DVB-T2 (Freeview HD) tuner available soon

[fac13]

I just pre-ordered one from Dabs. It costs £79.99.

The web page said 8 were expected in 1-2 weeks and when I ordered mine that went down to 7, so if you want to be an early adopter then you'd better not hang about!

Obviously this is only of interest if your area has already switched over to digital terrestrial, or is going to soon.

Having already got DVB-S2 and DVB-T tuners in my setup the only thing this gets me that I haven't already got is C4 HD.

There's some more info on the tuner here.

[Nelbert]

About time some tuner hardware became available.

We've had DVB-T2 round here since April/May and FA stable hardware available. Hopefully it means the other manufacturers will get there act together now.

I think the biggest issue for h/w is outside the UK there isn't the demand for T2 yet. Even inside the UK it isn't there, with many people have just bought a STB or new TV due to digital switch over, to then need another box/device for freeview hd is a bit ott.

Hope the decoding to 720p they mention is just a limitation of the Hauppage software and not anything crazy inside the tuner.

[MCE-Refugee]

They have certainly taken a long time to get these to market as the initial promise from Hauppauge was that they would be available before the football World Cup.

The 720p thing is weird as DVB-x tuners don't normally do anything other than receive & pass on the DVB transport stream as transmitted. So a DVB-T (Freeview) tuner just passes on the MPEG2 file. A DVB-S2 (for HD satellite) passes on the MPEG4 file unchanged. DVB-T2 HD signals are likewise MPEG4 & the resolution is either 1440x1080i or 1920x1080i. Why there would be an extra conversion to 720p I cannot imagine so suspect that someone has got their wires crossed & that this info is incorrect.

[fac13]

Originally Posted by MCE-Refugee

Why there would be an extra conversion to 720p I cannot imagine so suspect that someone has got their wires crossed & that this info is incorrect.

I absolutely agree. There are of course still web sites which say, incorrectly, that Freeview HD is 720p, perhaps because that possibility was once considered(?) or perhaps because the majority of content is actually recorded in that format(?).

Whatever, the Freeview HD channels are indeed 1080i and it is highly improbable the new stick will pointlessly downscale it.

I see Dabs have stopped taking pre-orders, but I just received an email saying they expect to have mine on the 16th, so we shall soon know.

[Whitey]

I'm hoping that by the time we get Freeview HD in the East Midlands there will be some better hardware available. I agree it's taken along time for this to appear. May be there aren't may countries using the standard.

Do you have DVB-T2 in France Nigel?

Cheers

Whitey

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by Whitey

Do you have DVB-T2 in France Nigel?

No, it's regular DVB-T using MPEG4 for the HD channels. I assume that this is because they started rolling out terrestrial HD in 2008 which was before there was any DVB-T2 hardware. It may be a hassle initially in the UK due to lack of choice of DVB-T2 hardware but by the time that DSO is complete they will at least have been able to grab a little more bandwidth for HD by using DVB-T2 & the hardware should be available.

Of course the obvious way to have more channels &/or more HD channels on Freeview would have been to move over to DVB-T2 with MPEG4 for all channels not just HD but there was never any likelihood of that because of all the existing Freeview boxes & TVs that would have been rendered redundant.

[Nelbert]

There's only 3/4 countries in the world with DVB-T2 deployments. UK first, although which muppet thought it would be a good idea halfway through switch over to DVB-T is anyone's guess.

Italy, Sweeden and Finland also have it deployed, but Finland don't expect much takeup until next year.

Many countries are using DVB-T with Mpeg4 to deliver HD, rather than having to upgrade to DVB-T2. Like the BBC does with it's HD on DVB-S

The dvb.org site has stats about worldwide DVB deployments including trials, adoption and implemented.

At the beginning of Nov 2010 there were 9 countries listed worldwide for DVB-T2 of which 6 are trials.

At least when it's available throught the whole country the AAC Surround Sound transcoding will be a mandatory part of the spec, not optional like it is at the moment.

[taylormadearmy]

This PCIe card looks like it will be available soon too:

http://shop.blackgold.tv/BGT3620

I have one on pre-order. Hope it does not take too long!

T

[Nelbert]

I need a USB Tuner, unless I get a PCIe flexi extender and hack a hole in the back of my nas.

Might wait to see if Sundtek update the DVB-T tuner to DVB-T2. Nearly bought their DVB-S2 stick, but it doesn't support motors and they are changing the hardware design due to parts shortages for the current design.

Biggest draw was their linux drivers are kernel independant, and they have drivers for the Seagate Dockstar

A new DVB-T2 adapter or the new S2 adapter might be enough for me to get a tuner and dockstar See if the network stream can be made SageTV friendly.

[fac13]

Mine arrived today and is working perfectly in SageTV via my HD300 and HD100 extenders.

Windows 7 recognised it so I didn't need to use the CD that came with it. They supply something which looks like how I remember Hauppauge's WinTV, if you are familiar with that.

The only hitch was nothing to do with the stick. I couldn't find any details of the Freeview HD mux I receive from Winter Hill, apart from its frequency (737.8MHz) - no TSID, SID information - so I couldn't just directly edit my frq file like I would normally.

I therefore needed to do a scan in SageTV but the problem with that was the predefinedDVBT.frq, which was way out of date. I had to create a new entry in mine to cause Sage to scan 737.8MHz. This produced an frq file which I then could edit to re-establish my preferred channel numbering.

