VMA SAT IQ Probe

Quote from VMA

Why?

Because this can reveal signal-like structure that would be missed by a pure lock / no-lock scan.

In other words, instead of only asking:

• lock?
• no lock?

you can also see whether the IQ already hints at a possible transponder.

I see what your aim is here an this is of course useful.

Maybe of help: locking involves several different types of locking: timing lock (phase), frequency lock, FEC lock etc. Cards based on stv091x and stid135 can actually output these various lock types (see neumodvb). I think at least frequency and timing lock are needed to have any useful constellation at all (you may get circles in other case). It could help to explore those lock flags (not sure if they are exposed in the windows driver as that is closed source). It can help to avoid needless waiting, or to read out modulation types, even when the signal is weak.

deeptho

First and foremost, I'm wondering "who is the target audience" of these tuner cards. Clearly, TBS doesn't consider it important for us, the signal hunters, to provide decent drivers. Why can't they manage it for Linux but not for Windows? The card's function itself isn't any different.

In erster Linie frage ich mich "wer ist die Zielgruppe" der Tunerkarten. Offensichtlich ist es TBS nicht wichtig für uns, also die Signal Jäger, ordentliche Treiber zu liefern. Warum schafft man es bei Linux und bei Windows nicht. Die Funktion der Karte an sich, ist ja keine andere.

VMA

It's more likely that the problem lies with Windows itself.

Mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit liegt es bei Windows selbst.

In diesen Zusammenhang fällt mir die Theorie von strannik ein. Wenn ich es richtig interpretiere, vermutete er eine Windows-Überwachung zwischen der TBS6903x und Windows und deshalb wird dieser Typ so extrem langsam. Unsere Experimente mit dem IQMonitor wurden dann leider unterbrochen.

Nach der Installation solltest dir ein Backup machen, dauert zwar auch immer eine Weile, aber nicht lästig wie installieren.

This reminds me of strannik 's theory. If I understand correctly, he suspected Windows monitoring between the TBS6903x and Windows, which is why this type of device is so extremely slow. Unfortunately, our experiments with IQMonitor were then interrupted.

Quote from VMA

I had to format my computer and reinstall Windows. I am still in the process of setting everything up. Lot's of software and drivers...

Not a bad idea to make an image of your system drive every now an then (especially right after a new reinstall) with a tool like e.g. Macrium Reflect to avoid time consuming reinstalls of Windows.

Quote from femi

This reminds me of strannik's theory. If I understand correctly, he suspected Windows monitoring between the TBS6903x and Windows, which is why this type of device is so extremely slow. Unfortunately, our experiments with IQMonitor were then interrupted.

Вы правы, мой друг, но только наполовину - работа над этой проблемой продолжается бессонными ночами под вой сирен...

За последнее время я переустановил с десяток разных систем и накопил горький опыт работы Windows с драйверами PCI карт.

Win-10 перед смертью обновилась, а у меня перестали корректно работать мои программы... Помогло следующее:

- в "Свойствах файла" для *.exe программы для "Проверенных пользователей" установить "Полный доступ" к этой программе;

- тоже самое сделать для Streamreader.dll, который находится в директории программы.

Видимо, система при обращении к программе и Streamreader.dll (a, возможно, и к драйверу ) проверяет подлинность подписи и проверяет на антивирус.

При переустановке систем Win-7,10,11 (поверьте, не от хорошей жизни) оказалось крайне сложно установить драйвера PCI карт как Технисат, так и особенно китайских TBS, несмотря на то, что я указал "Доверять подписи этого производителя".

Другой версией того, что Линукс работает с драйверами карт значительно быстрее, чем "форточки", является то, что драйвера написаны под Линуксом, а там обратное, чем в Windows, расположение старшего и младшего байтов в двухбайтных словах. А это критично при заполнении буфера IQ...

Здоровья Вам и благоденствия

Quote from femi

deeptho

First and foremost, I'm wondering "who is the target audience" of these tuner cards. Clearly, TBS doesn't consider it important for us, the signal hunters, to provide decent drivers. Why can't they manage it for Linux but not for Windows? The card's function itself isn't any different.

You have to ask them, but I think you are mistaken if you think that they make the cards for DXers. Instead they make them for professional installations, which do not require blindscan. You don't want these systems to run windows either (expensive, forced updates, random crashes....)

Quote from femi

In erster Linie frage ich mich "wer ist die Zielgruppe" der Tunerkarten. Offensichtlich ist es TBS nicht wichtig für uns, also die Signal Jäger, ordentliche Treiber zu liefern. Warum schafft man es bei Linux und bei Windows nicht. Die Funktion der Karte an sich, ist ja keine andere.

VMA

It's more likely that the problem lies with Windows itself.

Mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit liegt es bei Windows selbst.

Quote from strannik

Вы правы, мой друг, но только наполовину - работа над этой проблемой продолжается бессонными ночами под вой сирен...

За последнее время я переустановил с десяток разных систем и накопил горький опыт работы Windows с драйверами PCI карт.

Win-10 перед смертью обновилась, а у меня перестали корректно работать мои программы... Помогло следующее:

- в "Свойствах файла" для *.exe программы для "Проверенных пользователей" установить "Полный доступ" к этой программе;

- тоже самое сделать для Streamreader.dll, который находится в директории программы.

Видимо, система при обращении к программе и Streamreader.dll (a, возможно, и к драйверу ) проверяет подлинность подписи и проверяет на антивирус.

При переустановке систем Win-7,10,11 (поверьте, не от хорошей жизни) оказалось крайне сложно установить драйвера PCI карт как Технисат, так и особенно китайских TBS, несмотря на то, что я указал "Доверять подписи этого производителя".

Другой версией того, что Линукс работает с драйверами карт значительно быстрее, чем "форточки", является то, что драйвера написаны под Линуксом, а там обратное, чем в Windows, расположение старшего и младшего байтов в двухбайтных словах. А это критично при заполнении буфера IQ...

Здоровья Вам и благоденствия

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The first drivers were actually typically written for windows (but not always, as drivers but as some user space program) by people with limited programming experience and/or only interested in "making the basic features work" so that there is something to satisfy their customers (digital devices, TBS, ...). Some of them contained several errors, e.g., in the computation of logarithms, the use of signed versus unsigned variables.

Note that for windows OS, the requirements are also lower, as people will happily accept that their PC will crash from time to time and that "reinstallation" is just a part of regular use. Windows users also accept that their PC starts installing software in the middle of a meeting or that a simple driver installation requires a reboot. And they are willing to pay for it as well (or pirate it).

The drivers for stv and stid135 chips were actually designed in France, I think.

I've been experiencing the most crashes/BSOD lately on Windows 11 with the IQmonitor and VMA apps.

It would be nice if the drivers were updated as new utilities are released.
But I'm also sceptical that user feedback still matters to the manufacturer, since their focus is on IPTV devices, which they know about.

Quote from VMA

My C:\ is a 1TB .m2 disk which gets loaded with software. Doing a backup/image of it would generate a huge file and restoring it would take ages.

Because all my data is on other hard disks I really only have to install Windows, drivers and software. This is always a good opportunity to clean up what I really need and make sure I get the latest releases of all software.

I agree that it is a good opportunity to clean up, but when you make an image right after installing Windows + its updates + the drivers, it is much faster to restore the image than to reformat and reinstall Windows + updates and drivers.

It is a misunderstanding that a 1 TB disk results in an image of 1 TB since only sectors containing data will be copied by Macrium Reflect.

Restoring an image of 500 GB on a fast medium can be done in less than an hour.

Flippi
Es ist sehr von der Schnittstelle abhängig. Mein altes Laptop braucht hier auch extrem lang ~24h. eSATA schafft es über Nacht mit einer viel größeren Datenmenge.
Ich sehe es aber auch so, dass ein Restore weniger lästig ist. >200 Programme willst nicht neu installieren.

It depends a lot on the interface. My old laptop also takes an extremely long time here – about 24 hours. eSATA manages it overnight with a much larger amount of data.
But I also see it that way, a restore is less of a hassle. You don't want to reinstall over 200 programs.

deeptho
Da hast mich in #23 falsch verstanden, wir sind nicht die Zielgruppe.
Nebenbei, die Digital Devices MAX SX8 Pro ist laut Auskunft der Firma nicht kompatibel mit dem streamreader. Ich hätte sie mir angeschafft, statt der langsamen TBS6903x.
https://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/de/TV-Kar…X-Full-Spectrum

You misunderstood me in #23; we're not the target audience.
By the way, according to the company, the Digital Devices MAX SX8 Pro isn't compatible with the StreamReader. I would have bought it instead of the slow TBS6903x.
But I also think a restore is less of a hassle.
https://www.digital-devices.eu/shop/de/TV-Kar…X-Full-Spectrum

VMA , satesco
Wenn ich das alles lese liegt es an Windows 11.
Abgesehen von den Defender Meldungen hatte ich mit Windows 10 bisher keine Probleme mit den VMA Programmen.
Aufgefallen war mir nur, dass sich der Defender erst wieder bei den letzten Programmen meldete.

Reading all this, it seems to be a Windows 11 issue.
Apart from the Defender alerts, I haven't had any problems with the VMA programs on Windows 10 so far.
I only noticed that Defender started alerting me again with the last few programs.

