Freeview on a PC

mickysquint · 11-03-2012 03:48PM #1

Hi all,
Was just wondering could some one recommend a way or device of picking up Freeview tv up to be used with windows media player. I have it hooked up to a normal analogue aerial but am restricted to rte 1,2 ant tv3. Any suggestions on how to pick up any more channels would be appreciated.

deconduo · 11-03-2012 03:58PM

I use this thing:
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Digital-PC-New-USB-DVB-T-HDTV-TV-Tuner-Recorder-Receiver-/280763772879?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item415ed32fcf

The aerial that comes with it is pretty small, so you do need to get it into a good position to get a signal, but once you do its perfect. You get all the saorview channels + digital radio as well.

mickysquint · 11-03-2012 04:03PM

That's great, going to order one of those now and give it a bash. cheers for that mate.

Khannie · 12-03-2012 11:49AM

DVB-S and / or DVB-S2 (for HDTV) are worth considering too. For probably 100 euro (probably 50 if you went with standard def) you could have the dish up and a HD card on your computer. Freesat has a whole heap of channels compared to Saorview. Put the two together and you've got a really decent, free forever system.

ScumLord · 12-03-2012 03:02PM

You can watch some Irish and international news channels on aertv.ie, not great quality though.

U_Fig · 12-03-2012 03:30PM

Would a sky disk work (I have 2 spaces on the lnb free) on of those DVB-S cards? I have a DVB-T card already and can pick soarview perfectly?

Nothingbetter2d · 13-03-2012 01:19PM

mickysquint wrote: »

Hi all,
Was just wondering could some one recommend a way or device of picking up Freeview tv up to be used with windows media player. I have it hooked up to a normal analogue aerial but am restricted to rte 1,2 ant tv3. Any suggestions on how to pick up any more channels would be appreciated.

buy a hauppage hvr 4400 series card

it will tune BOTH freesat and saorview on your pc using windows media centre.

NOTE: you will also need the avc core h.264 codecs for hd channels to work properly

Khannie · 13-03-2012 05:09PM

U_Fig wrote: »

Would a sky disk work (I have 2 spaces on the lmb free) on of those DVB-S cards? I have a DVB-T card already and can pick soarview perfectly?

Yep. Sky dish + dvb-s card = freeview win. If you have the dish and LNB already it's worth considering a dvb-s2 card so that you can get the high def goodness.

U_Fig · 13-03-2012 08:23PM

Khannie wrote: »

Yep. Sky dish + dvb-s card = freeview win. If you have the dish and LNB already it's worth considering a dvb-s2 card so that you can get the high def goodness.

Cool I'll definitely look into that so have you any recommendations of a USB one i only have a laptop and although i have a spare PCIe port space is a major issue

Khannie · 14-03-2012 12:31PM

Pretty sure the feed needs 12V, so a USB one requires a separate power adapter. Any DVB-S one I've seen has had one anyway. If you can avoid USB, I would. I got a dual tuner PCI-Express DVB-S2 one with remote myself (I can dig out which one if you like). I think they're all much of a muchness if you have a remote though.

U_Fig · 14-03-2012 05:45PM

Thanks for the advice i'll have a look inside the laptop to see what kind of space I have and see after that what I'll do. Would it require a good GPU to run I have an old desktop that I could use that has GeForce 2 graphics and intel pentium 4..would he stream work on those specs only 512 ram too.

Freeview on a PC

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