TBS6904 User Guide

Dear Customers,

TBS6904 is a PCI Express interface digital satellite TV tuner card with four tuners
for watching and recording Free to Air (FTA) satellite TV on PC. It can support
DVBS/S2, modulation QPSK, 8PSK, 16APSK, 32APSK. This quad tuner card is one of
the most popular TV tuners for building IPTV streaming systems.
In order to use this item correctly, please read this manual carefully at the
beginning.

1. Hardware Installation
1.1 Install TBS TV Tuner Card
Power off the computer, remove computer cover and take out cover panel of
PCI-e slot in which you want to put the card. Insert the card in PCI-e slot and fix card
bracket with screw. Make sure the card fit in PCI-e slot tightly, all kinds of pcie slots
like PCIEX1,PCIEX4,PCIEX8 or PCIEX16 is suitable for our card. Finally, put computer
cover back and turn on your computer.

ATTENTION:
①When turn off the computer, please do not touch the PC internal components especially the
CPU and VGA chip, which has a high temperature with a risk of burns.
②Please make sure to see the user manual of PC and peripheral equipment.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

1.2 Connect satellite signal Cable to the PCI-e card on your PC
Please make sure connected the correct signal to corresponding tuner input. The
following is sequence of the TBS6904 tuner:

DVBS/S2 TUNER 3

DVBS/S2 TUNER 2

DVBS/S2 TUNER 1

DVBS/S2 TUNER 0

2. windows driver installation

2.1 Start your PC and jump to “Computer Management”. There will pop up an
unknown device “Multimedia Controller” in “Other devices” item before the driver
install.
In order to install the driver successfully, you have to do as the prompts step by
step.Then you can check the TBS TV tuner hardware device ID as follows:Open
“Computer Management”, click “Other devices”, finally choose and double click the
right hardware device for more details. Every product have its own private hardware
ID.
Please kindly see the following screenshot for your reference.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

2. 2 Download TBS6904 Windows Driver from Our Website

1）http://www.tbsiptv.com/download/tbs6904/tbs6904_windows_driver_v1.0.0.2.zi
p

2）Download and then extract tbs_windows_driver_v1.0.0.2.zip

3）Click “TBS_6904_driver_setup”, and then a new window will pop up

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4）Click “Next” “Install” “Finish” to complete installation

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

5）To verify if the driver was correctly installed: Choose “My Computer”, right click
and choose “System Properties” to pop up “System Properties” windows, click
“Hardware” → “Device Manager”. Then click “+”in front of “Sound, video and game
controllers”. If you can see “TBS6904 Quad DVB S/S2 BDA Tuners” that means you do
have installed driver correctly. Just display as below:

3. Play Software Installation

To enjoy satellite TV on PC or record video, you still need to install player
software and right set the search parameters.The above series of TBS TV tuner Card is
compatible with a lot of software like TBSViewer, DVBDream, ProgDVB etc.

Here is a link is for downloading Player software. Fordetailed installation

instructions, see its Software Installation Instructions.
http://www.tbsiptv.com/index.php?route=product/download&path=6

Moreover, you can check some Video Guide on the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/user/buydvb/videos

ATTENTION:
①In some case, the card can not be detected by your PC, you can’t see the device in Device
manager, please try to change a PCIe slot and try again; or the golden finger is oxidized in the
air, try to clean it by an eraser.
②Don’t insert or pull the card out directly when your computer is working, otherwise it will
damage your tuner card.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4. Linux open source drive installation
4.1 Reboot your computer and then enter the operating system webui, right click
to open “Terminal”, input the command “sudo -s” and Ubuntu default password;
finally you will get access to the operating system.
4.2 # lspci -vvv | grep 6904 (This command detects whether there is “Device 6904”,

displaying as the following webui.）

4.3 Set up a directory named “tbsdriver”. Here takes saving the directory on the
desktop as an example.

# mkdir tbsdriver (See screenshot below.）

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4.4 Execute the command and install “git” package. (See screenshot below.)
# apt-get install git

