Blackgold BGT3540 TV Tuner

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euanandrews

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#26837 5-Oct-2008 14:38

I recently brought a Blackgold BGT3540 TV tuner

Its a 6 tuner in 1 card beast...
- 2 x DVB-S
- 2 x DVB-T
- 2 x analouge

I still have yet to get it to work, but that is likely more to do with me being slack than any problem with the card...

My progress to date:

In Vista MC:
- The dual DVB-T tuners appear as '7162 BDA DVBT Tuner #1' and '7162 BDA DVBT Tuner #2'
- Two other tuners appear as 'Universal DVB Filter #1' and 'Universal DVB Filter #2'...which to what I read appear to be the 'virtual DVB-S drivers'

As I only currently have sattellite, I scanned for services within Vista MC, but found none, using the 'virtual drivers'.

I have tried installing DVBviewer on my Vista machine with no luck, I dont know why...just seems I am meant to do things the hard way!

I will update with progress.
If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please post them.

If anyone expereinced in this who loives locally wants to test this system out, and maybe help/assist me, I am open to that too.

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#169122 5-Oct-2008 15:10

I am also getting an error (which I need to take note off when exactly it happens)

I think it happens when I go into the Vista MC TV setup screen (as I just did)

The Windows system error states:

Universal DVB Service stopped working and was closed.

A problem caused the application to stop working correctly.
Windows will notify you if a solution is available.

Hmmm.....

So that would explain why I can't seem to get any sattellite services at the moment...but why is that happening?

Asmodeus

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#170799 13-Oct-2008 00:11

Hey mate,

Just wondering how you were getting on with this card? I have one on the way myself so would be keen to hear any news you had on your progress.

Cheers

mcraenz

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#170964 13-Oct-2008 21:50

Hve you tried it with MediaPortal TV Server?

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aucklander

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#171057 14-Oct-2008 12:17

Why does it have 2x "F" connectors? I understand one, for the LNB connection (for DVB-S).

I get DVB-T with my tv card (Hauppauge NOVA-T 500 HD) using standard coax connector, and if I plug the same aerial straight into the tv, I get the analogue channels as well. How do you connect the cables for this card? You usually have an aerial on the house (capable of DVB-T and analogue), with one cable only, with standard connector (for the TV).

The question comes down to: do you need to provide separate inputs for analogue and DVB-T? If the same aerial can provide both, do you still have to install a splitter in order to feed the signal to two separate inputs, with two types of connectors??? I expected the card to deal with this, internally, considering both signals come through the same cable

I live in Henderson, clear line-of-sight to Waiatarua tower, clear analogue reception (before) and DVB-T (more recently).
The aerial looks a lot like this: http://www.eccopacific.co.nz/products/audio_visual/antennas/prod_C039911.html

I kept a close eye on your earlier post where you discussed getting the card from overseas and joined other users in order to bring the shipping cost down. Can you please advise what was the final cost per card?

I really want to add DVB-S and analogue, but I have only 1xPCI-E available... this card might do the trick, please let us know if you can get it working properly. Is there any alternative to get both DVB-S and Analogue on a PCI-E card?

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Asmodeus

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#171099 14-Oct-2008 16:42

aucklander: Why does it have 2x "F" connectors? I understand one, for the LNB connection (for DVB-S).

I get DVB-T with my tv card (Hauppauge NOVA-T 500 HD) using standard coax connector, and if I plug the same aerial straight into the tv, I get the analogue channels as well. How do you connect the cables for this card? You usually have an aerial on the house (capable of DVB-T and analogue), with one cable only, with standard connector (for the TV).

The question comes down to: do you need to provide separate inputs for analogue and DVB-T? If the same aerial can provide both, do you still have to install a splitter in order to feed the signal to two separate inputs, with two types of connectors??? I expected the card to deal with this, internally, considering both signals come through the same cable

I live in Henderson, clear line-of-sight to Waiatarua tower, clear analogue reception (before) and DVB-T (more recently).
The aerial looks a lot like this: http://www.eccopacific.co.nz/products/audio_visual/antennas/prod_C039911.html

I kept a close eye on your earlier post where you discussed getting the card from overseas and joined other users in order to bring the shipping cost down. Can you please advise what was the final cost per card?

