Freecom DVB-T TV USB Stick

[lif]

I've happened to purchase Hanftek UMT-010 USB2 DVB-T stick. It should be compatible with Yakumo/Hama/etc/etc/etc similar products as they all share the same PCB and chipset (only different cover). Strange is that if driver setup hasn't run before putting stick into usb, it installs C&E DVB-T USB BDA drivers from windowsupdate, but can't run with these drivers and original software nor GBPVR. Problem is that these USB sticks are so called dumb devices and must load its firmware along with driver init (look for Linux 2.6.x kernel driver code!). But Microsoft's provided C&E BDA drivers are not aware to load stick's firmware, so if this stick is "warm" these BDA drivers might work, but if the stick is "cold" they are almost useless. Also to get rid of these MS drivers and use WDM ones requires deep windows registry hack! :-( Hama offers also BDA drivers for this device, but I couldn't get it working.

It seems that these little and cheap USB DVB-T sticks are coming very popular in Europe (major reason for this is it's size I guess). I might be here first or second one who complains about no GBPVR support for these devices (as there are not native BDA drivers for them), but I'm sure that I'm not the last one...

So, it should be extremely nice if:
*) there will be WDM support in GBPVR for DVB-T USB devices
or
*) someone could get general BDA drivers (.inf anf .reg hack needed) working with these devices and GBPVR

[sub]

I might be here first or second one who complains about no GBPVR support for these devices (as there are not native BDA drivers for them), but I'm sure that I'm not the last one...

Time for you to hassle the manufacturer to get them to supply BDA drivers. There will be no support for non-BDA DVB devices.

[djepi]

Looks like we won't have to wait too long for them... I just got this from Freecom support:

Hi,

Our developers are working on both 64bit and MediaCentre drivers for this.
Release estimates are approx 4 weeks at the moment.

[Dohnuts]

I just spotted this beta DBA driver over on the Yakumo site

http://www.yakumo.de/service/?pid=555&ai...=23&back=1

I'm about to try and make it work with my FreeCom DVB-T.

[Dohnuts]

OK, so I've edited the inf file and have successfully installed the BDA driver for my Freecom DVB-T.

Now I'm struggling trying to write the section in BDA.INI. I've got graphEdit running and can see lots of BDA filters but what do I do next?

[Dohnuts]

Well I've had some sucess. After some haphazard fiddling with the dba.ini file I've managed to get gbprv to communicate with the freecom device. I can scan the channels and I can hear the sound on them in the setup dialogue.

Whenever I try to view a channe gbpvr crashes, I assume this is due to a wrong setting in the ini file.

I'll keep reading and trying...

[Dohnuts]

Done. All I had to do was install an appropriate mux (show shifter).

[crock]

nice work,

could you elaborate on how exactly you did this.
I have a Freecom DVB-T usb stick, but I'm a complete noob on all this BDA stuff. I don't even understand what it means..

thanks,

[Dohnuts]

OK, here's how I did it.

NB: I've only tested this for about 20 minutes. There are likely to be areas where I have screwed up!

Step 1. Remove the old Freecom software and drivers (skip this step if it's not already installed)

Un-install the software from Control Panel

Go into c:\windows\inf and delete the files dtv*.inf and then look at the files that begin oem*.inf. You can double click these files and open them in notepad, If you look at the last few of these files you'll see that one of them refers to the Freecom dtv, delete that file (it was oem16.inf on my system).

Now go into Device Manager and choose View/Show hidden devices. Go down to the 'Sound, video and game controllers' section and delete the 'digital tv device'.

Now physically REMOVE the Freecom device!

Step 2. Download the BDA drivers

Download this file: http://www.yakumo.de/downloads/drivers/D....11.05.zip

Unzip the archive, inside there is another zip file called Yakumo_Quickstick_Treiber.zip - unzip this too.

Step 3. Install the driver

Plug the Freecom device back in, I would recommend that you use a different USB port, I had problems using the same one.

When promted for the driver, choose the option to select it's location manually and point to the 'Yakumo_Quickstick_Treiber' folder you created in step 2. Most of the drivers will be installed but you will recieve an error that it could not find one of the components - ignore this.

Unplug your Freecom wait 10 seconds then plug in back into the same USB port, it will now find the driver for the missing component and all should be well.

You can optionally install the YakumoTvViewer8.11.05 application at this point. It's worth installing as it allows to make sure your FreeCom device is working and it's actually much better than the original Freecom software.

Step 4. Setup gbpvr

Make sure you have a muxer installed, I downloaded and installed the free trial of showshifter: http://www.showshifter.com/download/index.htm

Add this section to the end of your bda.ini file [c:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\bda.ini]

Code:

[Freecom DVB]
TUNING_TYPE=DVB-T
FILTER_TUNER=Digital TV Receiver
FILTER_CAPTURE=Digital TV Device Capture
PIN_TUNER_IN=Input0
PIN_TUNER_OUT=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_IN=MPEG2 Transport
PIN_CAPTURE_OUT=MPEG2 Transport

Restart your PC and follow the setup instructions for gbpvr.

Notes

I havn't tested this very much at all.

I haven't tested the remote at all.

This page was very useful: http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FAQ/Codec#toc1

[crock]

thanks,

it looks like it's gonna work,
but how do I tune the channels?

De card doesn't show up on the tuning assistant