BlackGold BGT3620 DVB-T2 card - Where are the HD channels? (3 Viewers)

[mm1352000]

@allanp

Since you intend to purchase CoreAAC, do you think you'd be up to testing it manually as described in my earlier post. I don't expect it will be listed in the configuration field...

 

[allanp81]

Yes, if I get it later on this evening then I will test it out.

 

[Bucky O'Hare]

I rebooted my server and suddenly it then decided it wanted to tune so as far as I can tell, it's all working well using the DIVX AAC decoder. I installed the CoreAAC decoder (a fairly old version, 1.2 I think from back when it was free) and it doesn't appear in the list of available codecs for TV (although strangely it's there under the video codecs tab).

Well if you have got it working with a second card in maybe I will give the Hauppauge Nova-s2 another go in my TV server

I've just looked at the coreaac page:

CoreAAC (for Windows) | CoreCodec

It's extremely cheap so I might just give it a ago. It specifically says it can deal with HE-AAC and the LC AAC stuff, so in theory it should work perfectly.

I would be very interested in the results as I haven't got around to purchasing this as yet.

 

[allanp81]

Yep, for some reason Windows 7 (64bit) installed it fine without prompting for a reboot but it didn't work. Rebooted and then it was fine. The BGT3595 and BGT3620 share the same driver so I wasn't prompted to manually install them.

 

[allanp81]

No luck with the coreaac decoder, it appears in the list of video codecs, but not tv codecs.

Also, another thing that had me baffled but I've now solved, is that if you have this card and also use an mce receiver/remote (shown in device manager as ehome receiver) it will stop the mce buttons on your remote from working. When you install this card it adds it's own ehome receiver (you'll notice that device mentions IR in its name) which seems to then confuse windows once you plug in your remote receiver. The fix is to just unplug your receiver, disable anything relating to ehome and then reattach your receiver. All the extra buttons will then work again!

How do I stop MP from trying to auto get the EPG data? All I see in the guide is gibberish even though I've unticked the 4 HD channels in the epg section of the tv server setup. I've told it use the xmltv application to fill in the epg data.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again Alan

No luck with the coreaac decoder, it appears in the list of video codecs, but not tv codecs.

I expected that would happen, but did you try what I suggested here (using the exact name of the codec in place of the Microsoft name in that example). You are not necessarily limited by what appears in the configuration...

How do I stop MP from trying to auto get the EPG data? All I see in the guide is gibberish even though I've unticked the 4 HD channels in the epg section of the tv server setup. I've told it use the xmltv application to fill in the epg data.

Turn off the idle and timeshifting EPG grabbers entirely (see here - the 2 checkboxes about one third of the way down the screenshot), or only grab from the DVB-T sources for your channels (DVB-T is not compressed -> not garbled).

 

[allanp81]

Yes, I tried editing the mediaportal.xml directly. This gives me video but just silence, so it's clearly changing it. I didn't check the log file though, maybe MP just couldn't find it due to me typing it in wrong. I'll try again and check the log file.

In the EPG section, I only have the standard DVB-T channels ticked to receive EPG data. The 4 DVB-T2 channels I've left unticked.

 

[Bucky O'Hare]

Yes, I tried editing the mediaportal.xml directly. This gives me video but just silence, so it's clearly changing it. I didn't check the log file though, maybe MP just couldn't find it due to me typing it in wrong. I'll try again and check the log file.

In the EPG section, I only have the standard DVB-T channels ticked to receive EPG data. The 4 DVB-T2 channels I've left unticked.

EPG data is transmitted on every channel I confirmed this using a free app called DVBGuide that downloads the epg data you set it to a single channel frequency for the download its a pity it doesn't write a compatible file for TV Server xmltv plugin to import.

To fully disable epg grabbing on the card you have to do it through the TVServer section select each card in turn and click the edit button only disable the epg grabbing leave all the other settings at default.

Then setup xmltv plugin and get the latest version of the xmltv app and set that up to download the epg it's actually better than the over the air guide as it has more detailed description of the programs.

Update

just found this info on CoreCodec forums regarding CoreAAC codec

Need info about CoreAAC? Here is the CoreCodec / CoreAAC Knowledge-base
https://customers.corecodec.com/knowledgebase/3/CoreAAC

2.x FEATURE LIMITATIONS
----------------------------------------
While CoreAAC is likely the most advanced AAC Audio codec in the industry (in our opinion), and we do support most AAC Profiles and features, please note there are some things we do not support. Those of which are listed below (and other things):

- LATM/LOAS Container

So strike another codec from the list

 

[allanp81]

Having been living with this card now for a weeks I can say that I'm 99% happy with it.

The issue with the audio hardly ever rears its ugly head, and as I rarely watch anything live it's not an issue as far as I'm concerned. If I'm watching a recording and the audio goes funny, I just stop and play it again and it corrects it. It's hardly the end of the world.

I actually prefer to use the xmltv function for all the EPG data now as well, I used to use over the air EPG for Freeview and xmltv just for HD channels via Freesat when I had a sat dish.

All in all I can't really recommend it enough.

 

[Supreme]

I have one of these on the way. I hope i am able to get it working, though i have a horrible feeling i'm in for a world of pain

Is the quality of the HD feed far superior the the standard channels with this card? (sorry, this has probably been covered!).