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EC168 BDA Digital Tuner


Robi!

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eBay is filled up now with thousands of USB DVB-T tuners on sale:

http://global.ebay.com/search?Query=dvb-t+usb

 

80% of these are based on a chip called EC168. Many notorious brands re-brand these and sell them under different names, like Genius TVGo DVB-T02Q MCE

 

They look similar to this:

USB_DVB_T_TV_tuner_recorder_stick_g.jpg

 

These cards work very well with DVBViewer, but with one common issue: DVBViewer shows picture only if the original app that came with the card is first opened, than closed.

There's a LED on the USB stick, which shows that the device has signal (if you unplug the antenna, the LED goes off, if you replug, it lights up again).

 

The symptoms are:

- start up the computer

- start DVBViewer, the device is detected, signal level shown, no picture, LED not lighting

- quit DVBViewer

- start the original app, LED lights up on the device

- quit the original app, LED goes off

- start DVBViewer, LED lights up, signal level shown, all OK!

 

After this, you can quit and start DVBViewer as many times you wish, it will work. The working state remains until the system reboots.

Edited by Robi!
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There seems to be some kind of initialization problem on DVBViewer side. I tried changing all the settings related to hardware in Options, but none helped. Strange is that the signal level is correctly shown!

It simply doesn't want to turn on unless I start first the original app that came on the Installation disk.

 

Please find attached two support.zips, one contains data from running DVBViewer right after reboot, before running the original app, the other contains data from running DVBViewer right after starting and exiting the orginal app:

support_before.zip

support_after.zip

 

Any idea how to fix this? I'm willing to help is you provide the tools.

 

I aslo provide, for your reference, the driver that came with the USB DVB-T stick CD-ROM.

EC168.zip

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Any idea how to fix this?

Sorry, no. The BDA initialization procedure is the same for all DVB-T devices, so it should work, except if it requires something vendor-specific, which can't be implemented without documentation, even if one of the DVBViewer developers had this "Sinovideo Dongle".

 

Are you sure that the issue isn't related to your system resp. PC?

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Are you sure that the issue isn't related to your system resp. PC?

I use a SkyStar HD2 in the very same PC, DVBViewer with that one works pretty fine (except for USALS rotation).

I think I could help if you can offer some tools, maybe some sniffing around looking at how the original sw works would help. C'mon, guys you're the developers. If you look deep around only in what Google gives, you'll see that Linux gurus managed to make it work, without even touching the original software.

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Are you sure that the issue isn't related to your system resp. PC?

I use a SkyStar HD2 in the very same PC, DVBViewer with that one works pretty fine

That's no proof.

 

C'mon, guys you're the developers.

But no magicians.

 

you'll see that Linux gurus managed to make it work, without even touching the original software.

That's a different matter. They make their own drivers. DVBViewer has to refer to the BDA interface or vendor specific BDA extensions - no documentation, no go.

 

Ask the Sinovideo guys to fix their BDA driver (instead of asking us to cure symptoms) or buy a better DVB-T stick without such drawbacks, not that cheap far-east stuff.

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Well thank you for that ironic answer.

 

I am terribly sorry for you and your attitude. I am a customer who bought your software, paid money for it. I also donated a 100% complete languge translation, and translated the OSD skin also 100%.

 

All I ask is normal support, not talking about attitude. I can see that the german forum is much more active, and perhaps you love more your german customers. I'm sorry but I can't speak german. Money and work coming from non-german sides shoould be as valuable as the german euro - I expect to get the same treatment for the same money - not talking about the work I contributed.

 

I'm not referring to this case now, I am referring to the many questions I asked around the forum, and all I got was ironic answers or no answers at all.

 

I start feeling that it's a pity I bought this software, because although it looks good and works pretty well, the support is terrible. Support for many other freeware / opensource tools is much better than the one offered here, for money. At least in the English section.

I'm also feeling a fool that I've contributed my work. Sorry to say that, but that's how it looks and feels now.

 

And I'm not the only one in this situation - I see lots of posts in the English section treated in a similar way.

Edited by Robi!
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I start feeling that it's a pity I bought this software,

Your complaints are going to the wrong direction. Regret that you bought that DVB-T stick. Obviously the driver is not fully BDA compliant.

