freeview HD recievers?

Soldato
Joined
13 Mar 2011
Posts
7,484
Location
Bada Bing
i'd really love to watch/record the F1 in HD and i was thinking, what is the best, most stable, but value for money card to put in my desktop?

any insights/experience/recommendations gratefully recieved :)
 
There's one by blackgold which is a dual tuner pci-e card £100. There's also a single tuner USB tuner by Hauppage/PCTV for about £60.

If it's just for F1 like me then the USB is just fine but if you want to watch/record different channels then the Blackgold would be better.

There's another Blackgold coming soon I think with a satellite tuner on board too, that'll be pci-e too.

Nothing else at the moment although I think some manufacturers specs would make you believe otherwise. Only DVB-T2 tuners work for freeview HD in the uk. Dvb-t only supports SD.
 
mmm, that is pricey - you can get a freeview HD box for that sort of money - ill have to think about it :p



by chance, does anyone know what format it records into? will it play with VLC? or it some encrypted format that can only played on windows media centre etc etc?

:)
 
Maybe you can get a hd box but good luck finding one which you can record to at those prices.

The tv stream is recorded as whatever the stream is transmitted as. Wmc will give it tge wtv filename extension but it's still really just a transport stream. SD will play in vlc no problems. HD however is h264 for video and AAC-HE for audio. Wmc/wmp have no problems with it but I've not managed to get vlc to cope with the audio codec, video however is fine.
 
Maybe you can get a hd box but good luck finding one which you can record to at those prices.

im quite prepared to get used/refurbished boxes, but the blackgold is very rare so a second-hand one is very hard to find, so yeah, you can get freview HD recorders at roughly the same price :)

The tv stream is recorded as whatever the stream is transmitted as. Wmc will give it tge wtv filename extension but it's still really just a transport stream. SD will play in vlc no problems. HD however is h264 for video and AAC-HE for audio. Wmc/wmp have no problems with it but I've not managed to get vlc to cope with the audio codec, video however is fine.

thats interesting, i wonder why it cant handle the audio, is it something to do with encryption do you think? hmmm
 
There are these from the endangered forest, but they all require (Freeview HD Box), i think.

Hauppauge WinTV Nova S2-HD/Satellite and HD Satellite PCI TV Tuner card

TBS DVB-S2 High Definition Digital Satellite Tuner PCI Express Card HD (DVB-S2/DVB-S) Receiver - PCIE

TBS DVB-S2 High Definition Digital Satellite Tuner PCI Card HD (DVB-S2/DVB-S) Receiver - PCI


Just a thought, hope it helps. If they are no good sorry to have wasted any of your time.
 
Last edited:
There are these from the endangered forest, but they all require (Freeview HD Box), i think.

Hauppauge WinTV Nova S2-HD/Satellite and HD Satellite PCI TV Tuner card

TBS DVB-S2 High Definition Digital Satellite Tuner PCI Express Card HD (DVB-S2/DVB-S) Receiver - PCIE

TBS DVB-S2 High Definition Digital Satellite Tuner PCI Card HD (DVB-S2/DVB-S) Receiver - PCI


Just a thought, hope it helps. If they are no good sorry to have wasted any of your time.

Good thinking, but all of those are freesat tuners, not freeview ones:
DVB-T - SD Terrestrial (aka Freeview)
DVB-T2 - HD Terrestrial (in the UK)
DVB-S - SD Satellite (aka Freesat)
DVB-S2 - HD Satellite
DVB-C - Cable (quite rare and against all UK cable companies terms and conditions to use)

This is'nt available until about Christmas time in OEM version and retail shortly after that.

Think that quote must've been from a review done last year - they're currently for sale from Blackgold themselves (and probably elsewhere) and several people have already received and are using them, some I think on this forum, but it's late and I might be confused about that last point! :D
 
Last edited:
Think that quote must've been from a review done last year - they're currently for sale from Blackgold themselves (and probably elsewhere) and several people have already received and are using them, some I think on this forum, but it's late and I might be confused about that last point! :D

Aye, you are quite right. They are available right now and if you buy one now it will be with you on Monday.
 
Back
Top Bottom