Martin,

Did you load the tuning space into the registry using the reg file on spectrum's site?

Good thought bd, but I doubt that's the problem because DigitalWatchBDA doesn't use the registry for the tuning space.

Martin S: Do you get any error messages in DigitalWatchBDA?

Martin,

Just adding to nate's question, are you in Australia?

Martin,

I have the same problem, the graph builds without any error, but it won't lock onto a frequency. It used to work. I think it has something to do with MCE, what OS are you using?

Yes, I am in Australia.

All DigitalWatchBDA gives me is the usual failed to lock channel error.

I have already added the registry settings so that can't be it...
I am using just the normal Windows XP.

I even tried reinstalling windows from scratch and that didn't seem to help either.

Spectrum - top job on these drivers.

Do you need anyone to build you a nicer webpage? maybe a bit of color and a nice runback listing of driver updates/fixes. something of this worth deserves it - gets us VisionPlus owners out of hot water too

out of interest - what are the drivers written in? C++?

Martin S: Do you have DirectX 9 installed? Not really sure if it makes a difference. i'm just guessing. It'll take a look at the code when i get home and see if i can make it display a more discriptive error message for you.

Yep, DirectX 9 is installed.

Martin,

What do you mean when you say 'similar thing' when trying with graphedit?

Do all the filters load ok?

I submit the tune request and nothing happens, and as a result the complete graph won't build.

Ok, just ignore me, it's working fine now.
I was setting the DVBInput on the wrong installation!!!

This doesn't explain why the other programs won't work but oh well...

Martin: If DigitalWatchBDA is working but nothing else is then it's likely that you don't have the tuning space registered.

The tuning space appears as it should in GraphEdit, I have added the tuning registry file many times and it doesn't seem to make a difference

I still have not found out exactly why the "freezing" is taking place. What I have seen is somewhat random - when a request for signal statistics is sent to the card, the card may not respond correctly. When it finally does after a number of retries the result appears that the signal has been lost. What YOU see is the last image (frozen) and very low signal-strength readings. You can get everything back to normal by tuning in to another frequency.

At the moment my driver ignores repeated requests to tune to the same frequency. When you submit a request to BDA to tune to a different program on the same frequency (EG, from Ten Digital to Ten HD) my driver gets a request to tune to the new frequency (which is exactly the same as the old). It also seems that the tune request gets sent to the driver more than once anyway - and MCE frequently tries to retune the signal as well. The problem is, with the Twinhan hardware, tuning to the same frequency will cause a glitch in the stream coming from the demodulator. For that reason, I always ignore a tune request for a frequency that is already locked.

Now I'm speculating here, but the problem that sometime happens when asking the card for signal statistics almost appears as if the card is resetting it's tuned frequency. Everything is otherwise normal except for the fact that it is no longer locked on to the frequency it was previously on. I don't know whether this is a fault in my code (I'm hoping so) but as there is no technical data on how the card works (I've gotten this far from reverse engineering and other peoples discoveries) I'm stuck with making little modifications and then trying to force the problem to occur in the hope that I've fixed it - and believe me it's a slow process.

So far I don't have a fix, but I've added a work around. If the signal statistics come back indicating that the signal is not present, I resubmit the last tune request to the hardware. This seems to get things going, though there is a glitch/gap in the streaming data of course.

I'm going to keep looking into this, but I'll release a new version with the work-around and the new bandwidth override option sometime tonight.

Meanwhile if anyone has technical details on the hardware that they'd like to share then please drop me a line.

Spectrum

Is that going to completely stuff up scanning for channels ? ie Instead of getting back bSignalLocked = false, its just going to keep retuning :-(

I have implemented this but have found bSignalLocked unreliable. So at the moment I just timeout on each frequency which makes it kind of slow.

No, scanning shouldn't change.

Spectrum

1.4.5.0 now available. http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~spectrum/drivers.zip

Work around for freezing problem. Also added override to force bandwidth, see ForceBandwidth in thbdatun.inf

Let me know how it goes.

Spectrum

Force bandwith seems to work!

