BDA DVB Network Encoder (2.0.0.6 - February 12 2006)

[AndersNolberger]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

UK user can confirm manual scanning works well here

I'm curious if any of the settings affect picture quality. Could changing the mux, file writer or any other settings have an effect on picture quality?

I'm thinking that once its working the picture quality will always be the same (as the picture is pulled from a digital source) and is the same as that produced by My Theatre or any other dvb program. Is this right or might another mux etc change picture quality? Apologies for my poor understanding of this: I'd appreciate it if anyone can clear this up.

As Ian say the picture quality should not be affected by the mux. The only exception would be if the reception is very low quality and different muxes might "repair" them differently, but that is not anything I have noticed myself.

The file writers does just that, write the finished stream to disk. The difference between my included one and others is that SBDARecorder knows how to get the exact file size when my filter is used. That might speed up start of playback a little.

Anders

[pjwerdna]

Hi All

I notice that the USB2 Nova-T card is reported as working, but how can the PCI version be made to work?

I've tried running the setup but it doesnt appear as a tuner device.

[AndersNolberger]

What setup are you meaning? If you install this plugin from the first post in this thread and then go to the settings dialog does the Nova T appear in the Tuner device combo box?

If not then make sure thar you have BDA drivers installed. If you have any other problem please tell me more about it and I will try to help.

I think that the PCI version is supported already.

Anders

[Alfiegerner]

Hi Anders, thanks for confirming that the mux or file writer shouldn't affect quality.

For pjwerdna, I'm using a Nova-T pci card (also in the uk) and it works fine for me. It appears in the SBDA Recorder software as Hauppauge WinTV 88x DVB-T Tuner/Demod. If it doesn't appear for you I'd try downloading the latest drivers from the hauppauge site.

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

If not then make sure thar you have BDA drivers installed. If you have any other problem please tell me more about it and I will try to help.

BDA Drivers!

Good idea! I just installed the latest hauppauge drivers. Putting the DBA drivers in works much better.

Just need to work out how to tune in a channel. I can get the freuqncies from my freeview box, but they dont work for some reason.

[dooferlad]

If you know which transmitter you are near, this may help: http://linux.mikeasoft.com/dvb.php

Take the first 6 numbers from the first number...

BBC ONE:505833333: --> 505833khz

There is also ScanChannelsBDA from: http://nate.dynalias.net/DigitalWatc...anChannelsBDA/.

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by dooferlad

If you know which transmitter you are near, this may help: http://linux.mikeasoft.com/dvb.php

Take the first 6 numbers from the first number...

BBC ONE:505833333: --> 505833khz

That works better!
I was taking details from http://www.ukfree.tv/notethat.php?d=TQ339712 which has BBC ONE as 506000KHz. There's obviously some sort of hidden offset in the freeview boxes as I wasnt picking anything up.

[AndersNolberger]

Could someone please put together a list of frequencies used in the UK so that I can include it in the SBDARecorder distrubution?

Anders

[Mark SS]

My settings.xml file is posted at http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15681 and contains the majority of channels picked up from the Crystal Palace transmitter.

(edited to add transmitter!)

[dooferlad]

The frequencies won't be constant throughout the UK, but I guess the same frequencey will be reused for non-adjecent regions...

I guess the best thing to do is to integrate a channel scanner. UK Muxes are 8Mhz wide and I am sure there is information on what range of frequenceies need to be scanned.

Since Sage now understands DVB-T, is it possible to use the BDA DVB network encoder without a mux?

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

My settings.xml file is posted at http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15681 and contains the majority of UK channels as far as I know.

Each transmitter has different frequencies, so yours is only valid in your area.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by dooferlad

TSince Sage now understands DVB-T, is it possible to use the BDA DVB network encoder without a mux?

It's now possible to use DVB-T in Sage without *any* plugins at all. I have it running fine, no plugins, but currently it's only stable on a small number of cards. No external mux required!

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

Could someone please put together a list of frequencies used in the UK so that I can include it in the SBDARecorder distrubution?

