Problems Passing Through Tuner Card to VM


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Noob here, I have set up an unRAID server mainly as a PVR, to host my SageTV server. Working so far.

But I need to run one of my tuners under Windows 7, it's a TBS 6205 for DVB-C. So I've been working on this for a day, and still struggling. It passes through but doesn't work.

 

Steps so far. lspci:

05:00.0 Multimedia controller: TBS Technologies DVB-S2 4 Tuner PCIe Card

lspci -n:

05:00.0 0480: 544d:6178

syslinux.config section (also attached):

label unRAID OS
  menu default
  kernel /bzimage
  append pcie_acs_override=downstream pci-stub.ids=544d:6178 vfio_iommu_type1.allow_unsafe_interrupts=1 initrd=/bzroot

VM Config section (also attached):

    <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>
      <driver name='vfio'/>
      <source>
        <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x05' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
      </source>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x06' function='0x0'/>
    </hostdev>

The VM starts, shows the card, driver installs (same version I use on physical machines), all looks fine but when I try to access the card I get errors. ProgDVB: "CScannerManager::CreateEnvironment tuner type error"; SageTV: "There was a capture error in playback. Details: ERROR (-4,0x80004002): There was an problem using the capture device. Please be sure you have the latest drivers installed for your capture device, and that they are installed correctly."

 

Any ideas? I'm attaching the SageTV log, syslinux and VM log and xml. Hopefully someone can help me get this working...

 

Rick

vmlog.txt

sagetv_0.txt

syslinux.cfg

vm.xml

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I've tried several tuners via a Windows 7 VM and gave up on all of them. Passing through the tuners was fine but it would always drop signal and packets and basically unusable. I've tried several PCI-E tuners and also USB based tuners and all of them exhibited the same issue. I tried Windows and 10.

 

What does seem to work fine though is a network tuner such as the HD Homerun Connect. I'm using that in conjunction with a Windows 7 VM running Mediaportal TV server and that's working great so far.

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1 minute ago, Rick Gillyon said:

I'm not sure there's any other way I can get my cable feed decrypted and into SageTV, I currently do it with a windows-only SageTV plugin. If I could figure out a way to do it without Windows I would!

 

A little bit more info would be nice. We might manage to find alternatives. 

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Just now, saarg said:

 

A little bit more info would be nice. We might manage to find alternatives. 

:) Sorry. UK cable TV (V1rgin Media) paid sub is scrambled, goes into TBS 6205 DVB-C. Current Windows 10 system uses SageTV and a SageTV plugin (DVB Decrypter) with OSCam and card sharing. I don't really want to move from SageTV.

 

Have set up this new unRAID system with SageTV Docker, running well for DVB-T with TBS 6284, but can't just add the TBS 6205 because it's scrambled and the OScam plugin is Windows-only. So my idea was to set up a VM with another SageTV Windows setup to use as a network encoder for my main unRAID one.

 

Another option would be to use other software with oscam in unRAID to provide a network encoder, but I haven't been able to work that out.

 

Anything else I can tell you?

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23 minutes ago, saarg said:

Well... We have an oscam and tvheadend docker ;-) Tvheadend can be a sat/IP server if SageTV supports it. 

I have not tried SageTV, but it needs a plugin to connect to oscam? 

Yeah, OSCam was never part of the program. So I could set up tvheadend with all tuners, send them via sat/IP to Sage (well, actually another Sage plugin)? It seems like a neater solution than non-working VMs anyway. I'll check it out.

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11 hours ago, saarg said:

If sagetv supports sat/IP, then sagetv will tell tvheadend which channel to tune. 

When you set tvheadend as the sat/IP source in sagetv it should get a channel list from tvheadend. 

No, SageTV doesn't support sat/IP, just tuners and a very limited implementation of network encoders.

 

I would be relying on a SageTV plugin in a docker to handle it, but I don't think it does. I think I'd have to set up a tuner/lineup in Sage for every channel. :o

We'll see if one of the plugin guys answers my question.

 

Loving tvheadend btw, don't even need oscam!

 

Update: All now working with tvheadend as back end to SageTV. Hopefully it's stable...  :) Thanks for the help!

Edited by Rick Gillyon
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