AVL680HD - DVB-T in Australia

[mikeoconecs]

Hi All,

I can confirm what David has reported with the AVL680HD.
Once I updated the USBEHCI.SYS in \os2\boot with Rudi's version, everything came together

Great software - very impressive!

Mike O'Connor

P.S. After clicking on the image icon how does one select the image to insert?

[Rudi]

P.S. After clicking on the image icon how does one select the image to insert?

You mean the picture area in the control panel ? That is the last "screenshot" you have taken.
With the arrows, you can browse through all the screenshots stored in your recording directory.
Note that this picture can also be dragged to the desktop (to create a shadow), to the shredder
(to delete it) or to a printer object.


BTW, do you have a picture of the remote control that comes with the AVL680HD ?
I guess that the remote will not work out of the box. But you might try to copy the file
32KEY.BIN or 44KEY.BIN (whatever better matches the count of buttons on your remote)
from the Windows driver to the directory where our AF9015.SYS is located. Then add the
name of that file to the CONFIG.SYS - line that loads the driver. I.e.:

DEVICE=C:\....\AF9015.SYS 32KEY.BIN

On next boot there should be a message "Loading IR table: 32KEY.BIN".

Maybe we are lucky and that does the trick... If not we have o dig a bit deeper.

[mikeoconecs]

P.S. After clicking on the image icon how does one select the image to insert?

You mean the picture area in the control panel ? That is the last "screenshot" you have taken.
With the arrows, you can browse through all the screenshots stored in your recording directory.
Note that this picture can also be dragged to the desktop (to create a shadow), to the shredder
(to delete it) or to a printer object.


BTW, do you have a picture of the remote control that comes with the AVL680HD ?
I guess that the remote will not work out of the box. But you might try to copy the file
32KEY.BIN or 44KEY.BIN (whatever better matches the count of buttons on your remote)
from the Windows driver to the directory where our AF9015.SYS is located. Then add the
name of that file to the CONFIG.SYS - line that loads the driver. I.e.:

DEVICE=C:\....\AF9015.SYS 32KEY.BIN

On next boot there should be a message "Loading IR table: 32KEY.BIN".

Maybe we are lucky and that does the trick... If not we have o dig a bit deeper.

Hi Rudi,

Actually, I don't have any problem with the snapshot feature in Emperoar - I was referring to attaching an image file here in the posting area using the "image" ICON on the toolbar above where I am composing - having now read right through the SMF Help screens - I see now in the examples that it is expecting to have a URL for the image file, not a local disk file.

I noticed looking through the listing of the files on the XP installation that there are a couple with AF9016 included!

As the listing is ~48KB (and I imagine that is larger than allowed to paste here), I have sent that to your PM address.
There are no filenames which include either 32 or 44 installed.

Also sent direct was a PMView shot of the illustration of the remote control and button functions from page 6 of the PDF manual off the CD for the device, which does have 32 buttons. There are no filenames which include either 32 or 44 installed.

It's a very slim unit - 85mm x 57 mm x 07mm thick - with a slide-out CR2025 battery hatch.

Of the scanned channels - none of the HD channels show up - all have a black window|fullscreen with just the station details and current and next program.

Running under XP ProSP3 they are "populated" - so not a problem with roof-mounted antenna signal, including two or three in Brisbane (120km away)

After running the device under XP when I went back into eCSV2RC6a, and used Emperoar, after an unknown length of time I was unable to access the Control Panel - it was showing in the XCenter, along with the Channel currently playing, and was not restored to the desktop using all known means. It showed up in the Task List, but tiling/cascading didn't resolve the problem. Killing the PID was the only way to shut it down.

Restarting Emperoar resulted in the Control Panel appearing on screen - but as soon as the video window opened (whether half or normal size - not maximized) it disappeared.

Has this problem surfaced previously - I haven't yet read through all posts on this forum - but slowly getting there.

Thanks for pursuing this for me.

Mike

[Rudi]

but as soon as the video window opened (whether half or normal size - not maximized) it disappeared.

Is it behind the video window ?  Did you enable "Docking windows" when the Control Panel was behind
the video window or on another virtual desktop ?

[mikeoconecs]

but as soon as the video window opened (whether half or normal size - not maximized) it disappeared.

Is it behind the video window ?  Did you enable "Docking windows" when the Control Panel was behind
the video window or on another virtual desktop ?

Hi Rudi,

Sorry for the delay in responding - I have been "recabling" the multiple connections from powered two-way splitter at the wall socket to two VCRs (Sony SLV-T2000 [SVHS + Hi8] and Betamax SL-C9E from circa 1981-82) and the Wega 29" flat-screen CRT-TV, the SD STB and the T43 (2669-B77) using the AVL680HD - had to get extra 6m and 2m RG6 antenna cables, connectors, and gender changers.

The control panel wasn't behind the video window - first thing I thought of - nor on any of the 10 virtual desktops - I even disabled xpager to be sure!

I solved the problem however (accidentally), as in the process of capturing the screen with PMView (PrintScrn activated) immediately after the control panel appeared just under the eComCenter (@ top of screen before the video window got populated), and with the PMView window overlaying the half-size video window, the control panel was only partially obscured, and I was able to drag it to just above the position where the video window.was obscured, where it remained on screen.

Closing PMView and Emperoar, and then reopening Emperoar resulted in normally expected behaviour
I repeated closing/opening Emperoar half a dozen times with the same results!

