TBS 6281 not working in NextPVR

[jpsa]

Urghh... I'm having similar but slightly different problems with a TBS6281. I have it in an PCIe x1 slot, and NextPVR sees the tuners on the card, but scanning is funny.

If I scan its first tuner, NextPVR sees the channels on the first frequency scanned (Scan1.png), but nothing on any of the others. These get stored, and I can watch them.

If I then scan the first tuner again, NextPVR looks at first glance to be finding channels on each frequency, but on closer inspection these are all duplicates of the ones it already knows about (Scan2.png). Nothing end up being added to the channel list.

If I scan its second tuner, NextPVR finds nothing at all.

As per the OP, this doesn't seem to be a problem with the card, because its own (otherwise unusably bad) viewing application finds, and can watch, channels on all the frequencies.

Logs and a couple of screen shots attached -- any suggestions would be welcomed!

[Graham]

It appears as if the tuner is finding the same channels on more than one frequency. Are you doing an "All regions" scan? It may be that your aerial is picking up signals from two transmitters.

You might be better of creating an up-to date .ini file for your "correct" transmitter using info from ... http://www.ukfree.tv/maps/freeview ... double-click on your transmitter in the map.

Plus, my own preference is to scan on one tuner and then export the channel list and import that channel list for each other tuner.

[jpsa]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I am already doing a specific scan for the Sandy Heath transmitter, though, using a custom ini file I created (the supplied one is a little out of date). Using this ini file with an older BlackGold tuner works fine, and properly detects the right channels on all the multiplexes. I've attached the ini file I used, in case it's of interest.

You're right about NextPVR detecting the same channels each time on the TBS6281: so far as I can make out it detects exactly the same channels on every one of the 8 frequencies being scanned. It's almost as if the NextPVR scan is failing to persuade the tuner to change the frequency on which it's to listen. Does that sound possible?

[ I, too, usually scan on only one tuner and then copy the configuration to the others; I did a separate scan on the second tuner this time just to see what happened. ]

[Graham]

so far as I can make out it detects exactly the same channels on every one of the 8 frequencies being scanned. It's almost as if the NextPVR scan is failing to persuade the tuner to change the frequency on which it's to listen. Does that sound possible?

I have never of heard of it before ... but ... that is what the log is showing (now that I have looked again ... carefully). One for our New Zealand correspondent, perhaps.

[liteswap]

Yes, I've experienced this: I bought not one but two (poor fool me) TBS 6982 DVB-S2 twin tuner cards not because I wanted four tuners but because I believed the first one was faulty. When I plugged it into x4 or x8 slots it refused to work at all, no detection by BIOS, nothing. That was the same in not one but FOUR different motherboards, two of them made by Intel which, presumably, knows what it's doing when it comes to designing PCIe bus technology.

I'm currently having a heated debate with TBS's support team who seem to be terribly sorry that I'm experiencing all this trouble, and who knows what may come out of it.

Update: To be fair to TBS, I bellyached loud and long on the company's forums - which led to them offering to RMA my tuner card (rev v13) and swap it for a brand new version (mine was several versions old, who knows how long it had been hanging around in the channel). I now have a working card (rev v30) and am a happy bunny.

Moral of this particular story is that the latest rev is required for it to work properly.

[jpsa]

More information: the issue seems to be related to having two TV cards installed (both in PCIe x1 slots).

With both cards installed, the TBS 6281 exhibits the symptoms I reported in posts 11 & 13 to this thread, *and* the other (a BlackGold BGT3620) card's second tuner doesn't work. Either card installed on its own seems to work fine.

Ho, hum

[jpsa]

Oh... and one more thing. The TBS 6281 (even when installed alone) seems incapable of using both tuners at once without the video stuttering every few seconds. The old BGT3620 has no such problems. *Maybe* this individual unit is faulty, but I'm getting to the point of writing the TBS 6281 off as basically a piece of junk!

Intel DH55TC motherboard
Intel Core i3 560 processor
6GB RAM
Windows 7 64 bit
Latest TBS 6281 drivers downloaded from TBS web site

[liteswap]

I'm throwing a wild guess out here, but could the problem be related to the power supply? I've found all sorts of weird issues end up going away when I replace the PSU, simply because it's on the way out and can't cope with the load that new devices put on it. Just a thought.

[jpsa]

...but could the problem be related to the power supply?

Thanks for the thought, but I rather doubt it.... it's a 500W PSU in a machine with nothing power heavy. Notably, it's just using the processor/mobo's integrated graphics, and there's no separate graphics card. The machine also behaves reliably: no intermittent crashes, or anything like that.

I do wonder whether it's the 64 bit OS which might be causing trouble, even though TBS have 64 bit drivers.