So who's gone wild and bought unverified mpeg4 dvb-t recievers?

Sam Russell

copeyhagen wrote: »

forgive my foolishness but what does the box actually do?!

cheers

rob

If you have a MPEG 2 television, you will only get sound with no vision. This box plugs into the TV via the HDMI connection and gives the full Saorview service in glorious HD or SD. It does not support MHEG 5 so it will not give fancy Teletext. It is hidden behind the TV and only draws 8W so it does not get hot and does not need a fan. It will also allow you to record a program onto a USB HD or memory stick. It comes with all you need.

It also works on older CRT Tvs with a SCART connection, again it hides behind the TV, but in this case you will not get HD, but HD programmes are down-sampled to SD. All channels on Saorview display correctly.



See http://www.adverts.ie/540407.

Supercell

Got one of these of Sam today and works fantastic. Using with my big old Sony crt via scart. Lovely picture and dead easy to use. Coat hanger as an aerial and bobs yer uncle

efb

Got mine during the week. picture great but remote is a nightmare to work, it only works occasionally, is the remote this bad for everyone?

Sam Russell

efb wrote: »

Got mine during the week. picture great but remote is a nightmare to work, it only works occasionally, is the remote this bad for everyone?

Sorry to hear that, I've had no other complaints about it. PM me and I will sort it for you.

fat-tony

efb wrote: »

Got mine during the week. picture great but remote is a nightmare to work, it only works occasionally, is the remote this bad for everyone?

No problems with the remote for me. Do you have the IR receiver oriented correctly?

STB

Sam Russell wrote: »

As I said earlier, the firmware is not the same as the Polish box, and I will get onto the manufacturer and see if the firmware I have supports DD+, and if it does not, I will get it upgraded if that is possible.


@STB:How would I test it to see if it is implemented?

Get a raw TS with H264 video and He-AAC (DD+). You will find one on a broadcast forum or a video encoding website. Then try and play it via the USB.

Some guy over on a Polish engineering forum already tested it. Your box will not play that audio format.

And yes you could get it sorted with firmware.

Sam Russell

STB wrote: »

Get a raw TS with H264 video and He-AAC (DD+). You will find one on a broadcast forum or a video encoding website. Then try and play it via the USB.

Some guy over on a Polish engineering forum already tested it. Your box will not play that audio format.

And yes you could get it sorted with firmware.

I will get back to the manufacturer to confirm. According to the manual, it down-converts HE-AAC to stereo. Is that possible?

I also think that there is a licence issue, an extra $1 per unit, but this was never mentioned to me. There is a licence for MPEG as well, and possibly for other features but that is outside my negotiations.

10000maniacs

I juat bought a Yamada HD MPEG4 HD box with HDMI/SCART in Maplins Dublin for €55 for my parents who are reluctant to get a new tv. I tried it out last night and all the correct Irish TV and radio channels are there. The remote is great too. No MPEG 5 but who cares.
The sturdy STB aspect of this IMO makes it preferrable to the back of the television device mentioned in the previous post. The picture quality is great.

Sam Russell

STB wrote: »

Get a raw TS with H264 video and He-AAC (DD+). You will find one on a broadcast forum or a video encoding website. Then try and play it via the USB.

Some guy over on a Polish engineering forum already tested it. Your box will not play that audio format.

And yes you could get it sorted with firmware.

@STB : I got onto the supplier and it was confirmed that the box I supply has got HE-AAC. Now I have no way of testing it, so maybe you could give me details on how I can test it. The Polish box may well be different software, and I know changes were done for my needs. I think this needs to be checked out on the particular box I have here in Dublin.

fat-tony

Sam, your unit plays standard AAC sound files for sure (M4A suffix), as I have several albums encoded in this format for my Samsung phone.

I did a bit of googling and found this site with HE-AAC encoded test audio files http://lists.apple.com/archives/streaming-server-users/2005/Aug/msg00007.html
They play fine on my PC in VLC player and are listed on your unit in the music player (media player) as M4A, but will not play (message is unsupported format). I couldn't find any actual video clips with HE-AAC audio, but I do recall reading somewhere that this particular combination of H.264 video + HE-AAC audio is used in Israel.

dowtchaboy

efb wrote: »

Got mine during the week. picture great but remote is a nightmare to work, it only works occasionally, is the remote this bad for everyone?

The sticky bit of the IR R/C receiver extension faces towards the front of the TV, BTW ........
I found the remote OK though it did seem that the transmission angle was quite narrow i.e. you have to point it straight at the "eye" rather than just vaguely in that direction.

Sam Russell

What is the difference between AAC and HE-AAC?

This alphabet soup does my head in.:(

The Cush

Sam Russell wrote: »

What is the difference between AAC and HE-AAC?

This alphabet soup does my head in.:(

I guess Wikipedia is your best bet for an answer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Efficiency_Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC isn't part of the Saorview spec, MPEG-4 HE-AAC version 1 (ISO/IEC 14496-3) is.

AAC goes back to 1997 with HE-AAC v.1 standardized in 2003.

HE-AAC is an extension of AAC using spectral band replication (SBR), and Parametric Stereo (PS). It is designed to increase coding efficiency at low bitrates by using partial parametric representation of audio.

