Terrestrial usb tv tuner

Hi i was wondering would something like this be able top pick up rte etc or are they only used for Freeview in the uk?

I live in South Tipperary and my local transmitter is Mt Leinster so its not really a Freeview spillover area.

parasite

it should work fine

Bob_Harris

Yeah I got one of those a few weeks ago on ebay. Including postage I won it for around €13.

It comes with TotalMedia 3.5 which is decent enough media center software. It appears to have h.264 decoding built in which is nice.

I haven't been able to get the remote working yet. The aerial that comes with it gives a surprisingly solid (while not the strongest) signal level.

If you are using 3rd party software like DVB-viewer there seems to be an issue with the USB stick where it reports a very low signal level, i.e. 10%, but the audio and video play fine with no breakup.

The USB stick does not work in Linux if that is of any concern to you.

For €13 it was a bargain.

rurs

Nice find...
What's the CPU usage like on Irish DTT? I'd be hoping to use it with an EEE PC 701, which maxes out at 900mhz, basic onboard graphics card etc. but I'm worried it might struggle with the combination of MPEG4 and the media centre software.
Any thoughts? Totally unrealistic, or is it worth a punt?

Bob_Harris

rurs wrote: »

Nice find...
What's the CPU usage like on Irish DTT? I'd be hoping to use it with an EEE PC 701, which maxes out at 900mhz, basic onboard graphics card etc. but I'm worried it might struggle with the combination of MPEG4 and the media centre software.
Any thoughts? Totally unrealistic, or is it worth a punt?

I'd say it will be fine. It might be near full load but depending on what codec you use you should get decent results.

Here is a 1 minute recording I took of RTE2 (highest resolution channel at the moment) using DVBViewer.

It's an untouched direct copy of the broadcast stream, so it should be a good test.

On my laptop which has a 2GHz dual core, it was around 24% CPU usage. I doubt the software or codec are multi core optimized so rudimentary calculations would say that you will be somewhere between 50% and 70% CPU utilization.

Anyway, report back with the usage you get from the sample. Depending on the playback software you can choose different post processors which will make a big difference.

lucernarian

I expect a 900MHz cpu (which is effectively a CPU design from 10 years ago if it's a P3) will struggle because of the speed and also because of the design factors in using very efficient Atom processors or variants of older processors with simpler and less energy-taxing designs. But I'd love to be proven wrong, so post back with the results!

dowtchaboy

I use a USB stick (Pinnacle 330e - couple of years old- €65 back then) with a Samsung netbook - Atom processor - no speed demon - and it works fine. Had to add H264 decoding software too. It needs less processing power to handle DTT than analogue signals. When I used it on analogue TV it just barely kept up.

rurs

Well the clip Bob_Harris kindly uploaded plays on my EeePC 4G.
I had to download Gomplayer to get the codec (watch out for the Ask toolbar, and ads for Norton) and even at it's stock underclock of 630mhz, the clip played through after a few seconds of freezing, although the CPU was pinned at 100%.
When I took it up to to 900mhz, it peaked around 80%, hovered around 60%, so perfectly usable.
I don't suppose the battery would last long at that rate, but I may look into options for a dual dtt/sat tuner for home use, if I don't get this particular tuner from ebay. It's certainly given me food for thought for my next system:)

boghopper

I actually ordered one thats very similar, the only reason I got it was to decode the RTE Mp4 stream and this one is meant to be able to do HD as well. Hopefully it will be here tomorrow been waiti
ng a week for it so far.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28891

bobthebobbob

they also have dual dvb-t tuners available. this one looks good, as it has a standard input..



i haven't tried them, but at that price, i might just have to get one and try it.

boghopper

Since recieving my usb stick i have noticed a couple of strange things. the bundled software which included Blaze tv v6 wworks very well as well as picking up the Truskmore channels I was also able to pick up the freeview signals from Broughter Mountain. I launched Media Center on my Vista laptop and noticed that the Truskmore channels were been outputed as audio only but all the freeview channels came through clear and with EPG details. One Brilliant thing i discovered is that because my XBOX 360 uses media center on it it uses the tv stick on my laptop as an extender so I can control and watch the TV pictures through my XBOX but it has the same problem as the laptop as it doesnt decode the Truskmore pictures and signals a message on the screen " Digital Audio" has anyone else seen this and is there a workaround for it?

gtg60

boghopper wrote: »

Since recieving my usb stick i have noticed a couple of strange things. the bundled software which included Blaze tv v6 wworks very well as well as picking up the Truskmore channels I was also able to pick up the freeview signals from Broughter Mountain. I launched Media Center on my Vista laptop and noticed that the Truskmore channels were been outputed as audio only but all the freeview channels came through clear and with EPG details. One Brilliant thing i discovered is that because my XBOX 360 uses media center on it it uses the tv stick on my laptop as an extender so I can control and watch the TV pictures through my XBOX but it has the same problem as the laptop as it doesnt decode the Truskmore pictures and signals a message on the screen " Digital Audio" has anyone else seen this and is there a workaround for it?

Get Windows 7, Vista sucks

No native H264 decoding in Vista so you need to add a Codec. Seriously though, get rid of Vista!

VPS

Just to double check - in Dublin tv tuner below would be able to get RTE1, 2, TV3, TG4. Anything else?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28891

tmcw

10 radio channels and a couple of tv test channels.

No TV3.

VPS

What tv tuner for laptop would get RTE1, 2, TV3 ?

Heard about DVB tv tuners (apologies if spelled wrong). what digital channels can be received in Dublin?

tmcw

Sorry, I meant in addition to the channels you already listed.

You'll get RTE 1, RTE 2, TnaG, 2 test channels, and 10 radio stations.

TV3 isn't available at the moment (in Dublin anyway).

There are a few threads on this board with discussions on these devices. I personally have the one from Dealextreme, the WandTV one, works great. Cheap and worth getting even just to mess about with.

boghopper

boghopper wrote: »

Since recieving my usb stick i have noticed a couple of strange things. the bundled software which included Blaze tv v6 wworks very well as well as picking up the Truskmore channels I was also able to pick up the freeview signals from Broughter Mountain. I launched Media Center on my Vista laptop and noticed that the Truskmore channels were been outputed as audio only but all the freeview channels came through clear and with EPG details. One Brilliant thing i discovered is that because my XBOX 360 uses media center on it it uses the tv stick on my laptop as an extender so I can control and watch the TV pictures through my XBOX but it has the same problem as the laptop as it doesnt decode the Truskmore pictures and signals a message on the screen " Digital Audio" has anyone else seen this and is there a workaround for it?

The original one i opened the thread about got 'lost' in the ash cloud so i bought another from Hong Kong on Ebay with Blaze 6.0 and received it today. Cant pick up anything after running the auto scan :mad: They still doing DTTV tests for Mount Leinster?
Very puny looking antenna on them. Any way i could hook these up to a normal aerial via some connector?

suse103

You will need to attach your usb stick to your outside atenna via a adapter like this one
http://cgi.ebay.ie/Cable-Stick-Adapter-Antenna-USB-DVB-T-DVBT-TV-Tuner-/260337827233?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_ConEle_SatCableFreeview_RL&hash=item3c9d57fda1

i Bought this http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.28891 and it works great under window 7 with the blaze software and also in media center but will only work with the outside atenna...very good value