I use Digiguide, DG2XML and Stéphane's utterly wonderful XMLTV importer, so getting the EPG data into Sage, and integrating the new tuner's channels into the Program Guide without duplicates was a doddle.

I can watch and playback the Freeview HD channels on my HD300 and my HD100s without problems, but I still haven't found the correct settings to get audio to work using a PC Sage client - it fails with an ERROR(-5,0x80040200) message. If anybody can help me with that I'd be very grateful - presumably I just need to select the right HD Audio Decoder Filter in Detailed Setup?

Edit: I've now installed the software which came with the stick and that plays audio fine on my PC but Sage still errors with the same message. I can see a load of new codecs in the HD Audio Decoder Filter list in Sage so I guess I'll just have to work my way through them! VLC and Windows Media Player play back recordings made with the stick, but without sound.

I rarely watch TV on my PC so I'm very happy.

[Nelbert]

You'll need a HE-AAC decoder on the PC.

The surround audio standard was left optional but supports DD 5.1 and HE-AAC. The STB manufacturers went with DD as people would have receivers to support decoding and it's what the broadcasters used on FreeSat. The BBC and co then broadcast surround audio in HE-AAC which is why none of the STB could output surround sound on HD broadcasts initially.

In April 2011 the ability to transcode HE-AAC to DD 5.1 becomes a mandatory requirement in the DVB-T2 Spec.

[Oddity]

Taylormadearmy - have you got your card and does it work with Sagetv?

I'm also interested in this card and want to know if it works natively with Sagetv and that the OTA epg data works

[taylormadearmy]

Originally Posted by Oddity

Taylormadearmy - have you got your card and does it work with Sagetv?

I'm also interested in this card and want to know if it works natively with Sagetv and that the OTA epg data works

Its not arrived yet - I'll let you know how it gets on when it does.

T

[Nelbert]

Originally Posted by taylormadearmy

Its not arrived yet - I'll let you know how it gets on when it does.

T

I'm interested in whether the 7 day OTA EPG works as well. I'm doubting it as the BBC have definitely encrypted some part of the OTA EPG, presumably the HD channels. An OTA EPG scanner I'm trying has problems with some encrypted content in the 7 day epg.

[motobarsteward]

Originally Posted by Nelbert

I'm interested in whether the 7 day OTA EPG works as well. I'm doubting it as the BBC have definitely encrypted some part of the OTA EPG, presumably the HD channels. An OTA EPG scanner I'm trying has problems with some encrypted content in the 7 day epg.

I've had problems with using OTA EPG. I disable this feature in the properties files because sage has a habit of trying to use receivers already dedicated to recording or watching for receiving EPG which causes the capture to crash.

[Oddity]

None of the BBC streams or EPG data are encrypted. It is possible that the EPG data is not being handled correctly when changing between the MPEG 2 and 4 streams

[Nelbert]

Originally Posted by Oddity

None of the BBC streams or EPG data are encrypted. It is possible that the EPG data is not being handled correctly when changing between the MPEG 2 and 4 streams

The EPG data for the HD channels is huffman encoded. It was the concession the BBC got after their failed attempt to get the HD video data encoded.
Anyone can apply for the tables, and they're needed for FreeviewHD certification, but to receive them you have to sign an agreement saying you'll honour all copy protection flags on the HD channels.

They are being transmitted on the normal muxes as part of the EPG, not just the HD muxes. I know because my transmitter is HD enabled, I only have a DVB-T receiver and the epg scanner I have pulled a channel list including HD channels. When trying to parse the EPG data it wanted to load the freesat tables because it found huffman encoded data in the EPG data.

The author of the EPG scanner modified it to put in a place holder for the encoded EPG data. The program title and description are encoded for the HD channels. The remaining data is in the clear.

All this data was pulled from the EPG stream on Mux1, C48. The HD Mux is Mux PSB3 BBCB, C69.

[brewston]

Originally Posted by fac13

The only hitch was nothing to do with the stick. I couldn't find any details of the Freeview HD mux I receive from Winter Hill, apart from its frequency (737.8MHz) - no TSID, SID information - so I couldn't just directly edit my frq file like I would normally.

I therefore needed to do a scan in SageTV but the problem with that was the predefinedDVBT.frq, which was way out of date. I had to create a new entry in mine to cause Sage to scan 737.8MHz. This produced an frq file which I then could edit to re-establish my preferred channel numbering.

Hi guys - I just picked up one of these tuners for my server upgrade project. The software that came with it can scan & view OK. Sage sees the card but a a full scan doesn't pick up anything. So I suspect I need to edit my predefinedDVBT.frq manually. My aerial points towards Crystal Palace (Although strangely, Sage never requests the broadcast area like it used to with my DVB-T tuner in my main server)

Any clues how to start editing it ? I guess I take the mux frequencies from http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=TQ339712 ? But what about the other bits in the file ? like band, tune, pat & sdt ?


I tried using scanchannelsBDA but it crashes as in this post :
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...3&postcount=31

Many Thanks

[starfire]

Looking at predefinedDVBT.frq I would say band, tune, pat & sdt can all be left alone - they seem to be the same for all entries.

So just try the changing the frq: entries only.

[brewston]

Some progress. I added 540000 to predefinedDVBT.frq and restarted/rescanned - this time it asked me to confirm which area I was in.

Anyway, it found all the SD channels but nothing on the HD mux (I know I can get those channels as my TV does as well as the PCTV software)

At least now I have a .frq file - how would I go about finding the tsid/sid for the HD channels ?


Thanks