Sam Russell

The Cush wrote: »

I guess Wikipedia is your best bet for an answer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Efficiency_Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC isn't part of the Saorview spec, MPEG-4 HE-AAC version 1 (ISO/IEC 14496-3) is.

AAC goes back to 1997 with HE-AAC v.1 standardized in 2003.

Thanks for that. I must ask if that particular codec is covered.

The Cush

Just to throw another spanner in, any product carrying the Dolby Pulse logo is compliant with the Saorview audio requirements, e.g. the 2011 Sony range.

5.3.1. Audio format decoding

The IRD shall support mono, stereo (including joint stereo) and multi-channel (up to 5.1) audio decoding for:

 MPEG-1 Layer II (ISO/IEC 11172-3) Musicam, up to 2.0 stereo
 MPEG-4 HE AAC version 1 (ISO/IEC 14496-3) and
 AC 3 & Enhanced AC3 (“Dolby Digital / Plus”) (ETSI TS 102 366).

Dolby Pulse includes the following audio standards

At the heart of Dolby® Pulse are the high-efficient MPEG audio technologies AAC LC, HE AAC v1, and HE AAC v2.

Dolby Pulse integrates all required metadata parameters included in Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus

Sam Russell

Surely there is a way of testing this stuff. Are RTE going to broadcast in HE-AAC or Dolby Digital Pulse (or is it Dolby Digital Plus).

What a mess. They cannot even get the alphabet soup to stand up, so how can we make out what they are trying to say.

When God made standards, He certainly made plenty of them!

bootser

Sam,Got ur box today so far so good!:D
no probs wit remote and i can get excellent reception of british channels(BBC1-4, ITV1-4 etc.)which in my ignorance i didnt expect!:rolleyes:
Might be looking for another one before to long,to many old style TVs!!:o
Thanks.

Sam Russell

bootser wrote: »

Sam,Got ur box today so far so good!:D
no probs wit remote and i can get excellent reception of british channels(BBC1-4, ITV1-4 etc.)which in my ignorance i didnt expect!:rolleyes:
Might be looking for another one before to long,to many old style TVs!!:o
Thanks.

I would be interested to hear how it handles the BBC etc. How does it assign the channel numbers? Can you reassign them?

If you want more, then contact me, I've still a few left.:)

(I will always have a few left, because when they are gone, I will get more).:D

Sam Russell

I was onto the manufacturer and they say that
MPEG-4 HE-AAC version 1 (ISO/IEC 14496-3)
Is supported. However I do not have any video to test it.

cgc5483

Sam Russell wrote: »

I would be interested to hear how it handles the BBC etc. How does it assign the channel numbers? Can you reassign them?

If you want more, then contact me, I've still a few left.:)

(I will always have a few left, because when they are gone, I will get more).:D

Pardon my ignorance but can i ask how its receiving BBC etc. Is that Freeview your picking up from Wales or something?

Sam Russell

cgc5483 wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance but can i ask how its receiving BBC etc. Is that Freeview your picking up from Wales or something?

The box will pick up Freeview channels but not FreeviewHD. You would need to be near the border, or able to receive from Wales.

Sam Russell

I've put in a request for a few software modifications to make the adapter more user friendly. I will post here if and when I get a response.

PressTheButton

Sam Russell wrote: »

I've put in a request for a few software modifications to make the adapter more user friendly. I will post here if and when I get a response.

Will modifications include MHEG5 compatibility?

Sam Russell

PressTheButton wrote: »

Will modifications include MHEG5 compatibility?

I have asked for that along with a number of other improvements. It is proving difficult to get the MHEG 5 at this time. The unit has the hardware requirements but the chip vendor Mstar does not consider the market big enough at the moment. I am still pressing for it though.

BuzzG

Thats great Sam. Fair play.

Sam Russell

I expect an update later this month. I will post here when I have it.

deaglan169

bought a secondhand sagemcom rti90-500 freeview hd box working fine UI isnt great its slow but i have the latest update to load onto it, it puts the irish dtt in the 800s as does my LG, text doesnt appeat to work so i take it the box doesnt support mpeg5, i cant really test 100% as the box came with the non original remote (if anyone has a spare or one from a boken box pm me)

Sam Russell

deaglan169 wrote: »

bought a secondhand sagemcom rti90-500 freeview hd box working fine UI isnt great its slow but i have the latest update to load onto it, it puts the irish dtt in the 800s as does my LG, text doesnt appeat to work so i take it the box doesnt support mpeg5, i cant really test 100% as the box came with the non original remote (if anyone has a spare or one from a boken box pm me)

Does it get RTE2?

deaglan169

yeah gets the full irish dtt line up, no probs with the time on the epg or recording

pjq

I got mine delivered today , works great . 1 Tv solved 7 to go ( I supplied friends with €30- Sat recievers to get them off $ky, during the tiger years:eek:) .
Im looking for economical solutions;
1 Sat / DVB T Combo box ( HD not required) , just bought a Ferguson from Satelite.ie for Mother for €170-:) , now need a cheap box for the rest.
2. I need to connect Sam's box and a Sat reciever to the kitchen TV which only has 1 Scart , can this be done with a scart that has 2 heads on one side and one on the other?
sorry if these have been answered already , I looked but did not see , I did read some of the SaorSAT "solution"
pjq