Should I be getting reception on a DVB-T card?

TheBlackBuck

I thought digital tv wasn't being broadcast in Ireland yet so I bought a hybrid (analogue/dvb-t) external tv tuner for my laptop. I tried scanning for analogue channels in Windows Media Centre (all I got was a very snowy TG4) so just for a laugh I tried scanning for DVB-T channels.... lo-and-behold it found all four terrestrial channels, RTENL test channel, 4 RTE radio stations adn the EPGs for all of them!! I didn't think this would be possible especially as I'm living in the sticks in Mayo.

Rick_

I was thinking of getting the Hauppauge HD PVR 4000 that does HD satellite and Freeview, I just wanted to make sure first that it would pick up the ROI DTT service. I presume so but just wanted to make sure. Hopefully it would also pick up any Freeview HD signals (but will probably require a software upgrade for that...)

watty

There is NO service till it launches, probabily Q3 2010.

We have engineering tests which stop & start, vary in content and may end soon.

You need to be on South west coast or some Border areas for Freeview.

Virtually any card or USB module will work for Irish DTT if it can use 3rd party viewing/recording software and access a codec like Core AVC (for MPEG4 decoder).

TheBlackBuck

Well I'm going to keep on enjoying this "NO service" service while it's still in service:p. I'll post here if it ever cuts out but so far, so good.

I'm just surprised I can even get crystal clear test signals here considering the analogue reception is terrible. And this is all through an internal non-amplified antenna about 20cm long.

Apogee

Paddy C wrote: »

Hopefully it would also pick up any Freeview HD signals (but will probably require a software upgrade for that...)

It's useless for Freeview HD. A DVB-T device cannot be converted to DVB-T2 by a software or firmware upgrade.

Rick_

Awww, that's a shame, I was looking to make myself a media centre PC that would handle Freeview, Freeview HD, ROI DTT and FTA satellite and use it to feed my HDTV with in one nice custom EPG. Should I wait and see if a TV card comes out that will do all of those, or forget about Freeview HD and just get a HVR-4000 now and upgrade later... Decisions....

Rick_

Well, seeing as we're on the subjet of DVB-T cards, what special software (if any) is needed to get the DTT tests then? Will it work in Media Centre or do I have to use a different programme to receive it? Having all the DTT and DSAT channels in one EPG and in one PC application would suit a lot better when channel hopping!

peneau

Paddy C wrote: »

Well, seeing as we're on the subjet of DVB-T cards, what special software (if any) is needed to get the DTT tests then? Will it work in Media Centre or do I have to use a different programme to receive it? Having all the DTT and DSAT channels in one EPG and in one PC application would suit a lot better when channel hopping!

Paddy, I have a Hauppauge HVR-3000 (not a HD Card) (the HVR-4000 is) in my six year old P4 3.0ghz , the supplied software(WinTV2000 I think) is a dog, it picks up the domestic analogue and Astra 28 channels (have it hooked up to an external aerial and minidish) it also picks up the audio (only) of the current DVB-T broadcasts, as the supplied software will not decode h.264 transmissions.

However, I installed DVB viewer Pro and that software is capable of decoding the domestic DVB-T (h.264) broadcasts which I pick up from Three Rock & Kippure, I presume, I'm in Dublin, Sandymount area.

DVB Viewer Pro has no analogue capabilities but it will pick up DVB-S and DVB-T transmissions.

Hope that helps.

Rick_

Thanks peneau for that.

I was interested in getting it to work in Media Centre as I understand they do the both in one EPG wise and can also be customised with things like channel logos instead of just bog standard text names, etc.

Does anyone here have DTT and DSAT already set up in Media Centre can give me a bit of advice on how it is all set up and anything special that is needed to be done in order to get it all working with the DTT trials /MPEG4 signals?

bf1

VLC and a DTT usb stick works well

Open capture device.. DVB direct show..
just put in the frequency in KHz not Hz (for down here..802)
then put under advanced options put it in as 802000
press play and enjoy

Working at the mo in Co.Waterford 802Khz

mathew

Im considering getting one of the Hauppauge WinTV receivers. Probably the HVR1100
The card supports MPEG-2 decoding and not MPEG-4. I have Windows 7 and the Media Centre supposedly supports h.264 natively.
Will this work for watching Irish DTT when it is launched since its going to be MPEG-4?

BigMoose

I've got a GBPVR box with a HVR-4000 in and a Skystar2 DVB-S card, so I have two DVB-S(one of which is S2) tuners and one DVB-T tuner. I use the DVB-T for the ROI channels and Sat for the UK FTA including the BBC and ITV HD channels. I get a 14 day EPG (including the 4 ROI channels) from the Radiotimes XMLTV. Works perfectly. As many have stated, the ROI DVB-T channels are hit and miss but currently mostly work fine. Note for free UK HD channels on sat you dont need the "HD" (DVB-S2) cards as all the FTA HD channels are broadcast via DVB-S so any DVB-S card will pick them up. That said there is talk of them all moving to DVB-S2 so I wouldn't spend much on a DVB-S card if it's the HD channels you're after.

