Tips

As Uganda prepares to migrate to digital TV broadcasts in 2012, I have been testing some of the pilot broadcasts out there. I’m using Linux i.e. Fedora 12 – Kernel version: 2.6.32.21-168.fc12.i686 and an off-the shelf USB Hauppauge WinTV MiniStick.

– The first major task is to get the DVB-T USB stick to be recognized.
– Open the terminal: run the command ‘tail -f /var/log/messages’

The first time you insert the USB Stick. It will not be recognized out of the box as shown in the following errors:

firmware: requesting sms1xxx-hcw-55xxx-dvbt-02.fw
firmware.sh[4212]: Cannot find firmware file ‘sms1xxx-hcw-55xxx-dvbt-02.fw

– Remove WinTV USB stick

– cd /lib/firmware/

– wget -c http://www.steventoth.net/linux/sms1xxx/sms1xxx-hcw-55xxx-dvbt-02.fw

– Plug in Stick again

– This time it is recognized and you’ll see the following in the log:

kernel: DVB: registering new adapter (Hauppauge WinTV MiniStick)
kernel: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Siano Mobile Digital MDTV Receiver)…

– OK, time to scan for some channels. I have whipped up a quick and dirty script that will allow you to scan for free view channels in your area.

– Download the script at: My DVB-T Scan Script
NOTE: For this script you need to first install w_scan utility i.e. In Fedora, yum -vy install w_scan

– Run the script i.e. sh vb_scan_ug.sh (You may need to first make it executable – chmod 755 vb_scan_ug.sh)

– After a successful run, the script will place your channels file to the appropriate location.

– Time to play. Open your favorite media application. I am using xine.
Run the command: xine dvb:// (You can also use the GUI – click on DVB)

Enjoy

Its been a while, but as always, am back with a linux tip especially for all users who are served by Orange telecommunication company. Here in Uganda, Orange recently started selling these USB 3G Modems from Huawei. These E1752 models are not automatically detected in stock linux distributions such Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.

The Fix is simple.

1.Make sure you install the packages for usb_modeswitch. In Fedora, at the command prompt type:
yum -vy install usb_modeswitch

2.Finally append the following text to: /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf
###################
## Huawei E1752 #
###################

DefaultVendor= 0x12d1
DefaultProduct= 0x1446

TargetVendor= 0x12d1
TargetProdct= 0x1001

MessageEndpoint= 0x01

MessageContent=
“55534243000000000000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000”

3.That’s it! Next time you plug that little thing in any usb port, it will detect it as a modem. Then you can proceed to setup your connection using your favorite tool. In Fedora, I use Network Manager

During setup and configuration of the AExBox, a multimedia home entertainment and Automation box, I ran across an issue where no sound was emitted from an SAA7134 chipset based card in linux.

The solution is simple.

Use a either radio or fm (part of the fmtools package) to tune the card. For example, ‘fm -q -d /dev/radioX’ -T forever 94.8 65535′. Then using the command line, run ‘aplay /dev/dspX’ where X is the SAA7134 device no. of the tuner card. You can script this process for convenience.

Hope this helps you all home media center enthusiasts out there.