steve Chang) 62 63 2005-05-30 64 65 - added basic isochronous support to the dvb-usb-framework 66 - added support for Conexant Hybrid reference design and Nebula 67 DigiTV USB 68 69 2005-04-17 70 71 - all dibusb devices ported to make use of the dvb-usb-framework 72 73 2005-04-02 74 75 - re-enabled and improved remote control code. 76 77 2005-03-31 78 79 - ported the Yakumo/Hama/Typhoon DVB-T USB2.0 device to dvb-usb. 80 81 2005-03-30 82 83 - first commit of the dvb-usb-module based on the dibusb-source. 84 First device is a new driver for the 85 TwinhanDTV Alpha / MagicBox II USB2.0-only DVB-T device. 86 - (change from dvb-dibusb to dvb-usb) 87 88 2005-03-28 89 90 - added support for the AVerMedia AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 device 91 (Thanks to Glen Harris and Jiun-Kuei Jung, AVerMedia) 92 93 2005-03-14 94 95 - added support for the Typhoon/Yakumo/HAMA DVB-T mobile USB2.0 96 97 2005-02-11 98 99 - added support for the KWorld/ADSTech Instant DVB-T USB2.0. 100 Thanks a lot to Joachim von Caron 101 102 2005-02-02 103 - added support for the Hauppauge Win-TV Nova-T USB2 104 105 2005-01-31 106 - distorted streaming is gone for USB1.1 devices 107 108 2005-01-13 109 110 - moved the mirrored pid_filter_table back to dvb-dibusb 111 first almost working version for HanfTek UMT-010 112 found out, that Yakumo/HAMA/Typhoon are predecessors of the HanfTek UMT-010 113 114 2005-01-10 115 116 - refactoring completed, now everything is very delightful 117 118 - tuner quirks for some weird devices (Artec T1 AN2235 device has sometimes a 119 Panasonic Tuner assembled). Tunerprobing implemented. 120 Thanks a lot to Gunnar Wittich. 121 122 2004-12-29 123 124 - after several days of struggling around bug of no returning URBs fixed. 125 126 2004-12-26 127 128 - refactored the dibusb-driver, split into separate files 129 - i2c-probing enabled 130 131 2004-12-06 132 133 - possibility for demod i2c-address probing 134 - new usb IDs (Compro, Artec) 135 136 2004-11-23 137 138 - merged changes from DiB3000MC_ver2.1 139 - revised the debugging 140 - possibility to deliver the complete TS for USB2.0 141 142 2004-11-21 143 144 - first working version of the dib3000mc/p frontend driver. 145 146 2004-11-12 147 148 - added additional remote control keys. Thanks to Uwe Hanke. 149 150 2004-11-07 151 152 - added remote control support. Thanks to David Matthews. 153 154 2004-11-05 155 156 - added support for a new devices (Grandtec/Avermedia/Artec) 157 - merged my changes (for dib3000mb/dibusb) to the FE_REFACTORING, because it became HEAD 158 - moved transfer control (pid filter, fifo control) from usb driver to frontend, it seems 159 better settled there (added xfer_ops-struct) 160 - created a common files for frontends (mc/p/mb) 161 162 2004-09-28 163 164 - added support for a new device (Unknown, vendor ID is Hyper-Paltek) 165 166 2004-09-20 167 168 - added support for a new device (Compro DVB-U2000), thanks 169 to Amaury Demol for reporting 170 - changed usb TS transfer method (several urbs, stopping transfer 171 before setting a new pid) 172 173 2004-09-13 174 175 - added support for a new device (Artec T1 USB TVBOX), thanks 176 to Christian Motschke for reporting 177 178 2004-09-05 179 180 - released the dibusb device and dib3000mb-frontend driver 181 (old news for vp7041.c) 182 183 2004-07-15 184 185 - found out, by accident, that the device has a TUA6010XS for PLL 186 187 2004-07-12 188 189 - figured out, that the driver should also work with the 190 CTS Portable (Chinese Television System) 191 192 2004-07-08 193 194 - firmware-extraction-2.422-problem solved, driver is now working 195 properly with firmware extracted from 2.422 196 - #if for 2.6.4 (dvb), compile issue 197 - changed firmware handling, see vp7041.txt sec 1.1 198 199 2004-07-02 200 201 - some tuner modifications, v0.1, cleanups, first public 202 203 2004-06-28 204 205 - now using the dvb_dmx_swfilter_packets, everything runs fine now 206 207 2004-06-27 208 209 - able to watch and switching channels (pre-alpha) 210 - no section filtering yet 211 212 2004-06-06 213 214 - first TS received, but kernel oops :/ 215 216 2004-05-14 217 218 - firmware loader is working 219 220 2004-05-11 221 222 - start writing the driver 223 224 How to use? 225 ----------- 226 227 Firmware 228 ~~~~~~~~ 229 230 Most of the USB drivers need to download a firmware to the device before start 231 working. 