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

[Alphathon]

I thought that originally too, but the same thing happens on ALL channels when the BGT3620 is used, both DVB-T (unencrypted) and DVB-T2. Since the DVB-T channels aren't encrypted but show up garbled that suggests to me that there's either some incompatibility with MediaPortal or there's an issue with the drivers.

 

[mm1352000]

*All* Freeview HD guide data is compressed. I'm not in the UK so I could be wrong about this, but I think the DVB-T and DVB-T2 are part of the same platform "Freeview HD", ergo the guide will be "scrambled" for all DVB-T/2 channels.

DVB-T2 is not encrypted either by the way...

 

[jameson_uk]

*All* Freeview HD guide data is compressed. I'm not in the UK so I could be wrong about this, but I think the DVB-T and DVB-T2 are part of the same platform "Freeview HD", ergo the guide will be "scrambled" for all DVB-T/2 channels.

DVB-T2 is not encrypted either by the way...

DVB-T is the existing platform (Freeview) and in some places in the UK there is also a single DVB-T2 transponder which contains all the HD channels. Freeview HD I guess is the brand name for the lot but DVB-T EPG is grabbed by MP now without issue (is it not encrypted)

 

[Alphathon]

I think you are misunderstanding me. Freeview has been around for years and MediaPortal has no problems with it's EPG. That's why when the Nova-T-500 (DVB-T only) is used the EPG comes up fine. When the BlackGold card is used all Freeview (DVB-T; unencrypted) and Freeview HD (DVB-T2) channels have a scrambled/gibberish EPG.

EDIT: Looks like jameson_uk beat me to it.

P.S. I wasn't implying DVB-T2 was encrypted, but that it seems from what I've read that the EPG might be

 

[mm1352000]

So is the data for the "Freeview" channels also being broadcast on the DVB-T2 mux? I'd say the 3620 is pulling in compressed data from there in preference to the data on the DVB-T muxes. The NOVA can't handle the DVB-T2 mux so it pulls in the uncompressed data from the DVB-T muxes. Your options for the moment are basically to stick with the NOVA for grabbing what you can get from the DVB-T muxes, or setup WebEPG.

 

[jameson_uk]

When the BlackGold card is used all Freeview (DVB-T; unencrypted) and Freeview HD (DVB-T2) channels have a scrambled/gibberish EPG.

That is interesting.... if you disable EPG grabbing on the HD channels and just leave say BBC One do does the BlackGold card actually grab a valid EPG? (just wondering if the HD EPG is overwriting the standard one)

(also not sure if you saw the other thread but would it be possible to upload a small recording from one of the HD channels ?)

 

[Alphathon]

That is interesting.... if you disable EPG grabbing on the HD channels and just leave say BBC One do does the BlackGold card actually grab a valid EPG? (just wondering if the HD EPG is overwriting the standard one)

I haven't tried - I just disabled EPG grabbing all together on the BG tuners (all 6 of them) and it worked properly. I'll see what it does when it updates next.

(also not sure if you saw the other thread but would it be possible to upload a small recording from one of the HD channels ?)

Yeah, I did. I'll get on it later tonight most likely.

 

[Roberdin]

I have also just taken delivery of the new BGT3620 card. I ordered it on December 8th, when the estimated despatch time was ten days. After ten days I e-mailed them requesting an update; they replied to say it had now been despatched and the card indeed arrived this afternoon.

First impressions: the card is miniscule! I could not believe what a small box they put it in.

Initial teething problem: I inserted the card into the 16x lane PCI-E slot designed for the second graphics card, because it was further away from the passively cooled (and very hot) graphics card. My understanding was that the PCI-E slots were designed to be used like this, but apparently not as the card was not detected until I placed it in the one remaining 1x slot next to the graphics card. Hopefully it won't mind being a little warm.

Windows installed the drivers for the card without problem after I pointed it in the right direction.

Loaded up TV Server config, the tuners appeared in the list after I restarted the "TVService" service. Excellent stuff. Computer reboot was not required.

I disabled the four cable (DVB-C) tuners (in fact two are aliases for WMC) in MediaPortal because I do not have cable TV. I also disabled the analogue tuner.