I really want to add DVB-S and analogue, but I have only 1xPCI-E available... this card might do the trick, please let us know if you can get it working properly. Is there any alternative to get both DVB-S and Analogue on a PCI-E card?

I may be able to asnswer some of that.

Looks like they are F-connector adaptors plugged into it rather than hard connections. Not having received it yet, I couldnt tell you which inputs were which and if any are "dual" inputs though sorry.

The cost of the cards ended up being $274 delivered (still waiting on them however), but I believe we got some kind of a deal. Either way, would be under $300.

Also, I dont believe there are any other dual dvb-s / dual dvb-t cards out there that are still for sale or work well. They were briefly mentioned in the original thread. There are certainly none for sale in NZ, hence why we are going for this one

Cards123

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#172946 23-Oct-2008 02:33

For info…

The top two connectors are for DVB-S feeds, one for each DVB-S tuner. The bottom connector is for both of the DVB-T tuners and both Analogue tuners combined.

The reason for a separate feed for each DVB-S tuner is that if you are to have two fully independent satellite tuners, capable of each tuning to the whole frequency range, they need to be able to control the dish LNBs (Low Noise Block) separately.

The same satellite broadcasts blocks of channels in different frequency bands and also has transponders (transmitters) that are either Horizontally or Vertically polarised. The LNB needs to be told which frequency band to tune to and whether to look at horizontal or vertical transponders. This is done with signals sent back up to the LNB from the card’s tuners.

So if you want each tuner to be able to independently tune to any of the signals broadcast by the satellite, they have to be able to have their own LNB.

It would in theory be possible to split a single coax feed between each tuner, but then you’d have to make sure each tuner was tuned to something in the same frequency band, it can only be in one mode at a time and the control signals would conflict. Not much use if you want to watch and record channels in different bands at the same time.

Cards123

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#172948 23-Oct-2008 03:05

OK, re-read the previous post, properly this time, I hope! So most of MY previous post you can ignore.

But as said the bottom connector is a single feed that serves both DVB-T tuners and both analogue tuners. It is actively split on the card.

It is possible to tune to 2 separate DVB-S channels at the same time as 2 separate DVB-T OR 2 Analogue channels at the same time.

The DVB-T and the Analogue use the same two tuners, so for each of the 2 terestrial tuners, you have to pick either Analogue or DVB-T. So you could in theory have 2 DVB-S, 1 DVB-T and 1 Analogue or 2 DVB-S and 2 DVB-T or 2 DVB-S and 2 Analogue at the same time. But you can't have 2 DVB-T and 2 Analogue at the same time.

Any limitaion being in the software you choose to display TV.

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aucklander

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#172959 23-Oct-2008 08:01

Thank you for clarifications, it all makes sense...

Assuming I do not want to watch 2x DVB-S channels at any time, setting up only one DVB-S tuner and providing only one cable from the LNB should work, right? Actually, I have a 2xLNB arrangement and a tone switch, connected to a FTA STB. The STB has a connection of the back allowing the signal from the LNB to be passed to other devices (like a loop, some sort of by-pass?). Can I use that to feed the tv tuner? If not, then I have 2xLNB and 2x devices, so a diseq switch will be required...

Is this card able to control the tone switch or the diseq swicth? (they require a certain amount of power, which is easily available from a STB, but not sure about the current limitation of a pc card). Does the manual says anything about switches, please?
If the tv tuner card is working, I can move the FTA STB to another room.

Did you guys actually finalised installation?
Are you happy with the results?

Asmodeus

1015 posts

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#173367 24-Oct-2008 15:00

Well, this makes for some interesting reading; (38 pages of it in fact...)

http://www.avforums.com/forums/graphics-cards-tv-tuners-webcams/672054-blackgold-6-1-dual-dbv-s-dual-dvb-t-dual-analogue-tuner-bgt3540-vista-mce.html

A few grumpy persons in there towards the end, but seems like their mostly peeved about stuff that may not be very applicable to NZ users, I need to have a decent read though, only skimmed so far. My one of these arrived yesterday and I want to get it going this weekend (weather will be shonky anyway).

