Charles did invest about a week of programming efforts to create a “demo” version of the DATV-Express software program. The nice feature of the demo program is that the connection to the hardware board does not need to be working and the connection to the video-capture Hauppauge does not have to be working, yet...but the DATV-Express program will be running (not crashing) and list out meaningful error messages about status of MPEG and hardware board.
Linux-newbie Ken W6HHC finished up some time-consuming-conflicts (editor of club newsletter in June and huge Americas' Field Day effort by local club) and started to get the Ubuntu V12.0.4 (32-bit) to play and run the project software. I am using an old Pentium P4, 1.8 GHz PC to see how slow the computer can be for the project. I partitioned the hard drive to keep half as old WinXP and a new half in Ubuntu.
The project does not have an “install” for the software yet, so with plenty of guidance and instructions from Charles, I had to do a build of the DATV-Express software program using Qt5 Creator. The trickiest part of using Qt Creator is configuring “kits” associated with the project software. But I documented the steps needed to configure the kits...so the next project-tester can have an easier go of it if we continue having linux-newbie users build the software at their locations.
Once I got the software talking to the Proto #4 hardware board, I was able to look at my new RIGOL Spectrum Analyzer and capture the DVB-S spectrum on 1.292 GHz. This RIGOL is really economical (compared to Agilent and used HP units) and works up to 1.5 GHz. The screen-shot below shows clean spectrum of the first DVB-S test transmission running 2.2 MSymb/sec at QTH of W6HHC. Shows a nice clean signal that has a RF allotted-BW of 3 MHz running robust FEC=1/2
Clean DVB-S spectrum of Prototype #4 board running 2.2 MSymb/sec
I then connected up my Hauppauge model HVR-1950 video-capture USB-2 device to the Ubuntu computer. (HVR means “hybrid” and can receive both analog TV and digital TV as well as receive NTSC camera output.) The Hauppauge unit does the MPEG2 encoding of the camera video and audio for the hardware board. I had an initial problem that I did not have the firmware for this Hauppauge model on my computer. Charles easily found the correct Hauppauge firmware file on the internet, I put the file on my computer....and the Hauppauge unit now loaded the firmware on start up. Below is the first video reception that I screen-captured using my DVB-S SetTopBox that outputs to my Win7 notebook computer.
First DVB-S video received on STB at W6HHC QTH
So now it is Art WA8RMC’s turn to bring up Qt5 and the next proto board.
“Full speed ahead”...de Ken W6HHC