 

Maybe you've saved some money, because it's cheap. But buying it turned out to be a mistake. Your mistake! The device has never been confirmed to be working with DVBViewer, in contrast to many other DVB-T sticks. Almost all of them work out of the box. And what do you do now? You want us to compensate for that mistake. With hours, maybe days of investigation and efforts, blocking other important projects. We had to buy that stick, try to make it work somehow with additional coding, contact the manufacturer, ask for documentation. write mails back and forth... we already had that several times. Mostly it comes down to pinpointing some driver bug and convincing some developer that it should be fixed.

 

So, what a mindless and egoistic approach from your side. You've payed 15 Euro for DVBViewer, and now you expect us to make it work with each and every crap that you buy? Forget it. Of course we will do something if there is an obvious way to make it work. But there isn't up to now. And we won't invest work worth some 100 Euros or more just because you wanted to save 5 Euros. You didn't even prove yet that it's a general problem and not caused by your setup.

 

Well thank you for that ironic answer.

Not ironic. Just plain truth. Try to be a bit more realistic.

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Bad attitude. Very bad.

 

Please don't change topic - I am and was referring to the general attitude of your support. This DVB-T stick problem of mine was just the last drop that made me write. But I see that you didn't even take the time to read around the froums, to see that there are hundreds of others like me, not complaining about not-working DVB-T tuners. But I guess you don't understand my words anyway...

 

Back to the original topic: I can contact the manufacturer. Maybe he'd help me. Maybe my problem would be fixed, and I'd be happy.

But no, I took the effort to write down my experience, share it with you, and ask you to look at it. Not because I'm lazy, but because I wanted your product to support this stick too. I see that you guys are a bit in the wrong direction. I'm a bit worried about it, because nowdays every teenager knows already that a bussiness success has just a couple of tips that need to be respected:

- the more devices supported, the more copies of DVBViewer sold, more money made. You should be grateful that I found a device out of the many which doesn't yet work, and you should be the first, to contact the manufacturer to see what's the problem. It's good for both bussinesses (yours and manufacturer's), not for me. I the manufacturer fixes my problem, you won't sell more. If it fixes it for you, you can make profit out of it... there are thousands outthere for sale, if only 10 people buy your software from them, your mentioned effort investment is 150% rewarded.

- the more better support, more money made. Most companies make most of the money because of good support. Like me, I'm in the bussiness for more than 10 years now, and I know, like you should: good support is the most easiest way to keep customers. You do exactly the opposite way - pushing away all the support requests, having the customer fix his problems by himself, not helping at all. Very bad, especially for a software which has been paid for. If it was free, you could write in the about box that "it must be used as is" - well, you took the money (doesn't matter how small amount), you're morally obliged to do the support.

- respect the customer and talk nice. This is the very basic, I'm not going to explain nice...

 

I repeat: I'm not talking about myself only. Look at these posts, which are not mine. How do you think these people feel, after they have paid for the software? Or do you think they will buy it, if the question was made before?

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=33855 (He asked... didn't get any answer, do you think he ever bought your software?)

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=33145 (I guess a 'Thank you' would have been nice on your side)

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=31908

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=34143

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=34035

And many more...

Edited by Robi!
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Just ask them to make their device BDA compliant and it will work. B) Nothing to do from the DVBViewer side, all fully BDA compliant DVB-T devices will work out of the box.

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Just ask them to make their device BDA compliant and it will work.

That's your job to do. In the end, you're the ones who want to sell more copies of DVBViewer to people having this device, not us.

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No it's not our job how do you come up with something so ridiculous? You are a customer of them, you bought hardware, which has obviously flaws in it's driver, you have to complain to them about this and ask them to fix it. B)

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Nope. If you read the posts with attention, you would notice that the original software, coming on the original CD with the device works perfectly, with the drivers from the same disk. Only DVBViewer has problems with it.

 

Many users like better DVBViewer than the original app - you can make money from them, only if you investigate and fix why DVBViewer doesn't work correctly while the original viewer does with the same drivers. This makes it less likely that it's a driver problem. Otherwise, people will either stick to the original app, or use some other DVB app, not yours. That's not what you want, isn't it?

Edited by Robi!
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Nope. If you read the posts with attention, you would notice that fully BDA compliant driver , coming with most device works perfectly, without any change in the DVBViewer.

Only some poor driver have problems.

 

And as you see the DVBViewer Developers are not interested in supporting such devices. This means if you like to use the DVBViewer don't by devices with poor driver.