I just realised that I am missing all the PrimeTV channels from my list (it's supposed to be the local affiliate of the Seven Network) - I'll examine the channel frequencies as shown on my STB and see whether they are missing from the frequency data file in Emperoar. If I can get that done successfully I'll give you an updated list for Australia.

Remote control is working with all of the features I require - before I selected a favourites collection of TV channels, using the "F1" (Red) key, displayed the first 10 channels in my scanned list (defaults) over the video window, Pressing the "F2" (Green) key at that time displayed the next 10 channels, pressing the "F3" (Yellow on illustration - but really Khaki on remote) then showed the 5 remaining channels available. After I selected 10 favourite channels - that channel group was mapped to 1,2,3,...9,0 buttons, and the F2/F3 buttons do nothing. "F4" (blue) button has never done anything.

The four menu navigation buttons above the Fx keys, along with the ENTER button, and the Shutdown button on top right are Windows software-specific. Channel/Volume +/= buttons work as expected.& Mute toggles correctly.

The Rec/Stop buttons work as designed, and the Play button starts playing, but doesn't toggle through Pause as it supposedly does under Windows - but is of little consequence as the pause in Emperoar's control panel is much more convenient and faster!

The previous viewed channel button does toggle correctly! 

On my T43 (2660-B77) with 14" screen (1024 x 768 maximum) and ATI Radeon X300 video, viewing TV broadcast in Wide-screen mode - many here - Emperoar Full screen appears to be 1024 x 576 - ditto for playback after recording.

I notice in the Help that there is nothing shown larger than 720 x 576.

I'll try and get a reasonable photo of the actual remote with my phone and will send you that via PM, so you can include it with the functional remotes.

You can also update the list of USB-TV-tuners known to work well (for PAL B/G countries - e.g. Germany/Australia) as it is now performing far in excess of what I ever expected. The AV Labs model AVL680HD is definitely worthwhile for any OS/2 V4+ or eCS system! 


Regards,
Mike

[Rudi]

Sorry for the delay in responding

No problem. Actually, it puts less stress on me to find answers .

I was able to drag it to just above the position where the video window.was obscured, where it remained on screen.

Hmm, I don't really know what happend. Looks like the window positions (stored in the INI file) got messed up somehow.

I just realised that I am missing all the PrimeTV channels from my list.

If you know the frequencies, you might add them to "channels\regions.xml". I should not be too difficult to locate the "DVB-T / Australia" section, where they belong. If that works, please send me your modified file.

I'll try and get a reasonable photo of the actual remote with my phone and will send you that via PM, so you can include it with the functional remotes.

I don't think that is necessary. I guess I have the same remote here. Even though it came with a different stick. But thanks for the offer.

BTW, I think I will make a small change to the driver, so that AVL680 users don't have to specify the IR table file in CONFIG.SYS. The content of "32KEY.BIN" is already included in the driver. It's just not selected for your device...

On my T43 (2660-B77) with 14" screen (1024 x 768 maximum) and ATI Radeon X300 video, viewing TV broadcast in Wide-screen mode - many here - Emperoar Full screen appears to be 1024 x 576 - ditto for playback after recording.

Yes. Otherwise I had to cut off parts of the image, which I normally don't do. BTW, which video driver are you using ? The X300 should give excellent results using the latest SNAP 3.1.8. I would definitely suggest a 3.x SNAP, because that will allow ETV to use hardware overlay.

I notice in the Help that there is nothing shown larger than 720 x 576.

The help section you are referring to applies only to PVR cards, where it is possible to tell the hardware MPEG encoder on the card in which size to capture the video. In DVB, the
size is defined by the broadcaster. However, for full featured SD programs the transmitted picture size is usually 720x576 as well (PAL). It has to be stretched to the required aspect
ratio by the TV application. In the 16:9 case (anamorphic mode) this will be 1024 x 576. For 4:3 (or 16:9 letterboxed mode), it will be 768 x 576.

[Rudi]

If you know the frequencies, you might add them to "channels\regions.xml". I should not be too difficult to locate the "DVB-T / Australia" section, where they belong. If that works, please send me your modified file.

I think, i've found something on the net. Please locate the lines:

Code:

<TuningInfo Type="DVB-T" Inversion="OFF">
<Country Name="Australia">
<List Name="All Channels">
<CH N="6" F="177.5" B="7"/>
...

in "channels\regions.xml" and insert:

Code:

<CH N="21" F="480.5" B="7"/>
<CH N="22" F="487.5" B="7"/>
<CH N="23" F="494.5" B="7"/>
<CH N="24" F="501.5" B="7"/>
<CH N="25" F="508.5" B="7"/>
<CH N="26" F="515.5" B="7"/>

Save the file, start the app  and repeat the channel scan.

[mikeoconecs]

Hi Rudi,

Made those modifications - rescanned all - that generated 3 additional entries for the NBN network - turns out the quality was so poor that unusable. Still didn't bring up the 4 PRIME stations - 1 x HD, 3 x SD, which show up on the new HD STB (Sanyo TUHD1000 - up to 1080i). I'll pull out the frequencies etc. from there - I just wish there was a web-interface on these boxes that allowed access to that internal database - to copy and paste elsewhere!

Mike

(later) still collating the channel/station data here from the STB.

(FINISHED at last ) Rudi, I have sent you a html version of the Star Office 5.1A Spreadsheet I generated with all of the Network/Protocols/frequencies/audio/video data etc. to your company e-mail address, as way too large to post here!

For others' benefit, following is a JPG image I uploaded to Picasa which is a small extract from the spreadsheet to illustrate the categories of data I managed to get from my HD Set Top Box!