After months of struggling to get access to my PCTV DVB-S2 usb satellite dongle I managed to do it today, thanks to Phishfry.
Now to try and get TV working around the house via a FreeBSD satellite receiver.
For anyone attempting to do this the preliminary steps required before getting Tvheadend working are to install and run webcamd and then ensure it is working by checking the output from w_scan. Once w_scan is able to access your receiver you can start running Tvheadend. The first time it runs, it will configure the system and search for channels (muxes and services, in Tvheadend-speak) on your chosen network(s).
When started by running
The initial configuration consists of selecting default language, network type, and (if using DVB-S) pre-defined muxes from a list of satellites.
These lists are in /usr/local/share/dtv-scan-tables - not sure what installs this, but the problems I've been encountering may be due to outdated tables.... Tvheadend uses its own scan tables - not sure of the purpose of this.
On first scan a number of muxes and services are identified, but in my experience never the same number and never as many as my dedicated decoder finds. This scan seems to take forever and can end up with around 1700 services, but unfortunately for me most of the services I want to watch do not appear. Maybe there are some options available when doing an initial scan.
https://www.lyngsat.com/Eutelsat-Hot-Bird-13B-13C-13E.html appears to provide a definitive list of muxes on Hotbird (E13.0), but this differs slightly from the table provided by Tvheadend.
One annoying problem I have is that I can't figure out how to start from scratch....If I
Will have to leave things there and do some more testing.
If anyone has any advice on any of the points I've made I'd be very interested to hear it.
Now to try and get TV working around the house via a FreeBSD satellite receiver.
For anyone attempting to do this the preliminary steps required before getting Tvheadend working are to install and run webcamd and then ensure it is working by checking the output from w_scan. Once w_scan is able to access your receiver you can start running Tvheadend. The first time it runs, it will configure the system and search for channels (muxes and services, in Tvheadend-speak) on your chosen network(s).
When started by running
tvheadend you will be presented with a userid/password prompt. Not sure how these are set on FreeBSD, but to get round this you can run tvheadend --noacl which bypasses authentication.The initial configuration consists of selecting default language, network type, and (if using DVB-S) pre-defined muxes from a list of satellites.
These lists are in /usr/local/share/dtv-scan-tables - not sure what installs this, but the problems I've been encountering may be due to outdated tables.... Tvheadend uses its own scan tables - not sure of the purpose of this.
On first scan a number of muxes and services are identified, but in my experience never the same number and never as many as my dedicated decoder finds. This scan seems to take forever and can end up with around 1700 services, but unfortunately for me most of the services I want to watch do not appear. Maybe there are some options available when doing an initial scan.
https://www.lyngsat.com/Eutelsat-Hot-Bird-13B-13C-13E.html appears to provide a definitive list of muxes on Hotbird (E13.0), but this differs slightly from the table provided by Tvheadend.
One annoying problem I have is that I can't figure out how to start from scratch....If I
pkg delete tvheaded and remove the ~/hts directory and its contents, then reinstall, the option of creating a DVB-S Network does not appear, some tvheadend-related info must be retained somewhere but can't figure out where...Will have to leave things there and do some more testing.
If anyone has any advice on any of the points I've made I'd be very interested to hear it.
....