DTV1000s - Australian TV Channel issue (1 Viewer)

[glenb83]

Hi all, I am happily running mediaportal as a full HTPC. I have it customised to my needs and everything is working great! Only issue I have, is not being able to pick up some Australian TV channels.

Specifically, I can not pick up any of the SBS stations (sbs 1,2,HD etc), yet when I have the aerial directly connected to my TV, I can pick them up. I am in Kiama on the south coast of NSW, and can pick up both Sydney stations and Wollongong stations (ie I can pick up 7 and Prime) on the TV direct. I have done a scan with the 'all regions' option in mp tv server config, but still cant pick up any of the SBS stations. Is this likely to be a problem with MP or with my TV Tuner card?

My DTV1000s was a fairly budget card (around $50 thereabouts from memory), is there any benefit to getting an additional TV tuner card (either usb or pci) for better signal reception aswell as the benefit of watching 1 channel whilst recording another, or can this only be done from a dual tuner card, not 2x physical cards?

If I do need a new card, what would people recommend as a good option in the sub $100 range to pick up the extra channels I am missing?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi glenb83

Hi all, I am happily running mediaportal as a full HTPC. I have it customised to my needs and everything is working great!

Only issue I have, is not being able to pick up some Australian TV channels.

Specifically, I can not pick up any of the SBS stations (sbs 1,2,HD etc), yet when I have the aerial directly connected to my TV, I can pick them up. I am in Kiama on the south coast of NSW, and can pick up both Sydney stations and Wollongong stations (ie I can pick up 7 and Prime) on the TV direct. I have done a scan with the 'all regions' option in mp tv server config, but still cant pick up any of the SBS stations. Is this likely to be a problem with MP or with my TV Tuner card?

It is possible that the tuning details that TV Server is using are out of date. Are you able to figure out what frequency the TV is using to get SBS and then check whether that frequency is being scanned?

My DTV1000s was a fairly budget card (around $50 thereabouts from memory), is there any benefit to getting an additional TV tuner card (either usb or pci) for better signal reception...

You might get better reception from a different tuner, however it is pretty much luck of the draw. Comparing sensitivity of tuners can really only be done with professional equipment as the strength and quality readings that you'll see in DVB software including MP is technically meaningless. I mean, what does 80% signal strength actually mean? Probably about all that you can say is it is 80% of perfect *for that tuner*. To be able to draw any meaningful information from it for comparing between tuners you need to know about the actual signal characteristics (dBuV, BER etc.). Unfortunately the tuner manufacturers don't usually define any sort of % <--> dBuV/BER conversion...

...aswell as the benefit of watching 1 channel whilst recording another, or can this only be done from a dual tuner card, not 2x physical cards?

With MP you can watch/record any number of channels on the same transponder/mux with only one tuner. For example, if SBS 1, SBS 2 and SBS HD were on the same mux (as they probably are given they're from the same provider and you can't receive any of them) then you'd be able to watch and/or record all of them at the same time (subject to HDD speed and capacity constraints ). ABC, 9, GEM, GO!, Ten etc. might be on different muxes though, so you'd *possibly* (depending on your local transmitter channel arrangements) need an additional tuner if you wanted to watch SBS HD and record Ten at the same time.

If I do need a new card, what would people recommend as a good option in the sub $100 range to pick up the extra channels I am missing?

That isn't really a fair question for the reasons I described above (comparing sensitivity of tuners). Further, it will probably need to be an Aussie that answers this as tuner availability and pricing varies from region to region. You might be better served by asking that question on an Australian local forum.

PS: keep in mind that dual tuners often require better signal quality/strength than single tuners. You have to split the signal somewhere, even if it is done on the card. Further, sometimes too many tuners in close proximity don't play nicely...

 

[glenb83]

Thanks for your advice!

I did another scan with the tv and the only info I could get from the channel was 527.25Mhz. I noticed in the manual data entry for tv server it uses Khz and asks for some more info so I have no idea where to get that or how to manually set it up.....

EDIT: I also found this, could it be any help in manual config?

Video PID Audio PID
SBS ONE 161 81
SBS TWO 162 83
SBS HD 102 103

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks for your advice!

