Hi All, 1st time poster ;)

Last night i set up my PC with a Avermedia speedy pci-e.

Installed the software fine, scanned channels using the crappy supplied needle aerial using AVERTV and MediaPortal, picked up every chan in chch using DVB-T.

my rig is a Vista SP1, AM2 4800x2, 4gb ram, 8600gt, PDVD Ultra .264 codec. (set to use HW decoding in MP)

I think i must of been lucky, it really was painless, i got this amazing looking picture straight off the bat! But, it was as choppy as hell, like every 1-2 secs a freeze for half a second. I think its due to reception quality.

For sh!ts and giggles i tried the analog side of the tuner, found most channels (no prime and sky scambled was barely legiable), quality was terribad, like snowy and liney, nowhere near acceptable, I played around with my aerial placement and it got a little better. Back to HD and no picture, move aerial back to where it was and i get HD picture back.


So my real question is, Is a bad reception for HD shown as a bad picture quality like analog, or does it still show it as perfect picture, but just choppy if you have a bad reception? I had a look through old posts, but i just couldnt pinpoint any thing that said "These are the symptoms of a poor signal for DVB-T"

Could someone confirm what a poor signal quality/strength results in for DVB-T.

Is there a piece of software i can run that will let me test sig quality/strength as  I move my aerial? I am going to setup a external aerial over the weekend, but i dont want to be going up & down ladders 50 times to change alignment If i can do it just once if i have my wife watching a screen/meter thing on my computer.

Thanks to anyone that can answer these for me, im new to the game and im sure its a simple answer, but i just wanted clarification before i go and buy external UHF aerials. I was looking at a "Yagi-style 12 Element UHF TV Antenna" I live in a clear LOS to Sugarloaf and can get my aerial to about 10m up, would this aerial suffice?

Cheers, G