DVB-T Scart help needed

Bluefish

Hi all,

I recently purchased a freecom DVB-T scart receiver (http://www.freecom.com/objects/00010439.pdf ) thinking that as i live in the Stepaside area I should have no problems. On start up I found it difficult to pick up any channels, after swapping the crappy Freecom antenna I picked up all the encrypted channels with good signal quality and strenght, however there is no sight of the Irish channels ...

So the questions I was hoping to get some help with were:

~Has anyone got the above or had a similar issue and how can it be resolved
~ Where abouts are these channels located
~Would there be any setting I might need to adjust to resolve the problem.

Cheers

Bluefish

ethernet

Don't forget it is a trial and channels can be encrypted at any time. Can you connect an external antenna to the device?

Alun

It seems to be a specific problem with the Freecom DVB-T receivers .. I, and a few others here, have the Freecom USB DVB-T stick and that doesn't see the non-encrypted channels either. I can see, but obviously not recieve, all the encrypted channels just fine.

I can receive the non-encrypted channels perfectly on my Philips DVB-T equipped TV with just the crappy Freecom antenna plugged into the TV's aerial socket (I can see 3 Rock from my window) so it's not a question of signal strength.

Bluefish

Ethernet - I have connected an external antenna and still had the same result.

Alun - Thanks for your reply, so is there any way of recognising the the non encrypted channels, or am I better of sending back the product?

Bluefish

Alun

Bluefish wrote:

Alun - Thanks for your reply, so is there any way of recognising the the non encrypted channels, or am I better of sending back the product?

Not that I know of. I tried the Freecom forums but they were no use at all. I just put it down to experience and chucked the thing.

Bluefish

Yeah tried the Freecom forums also but not much help coming as yet. I also emailed the Freecom support address to see if they could offer any ideas, If I get anywhere (which i sincerly doubt) I will pass it on. But the chucking option is probably what I will be doing also.

maxg

Install the BDA drivers, install a progdvb version 4.x, select BDA at startup and do a manual scan for the frequencies 730 and 738 mhz.

Alun

maxg wrote:

Install the BDA drivers, install a progdvb version 4.x, select BDA at startup and do a manual scan for the frequencies 730 and 738 mhz.

Done all that ... I've tried ProgDVB and Transedit MMC and they find nothing at all on 738MHz (does anything use 730MHz at all?), only on 770 and 794 (the encrypted channels). Also tried a complete scan of all frequencies, including +/- 166kHz, using a command line program called ScanBDA, and it finds nothing at all on that frequency either.

It seems to be something to do with the Freecom stick itself. Other people here with other makes of stick have had no problems at all receiving the non-encrypted channels.

maxg

Go to settings -> diseqc inside progdvb.
You should see a BDA-DVB-T device. Click at that device. Click on properties. Select All regions all channels from the list. Click ok.
Go to channels and start a channel scan.
You should use a progdvb 4.x version.

Alun

maxg wrote:

Go to settings -> diseqc inside progdvb.
You should see a BDA-DVB-T device. Click at that device. Click on properties. Select All regions all channels from the list. Click ok.
Go to channels and start a channel scan.
You should use a progdvb 4.x version.

Using Transedit MMC, and ScanBDA I can also specify the frequencies manually, believe me when I say there's really nothing there!!! It finds the encrypted channels on 770 and 794MHz just fine. On 738MHz, the green LED on the stick (that indicates lock) doesn't even light up.

I don't know if it's a hardware issue or a driver/firmware issue, but the Freecom forum is full of people (mainly in the UK) complaining that it works fine for some muxes and not for others (which do work fine off the same antenna on DVB-T TV's), so it appears to be a common problem. Maybe there's some code in the driver that tells the hardware to tune to a specific frequency that's screwed up, maybe a lookup table with some screwed up values or something like that, I don't know.

maxg

Use a stable Progdvb 4.x version and the latest BDA drivers.
The original soft is s...

Alun

maxg wrote:

Use a stable Progdvb 4.x version and the latest BDA drivers.
The original soft is s...

I've tried ProgDVB (4.62.6) (and pretty much everything else in existence) plus the latest BDA drivers from Freecom, plus various drivers for sticks using the same chipset (Yakumo etc.) and it doesn't make any difference at all.

Do you actually have one of these things?

maxg

Try 4.82
http://download.chip.eu/en/ProgDVB-4.82_106834.html
or the latest 4.85.3
from http://www.progdvb.com/

Installing BDA drivers from different manufactorers was not so a good idea. Maybe you botched your windows installation.

Alun

The hardware for the Freecom, Yakumo, VGear and a good few other no-name Taiwanese sticks is absolutely 100% identical, and come up with exactly the same PnP Device ID. After I installed the drivers, it also transpired that the drivers themselves were identical, they're probably just the standard drivers provide by whatever OEM actually makes the things before they're rebadged as Freecom or whatever. So no, I didn't 'botch' anything, thanks :rolleyes:

watty

The SW assumes fixed channels. The Trial is using non-standard frequency offsets.

Alun

watty wrote:

The SW assumes fixed channels. The Trial is using non-standard frequency offsets.

Well, 770MHz and 794MHz are picked up just fine by the tuner, except it can't decrypt them, and they're standard channels AFAIK.

Can you tell us what frequency the non-encrypted channels are on then?

maxg

watty wrote:

The SW assumes fixed channels. The Trial is using non-standard frequency offsets.

Do you mean the 167 khz offset?

maxg

Alun wrote:

The hardware for the Freecom, Yakumo, VGear and a good few other no-name Taiwanese sticks is absolutely 100% identical, and come up with exactly the same PnP Device ID. After I installed the drivers, it also transpired that the drivers themselves were identical, they're probably just the standard drivers provide by whatever OEM actually makes the things before they're rebadged as Freecom or whatever. So no, I didn't 'botch' anything, thanks :rolleyes:

The problem is not the driver. The problem is the windows registry and all the different entries.
If you are sure the driver is working try 737.833 for the frequency.