Winfast and Realtek USB Tuners will not tune in Win10

[philb49]

Hi everyone,

The Win10 box is running 4.2.5 and I have 2 USB DVB-T tuners that will not tune in to my local stations, despite both working fine on NextPVR 3.X on a previous Win 10 box, drivers supplied by a colleague.

The tuners appear in Win device manager as Winfast DTV Dongle Dual Device and Realtek 2832U Device, working correctly it says, and in NextPVR 4.2.5 devices as Winfast DTV Dongle Dual Device 1&2 and Realtek DTV Filter.
I connect RF, device setup, select country and region AU/MEL, hit scan and both tuners fail to find any stations. I suspect it may be a driver issue, however these were to only drivers I could find, the old Win10 box long gone.

I'm tearing my hair out here (what little remains) as this compact box will not accept pci-e tunercards and usb tuners are the only option. If someone suggest alternative drivers or suggest a solution I'd be must grateful

Thanks

Phil

[philb49]

I just realised after posting that the diagnosis will probably require the log files. As the box is far from an antenna point at the moment for a rescan, I'll move it, re-try and post the logs tomorrow.

Thanks

Phil

[philb49]

Logs are attached I hope. Seems the Winfast usb device while scanning causes NPVR to crash. The Realtek failed to find and channels

What the...

Phil

[Graham]

Logs are attached I hope. Seems the Winfast usb device while scanning causes NPVR to crash. The Realtek failed to find and channels

Is there an error in the Windows Event Viewer at the time of the scan?

[mvallevand]

v4 is not longer supported with fixes but the important question would be to confirm that the software that comes with the tuner works. Typically users don't have this yet they expect NextPVR to work for them.

You are correct it is a driver issues and you will need to get BDA working for it to run. I know the Realtek 2832U can be tricky.

2020-08-27 16:27:18.670 [DEBUG][271] Using tuner: REALTEK DTV Filter (1)
2020-08-27 16:27:20.156 [DEBUG][271] No BDA capture filter for this device

2020-08-27 16:31:16.296 [DEBUG][270] Using tuner: WinFast DTV Dongle Dual Filter (1)
2020-08-27 16:31:16.374 [DEBUG][270] No BDA capture filter for this device

v5 wouldn't help either.

Martin

[sub]

2020-08-27 16:27:20.156 [DEBUG][271] No BDA capture filter for this device

This message doesn't necessarily indicate any problem. Some device just don't have a tuner+capture filter. Some just have a tuner filter. That is find if the rest of the graph hooks up.

In the logs, it looks like the WinFast DTV dongle has hooked up fine, and going through the motions for a scan, but in the few frequencies we saw it scan, it didn't manage to lock a signal. Make sure you're using a good antenna connection. Make sure it's scanning the right frequencies for your region.

The Realtek drivers are definitely having an issue:

2020-08-27 16:27:21.057 [DEBUG][271] Unexpected error on DVB-T put_TunerRequest: 0x8000FFFF

In the past lots of people had issues with Realtek devices. I seem to remember them needing old or specific versions of drivers for them to work.

[mvallevand]

2020-08-27 16:27:20.156 [DEBUG][271] No BDA capture filter for this device

This message doesn't necessarily indicate any problem. Some device just don't have a tuner+capture filter. Some just have a tuner filter. That is find if the rest of the graph hooks up.

Ok good to know I thought [00000000-0000-0000-0000000000000000]-00000000-00000000 was a problem for matching the capture filter.

Martin

[philb49]

I have sent the usb devices to a mate who has a variety of media centre / pvr setups and who lives in a different region. No doubt he will chime in if he has any success getting them to work.

Thanks for your assistance so far.

Phil

[jcjefferies]

I have both these tuners but they are  DVB-T only so I no longer use them. NextPVR only recognises the Winfast tuner as a single tuner with the Windows 10 driver but finds the expected channels. The Realtek tuner does not work with the 2010 drivers that Windows downloads which has been a long standing problem. Early RTL2832U tuners had a E4000  front end and I suspect the Windows driver is for this device. What you need is to download the latest driver "Realtek_820T_64.1.801.2012.zip"
This web page below explains the problem! 
http://dalvikplanet.blogspot.com/2017/03...t2-on.html
The Realtek tuner is actually a quite sensitive tuner because of the 820T front end but these days mainly used for SDR projects!

Chris