NPVR + AF9015 USB tuner wont scan for channels

[fibreoptix]

The Generic term AF9015 refers to the chipset used in the USB tuner are produced by Afatech Technologies who have a website which list their generic driver for the AF9010 series
http://www.ite.com.tw/EN/products_more.a...6&ID=15,62

however they sold the chip to other manufacturers who sometimes use a modification to the design and hence use a slightly different driver ....

the generic series may work , or lock the system up , or sometimes work etc ....

for example my AF9015 is based on the TINYTWIN design and hence uses drivers from
http://www.digitalnow.com.au/downloads.html

and specifically
http://www.digitalnow.com.au/DNTV/TinyTw...s96031.zip for the series 1 and 2 USB tuners

and

http://www.digitalnow.com.au/DNTV/TTDriver9641.zip
for the series 3 tuners....

So we talk about AF9015 tuners but many different manufacturers use modified designs ... they all report to being AF9015 units to Windows " just read the ini files .... but the drivers vary in release number and are specific to the design and silicon release in use .....

even after finding the right one for your design and release it may not be as late as a version from another AF9015 maker ...
the TTDriver9641.zip release is the most recent I have found but it is not from ITE the silicon maker it is from TinyTwin

Even after getting it to work on your version of AF9015 DUAL or SINGLE USB stick
you still may find problems ... sub and the others here at GBPVR / NPVR may be able to help but my guess is that only a few run NPVR with AF9015 type USB DUAL or SINGLE tuners ..

In my case I still had to mess about to get NPVR to select the second tuner on the USB stick by installing DVBLinkServer.msi from DVBLinkTVSource.zip which messes about and installs dummy driver which I dont use but fixed the problem for me .....


If you are not using TTDriver9641.zip August 2010 then give it a try ... I will paste the files you asked for tomorrow ,,,, regards fibreoptix

[sub]

I've got piles and piles of tuners, but unfortunately none of these, so its not something I've ever tested.

Either way, NPVR treats all DVB-T devices the same way, and the others are working, so there must be something quirky about this device's drivers.

[fibreoptix]

Hi Sub

I agree it is not and has never been a NPVR issue it is the drivers ,, and the OS combination and how they are presented to NPVR ... the problem is ITE who make the chip have released a few versions of the device which along with different manufacturers versions using the chip and the fact that some are DUAL tuners and some are single tuners decreases the odds of getting a working drivers for you OS be it XP Vista or 7 ..... some users may say "but it works with the software that came with the USB dongle" and I can agree that mine did but didn't work with NPVR .... the original drivers can cause blue screen of death problems ... or lock the device until you pull the dongle out and reinstall or may just not tune when you try to tune the USB tuner from NPVR or any of the other symptoms users report....

Also some of the latest drivers need to be forced manually to be used by Windows ... and even then in my case I had to install some software from another vendor which overwrites some files in system32 which just happened to fix my tuner selection problems ... I just kept doing clean installs on my target PC then tried many different drivers ... pure trial an error .. not scientific .. but it fixed it ...eventually ... and the results could be repeated on my other 3 system from different manufacturers ... but I use NPVR with DUAL AF9015 type tuners 24/7/365 on 2-3 systems and I am happy .. no problems

[Reddwarf]

Iv installed a "WinFast Dongle Gold" AF9015 USB DVB-T tuner and set up a testrig for it. Channel scanning works flawless and the reception is food. However, if I do not restart the recording service after each recording or live-tv session I get "Unable to communicate with recording service".

The device runs driver version 10.6.22.1 from Leadtek, on W7 Ultimate x64.

[fibreoptix]

Using Win7 x64 with this driver others report problems where it works with media centre but they have problems
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/televi...gle-90956/

it may be a poorly written driver with x64 issue ? ok I know its a media portal report but it smells driverish ...

[fibreoptix]

I think a technical background may help on issues with the AF9015

AF9015 is the name given to the semiconductor IC used in tuners from a range of USB dongle based tuners made by a range of manufacturers ..
It is made by ITE in taiwan and while it provides a lot of functions it does not do everything that needs to make a USB tuner for DVB-T.
ITE provide a reference design and driver but manufactures do not have to follow it ....

It is found normally in 2 versions ... A Single tuner version and a dual tuner version .... these have different drivers but you may get some functionality if you load the wrong driver ....

Also the AF9015 chip is used in single tuner units often as One device (AF9015+AF9013)
and in dual tuners as Two identical devices (two AF9015)

you also need a tuner chip in the package or two and these come from other vendors
examples are :
TDA18218HK, MT2060, MT2061 and QT1010 among many
also there is firmware used within the device ......

So when a person says they have a AF9015 USB tuner we need to ask
SINGLE / DUAL which tuner which firmware and which manufacturer and which OS are you using

I quote from http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Afatech_AF9015
"Documentation for the AF901x family can be obtained from AFA (under NDA), but it is apparently confusing, as well as incomplete -- as there are a lot of areas that are undocumented"

Hence the term AF9015 should be change to "AF9015 type" tuner ..... because the tuner chips vary you can load a driver from almost any vendor and it talks to the USB control chip "the AF9015" but the tuner is not standardised so you get tuning problems
So we need to know the manufacturer and model number and version .....

As a result you need to look at the USB device you are using look for any manufacturer / serial number or release markings then get the latest driver to match your OS ...
The release numbers for drivers do not really have much meaning one vendors 10.x.x.x driver may be the same release date as another's 8.x.x.x release

Most manufacturers test their drivers and hardware against MCE or their own software so some NPVR specific issues may turn up but don't expect help from the dongle manufacturer ....

So to sum up ... get the wrong driver .. you find the device .. but tuning problems can be caused but the internal tuner chip being wrong for the driver .. or the internal firmware
As a result you can end up with tuning problems and locked tuners or worse ...

try reading http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Afatech_AF9015
YES I know its linux but it helps to understand the issues
the worst thing is if you load the wrong driver for your model it still shows up as ok under windows
If you look up the VID/PID (vendor/product ID) that the USB device is reporting we can start to compare drivers to model number ???

Hope that helps ?

[fibreoptix]

Just to help the picture attached is showing a single tuner AF9015 based unit "the smaller chip to the right .... the left hand chip is the tuner and can be from a number of manufacturers and a number of models / releases /// also you have firmware for the device ..... so without a lot of details you have problems getting the correct driver , that matches your os

[Reddwarf]

I'm using the driver that came with the device (on a small CD). I have not tested it with other software than npvr. It's no big deal for me, I just got it to see if I would have the same issue as many other reports.

BTW: The device has no manufacturers name or model number on it, it is just labeled "USB Dongle".

[jki]

I have tried original driver, updated original, generic, updated generic, few ohther brand driver and other pc they all work, another pc none of them work with Npvr.
Both pc's have XP with latest sp and they are approx same age, but different motherboard. Intel pros. and chipset in both (E6500 2,93G and E6700 3,2G).
Other major difference is, that pc, which don't want work, is with localised Windows (finnish).

[Reddwarf]

So maybe our conclution can be: Don't buy AF9015 based devices, they are proun to give you trouble.