NextPVR Addon TV Signal Strength Not Working

[John808]

In Linux, I'm able to see the TV signal strength during LiveTV broadcasts with tvheadend PVR addon for XBMC. Signal/device details are included too.



Now, in Windows, there's no TV signal strength with the NextPVR addon for XBMC. For some reason, it even says Receiving device disabled and Device status disabled.



I have the Hauppauge WinTV HVR-950Q USB TV tuner, tuning into ATSC over the air broadcasts. In LiveTV -> Playback settings, I have checked "Show signal quality"

Has anybody gotten TV signal strength working in XBMC?

[sub]

NextPVR doesn't attempt to query this signal information. In Microsoft's wisdom, they added the ability to query the 'quality' and 'strength', but left the values returned up to the manufacturers, so unfortunately everyone returns different values ranges etc, with no way to automatically tell the range etc. (so effectively useless).

Unfortunately the BER and SNR values are only available under Windows using proprietary APIs that vary from chipset to chipset etc, requiring NDAs etc.

[John808]

sub, thanks, but there's got to be a way to query relative signal strength. Relative signal strength would be a standard value returned for all tuners. It's current signal compared to a full 5/5 signal. In Linux, the signal quality is displayed as a percentage, so that's probably how they're doing it by using relative signal strength. Current signal strength and full signal strength will be in the same units, whatever those units are. It's the ratio between the two that is useful.

[whurlston]

That's true but the problem (as sub mentioned) is that the range varies by manufacturer. For example, my HDHomeRun has a range of 0-100 for signal strength/quality while I have had another tuner that has a range of at least -32000 to 0 (don't remember which tuner). Without knowing the range for each manufacturer, it's impossible to calculate the ratio. Those ranges might be standard in Linux for all manufacturers but they are definitely not standard in Windows.

[Rogier21]

Hi whurlston, I came across the same issue. Would it maybe an idea to set the max value in the config? I use other programs that appear to query the max signal strength just fine (like PotPlayer).