DVB-T card - compatible in Ireland?

Kotek Besar

Hi folks,

Anyone know if this will work in Ireland?

watty

Probabily. But not on a low powered Atom, netbook or low end laptop/Notebook as the decoding is in software.


Depends how good your PC software is. You need a VERY good graphics card to output 25fps on HDMI to a TV screen.

Native resolutions & refresh rates on Laptops & PCs tend to suit USA 30fps or 60fps progressive rather than 576i and 1080i 25fps euro formats (all European broadcast is 50 field 25fps interlaced).

mossym

even the lower ones should handle sd pretty okay, i have 4/5 year old laptops at home that were by no means high end in their day and they can handle SD okay, HD is another matter

podrisco

Yes, it will work here. Bought one recently for €27 while on hols in Spain.

watty

RTE2 will be part time HD.
late 2011/ mid 2012 the 2nd mux will result in more RTE1 & RTE2 HD. No simulcast. So any solution for Saorview must support HD.

mjsmyth

I have an Atom based Acer Aspire Revo that I use as a media center and it does a great job. I must admit though that the Revo has an nVidia Ion chip that looks after all the SD and HD video decoding.

I picked mine up in Harvey Normans for €180 a few months back, and got an Acer upgrade to Windows 7 Premium for €14.. All in all, a very sweet deal.

I must pick up dvbt and dvb-s2 usb devices for it though, so I can use it as a pvr.

Bob_Harris

Just to point out that a graphics chip will have an easier time decoding 1080p than it will 1080i or even 576i.

Performing advanced de-interlacing (vector adaptive or spatial-temporal) even on SD content outputting to a TV at 1080p is very GPU intensive.

I bought a motherboard with an integrated HD4200 which promised vector adaptive deinterlacing, but outputting at 1080p was only able to do "bob" (very poor method of deinterlacing). I had to buy a HD5450 which, in my mind, is the very minimum you will need for a SD and HD PVR / HTPC with optimum image quality.

The Ion is just about capable of performing advanced deinterlacing I believe, but only under Vista / Win7 with the EVR renderer.

watty

also you be lucky if you can get 50 field 25fps from non-desktop (and expensive ) graphics. 60fps or 30fps progressive is rubbish quality with 25fps interlaced source, which ALL european broadcast is.

My experience is a €60 setbox or DVD player beats a €200 graphics card on PC for TV.

hdmi is needed for HD, and again few PCs do 576i or 1080i 25fps properly.

Most PC deinterlacing is rubbish. Also unless the source was film or other Progressive content interlaced at 50f/25fps, 2:2 inverse Telecine (the only perfect deinterlace) won't work. If source is Interlaced camera, then a native interlaced display is better.

abyss

I have AverMedia Volar X (with same A815 on board). Is working in Ireland. Im tested it on 1.4GHz laptop (XP), 2.4GHz Athlone desktop (XP) and Phenom II X3 desktop (W7 & Ubuntu) . On all works almost same (good or bad, depend of point of view and expectations). Avi files are saved with 704 x 576 resolution MPEG4, and DVB-T "live view" looks for me exactly same... (I have 1920x1080 PC screen IIyama). So - works, but can't got 1920x1080.