 

I think to get benefit from the EC168 thy would need to make a special DVBViewer EC168 edition for 100€. But for this price you can through the EC168 in the trash and buy one with good drivers.

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Don't misunderstand me - I really don't care if your app supports or not this device.

If it would support it, it would be primarily your benefit, as you'd get more money. But it seems that money doesn't matter to the team - after all, that's good news.

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hmm I have one of these cheapo sinovideo EC168 from ebay and it works fine with DVBViewer. I don't have to start the application it came with first like you do. In fact, the application it came with doesn't even run, it crashes when I try to start it, (though it may just be because the software is incompatible with windows 7, not sure, but I did try it in xp/vista compatibility modes). :blush:

Edited by miss_mel
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hmm I have one of these cheapo sinovideo EC168 from ebay and it works fine with DVBViewer. I don't have to start the application it came with first like you do. In fact, the application it came with doesn't even run, it crashes when I try to start it, (though it may just be because the software is incompatible with windows 7, not sure, but I did try it in xp/vista compatibility modes). :blush:

Maybe you got better driver versions on the CD that came with it. Can you please zip the drivers from the CD, attach here, to share them with us to download? Maybe you can use rapidshare.de or something to share the entire CD.

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Maybe you got better driver versions on the CD that came with it. Can you please zip the drivers from the CD, attach here, to share them with us to download? Maybe you can use rapidshare.de or something to share the entire CD.

 

here you are:

an .iso of the CD

 

http://rapidshare.de/files/47422350/3420A.rar.html

 

I'm not sure which is actual driver file so if u tell me I will attach here.

here is list of all file on cd:

Name Size

 

AP

DirectX

BDA.cab 686 KB

BDANT.cab 1.10 MB

BDAXP.cab 953 KB

DirectX.cab 14.7 MB

DSETUP.dll 61.5 KB

dsetup32.dll 2.13 MB

dxinst.exe 52 KB

dxnt.cab 12.6 MB

dxsetup.exe 461 KB

ManagedDX.CAB 3.27 MB

Filter

ac3filter.ax 504 KB

dumppos.ax 124 KB

M71.ax 280 KB

mlcom.ax 716 KB

mpeg2dmx.ax 828 KB

Mpeg2Mux.ax 128 KB

mpgdec.ax 451 KB

MSVCP60.DLL 392 KB

Player

AVCapture.exe 832 KB

DetectTray.exe 140 KB

libteletext.dll 56 KB

libtextvd.dll 76 KB

mfc70.dll 0.97 MB

MFC71.DLL 1.01 MB

MFC71CHT.DLL 44 KB

MSVCP71.dll 488 KB

msvcr70.dll 332 KB

MSVCR71.dll 340 KB

pthreadVC2.dll 84 KB

teletext_filter.ax 160 KB

AVCaptureVista.exe 832 KB

data1.cab 958 KB

data1.hdr 32.7 KB

data2.cab 451 KB

engine32.cab 459 KB

layout.bin 1.10 KB

OnLineHelp-Eng.chm 1.54 MB

setup.exe 116 KB

setup.ibt 440 KB

setup.ini 572 bytes

setup.inx 215 KB

setup.isn 74.1 KB

Driver

program files

DVBT

EC168

DeviceChecker.exe 80 KB

Driver.ini 380 bytes

drvInst.exe 80 KB

drvInst.ini 950 bytes

drvInstX64.exe 93 KB

EC168BDA.bin 6.94 KB

ec168bda.cat 9.74 KB

EC168BDA.inf 6.24 KB

EC168BDA.sys 85.2 KB

EC168Hid.dat 104 bytes

EC168x64.sys 129 KB

EEPROM.bin 128 bytes

GetDXVer.exe 68 KB

HUCoInstaller.dll 4 KB

1028.mst 23.5 KB

1029.mst 32 KB

1031.mst 37 KB

1033.mst 3.50 KB

1034.mst 34.5 KB

1036.mst 36 KB

1040.mst 36.5 KB

1043.mst 36 KB

Autorun.inf 27 bytes

DVBT Driver.msi 3.52 MB

setup.exe 3.15 MB

autorun.inf 41 bytes

Setup.exe 1.23 MB

Edited by miss_mel
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I'm not sure which is actual driver file so if u tell me I will attach here.

The driver is located in the folder Driver\program files\DVBT\EC168

It looks similar to what I posted, I checked only the inf files, however.