I've also got a spare HVR-1100 kicking about - and it does MPEG4 decoding just fine - well it itself doesn't decode anything. The filters/codecs installed on your box do. Until swapping it with the HVR-4000 it worked perfectly on the Irish mpeg4 dtt channels.

Rick_

What codecs are you using and where did you get them from? Trying to get the ROI channels on my HVR4000 and Vista Windows Media Centre but no joy at the moment.

BigMoose

I've found the Irish DTT channels a bit of a pain with H264 codecs as with many of them you get a flickering green screen. However PowerDVD8 (the Cyberlink codec) works very well as does CoreAVC. PDVD7 gave the green screen and PDVD9 doesn't work outside of PDVD so is no use. There are trials of CoreAVC and PDVD8 kicking about. With PDVD8, I had to download an update though as I think the trial version gave the green screens... ffdshow (latest tryout version) has free H264 codecs but I've not tried them on the Irish DTT channels but I do have them installed and have used them for Bluray playback. MPC also has a very good free H264 decoder but I believe it doens't work with live TV streams. Let me know if you cant find any of the above.

fat-tony

The PDVD codecs have a facility to use hardware acceleration if your motherboard or your graphics card supports H.264 decoding on-chip. I have a dual-core AMD Athlon 2.6GHz CPU on a motherboard which supports H.264 decoding in hardware.
I tried the CoreAVC and Mainconcept decoders and while they all worked well with DTT decoding, the CPU utilisation was up at 40% - 60%. When I installed the PDVD9 trial it enabled the hardware decoding and my CPU utilisation dropped down to 5% - 7% on DTT.
If you are using a single-core PC under 3Ghz, you will struggle with H.264 decoding in software. Irish DTT in standard def. may be ok, but HD on a satellite tuner card will be unusable - you really need multi-core processors or dedicated hardware support.
Your experience of occasional "green screen" may be symptomatic of your CPU struggling. Check the CPU utilisation.

BigMoose

My green issues on the Irish DTT is not CPU related, it's definately codec. The PDVD7 codecs cant decode it for some reason. There's something different in the Irish DTT stream that they cant handle. However PDVD8 is fine (with the patch) and as you say hardware accelerate brilliantly with a decent GPU. I've got a dual core plus a decent hardware GPU (ATI HD4600). I agree for non hardware accellerated H264 decoding you'll need a dual core CPU. For 1080i HD channel hardware accelerated decoding you'll need a decent enough GPU. I had a HD3200 and it couldn't quite cope but upgraded to a HD4600 and it's flawless.

fat-tony

I assumed your PC was beefy enough as you mentioned Blu-ray playback - the CPU comments were more directed at the other posters who were trying to find suitable codecs. It's funny, though, how a "standardised" Windows interface providing a hardware abstraction layer provides such different results on different kit using the same software:rolleyes:
I found that the PDVD9 codecs were excellent for DTT SD and satellite HD decoding of H.264 except on Luxe TV, where I got a green mosaic pattern everytime the scene changed:eek: The Mainconcept decoder handled Luxe TV ok, except for the high CPU utilisation.
I use DVBViewer Pro for DTT viewing with a Pinnacle card and I found that on my kit I could use pretty much any codec for H.264 without a problem. I think the fast CPU is more forgiving. Anyone with marginal processor speed may have to seek out the most CPU efficient codec. CoreAVC seems to be the one of choice for a lot of users.

BigMoose

Do the PDVD9 filters work for progs outside of PDVD? I've read on the gbpvr forums that they stopped access for external progs for PDVD9 so I've never tried it. Since PDVD8 works well on UK HD 1080i channels and the Irish DTT channels I've not really bothered to find out about PDVD9 myself... That said, PDVD8 codecs do have a fit sometimes on 1080i and I have to change channel and back or even restart the app to get it silky smooth again...
With CoreAVC I've never got it to behave nicely for 1080i sport pans - for soccer I find it awful for the quick pans up and down the pitch. Nothing I've tried matches the silky pans of PDVD8 filters. My CPU isn't anywhere near maxed out using CoreAVC either.:(
I think my LuxeHD playback is OK with PDVD8 - dont really watch it long enough to be sure though, just the odd quick test...

fat-tony

I installed the trial version of PDVD9 about 6 months ago. The trial is long expired, but DVBViewer Pro seems to be able to use the actual H.264 codec still:) I know I tried to used the PDVD codec in KMPlayer, but it didn't seem to work at all.

Don't really look at Luxe TV either - was just testing HD sources.

mathew

I have a Single Core P4 3.0GHz, ATI X600 128MB which supports MPEG1/2/4 decoding.
Think it would struggle using Windows 7 MC to receive DTT on the Hauppauge 1100?