232 233 Have a look at the Wikipage for the DVB-USB-drivers to find out, which firmware 234 you need for your device: 235 236 https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB_USB 237 238 Compiling 239 ~~~~~~~~~ 240 241 Since the driver is in the linux kernel, activating the driver in 242 your favorite config-environment should sufficient. I recommend 243 to compile the driver as module. Hotplug does the rest. 244 245 If you use dvb-kernel enter the build-2.6 directory run 'make' and 'insmod.sh 246 load' afterwards. 247 248 Loading the drivers 249 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 250 251 Hotplug is able to load the driver, when it is needed (because you plugged 252 in the device). 253 254 If you want to enable debug output, you have to load the driver manually and 255 from within the dvb-kernel cvs repository. 256 257 first have a look, which debug level are available: 258 259 .. code-block:: none 260 261 # modinfo dvb-usb 262 # modinfo dvb-usb-vp7045 263 264 etc. 265 266 .. code-block:: none 267 268 modprobe dvb-usb debug=<level> 269 modprobe dvb-usb-vp7045 debug=<level> 270 etc. 271 272 should do the trick. 273 274 When the driver is loaded successfully, the firmware file was in 275 the right place and the device is connected, the "Power"-LED should be 276 turned on. 277 278 At this point you should be able to start a dvb-capable application. I'm use 279 (t|s)zap, mplayer and dvbscan to test the basics. VDR-xine provides the 280 long-term test scenario. 281 282 Known problems and bugs 283 ----------------------- 284 285 - Don't remove the USB device while running an DVB application, your system 286 will go crazy or die most likely. 287 288 Adding support for devices 289 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 290 291 TODO 292 293 USB1.1 Bandwidth limitation 294 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 295 296 A lot of the currently supported devices are USB1.1 and thus they have a 297 maximum bandwidth of about 5-6 MBit/s when connected to a USB2.0 hub. 298 This is not enough for receiving the complete transport stream of a 299 DVB-T channel (which is about 16 MBit/s). Normally this is not a 300 problem, if you only want to watch TV (this does not apply for HDTV), 301 but watching a channel while recording another channel on the same 302 frequency simply does not work very well. This applies to all USB1.1 303 DVB-T devices, not just the dvb-usb-devices) 304 305 The bug, where the TS is distorted by a heavy usage of the device is gone 306 definitely. All dvb-usb-devices I was using (Twinhan, Kworld, DiBcom) are 307 working like charm now with VDR. Sometimes I even was able to record a channel 308 and watch another one. 309 310 Comments 311 ~~~~~~~~ 312 313 Patches, comments and suggestions are very very welcome. 314 315 3. Acknowledgements 316 ------------------- 317 318 Amaury Demol (Amaury.Demol@parrot.com) and Francois Kanounnikoff from DiBcom for 319 providing specs, code and help, on which the dvb-dibusb, dib3000mb and 320 dib3000mc are based. 321 322 David Matthews for identifying a new device type (Artec T1 with AN2235) 323 and for extending dibusb with remote control event handling. Thank you. 324 325 Alex Woods for frequently answering question about usb and dvb 326 stuff, a big thank you. 327 328 Bernd Wagner for helping with huge bug reports and discussions. 329 330 Gunnar Wittich and Joachim von Caron for their trust for providing 331 root-shells on their machines to implement support for new devices. 332 333 Allan Third and Michael Hutchinson for their help to write the Nebula 334 digitv-driver. 335 336 Glen Harris for bringing up, that there is a new dibusb-device and Jiun-Kuei 337 Jung from AVerMedia who kindly provided a special firmware to get the device 338 up and running in Linux. 339 340 Jennifer Chen, Jeff and Jack from Twinhan for kindly supporting by 341 writing the vp7045-driver. 342 343 Steve Chang from WideView for providing information for new devices and 344 firmware files. 345 346 Michael Paxton for submitting remote control keymaps. 347 348 Some guys on the linux-dvb mailing list for encouraging me. 349 350 Peter Schildmann >peter.schildmann-nospam-at-web.de< for his 351 user-level firmware loader, which saves a lot of time 352 (when writing the vp7041 driver) 353 354 Ulf Hermenau for helping me out with traditional chinese. 355 356 André Smoktun and Christian Frömmel for supporting me with 357 hardware and listening to my problems very patiently.
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