But didn't test it under Windows 7.

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I installed the RC version of Windows 7 and I can confirm the following under Win7RC1:

- the original app crashes, cannot be used. The driver installs successfully though.

- DVBViewer works fine, starts up well on a certain channel of the DVB-T Multiplex

- After tuning into this channel, the other DVB-T channels work perfectly too

- I still think it's a DVBViewer issue. The fact that the device turns on only when selecting a certain channel, and remains functional afterwards, tends to confirm this.

 

The behaviour under WinXP is the same as I previously described, tuning into the same channel as under Win7, or any other channel doesn't turn on the device. Starting the original app fixes it.

 

I suspect one thing: the signal level is between 45% and 51% (even with external antenna). Maybe DVBViewer doesn't display picture, or builds the graph entirely until the signal level reaches a certain level? Can this threshold be lowered a bit? It seems that under Win7 tuning into a certain channel 'unlocks' this block.

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Maybe DVBViewer doesn't display picture, or builds the graph entirely until the signal level reaches a certain level?

No. Playback doesn't care about signal levels.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

i have dvb-t card name reddo and chip is same ec 168 and working very well with DVBViewer .my settings in hardware section is retune missing channel stream after 1 sec Untitled.png

Edited by inah
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i have dvb-t card name reddo and chip is same ec 168 and working very well with DVBViewer .my settings in hardware section is retune missing channel stream after 1 sec

And yes! That setting seems to work fine for me too, under Win7.

Thank you.

 

Still, I'd be interested in your drivers.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...
here you are:

an .iso of the CD

 

http://rapidshare.de/files/47422350/3420A.rar.html

 

I'm not sure which is actual driver file so if u tell me I will attach here.

here is list of all file on cd:

Name Size

 

AP

DirectX

BDA.cab 686 KB

BDANT.cab 1.10 MB

BDAXP.cab 953 KB

DirectX.cab 14.7 MB

DSETUP.dll 61.5 KB

dsetup32.dll 2.13 MB

dxinst.exe 52 KB

dxnt.cab 12.6 MB

dxsetup.exe 461 KB

ManagedDX.CAB 3.27 MB

Filter

ac3filter.ax 504 KB

dumppos.ax 124 KB

M71.ax 280 KB

mlcom.ax 716 KB

mpeg2dmx.ax 828 KB

Mpeg2Mux.ax 128 KB

mpgdec.ax 451 KB

MSVCP60.DLL 392 KB

Player

AVCapture.exe 832 KB

DetectTray.exe 140 KB

libteletext.dll 56 KB

libtextvd.dll 76 KB

mfc70.dll 0.97 MB

MFC71.DLL 1.01 MB

MFC71CHT.DLL 44 KB

MSVCP71.dll 488 KB

msvcr70.dll 332 KB

MSVCR71.dll 340 KB

pthreadVC2.dll 84 KB

teletext_filter.ax 160 KB

AVCaptureVista.exe 832 KB

data1.cab 958 KB

data1.hdr 32.7 KB

data2.cab 451 KB

engine32.cab 459 KB

layout.bin 1.10 KB

OnLineHelp-Eng.chm 1.54 MB

setup.exe 116 KB

setup.ibt 440 KB

setup.ini 572 bytes

setup.inx 215 KB

setup.isn 74.1 KB

Driver

program files

DVBT

EC168

DeviceChecker.exe 80 KB

Driver.ini 380 bytes

drvInst.exe 80 KB

drvInst.ini 950 bytes

drvInstX64.exe 93 KB

EC168BDA.bin 6.94 KB

ec168bda.cat 9.74 KB

EC168BDA.inf 6.24 KB

EC168BDA.sys 85.2 KB

EC168Hid.dat 104 bytes

EC168x64.sys 129 KB

EEPROM.bin 128 bytes

GetDXVer.exe 68 KB

HUCoInstaller.dll 4 KB

1028.mst 23.5 KB

1029.mst 32 KB

1031.mst 37 KB

1033.mst 3.50 KB

1034.mst 34.5 KB

1036.mst 36 KB

1040.mst 36.5 KB

1043.mst 36 KB

Autorun.inf 27 bytes

DVBT Driver.msi 3.52 MB

setup.exe 3.15 MB

autorun.inf 41 bytes

Setup.exe 1.23 MB

 

 

Please, can s.o. send me a new link for this CD, or on an email?

 

Thanks!

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