Forgot to delete the ";" before the force bandwith option when i tried at first :oops:

Have some problems with DigitalWatch and WebSheduler right now (probably doing something wrong) but BDA sample and GraphEdit works just fine.

You made my day Spectrum

EDIT: DW works!
EDIT2: WS works!

1.4.5 Works for me - first version since the very first release that works on my desktop - dunno what happened in between, but wasn't prepared to re-install WinXP to try to find out.

BDA DigitalWatch runs well with it.

Will try WS soonish.

Thanks

BJ

I have tried the new BDA drivers with the BDA version of ShowShifter without any luck. I haven't tested the drivers in Graphedit yet though, and will give that a try.
I also used the force bandwidth option for 8 MHz here in Sweden but it didn't seem to work "out of the box" with ShowShifter.
But I'm quite new to the DTV market so it’s very possible I have missed something.
The scanning sequence also take like an hour to complete in ShowShifter which seem a bit over the top..

Have you created some sort of licence for these drivers. I definitely wouldn't want Twinhan ripping them off. At least then you could take it further if they decided to "borrow" the code...

- Rob

Huh? I'm just a programmer.

Spectrum

ie releasing it under the GPL or some other form of free licencing...

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

especially if you make the source available ?

- Rob

Strange.

I had the BDA driver working under XP Home except the Mhz range. Anyhow I reloaded the system with XP Professional and now it says there is a problem loading the BDA Capture Driver. It says:-

A service installation section in the INF is invalid.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

I get the same error attempting to install the latest version of the driver too.

will older versions install?

They sure do. I installed an earlier one, stopped the device, copied the latest files in place and started to get the new ones installed.

Will the old installer work with the new drivers?

or can the current driver files in the windowssystem32drivers folder be replaced with the new drivers, after all they have the same name as the old ones?

Any tips on how to install the latest drivers if you don't have an earlier version. Anyone?

Uninstall the DTV drivers (twin han)

Disconnect from the Internet (if router turn off or unplug)

Delete the "DTV...." files in
C:WINDOWSsystem32drivers

In the device manager do a refresh, the card will be found and prompt for drivers. choose location where spectrum drivers are.

Done.

Spectrum

I notice 1.4.5 are the latest. When i install these it still shows 1.4.4. Any idea or are they still labelled as 1.4.4?

I have installed them buy "choose location" and the .sys files copied to the system32drivers directory by windows device manager list as 1.4.5 on a properties listing, so they are the right ones being installed i guess (as i always delete these .sys files from this dir first, and windows copies the "choose location" ones into here on install).

I notice your .inf file also states 1.4.5. Hmmmm

Mine are labeled 1.4.5.0

Thats in the properties of the driver in device manager?

Anyone know of some other windows hiding place it may be restoring the drivers from?

Seems strange that it copies the version 1.4.5 from my download folder to the system32drivers . Would it still do this and use the 1.4.4 version? Would it not have to have the 1.4.4 version in that directory for them to be installed/working? Ahh stupid puters

Ah i just noticed when first choosing "properties" then under the driver tab it says 1.4.4, BUT if I then click driver details it shows the file used is the on in the above directory, and lists it as 1.4.5 version. hmmm

Well, not quite for me.
I also get this message when I try to load the Capture driver (1.4.5):-

A service installation section in the INF is invalid.

I've tried your sugestions but still no luck.

Any further suggestions?

Nope, no idea. Spectrum??

Is anybody having problems using the Spectrum DBA Drivers when decoding the Nine Network in Brisbane? When I test with Graph Edit I can tune the channel ok but i have no A/V. All other Networks work ok. I can decode some of the Nine's sub programs with BDA DW but BDA WS records nothing using the CLmux, TSmux seems to record ok.

I also had trouble installing the Spectrum BDA 1.4.5.0 Drivers initally. They finally installed when I copied the sys files directly into the system32/driver directory and forced windows to install the driver update from the inf file from the Spectrum Driver directory then reinstalled the drivers again.

Dan.

RE: Is anybody having problems using the Spectrum DBA Drivers.

Please ignore that request, have fixed the problem with the LongHorn Filter.

