TBS 6981 Discontinuity

[mich111]

Hi all, I've just purchased a TBS 6981 which I'm trying to setup on Skygrabber v2.9.3. Just for some history I have a Compro s350 that I normally use on Skygrabber and it works great and I rarely get any discontinuity. Now when I try to receive the same transponder with the TBS 6981, Skygrabber will run perfectly and start grabbing for about 5-10 seconds then Discontinuity starts occuring rapidly. I've also tried running with one pid only but the same problem occurs. The transponder i'm using is on c-band, if I experiment with transponders on KU band I have no problems with the discontinuity. Does anyone have any idea of what I can do to fix the problem.

EDIT :- I'm also running the latest drivers but I also tried the ones from the install disc. I've also tried on two different computers both windows 7 on 64bit the other 32bit

Cheers Mich111

[cody]

i believe that your C-band signal is just not strong enough, because the problem happens with C-band, but it's not there with KU-band and it's expected that C-band signal is weaker than KU-band. please, tell me how many percents are reported as signal quality by TBS 6981 with recent drivers like version 2.0.0.14 and the exact C-band signal parameters. however, i don't believe that Compro s350 is more sensitive and so maybe it's something else like that TBS 6981 doesn't "like" your C-band LNB stability - DVB-S2 cards are more picky about the LNB stability than DVB-S card like Compro s350.

[mich111]

Hi Cody, The frequency is 3780 V 26666 the TBS shows a signal around 79-82% whilst the quality sits normally at about 79%. On the KU test the signal was 85% and the signal quality was 83%. The Compro is about the same level.

What is strange and I don't understand is when you first start skygraber it works fine for a short time. then the errors occur rapidly. On the start of skygrabber it shows the data rate at about 3mbs then when the fault occurs the data rate drops to less than 0.5mbs.


Forgot to mention i've tried 3 different C-band LNB and the transmission is only a DVB-S.


Mich111

[mich111]

I got the problem fixed I found and used drivers version 2.0.0.2 and now I can use Skygrabber 2.9.3 on c-band transponders.



Regards

Mich111

[cody]

I got the problem fixed I found and used drivers version 2.0.0.2 and now I can use Skygrabber 2.9.3 on c-band transponders.

thanks for sharing this, but it's very strange - i will investigate further with tracking down the differences between 2.0.0.2 and newer 2.0.0.x versions - they are pretty small, which makes it even more strange for me, because all 2.x version drivers have the same data transfer and only some changes regarding the tuner are made. so, what is strange is that after lock is acquired only data transfer code is executed and tuner code is no longer running or in other words all 2.x version drivers should perform the same after the signal is locked. which exactly driver version you use before 2.0.0.2? are your sure you didn't change something else and indeed going to driver version 2.0.0.2 solved the problem?

[mich111]

Hi Cody, I've been doing some more testing. I formatted this computer and reinstalled Win 7 64bit. I used drivers 2.0.0.2 and the card has no problems with Cband transmission's.

I then gradually installed newer versions of the drivers up to current and they all caused the discontinuity problem. So it looks like the 2.0.0.2 version is the only one that works sort of.

On a different note If I am receiving a transmission on one input A or B with any program ie Progdvb Skygrabber or TBS own programs it receives ok but if you access the second tuner input whilst the first input is being used it shuts down the first tuner. The only way you can get both tuners to receive is to access them both at the same time. also noticed the card comes up in Device manager only once couldthisbe the problem ?


Cheers

Mick111

[cody]

hi Mick,

it appears as only one device in the Device Manager and so that is correct and not the problem. i want to prepare some test driver for you - i mean we need to understand what in version 2.0.0.2 makes the difference. also, i guess the problem with second tuner is just one of the bugs in version 2.0.0.2 that is resolved in the newer version, because in the newer versions there are numerous improvement for better dual tuner performance. so, please, if i don't contact you in the next 2 weeks with some new test driver versions, remind me, because i'm currently working on finishing another project.

thank you,
cody

[mich111]

Hi Cody, I'll keep playing around with different drivers and will post what I find out. Thanks again for looking into this for me.




Mich111