MediaPortal found all the SD channels without issue on Crystal Palace on DVB-T. Then I used the "advance tuning options" option to scan at 554 MHz to find the HD channels: all four channels appeared after about 10 seconds. (I was too lazy to modify the transponders file.) I did this for both tuners.
Signal quality on every channel (that I looked at) is 100. However, signal level is only ~15. I hope this isn't a problem. (Same as for my Hauppauge card). This is a new aerial installation, with an on-mast powered amplifier and an individual run to each of the TVs in my house. In this case I have split the coax at the end into two, one for each of my TV cards; hopefully this won't be a problem either.

I disabled EPG grabbing (and retention) on the HD channels (but left it turned on for the tuners) because the the guide data for those channels was indeed corrupt.

So here are the data so far: SD channels are all perfect. SD upscales on BBC One HD and ITV HD looked good (for upscales) but there was no audio. Actual HD footage on 4HD and BBC HD: jerky. Audio is a series of loud squeaks and pops; hopefully that is a codec issue. TV service and MediaPortal CPU loads are each at ~10%.

And MediaPortal has just crashed.

I will report back if the situation improves.

Update: I installed the DivX codecs as suggested elsewhere in this thread. Hopefully this has not ruined the DirectShow merits for other programs. (In fact, worse: it changed all the media file associations to play with its child-like player. What an arrogant piece of shit. Not to mention the icons it littered on my desktop for shareware. But I digress.) Everything is now in the wrong aspect but the issues I noted above have vanished. The output is very blocky but hopefully again this can probably be fixed.

Thanks for the tip!

Turned off hardware supported deblocking in the DivX codec seems to have resolved that issue. Also, turning off "Allow initial frame delay to reduce CPU spikes" removes the delay when changing channel (as you might expect). On the note of CPU spikes, the DivX codec is not efficient! When watching BBC HD I see a DivXDecH264.ax!DllGetClassObject thread go up to 25% CPU usage. For comparison, watching Planet Earth, at 4.5GB for 50 min file, the Ms DTV-DVD decoder (msmpeg2vdec.dll) sits at ~2%.

Weird bug: Changing from HD to upscale HD channel results in the channel being almost in slow motion, with very weird audio (sounds like loads of squeaking mice!). However if I go to an SD channel back to the upscale, no problem at all.

 

[Alphathon]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the aspect ratio thing (I'm getting it too). For me it isn't consistent (sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't), but when it has happened I have to restart MP to make it go away. It happens no matter what video codec is used.

On a side note (just to add to your overview thing):

1. What's in the box:
   • Tuner card
   • Two brackets (one full-height, one half-height), both Gold
   • Analogue-capture cable
   • Two screws for the brackets
   • A screwdriver (this surprised me).
2. Note on analogue capture:
   
   I have tested the analogue capture capabilities and they seem to work fairly well. There is quite a significant amount of input lag, so using it to play consoles etc is a no-no. It supports both PAL and NTSC, and also seems to support 480p, although I cannot confirm this. No higher resolutions are supported. YPbPr is a little confusing - it doesn't use the green, blue and red RCAs like you would expect, but instead uses the yellow one for "Y" (normally the green one). Although I haven't tested it yet, I would assume RGB uses yellow for c-sync (don't know about sync-on-green support). The quality seems good, but it also appears to be susceptible to aspect ratio issues.​

 

[Roberdin]

A curious issue: sometimes the channel names for BBC One HD and BBC HD themselves become corrupted in the TV Guide only. They appear correct in the TV Server, but WebEPG grabbing fails for those channels. The other two HD channels are unaffected. I have since disabled EPG grabbing entirely for the two DVB-T2 tuners and the issue has not resurfaced so far, but I am not convinced that this was the cause. (DVB-T grabbing continues from my Hauppauge DVB-T(1) card.)

A note on the channel changing issue: This occurs whenever I change between any of the channels on the HD mux. Changing between other channels on the non T2 mux(es) and to and from the T2 mux does not cause problems. I shall keep trying to narrow this problem down.