Thanks,
Dan

Thanks bear, copying the .sys files to system32drivers first did the trick.

Now I just have to get these filters to show up in graphedt.

BDA Receiver Component -> SpectrumTV BDA Capture Filter
BDA Source Filters -> SpectrumTV BDA Tuner Filter

Any ideas why they arn't being listed?

Jel quoted:
[QUOTE]Now I just have to get these filters to show up in graphedit.
BDA Receiver Component -> SpectrumTV BDA Capture Filter
BDA Source Filters -> SpectrumTV BDA Tuner Filter
Any ideas why they arn't being listed?
[/QUOTE]

Is it possible you dont have all the Microsoft bda TV Networking files installed & registered? If not done already, check out Spectrums url on how to install the components.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~spectrum/index.html
Also you may be interested in reading this thread.
http://robdvd.radfiles.net/viewtopic.php?t=441

Hope it helps. Dan[/QUOTE]

Thanks,

I've followed the steps on Spectrum's page and can see :
BDA Network Providers -> Microsoft DVBT Network Provider

It's just the other 2 that arn't showing up.

Have just done a fresh install of WindowsXP and the new version (1.4.5.0) does not install properly. Previous versions installed OK. Thbdatun is OK its thbdacap thats the problem. Copying the sys files to sytem32drivers first and then reinstalling does not help.

It appears from previous posts to this thread there is a problem in the inf of the latest drivers somewhere as others have found. Silly me has thrown all the previous versions out.

Can somebody please post an earlier version of the Spectrum BDA driver or perhaps just post the contents of thbdacap.inf to this thread, 1.4.4.0 or earlier.

thanks

1.4.4 thbdacap.inf


1.4.4 thbdatun.inf


1.4.5 thbdacap.inf


1.4.5 thbdatun.inf

Thanks JoeyBloggs, that worked a treat, drivers now installed correctly.

There seems to be some code missing from various sections of thbdacap.inf eg.

From 1.4.5.0
[MfgDeviceSection]
%DriverInstall.DeviceDesc%=DriverInstall,PCIVEN_109E&DEV_0878

From 1.4.4.0
[MfgDeviceSection]
%BdaCapture.DeviceDesc%=BdaCapture,,PCIVEN_109E&DEV_0878&SUBSYS_00011822,PCIVEN_109E&DEV_0878&SUBSYS_FC00270F&REV_11

Perhaps Spectrum can look at this when he returns.

Ciao

Thanks Guys,

I copied both the 1.4.4 inf and I can now generate a graph.

Sorry I haven't been around much. Yeah I stuffed up the hardware id's for no good reason (experimenting). Now I understand them a little better I'll fix it in the next release.

I'd also like to take a serious look at getting others involved in working on the driver code. Another pair of eyes would surely find some bugs. Anyone experienced in driver writing please PM me. I'd like to open-source this project soon.

And as for the new name, I thought "THDTV" would be appropriate.

Spectrum

I'd love to help, but have no idea, engrish even challenges me

As for the name, your current driver names ain't bad.

Perhaps SpectrumTH-DTV.

Leave your name in it for credit (u deserve it) and maybe add TH for identification. Don't put in twin han as they will be given credit to he uninformed.

Spectrum is just a screen name. If this is going to be O/S'd it needs a project name and will probably end up being hosted on SourceForge or the like. BTW what other repositories exist besides SourceForge?

Also does anyone understand licensing? Would the GPL be appropriate here?

Spectrum

What about BDADTV ?

I'd tend to think using VP would be better than TH because it refers more to the specific card that we're using rather than the company that produced it.

I had a look around back when i first released the DW source and didn't really find any other major ones. I didn't look all that hard though.

I wouldn't claim to be even remotely related to a lawyer, but yep, i think it would be appropriate. That's what DigitalWatch and WebScheduler have been released under.

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ explains them all

I think any of GPL, LGPL or MIT would be appropriate depending on your inclinations.

If you want to go GPL then consider LGPL which basically means they would have to GPL your driver code but can release closed source software using your code. ie the drivers. (This assumes that they want to modify the drivers in some way I quess ~)