I plan to use freeview dvb-s and sky via s-video in VMC (pre tv pack for now). Anyone else looking to do similar? Bartender, seems like you might be. Any more luck with this thing? Are you using TV pack? If not did you install this?

http://blackgold.fileburst.com/downloads/BGT3540_DVBS_MCE_1008.zip (need it to view dvb-s in VMC)

Any of you other guys who orderd one tried anything yet?

Lets work together and own this thing

xcubed

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#173376 24-Oct-2008 15:29

I got my card setup last night in my desktop PC, and installed the latest version of MediaPortal to try it out. I'm only using rabbit ears at the moment, so I was able to tune the DVB-T channels and listen to National and Concert Radio, but I don't have sufficient signal quality for watching DVB-T yet. I'll move it into the lounge over the weekend so that I can hook up the proper aerial and the satellite to tune in DVB-S.

MediaPortal auto-detected all six tuners straight away, which was nice.

I noticed that the chipset is the Philiips SAA7162 so I updated the V4L wiki accordingly. It seems that a driver is in the works for Linux users, but as I'm sticking with Windows I haven't investigated further.

euanandrews

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#173396 24-Oct-2008 16:54

I still have yet to get this TV tuner to work...but it is partially due to me being lazy and incompetent...

I am at the stage where I have almost given up and lost interest...I just want it to work!...hence I am looking for help.

I am also for some reason having problems installing either DVBviewer or Mediaportal, as I wanted to use one of those to at least test the satelitte...

I have tried Satelitte within Vista MC with no success...
I have tried it with:
- Driver version 6.0.0.25
and I later added and test it with:
- DVB-S VMC Driver version 1008

Note: My system has 4GB RAM and 256MB graphics, so there may be an issue as it does say 'less than 4GB', although my Vista system is only 32bit.

I have also tried it with:
- Driver version 6.0.0.34

Note: I do not have 'Windows Media Center TV Pack 2009 - Fiji' installed...as my Vista MC is the latest updated version, and will not allow me to install the Fiji pack.

xcubed

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#173415 24-Oct-2008 18:57

TheBarTender: I still have yet to get this TV tuner to work...

Can you elaborate on what's causing the issue?

Have you fitted the floppy driver power connector to the back?
Does the card show up in device manager?
Can it find any channels when you scan?
Can you get any EPG data?
Are you able to tune into any channels?
Are you getting any error messages?

euanandrews

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#173430 24-Oct-2008 19:52

xcubed:
TheBarTender: I still have yet to get this TV tuner to work...

Can you elaborate on what's causing the issue?

Have you fitted the floppy driver power connector to the back?
Does the card show up in device manager?
Can it find any channels when you scan?
Can you get any EPG data?
Are you able to tune into any channels?
Are you getting any error messages?

I don't know what the issue is, if I did, I would attempt to fix it...and I am not a big enough geek to know how to run diognostics etc to make reports for you guys...unless someone tells me how.

It is correctly installed, power etc, shows in device manager fine.

Where I get stuck, is the guide and scanning for services...they both come back with no results...
Putting in my postal code of 5019 for the guide returns the error 'Guide listings not available'
Then when I do a scan for services, I get the result 'no services are found'

As I can't get past that stage (within Vista) I can't try to tune channels etc.

I have just one satellite connection currently, plugged into the top satellite F connector (or whatever it called)

euanandrews

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#173433 24-Oct-2008 20:03

I can't win

I have tried installing DVBviewer on my Vista HTPC to test this TV tuner, and it would not let me install, keeped giving me an installation error...

I tried instaling Mediaportal, and although I have correctly installed it before on my laptop to trial, I could not install correctly on my HTPC, I seemed to miss the SQL database profile stage, which I did the first time?

I have now just found and attempted installing a different program, DVBdream, and its come back saying the files are corrupt and won't install!

The HTPC gods are against me

euanandrews

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#173540 25-Oct-2008 13:24

OK, with help from Xcubed, I have got Mediaportal working and we did a scan, found services nd added channels etc...making progress...

But we are getting the following error in Mediaportal:
Unable to start timeshifting
Unable to start graph
Unknown error occured

Any ideas?

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