I did another scan with the tv and the only info I could get from the channel was 527.25Mhz. I noticed in the manual data entry for tv server it uses Khz and asks for some more info so I have no idea where to get that or how to manually set it up.....

It looks like that frequency is missing from the corresponding tuning detail lists. Have you recently had analog switch off or something?

The short fix would be to try manually scanning the following frequencies (in listed order):

527250
527125
527375
527000
527400

The frequencies are in kHz (kHz = MHz * 1000) - enter them directly. The bandwidth to use is 7 (MHz)...
Assuming one of those works, it would be really awesome if you could provide updated tuning details so other people don't have the same problem.

mm

 

[glenb83]

Hi mm,

Thanks for your persistence with my issue, I really appreciate it! I tried the frequencies you gave me, aswell as 711625 and 571500 from this site - SBS Transmissions , all with 7 as the bandwidth, and single transponder scan settings, but they all came up no signal.

Would it have something to do with sbs being uhf, perhaps my card does not support it? I would really like to get this issue sorted so that it can hopefully help someone else some time. Is there anything else you can recommend to me?

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again glenb83

Thanks for your persistence with my issue, I really appreciate it!

No problem - its what I'm here for.

I tried the frequencies you gave me, aswell as 711625 and 571500 from this site - SBS Transmissions , all with 7 as the bandwidth, and single transponder scan settings, but they all came up no signal.

"Darn"!

Would it have something to do with sbs being uhf, perhaps my card does not support it?

Excellent question! It would be pretty unusual for a DVB-T tuner not to support UHF. I can't find very much information about the receiving specifications for your tuner. Leadtek's website is pretty useless for the really technical info apart from specifying the chips that are used on the board. I had a quick look on Google for the corresponding datasheets, and all I could find was that the tuner chip (TDA18271HD) supports 45 - 864 MHz. That doesn't mean the demodulator would support that frequency, but like I said, it would be kinda unusual if UHF wasn't supported.

I would really like to get this issue sorted so that it can hopefully help someone else some time. Is there anything else you can recommend to me?

Yeah, I'd like to get it sorted too.

I did notice in the page that you linked that the *analog* frequencies for SBS in "Sydney" are 527.25 MHz, which might explain how your TV is picking it up. Is it possible that your TV would be picking it up off analog rather than DVB-T?

The other thing I should mention is that Australia uses 125 kHz offsets on their frequencies. Without going into too much detail, that means that if you suspected 571.5 MHz was a candidate then you should also scan 571.25, 571.375, 571.625 and 571.75. Give that a shot and see if it helps...

 

[glenb83]

Just an update on the progress:

I tried installing the winfast software, and wasnt able to pickup sbs through that either. I also tried numerous frequencies in MP with no luck.

I then routed the aerial through an old wall powered signal booster I had at home, and with a bit of tweaking Im now able to pick up SBS! It seems that the tuner in my tuner card obviously isnt as strong as the on ein my tv that picked it up with no issues.

Only problem I have now is that for some reason the TV Guide always says no information available for the SBS stations. Its not a major problem, but more of a nuisance than anything else! All the other channels work ok. I have tried leaving it for a few days and viewing the channel but it still doesnt grab any EPG data. Any suggestions on how I can get EPG data or bypass it with online data from the web perhaps?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again glenb83

Glad to hear that you got SBS.

So I'm guessing that you get EPG for the other channels by enabling either the idle or timeshifting EPG grabber? Have you checked that the SBS channels are enabled under DVB EPG -> TV Epg grabber in TV Server configuration. It is possible that SBS don't broadcast any information, however depending on your settings you may need to actually view one of the SBS channels for a while to give the guide a chance to be populated.

If you've checked all of that already and it seems like SBS isn't broadcasting data then I think the next step would be to find an XMLTV data source for the channels. OzTivo or IceTV might be able to help (or at least the list of XMLTV grabbers could be helpful). Further than that, I think you'll need a true-blue Aussie to advise you. I don't know the Australian EPG scene well enough to be really useful...

mm

 

[glenb83]

Have you checked that the SBS channels are enabled under DVB EPG -> TV Epg grabber in TV Server configuration.

This was it! Seems when the new channels were found they weren't automatically added to the epg list! Im glad it was so easy but feel a little stupid :-P

Thanks again for all your help mm, now Im REALLY happy with my htpc!!!