4.5 Enter the directory of “tbsdriver”, and then download “media build” and
“media” files. (See the following screenshot.)
# git clone https://github.com/tbsdtv/media_build.git
# git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tbsdtv/linux_media.git -b latest ./media

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4.6 Enter the directory of “media build”，execute “ make dir DIR=../media” as the
following screenshot.
# make dir DIR=../media

4.7 # make distclean（See screenshot below.）

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4.8 # make -j4

4.9 # make install (See screenshot below.）

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4.10 Install “firmware” and execute the following command. Please save the file in
your favorite directory, and then unzip the file to “lib/firmwares” directory as the
below screenshot.

1）#wgethttp://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/linux/tbs-tuner-firmwa
res_v1.0.tar.bz2

2）#tar jxvf tbs-tuner-firmwares_v1.0.tar.bz2 -C /lib/firmware/ （ See

screenshot below.）

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

4.11 Executed all the above commands, you should have completed driver
installation. Reboot your computer and enter the following command to check if the
adapters are loaded successfully.
# reboot
# dmesg | grep frontend

5. If you would like to get latest source program, please enter the “tbsdriver
/media” directory and execute the following commands to update the drivers. (See
the commands below.）
# cd media
# git remote update
# git pull
# cd ../media_build
# git remote update
# git pull
# make
# sudo make install
# reboot

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

6. Open Source install tips
1./bin/sh: 1: lsdiff: not found
#sudo apt-get install patchutils

2.you may need to install the Proc::ProcessTable module

#sudo apt-get install libproc-processtable-perl

3.fatal error: drx39xyj/drx39xxj.h: No such file or directory

#mkdir -p v4l/drx39xyj
#cp v4l/drx39xxj.h v4l/drx39xyj/

4.Can not find the 6909 firmware

#Do not forget the firmware install steps

5.If you find module load errors like "module has wrong symbol version" means that
there still are old modules from your previous media tree installation (usually duplica
ted modules in two different places).
#sudo rm -rf lib/modules/uname -r/kernel/drivers/media/*

6.Cannot use CONFIG_CC_STACKPROTECTOR_STRONG: -fstack-protector-strong not

supported by compiler
#sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
#sudo apt-get update
#sudo apt-get install gcc-4.9 g++-4.9
#sudo rm /usr/bin/gcc sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 /usr/bin/gcc`

7. Use dvblast under Linux Operational Environment

7.1 Lock TV Channels from DVB-S Signal
# dvblast -f 12538000 –s 41250000 -v 13 -a 0 (V signal)

# dvblast –f 12429000 –s 3330000 –v 18 –a 1( H signal):

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

7.2 Lock TV Channels from DVB-S2 Signal
# dvblast -f 12660000 -s 45000000 –v 13 –m psk_8 -a 3 (V signal):

# dvblast -f 12630000 -s 43200000 –v 18 –m psk_8 –a 4 (H signal):

8. Tvheadend User Guide

8.1 Connect the required TV signal cable to LNB-Input
8.2 Install and Run tvheadend-C software driver (See screenshot below.)

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

8.3 Open a browser like Firefox or Google Chrome, enter the IP address of your
server and port number 9981 as below, then you can log in tvheadend configuration
webpage. (See screenshot below.)

