xbmc and BGT3600

tap28 · 11-09-2012 9:49pm #1

Hi, I built this HTPC late last year:
4GB-Kit DDR3 Crucial Value PC1333 CL9
ASRock E350M1/USB3, integrierte AMD E-350, Mini-ITX
Chieftec BT-02B, 180W SFX, Mini-ITX
LG BH10LS30 Blu-Ray Brenner
OCZ Vertex Plus 60GB SSD SATA 6,4cm (2,5")
Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard
HP MCE IR Wireless Receiver
Logitech Harmony 885 Advanced Universal Remote Control
NAS with movies and music etc connected via cat5
Windows 7

I use xbmc all the time and find it great. I want to get rid of sky and I am looking at is http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT31...oducts/BGT3600

My motherboard has one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (blue @ x4 mode), will the card fit it?

Has anyone had any success with using the card with xbmc?

Thanks

Tap

Johnboy1951 · 12-09-2012 3:44pm

Note: Please be aware that for DVB-S/S2 operation you will need to connect a 6 pin PCI-express power cable to the card, in order to provide power for your satelite dish LNB.

If this is applicable you need to make sure your PSU is capable of the extra load of the card and the LNB power ... as well as having the required connection of course.

EDIT .... page 22 gives details of power requirements
http://home.btconnect.com/blackgold/Downloads/BGT36xx%20Installation%20Guide_1-1lr.pdf

Knasher · 12-09-2012 7:27pm

That card only needs an x1 slot so it should fit it fine. On the XBMC side, the PVR branch of XBMC relies on backends to handle the PVR hardware, on the windows side it can use mediaportal . Their website says they support all hardware which uses BDA drivers, which the website for the BGT card lists as supporting. So it definitely should work.

tap28 · 13-09-2012 9:27pm

I have good news and maybe bad news (maybe

) which all revolves around the PSU

It is 180w, from what I can see the average HTPC uses about 90w and the tv card uses 19.5w. So I think I should be ok.

The only problem is the connectors from the back of the PSU.
It has no 6PIN PCIe connector.
It has a 4PIN 12V but I can't find an adaptor.
One sata connector powering the ssd.
There is also 2 molex connectors, one running out of the other (splitter).
One of the molex connectors is powering the Blu-ray drive.

Not sure what to do. If I bought a molex to 6PIN PCIe would one molex connector work or should I use both?

Thanks

Tap

Johnboy1951 · 13-09-2012 11:09pm

You might get away with using the 4pin to 6 pin ... but it really depends on the PSU.
The 4pin I would expect is capable of supplying more current that a split Molex ...

zuroph · 06-12-2012 2:58pm

did you get this to work?

tap28 · 06-12-2012 11:59pm

I did indeed.

I tried:
1) mediaportal to watch live tv
2) mediaportal backend, xbmc frontend
3) windows media centre.
4) nextpvr

I could not get 1 and 2 to work consistently mainly because mediaportal would freeze.
Media centre worked fine but for some reason I didn't like using it.

I nearly sold the tv card but then purely by accident came across nextpvr and it is the business. It is simple to set up, simple to use and works all the time. It is even wife friendly:pac:

With the next update of xbmc frodo there will be proper pvr frontend and proper support for nextpvr and visa versa.

When that happens I will use xbmc for everything but for now I am happy to use it movies/music and downloaded tv series and use nextpvr for live tv.

zuroph · 07-12-2012 12:27am

hmm, I'm trying nextpvr with the frodo beta build, but nextpvr is not finding any channels on scans with my bgt3600. Wondering am I missing a step somewhere?

tap28 · 07-12-2012 1:16am

have you tried media centre?

zuroph · 07-12-2012 3:41pm

yup, it returned no channels either. I'm thinkin gmaybe the board isnt getting enough power from the attached power supply

tap28 · 07-12-2012 9:08pm

From the little I know it sounds like 1 of 2 things:
Not getting enough power or
faulty card

I think it is easy enough to calculate the pc's power consumption.

zuroph · 07-12-2012 9:15pm

power consumption should be fine right now, I'll tweak the lead and play a bit more with it over weekend, and if I'm still having issues, cry

Johnboy1951 · 07-12-2012 10:03pm

zuroph wrote: »

hmm, I'm trying nextpvr with the frodo beta build, but nextpvr is not finding any channels on scans with my bgt3600. Wondering am I missing a step somewhere?

Did the drivers install properly?

zuroph · 07-12-2012 10:39pm

yup, double checked them. card displaying correctly, just finding nothing on the scan

tap28 · 09-12-2012 9:12pm

Is there any chance of getting your hands on a sky box and plugging it in to make sure you are receiving a good signal?

Disregard just saw other thread.

zuroph · 10-12-2012 3:26pm

Result!
After a few restarts it's found the satellite channels! No audio or video yet, what decoders should I be using?

EDIT have audio/video in WMC but not nextpvr

tap28 · 10-12-2012 6:58pm

zuroph wrote: »

Result!
After a few restarts it's found the satellite channels! No audio or video yet, what decoders should I be using?

EDIT have audio/video in WMC but not nextpvr

Great.

You are getting there.

When I started Nextpvr I had sound but no picture, when I fixed that I had no sound from hd satellite channels

My decoders are set to:

MPEG2 Video: Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
H264 Video: Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
MPEG1 Audio: Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
AC3 Audio: AC3 Filter
The rest disabled.

As you have W7, you already have Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder in the drop down menu.

AC3 Audio is use by the BBC and ITV for HD sound. Even though the decoder is in the window 7 pack from some ****ty reason microsoft only allow you to access it in Mediacentre. You need to download AC3 Filter codex somewhere. I use this site http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ac3_filter.htm and it works but am always reluctant to recommend sites I know nothing about so as they say "buyer beware". (I know it free:D)

If you have trouble setting up epg (it can be a pain) come back to me and I will try to remember how I did it.

Tap

zuroph · 12-12-2012 3:18pm

I've got the EPG set up now, xml working away. Still not getting any picture in nextpvr, bizarrely did get it on one channel in XBMC. WMC working ok, bar some glitching on HD channels.

tap28 · 18-12-2012 1:02am

How is it going now?

In the renderers section this is what's working for me:
video renderer: EVR
Audio Renderer: default
Music renderer: default

hope this helps.

tap

zuroph · 18-12-2012 6:18pm

Haven't got to play with it this week, between work and trying to get the girlfriend let me steal the cables from the sky box. Will put a day into it soon and try resolve issues, get sick beard up and running, and get it "spouse friendly"

tap28 · 18-12-2012 10:05pm

Yeah know what you mean. For it to be a long term solution, it has to be other half friendly.

My wife could not stand the other systems but has no problem using nextpvr.

We use xbmc a lot and hoping with the xbmc 12 it will have a easy to setup and use pvr.

zuroph · 18-12-2012 10:07pm

the release candidate is up today, so you can start playing with it!
I couldnt figure out how to get the live tv to open in EPG mode like sky, it was opening with a channel listing. But I'll worry about it once I have it working, and try a few skins. Also want to have a child friendly sign in that will just list the kids shows and channels etc

xbmc and BGT3600

Comments