BlackGold BGT3620 DVB-T2 card - Where are the HD channels? (1 Viewer)

[hoverdonkey]

Hi

I have just installed a BlackGold BGT3620 DVB-T2 card. On initial TV Server Configuration scan, using default "TuningParameters\dvbt\UK.Crystal Palace" file, SD channels are found, but no HD channels.

So, I got some frequency info from here Freeview on Crystal Palace TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice and, plunging way out of my depth, I added the following lines into UK.Crystal Palace file;

<DVBTTuning>
<Frequency>554000</Frequency>
<BandWidth>8</BandWidth>
<Offset>167</Offset>
</DVBTTuning>

I can now see HD channels (BBC One HD, ITV1 HD, Channel 4 HD and BBC HD), but they are jerky, and only giving fragments of sound.

Now I really am stuck. Maybe I need to change the bandwidth figure? Maybe it is hardware or codec problem?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi there

Possibly codecs...
Would you mind posting some logs though. This would be one of the first DVB-T2 tuners that has been tried with MediaPortal so it would be good to get an idea of how well it works...

 

[ALD]

Try using the divx aac decoder. Its how i got the pctv 290e to work.

 

[hoverdonkey]

Hi

I have also now noticed notice that the text of the EPG data seems to be gibberish.

I will try codecs (when baby gives me a moment)!

I have managed to attach a log file. To generate it, I used the "Report a Bug to Team MediaPortal" option, went onto one of the HD channels, then quit MP - I hope that was the right way to do it.


Thanks

 

[ALD]

I use webEPG for the HD channels. I think the EPG is encrypted somehow.

 

[hoverdonkey]

Thank you twice, ALD. DivX H.264 and DivX AAC codecs allow me to finally watch Freeview HD on my PC, and WebEPG lets me know what I'm watching!

Is DivX H.264 the most efficient codec for HD TV - does it utilise my DXVA harware video acceleration? I ask because, generally, the system sluggish to respond when watching HD TV and the is occasional minor stuttering.

A couple more minor niggles I will list in case there any simple fixes;

1 - Initial switching to an HD channel from SD can take ~10 seconds, but after that it is acceptably quick.
2 - Sometimes when switching to an HD channel (from either HD or SD), there is no sound for up to 10 seconds (this time varies) - video pauses briefly just as sound arrives.

Might increasing RAM from 2GB to 4GB help with any of the above?

Thanks

 

[wonkyd]

Thank you twice, ALD. DivX H.264 and DivX AAC codecs allow me to finally watch Freeview HD on my PC, and WebEPG lets me know what I'm watching!

Is DivX H.264 the most efficient codec for HD TV - does it utilise my DXVA harware video acceleration? I ask because, generally, the system sluggish to respond when watching HD TV and the is occasional minor stuttering.

A couple more minor niggles I will list in case there any simple fixes;

1 - Initial switching to an HD channel from SD can take ~10 seconds, but after that it is acceptably quick.
2 - Sometimes when switching to an HD channel (from either HD or SD), there is no sound for up to 10 seconds (this time varies) - video pauses briefly just as sound arrives.

Might increasing RAM from 2GB to 4GB help with any of the above?

Thanks

Are you using XP or Vista/Windows 7?

 

[hoverdonkey]

Are you using XP or Vista/Windows 7?

I am using Windows 7 64 bit.

 

[Alphathon]

You sound to be having the exact same problems as I was/am (as being discussed elsewhere in the forum): none-working sound w/ jerky video (which is fixed by using the DivX codec), several seconds - even up to a minute - pause for sound when switching etc. I too have the gibberish EPG (which is mostly made up of Cyrillic and accented Latin characters), which happens on all channels (SD or HD). I have managed to get around it for the SD channels by disabling the DVB EPG on the BlackGold card (so it uses my Hauppauge Nova-T-500 instead) but getting proper EPG from the HD channels would be nice.

P.S. I'm also using Win7 x64

 

[mm1352000]

I have discovered that the EPG is compressed:

What has been proposed for Freeview is exactly the same as for Freesat - that the EPG use Huffman encoding to compress it; this requires the necessary tables to decompress it, and the proposal is that those will only be available after signing a licence (and that licence will be available to open source software makers, too).

See here...