8.4 The default user mode is basic level, you can change it to expert user mode,
then you can go to set some advanced settings, like this:

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

8.5 Click “Networks” item, select DVBS mode and add a network, enter a network
name, if you don’t want to use “network discovery”, please don’t selct it.（See
screenshot below.）

8.6 After created a network, you need to add your network to the adapter.（See
screenshot below.）

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

8.6 Click “Muxes” item add a new muxes. In this dialog box, please enter the
correct transponder information including Frequency, Symbol rate, Modulation, FEC.
Click “create” at last and wait a few seconds, the channels will be scaned out.(See the
screenshot below.):

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

8.7 Click the “Services”item to check the the scan result, and pick these channels
you want to map it out.

8.8 Cleck your map out result in “Channel/EPG”, now you can play your channels in
media player which support network stream play like VLC. There are two ways to play
your stream, the one is to play all the channels you map out, and the other is play
them one by one. Like this:
URL1: http://192.168.8.45:9981/playlist
URL2: http://192.168.8.45:9981/stream/channelnumber/1

8.9 The left tuners configration is same as the above steps. We can only get HTTP
streams from tvheadend.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

9. Astra User Guide
9.1 Connect the Required TV Signal Cable to LNB-Input
9.2 Install Astra for your system, then create an empty “test.json” file in
“/etc/astra/” folder, now you can run Astra use the following command. The port is
not only and stationary one, you can specify it yourself.(See screenshot below.)

9.3 Open Firefox browser, enter the IP address of your server and port number
8020 as below, then you can log in astra configuration webpage.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

9.4 Create a new “Adapters” and then select an adapter, you can set Set
parameters in this page, more advanced setting please click ”Advanced Options”to
set, click “Apply”
first.(See screenshot below.)

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

9.5 Then click “Scan” button to scan the channel, the sequence can not be reversed.
After scaned out, selct the channels you want and save, like this:

9.6 After did that you can go back to webpage, now you find them in “Stream”.
Then please set the output protocol according to your needs. Finally click “Apply” as
below.

In Astra, we can get the HTTP, RTP or UDP stream. When you play the stream the status should be
like this:

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

FAQ
Linux:
1. How to install the driver
Closed Driver install steps:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9875
Open Source Detail steps:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9960

2. Can not compile the driver in CentOS 7

check your kernel version:
uname -a

Link the build folder .Go to this folder such as :

cd /lib/modules/3.10.0-327.13.1.el7.x86_64/
ln -sf /usr/src/kernels/3.10.0-327.10.1.el7.x86_64/ build
Then install the driver as normal steps

3. How to use tvheadend.

Check this:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9949

4. How to use astra.

Script Guide:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9862
Video Guide:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9976

5. How to use OSCAM with tvheadend

http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=10049

6. How to use mumudvb

http://www.mumudvb.net/doc/mumudvb-1.7.3/QUICKSTART.html
http://www.mumudvb.net/doc/mumudvb-1.7.3/README_CONF.html

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide

Windows:
1. Windows 7 x64 Code 52 issue
Please check this guide:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=9989

2. Does your driver support windows 10?

No problem you can feel free using windows xp,vista/7/8/10

3. Can’t watch the HD channels, only picture or only audio.

Make sure that you have installed the right video and audio decoder.

4. Where i can get the TSReader dll support?

You can get it on our download page :
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tsreader-bdasource_v1.0.8.7
-20150604.zip

5. Where i can get the StreamReader dll support?

You can get it on our download page :
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/streamreader-dll_v1.0.0.3.zi
p

6. Why can’t use it with Windows Server 2008

Please install this patch for your windows server 2008:
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/win2008_bda.zip

7. The card don't been detected by motherboard.

Please refer to attached pics to change some pcie setting on BIOS and update the
BIOS to the latest version. make sure set the PCI-E link speed to Gen1 like this ,as
most users after set the BIOS it can detect our card so you can have a try.

8. How to set dvbdream support 8 diseqc?

Open “Options” item then select “Diseqc”, Diseqc Switch Type “None”.
After add one satellite,open “Properties”, can set diseqc port by “Uncommitted” from
0 to 15

9. What kind of antenna to use(DVBT/DVBT2 Card)?

Our all dvbt/t2 card just support the parasitic antenna. If you use the active antenna,
you need supply power to antenna.

10. Whether support CI+?

Our all CI card just support the CI, do no support CI+.

TBS6904 DVB-S/S2 Quad Tuner PCIe Card User Guide