If somone has the time, you can get all that information from the DVB folder in a GBPVR installation...all the XML files with England, Scotland or Wales in them...

[archie658]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

Could someone please put together a list of frequencies used in the UK so that I can include it in the SBDARecorder distrubution?

Last saturday I started playing around with SBDARecorder. Nice work!

I'v sorted out the frequencies for TVHome (The Netherlands):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<dvbt>
<country name="Netherlands">
<region name="TVHome">
<channel frequency="255000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="247000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="263000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="271000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="279000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="287000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="295000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="305000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="313000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="321000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="329000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="337000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="345000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="353000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="361000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="369000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="610000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="618000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="762000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="810000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
<channel frequency="818000" symbolRate="6875" modulationType="3" />
</region>
</country>
</dvbt>

Many of the channels are not found however. Maybe the timing of the scanning is a bit too short, e.g. at 618000 two of the three channels were found.

Using XMLnotepad I added the missing channel with information from myTheatre. Hint: a built-in "add" function whould be great (with hex/dec mode for some of the values)! Unfortunately SBDARecorder could not tune to some of the other channels I've added. Looking forward to further testing!

[jonron]

Hi,

I have a very nice picture but when changing channel, I often get a very "jerky" picture, the sound is still ok. When I change back to the original channel, the picture is bad even there.

If I then step out to Sage menus and does some other things a while, like viewing a media file, the TV-signal is correct again when i go back to TV after a couple of minutes.

Is this a SAGE, SBDA or windows error???

/Jonas

[AndersNolberger]

archie658: Is it ok if I contact you with a test version so that we can find out why the channels is not found? I will unfortunately not have much time the next couple of days but next week is better. Thanks for the frequencies, they will be added in the next release.

Jonas: When the playback get jerky can you try to record a little bit and then copy the mpg file so that Sage does not delete it for you. Then restart Sage and import the file and try to play it again. I want to know if the file is ok or not. What mux are you using? Do you use DVB-T? I think the next beta of Sage will work for a lot more people with native DVB-T support.

Anders

[archie658]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

archie658: Is it ok if I contact you with a test version so that we can find out why the channels is not found?

Please do. I'll be glad to do the testing.
The frequencies are for TVHome Zwolle (9003), in case you receive more of them.

[nickjp]

Hi Anders,

Like Archie658 I have been testing around (in the Netherlands). Here are the frequencies for Cable operator Casema (they are valid for everyone connected to Casema - irrespective of location):

340.000 348.000 356.000 364.000 372.000 380.000 388.000 396.000 404.000
412.000 420.000 428.000 436.000 444.000
Casema is testing at a few other frequencies (e.g. HDTV 20 Mb/s for the upcoming world championship football):
324.000 332.000 452.000 and 460.000

Symbolrate: 6875, modulation: QAM64

Interesting thing is that I also have missing channels. E.g. at 340.000 SBDARecorder detects 8 channels, MyTheatre finds the complete set of 9.
Manual updating of settings.xml does the trick for about half of the missing channels. For the other half I first have to tune to the channel using MyTheatre, close MyTheatre and then the SBDARecorder recorder is able to tune to the manually entered channel as well. Tuning to another channel with SBDARecorder and back to the manually entered channel fails again.
I know... don't ask me how/why.....

Config: FiredTVFloppy with AlphaCrypt and latest drivers

[archie658]

Originally Posted by nickjp

Manual updating of settings.xml does the trick for about half of the missing channels.

Seems to be a Dutch problem? Does the file size counter (in Record) for those "untuneable" channels stop at 2048 or 200? Mine stops at 2048 for those channels.

[AndersNolberger]

archie658: Could you change mux to TSStream in settings and then open the record dialog in SBDARecorder and try to record some from one of the untuneable channels. How is the file size growing? Stop and try to play with for example VLC, did it work?

Is you frequencies for dvb-t for one city/region in the Netherlands?

nickjp: if you have the same problem could you also test with ts stream?

Anders