Terratec T/C USb Stick no cable channels found

[Adrian_]

 Hello

I'm trying to get this particular stick  https://www.terratec.de/details.php?artnr=160649&lang=en to work with DVBViewer  but no luck so far, no channels are found on cable. When scanning for hardware the tuner defaults to T but C can be selected from the hardware menu and it attempts to scan but no result. Signal is very good (tested with another tuner)

 

 From the hardware.xml the identification string looks like this  <section name="@device:pnp:\\?\usb#vid_0ccd&amp;pid_5103&amp;mi_00#6&amp;202e60e9&amp;0&amp;0000#{71985f48-1ca1-11d3-9cc8-00c04f7971e0}\{9d4afc32-0f42-45d9-b590-af9295699871}">

 

 Also tried the Terratec edition of DVBViewer  (8.4.1)  but with the same result  (configuration file there is hardware.ini

 

Any idea what should I try?

[Griga]

Two years ago a German user already tried to make a CINERGY T/C Stick work with DVB-C, but to no avail (see here). I couldn't find information about how it is supposed to work either. All we know is that the stick is based on a Realtek RTL2832U chip. A forum search for RTL2832U yields some results, so maybe there is a hint somewhere what can be tried.

 

Sorry, no better news...

[Adrian_]

Thanks Griga, but shouldn't the 2020  Terratec version of the DVBViewer software be able to fully use this device?  Isn't perhaps possible for the team to contact Terratec about the right driver for this device, so both it's tuners  can be recognized by the software?

[Griga]

All that is left from the former Terratec company is the name under which certain far-east DVB devices are sold. It's a pure reseller. There is no technical staff anymore that we could contact. One would need to investigate the original manufacturer and ask for drivers.

 

Almost all European (or western) manufacturers of DVB devices are gone (except Digital Devices and Hauppauge, that are still developing their own drivers), because customers believed that it is clever to buy the cheaper far-east stuff. However, you always pay the full price, in one way or the other...

 

[Adrian_]

Well, it may have been the other way around,  the manufacturers moving the production to the far East in order to increase profit only to see the customers purchasing the cheap copies made in the same factories as the originals. It's one of those "what was first, the chicken or the egg" dilemmas. I was asking only because the Terratec version of DVBViewer said it's from 2020  so I supposed some sort of communication with them still existed.

 

 Anyway, I opened the box (was really easy without breaking the case) and  the chips are RTL2832P and RTL2840. The problem appears to be that Terratec supplied the wrong driver.  I found a driver for a RTL2832U+RTL2840 but it doesn't work (of course).

 Do you happen to know of another USB combo stick based on this particular combo? (RTL2832P+RTL2840).

Edited July 3, 2020 by Adrian_

[bccrew]

13 hours ago, Griga said:

Almost all European (or western) manufacturers of DVB devices are gone (except Digital Devices and Hauppauge, that are still developing their own drivers), because customers believed that it is clever to buy the cheaper far-east stuff. However, you always pay the full price, in one way or the other...

 

Don't forget Sundtek

[Adrian_]

Well, after a rather hefty amount of fiddling with all sorts of Realtek drivers that I managed to dug from the remotest corners of the Internet, the damn thing got recognized fully by the Terratec drivers (with the DVB-C component). That only happens in the ArcSoft software supplied on the cd but it was enough to find 7 channels in this otherwise crappy soft.

 Sadly this didn't got things going in DVBViewer.  The Terratec version clearly tries to tune (unlike how it behaved so far) but it still finds no channels.

 

To make things worse I cannot so far replicate on another computer the process that made the device to be fully recognized by the ArcSoft software. I suppose it is a certain sequence of installing the drivers and the software. If someone from the DVBViewer team wants to help I'm sure we can figure it out, at this point it is clear that the device works as intended with the right driver and software.

[Adrian_]

At the end of the day (if anyone cares): if you install the driver (on the CD or from the Terratec page) THEN reboot the computer THEN  plug in the stick to be fully recognized you will get it to work in Arcsoft  (you will be able to select the DVB-C tuner on the setup page).

 

 How to make it work in DVBViewer remains a mistery (even tried to have Arcsoft started but  inactive and minimized while tuning with DVBViewer) but still got no results. IMO the matter is that the device is not added to the hardware database of the software so the DVBViewer (Terratec edition ? ) is unable to tune the DVB-C component.

 

 Apparently no one cares anyway.