I agree with @Vitor when he says that cards operating under intense stress cause the system to fail and crash. I noticed this when working with IQmonitor and VMA StreamReader. Of course, this doesn’t happen in every case, but these crashes likely occur when the system is trying to detect and lock a weak signal.

And I asked myself this question when comparing Crazyscan with, say, IQmonitor and now VMA. crazycat, knowing how much the card drivers—especially the stv010x-based ones—can withstand under stress, set a limit when encountering a weak signal, and instead of forcing it to lock, left it as is, unlocked. And he did this only because we asked him to. I remember when he asked us about this. Maybe that’s why I/we didn’t get a BSOD with Crazyscan.

It’s no coincidence that Crazyscan also features Blindscan 2, which allows for quick scanning and displays "nolock" frequencies. This feature was designed specifically for enthusiasts.
Back when it was implemented in 2014/2015, the 6983(6903,5927) cards were the stars of the TBS cards. And in my opinion, it remains the best-performing card for receiving weak signals among all those currently available.

And I’m convinced that CrazyCat has squeezed every last drop of performance out of what these cards are capable of. Pushing the signal lock limit, combined with the BDA driver, can only lead to disaster. It’s just my opinion.

@strannik's development of IQmonitor was impressive; it demonstrated the app's ability to subliminally read mux parameters with weak signals, leading us to mistakenly believe the signal was locked. However, in some situations, the app would crash, probably because the card was scanning under stress conditions.

My previous post about the BSOD with 6983 happened when I was using the IQmonitor and VMA apps.

Like @Vitor, I’m also waiting for CrazyCat to return, but I don’t think he’ll make any further improvements to his StreamReader. He would have done that a long time ago, but he realised that the BDA drivers for Windows only work within certain limits, and for this reason, he determined how much the tuner can force the tuner to lock a weak signal.

Ultimately, DVB application developers seeking better performance from DVB cards will reach the same conclusion as CrazyCat. The limitations are not theirs, but rather how the BDA driver architecture for Windows was designed. That's why what deeptho did for the 6909x cards under Linux is commendable.

Regrettably, the potential of some DVB demodulators is constrained by the way the drivers were designed, which limits their performance and functionality in various applications. But developers know the situation better than we do, as users,

Quote from VMA

While I am not 100% certain, I believe that my PC suffered a constellation of several issues, including a TBS driver crash and a false positive malware detection in VMA Viewer. The crash must have broken some file and when Defender was triggered by VMA Viewer, it would eventually crash due to not being able to process the broken file. This then caused Windows to repeatedly restart Defender (over 600 times in a few minutes), which led to Windows freeze.

These problems were fixed by a complete fresh install o Windows 11, formatting the whole C:\ drive. I do have copies of all my data, so that is not the problem. What took long is to reinstall a huge number of software and drivers, configure everything, activate licenses, etc.

On linux I sometimes mess up things myself, or once in a while some problem appears.

For me it is as simple as sudo zfs rollback -r zfs/fedora@hourly_2026-04-21_22:00:00; sudo reboot which restores the root software to an exact point in the past. 5 minutes work.

I of course also have to use windows from time to time. So I run windows 7 in a virtual machine. Defender turned off. No virus scanner of any kind. If things go wrong or just to get wrong of the usual windows degradation over time: stop windows, sudo zfs rollback -r...; restart windows. a few minutes work.

Even if I accidentally erase half of my work, I can restore everything as it was 10 minutes ago, one hour ago, one day. ... in less than 30 seconds.

Works well enough. I only really use it to run office 2016. Office started to degrade in 2007 (more bugs, worsening GUI, anto-features...), but of course office is not well compatible with older versions of it self, so I ended up with 2016 as a compromise.

With this I can even run your software (pci-express passthrough).

Quote from VMA

The positive is that now the disk is free of clutter and accumulated software I wasn't using anymore.

Back on topic: my idea was to abuse the IQScan() within streamreader.dll to extract samples that could be used for a frequency scan. I was wondering if we could find transponders and characterize them, even in the absence of a lock. In other words, I imagined that IQ data could hint on a constellation, when the signal was still too weak for the tuner to lock onto it.

First tests seemed promising, but then I came to the conclusion that: a) the TBS-6903X driver seems too fragile to handle BLScanEx() and IQScan() without a lock in high succession and b) IQScan() would not produce any useful data with a lock (I am not100% certain of this).

Yes, you may need to tweak the drivers a bit, but you can't of course. So you have to live with the restrictions. I am sure crazycat would help if he could.

Quote from VMA

Because it already cost me almost 4 days recovering my computer, because the scan was painfully slow and because the results were not encouraging, I gave up on this idea.

I am not trying to convince you, but for me that would be unacceptable.

