[pvrusb2] Looking for "dvb-fe-tda10048-1.0.fw" firmware

[Mike Isely]

Comments below...

On Wed, 1 Feb 2012, Burr, Michael wrote:

> I have recently extracted a set of firmware files for the HVR-19xx 
> tuners from the Hauppauge windows driver package and I have a couple 
> questions:
> 
> 1) it's my understanding that for the HVR-1900 tuner, DVB-T support 
> needs the "dvb-fe-tda10048-1.0.fw" firmware file.  The fwextract.pl 
> script did not locate an instance of that file.  Should it have?  Is 
> there some other way to extract that firmware (or am I just wrong 
> thinking that it shouldbe somewhere in the Windows driver package?)

The fwextract.pl script is actually very generic in nature and is 
capable of finding and extracting just about anything it is "trained" to 
look for.  Internally it has a block of configuration data appended to 
the script file itself - this block is read by the script code when it 
starts and it is this block which "tells" the script how to find 
everything.  All of its knowledge about finding pvrusb2-related firmware 
is actually only in its configuration data; the rest of it is generic.  
But it can only find what it has been configured for.

The reason why it isn't finding the file you're talking about is because 
it's never been trained to.

The reason why it's never been trained to is because I'm in the USA and 
so I've never had an HVR-1900 to draw my attention to the issue (and if 
I did there's no way I could debug it since there's no DVB-T here).  

But it is possible for somebody else with access to the device's driver 
package AND already-extracted examples to do the training.  There's a 
process whereby you can "show" the script what a correct specimen of the 
firmware is, then the script can generate a signature for that specimen 
and use that to hunt down any other place where it might exist.  Think 
of it like giving a bloodhound something to sniff and then the dog knows 
how to recognize that person in other contexts from that point onward.  
It would be nice if this script were finally given enough info to find 
everything including that for the HVR-1900.

Generally this hasn't been an issue for people because for the file in 
question, the firmware is probably also available through other means, 
i.e. since it relates to the tuner portion which is probably also in 
other vendors' products that this particular file is probably directly 
downloadable through other means, e.g. see Krufky's reply a few minutes 
ago.


> 
> 2) is there information anywhere about what fixes there might be in 
> different firmware versions?  I have some other firmware files, but 
> don't have a good 'history' for where they came from. I'm interested 
> in knowing at least something about what, if any, improvements I might 
> possibly look for.

Unfortunately, at least for the firmware files I know about, there is 
very little information about "good" vs "bad" firmware versions, or for 
that matter any implied dependencies among firmware versions.

The general strategy is just to use whatever you find, and if you can, 
use what came with the product's driver CD.

One thing I do know is that a key problem with FM radio support on the 
HVR-1950 is that it actually requires a particular firmware version for 
one of the chips and there's no infrastructure in place to track this 
sort of thing.

  -Mike


-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ isely (dot) net
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