How to watch digital TV (DVB-T)

I wanted to use my digital TV tuner in form of a USB stick on my NixOS system. Some of the steps I had to go through:

$ dmesg
[..]
[54625.430024] usb 2-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
[54625.545573] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=2040, idProduct=7060
[54625.545577] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[54625.545579] usb 2-2: Product: Nova-T Stick
[54625.545581] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Hauppauge
[54625.545583] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 4028664348
[54625.546073] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T Stick' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[54625.562868] dvb-usb: did not find the firmware file. (dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw) Please see linux/Documentation/dvb/ for more details on firmware-problems. (-2)
                                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

edit Install the firmware driver

Find your firmware driver, mentioned in the dmeg output above, here: http://www.linuxtv.org/downloads/firmware/

In your configuration.nix, add:

  hardware.firmware = [ "/firmware" ];

next as root:

$ mkdir /firmware
$ cd /firmware
$ wget http://linuxtv.org/downloads/firmware/dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw

and

$ nixos-rebuild switch

then replug the USB stick and:

$ dmesg
[..]
[49344.478059] dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T Stick' in cold state, will try to load a firmware
[49344.539358] dvb-usb: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw'
[49345.336764] dib0700: firmware started successfully.
[..]
$ ls /dev/dvb
adapter0

good :-)

edit Find the channels

Install the dvb-apps:

$ nix-env -i dvb-apps

and use the scan tool, from the dvb-apps package, like this:

$ scan /nix/store/j6akfv58g5077pb4h275l8rrmsnrdwz3-dvb-apps-7f68f9c8d311/share/dvb/dvb-t/de-Berlin > ~/my_channels.conf

scanning [..]
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
initial transponder 506000000 0 2 9 1 1 2 0
[..]
>>> tune to: 506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_AUTO:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0011
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0000
WARNING: filter timeout pid 0x0010
[..]
0x0000 0x000b: pmt_pid 0x044c ARD -- rbb Brandenburg (running)
0x0000 0x000c: pmt_pid 0x04b0 ARD -- rbb Berlin (running)
0x0000 0x000d: pmt_pid 0x0514 ARD -- Phoenix (running)
0x0000 0x000e: pmt_pid 0x0578 ARD -- Das Erste (running)
0x0000 0x000f: pmt_pid 0x05dc ARD -- EinsExtra (running)
[..]

Note: there are other scan locations to pick from to be found under your /nix/store/..-dvb-apps-version/share/dvb/dvb-t/..

edit Finally watch

$ nix-env -i vlc
$ vlc ~/my_channels.conf

Contents

edit Find the hardware

edit Install the firmware driver

edit Find the channels

edit Finally watch