Quote from VMA

deeptho already hinted that streamreader.dll is not exposing the required tuner parameters and possibly CrazyCat did not implement this, because the Windows drivers themselves were not built for this, either.

Understood.

Quote from VMA

strannik also seem to have had bad experience when pushing streamreader.dll to its limits.

My opinion:

1) Windows, in this case Windows 11, is not a bad operating system. Of course it does have many annoying aspects, but globally it is a great operating system, that gives a good user experience over an incredible range of hardware and user configurations. I rely on Windows for professional CAD/CAM/CAE software at work and all top applications work exclusively on this operating system.

2) Linux is an amazing operating system and I used it for many tasks. But I still would not want to use it as general daily professional work operating system. I dislike the GUI and it is a pain to install software, when you need to compile it. This often results in a nightmare of missing libraries and dependencies... The choice of the wrong distro and you won't have access to a given application, because some weird dependency only exists for this distribution but no longer for the other.

Well, there is no "the gui", but there are multiple and you have to choose. I do not like the default GUI either as it is poorly designed compared to what we had 10 years ago. Windows got it right at some point, but then started to thow bad design out of the window. Hence my choice of windows 7: not too crappy yet, but unfortunately uses lots of disk space.

What both modern windows and modern linux-gui (gnome3) have in common is that they violate all rules of good design: hidden menus, bad use of space, poor font size, ...

The mate desktop is one of the better ones and it is actually somewhat similar to older versions of windows.

And: I rarely need to compile anything at all, as all standard software can just be installed. Distribution of compiled software IS more complicated, but that relates to having choice and also to licensing issues.

Quote from VMA

3) TBS must sell their cards in volume. DX is not a volume market. Professional workstations are better for sales (production, broadcasting, distribution), but this is still a niche market. Blindscan is not a requirement for most users (I agree with deeptho). The main problem TBS probably has is that the manufactures of the tuner IC's switch models and no longer sell the previous models. I imagine TBS buys so many and once production used the stock up, there simply are no more on market, so a new card has to be developed.

4) This makes streamreader.dll a great feat: CrazyScan did a brilliant job with this, giving Windows users access to a lot of the power of these tuner cards. My respect goes to deeptho, as well, who mastered not only the software application, but the matching driver development. This is much more than I am capable of. What worries me is the future: there will come a time when no new tuner IC is supported by the existing streamreader.dll and hence it won't be possible, under Windows, to do blindscan, IQ capture, etc.

Thanks for the compliment. I hope the bad news about crazycat is wrong, but for me this is the main reason to not even want to consider windows: if software is abandoned, there is nothing you can do about it, except sell your equipment.

Quote from VMA

5) At the end of the day, I look at all my professional field meters (my collection includes all major brands) and then I look at VMA Video Analyser Package and the conclusion is that I can do more with my own software than with any of the field meters. Except real-time spectrum render, but for this my software includes interfacing to SMA/NWT4400 devices or Siglent spectrum analysers of the SSA series. I would say we have come a long way, software wise!

Yes, because you want to do a good job (professional pride). From a business point of view, it probably is better to just do the bare minimum. Microsoft has shown that people will pay for crappy software (teams, skypeforbusiness ...)

Quote from VMA

6) Without CrazyCat and/or the sources of streamreader.dll, I fear we reached the maximum we can achieve with TBS cards under Windows. I still hope and wish that CrazyCat is alive and kicking, the war is over, sooner than later, and that CrazyCat will post on this forum with a "I'm back!".

That would be nice indeed.

Moin,

leider ein Supergau und sollte so nicht passieren.

Es gibt diverse Möglichkeiten unter Windows ohne Zusatzsoftware.

Mein Testsystem mit alter M2 Gen.3 SSD und angeschlossener USB 3 SSD
benötigte für Laufwerk C bei 180GB für die 1. Sicherung 50 Minuten
mit Sichern und Wiederherstellen (Windows 7).

Auch nicht zu verachten unter Windows 11 der Gesundheitszustand der
SSD lässt sich ohne weitere Tools ermitteln.

Grüße Kathrein018

Quote from deeptho

The mate desktop is one of the better ones

This is a bit offtopic, but can you say why?

At the moment I use Linux Mint Xfce on some older computers, which I liked better than Mate at the time.

But this is just my preference. What is "better", about Mate?

Greetz,

A33

VMA_Sat_IQ_Scanner_Public, same settings for tbs6983, tbs5927 USB, tbs6909x, tbs6590, tbs69092se

VMA_Sat_IQ_Scanner_Public_tbs5927 USB

I haven't had any crashes with the 6909x, but it only found and tuned in one mux.

VMA_Sat_IQ_Scanner_Public_tbs6590.

VMA_Sat_IQ_Scanner_Public_tbs6902se.