DVB-T Options

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ajobbins

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#20286 19-Mar-2008 12:43

I am looking into getting something sorted to recieve DVB-T freeview here at home. Not wanting to shell out $550 for one of the STB's (Mainly because they look like they were designed in 1993 and seem very overpriced for what they are, I want to look at PC based options.

I currently have a AMD Athlon XP2400+ sitting behind the TV running Windows Server 2003 as a file and web server. It has a cheap 128MB AGP GFX card in it. Will this be sufficent for decoding and displaying the feeds?

My main computer is a cheap ACER laptop with a 1.86Ghz Celeron CPU and Mobile Intel 965 GPU. I am assuming the laptop isn't going to cut it.

If the hardware on the AMD is enough, is there any software I could successfully use that will run on Server 2003?

Also, what is my best option for recieving the signal? A USB reciever or something PCI based?

Is there anything out there (Reasonably priced) that will decode the signal onboard rather than sending it to the CPU/GPU to do?

sbiddle

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#117509 19-Mar-2008 13:05

There is a good chance neither machine will be of any use. The XP2400+ may possibly be of some use if you could find an AGP card that does H.264 hardware acceleration but this is something that's really only supported with PCIe and I'm not sure how well the AGP hacks for hardware acceleration really work. Without a GPU doing hardware acceleration you're really after an X2 5000 or medium to high spec dual core Intel to do software decoding.

If you could find one that worked the machine may possibly just be fast enough to run any of the PVR programs that currently support the transmissions - DVBViewer, Media Portal or GB-PVR with either a PCI or USB tuner card as either will work providing their are appropiate DBA drivers.

ajst2duk

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#117516 19-Mar-2008 13:28

How about a PS3 with the new DVB-T PVR dongle thing?

ajobbins

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#117519 19-Mar-2008 13:31

ajst2duk: How about a PS3 with the new DVB-T PVR dongle thing?

Would be cheaper to buy a STB

ajobbins

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#117528 19-Mar-2008 13:55

What's the deal with MediaPortal with TVServer? Is the stream processed by the CPU on the server and they displayed at the client? Or is the stream delivered to the client for decoding by TVServer?

kiwitrc

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#117530 19-Mar-2008 13:56

adamj unless you really want to use a PC to do it, and can wait a few weeks, there will be cheaper DTT STB's coming. The first box to market is going to try and cream it until there is competition. Keep an eye on TradeMe, they will appear there soon I am told ;)

mentalinc

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#117531 19-Mar-2008 13:59

kiwitrc: adamj unless you really want to use a PC to do it, and can wait a few weeks, there will be cheaper DTT STB's coming. The first box to market is going to try and cream it until there is competition. Keep an eye on TradeMe, they will appear there soon I am told ;)

I can see alot of people getting into trouble with a "deal" they found on trademe where they end up with a box that doesn't work on DVB-T here ie it is a standard DVB-T box that is MPEG2 only.

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kiwitrc

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#117534 19-Mar-2008 14:05

OK Maybe I should have said that the importer we deal with for other bits is going to put them on trademe initially. They know all about the spec requirements, MPG4 EPG yadda yadda. Just saying that is where they will put the first ones up as they set up distribution in NZ. But yes you are correct, if anyone on TradeMe cant prove they are compliant with the NZ DTT specs then don’t go near them.

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mcraenz

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#117726 20-Mar-2008 08:28

adamj: What's the deal with MediaPortal with TVServer? Is the stream processed by the CPU on the server and they displayed at the client? Or is the stream delivered to the client for decoding by TVServer?

The stream is delivered to the client as is, every client needs to be able to decode h.264. Anything else would require transcoding the h.264 to some other format which would either require may too much CPU or would produce a stream may too big to be useful on the network.

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ajobbins

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#117758 20-Mar-2008 12:42

mcraenz:
adamj: What's the deal with MediaPortal with TVServer? Is the stream processed by the CPU on the server and they displayed at the client? Or is the stream delivered to the client for decoding by TVServer?

The stream is delivered to the client as is, every client needs to be able to decode h.264. Anything else would require transcoding the h.264 to some other format which would either require may too much CPU or would produce a stream may too big to be useful on the network.

Makes sense. I figured this would be the case

kiwitrc

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#117770 20-Mar-2008 14:19

Here is the link to Satlink looks like $299 for a HD DVB STB http://www.satlinknz.co.nz/