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

[Bucky O'Hare]

Thanks mm135000. I posted some logs in post #4.

For some reason when using the HD3200 I had more picture problems with BBC HD than ITV which sounds odd as ITV if full HD.

I have the same - ITV1 HD is smoothest of the four HD channels.

This post might make sense of that. In a nutshell, if ITV1 broadcasts at 1080p, then GPU has less upscaling work to do, hence smoother playback. Just a thought.

ITV HD in my area is transmitted @ 1080i just checked a recording with MediaInfo app and the video stream is 1440x1080 but I am not noticing any upscaling issues on playback with either my HTPC or my office pc.

So far as I know MC uses the Microsoft DTV-Audio codec, and I don't think MediaPortal is able to use that codec for AAC/AAC-HE yet. The team plan to improve support for audio codecs in the very near future...

Which version is this going to be in? I hope 1.2 but if not will just have to carry on last thing I want to do is move to the dark side.

 

[allanp81]

So has anyone got this card working well yet? I want to get one as I'm going to be without Satellite soon so want an alternative way to receive the HD channels.

 

[hoverdonkey]

So has anyone got this card working well yet? I want to get one as I'm going to be without Satellite soon so want an alternative way to receive the HD channels.

Not yet, I am still looking for a working AAC audio codec (or hoping the Windows 7 AAC codec can be made available to use in MP).


I have an ATI HD 5450 graphics card coming - it draws less than 20 Watts, cost £33, is passively cooled and does vector adaptive deinterlacing. In other words, not too much to cry about in giving up my integrated HD 3200! I will post results post here when tested.

 

[allanp81]

Will be good to know as I have a 5450 as well.

 

[Petrovski]

3620 working fine with MP for me. So far, HD playback requires the Divx AAC decoder.

 

[allanp81]

And that's free?

 

[mm1352000]

allanp81: I believe the free DivX bundle contains the codec, so that would be a "yes".

 

[allanp81]

Has anyone tried the coreaac codec?

 

[mm1352000]

Not that I know of. People have said that they would go away and try other codecs, but I'm not sure what codecs they ended up checking. Certainly the only "successful" reports I've seen have been from users that use DivX AAC. It is also my understanding that the new version of CoreAAC is not free...

 

[mm1352000]

Guys,

Looking back over this thread I realised that I was meant to be working on allowing you to try the Microsoft codec. I apologise for the delay in my response - it completely slipped my mind. :sorry:

I've done some quick research and I *think* it should be possible to try Microsoft's codec without any code change from me. All you need to do is try the following:

1. Close MediaPortal if it is running.
2. Take a backup of the MediaPortal.xml file in C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal
3. Open MediaPortal.xml in a text editor (notepad, wordpad, notepad++ etc.).
4. Search for "<section name="mytv">".
5. Scroll down within that section until you find the setting for the AAC codec, "<entry name="aacaudiocodec">*******</entry>". In my case ******* is "MONOGRAM AAC Decoder"; for you it will be the AAC codec that you chose in the TV codec section in MediaPortal configuration (probably "DivX AAC Decoder" ).
6. Replace the ******* with "Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder" (without the quotation marks).
7. Save and close.

To test whether the Microsoft codec works, try to view a DVB-T2 channel in MediaPortal. Note that the setting will be lost if you go back into the TV codec section in MediaPortal configuration. If TV works then ideally you should also verify that the Microsoft codec is actually being used by connecting to MediaPortal's graph during TV "playback" using GraphStudio or similar (since you're all using W7 you'll have to have the extra DLL as detailed here, but don't use the version linked there - apparently it was only for Vista and doesn't work with W7).

Good luck