Great, after three weeks my new graphic card and the digital cable arrived from cyberport. Perfect timing, one day after I got rid of my TFT. At least I got the promised refund.

I’ve continued to play with the digital tv card, this time under linux. It took some time to get correct information about the necessary steps to get the newer hauppauge nova-t cards to run. Short recipe: You need kernel 2.6.9, and the dvb-t patch from bytesex.org. You don’t need a firmware image or anything else. Compile the kernel with the following options:

# Video Adapters
#
CONFIG_VIDEO_CX88=m
CONFIG_VIDEO_CX88_DVB=m

# DVB-T (terrestrial) frontends
#
CONFIG_DVB_CX22702=m

Configuring the card is a pure nightmare. You need to run the scan utility with a provided channel configuration file. I’ve spent hours figuring out, why the utility could not find the channels. Two things: the utiltiy is not very reliable (or the driver is not yet finished) and the channels file which I found was incorrect.

This file works:

# DVB-T NRW/Bonn
# T freq bw fec_hi fec_lo mod transmission-mode guard-interval hierarchy
T 514000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE
T 538000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE
T 650000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE
T 698000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE
T 826000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE
T 834000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM16 8k 1/4 NONE

If you use this file, you are able to create a tzap channels.conf file, which you can use with tzap or xine.

My channels.conf looks like this: (One line per channel)
RTL Television:538000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTE
RVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:337:338:16405
RTL2:538000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:H
IERARCHY_NONE:353:354:16406
Super RTL:538000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_
1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:433:434:16411
VOX:538000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HI
ERARCHY_NONE:545:546:16418
ZDF:514000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HI
ERARCHY_NONE:545:546:514
Info/3sat:514000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_
1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:561:562:515
Doku/KiKa:514000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_
1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:593:594:517
MDR Fernsehen:698000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTER
VAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4657:4658:100
NDR FS NDS:698000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL
_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4641:4642:129
SÜDWEST RP:698000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL
_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4673:4674:226
WDR Köln:698000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1
_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4625:4626:262
arte:826000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:H
IERARCHY_NONE:4385:4386:2
Phoenix:826000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_
4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4401:4402:3
EinsMuXx:826000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1
_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4417:4418:6
Das Erste:826000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_
1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4369:4370:256

If you use a recent version of xine, you can use this file to watch tv. Just click on the DVB button. You can switch channels with the playlist.

To be fair: Under linux, you are able to use an anlague card and the digital card simultaneously. If you use tvtime to watch tv, you can specify the video device with the -d option, e.g.: tvtime -d /dev/video1