Freeview on PC

chowks

chowks

chowks

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21 Aug 2003
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408
I want organise a set up on my PC so that I can watch freeview TV on it. So, i had a look around on various sites and I am a bit confused on some issues.

Would I have to buy a seperate freeview box, and then connect it to a TV-card? Or is it possible to get a TV Card with freeview capabilities already built in?

I also noticed that you could get either a PCI card or just a USB one. Obviously the USB one would be easier to install, but will it be worse than the PCI versions? What are the differences?

Anyone have any recommendations for a card? I'm looking to spend no more than around £70.....might be able to go a bit higher though.

Thanks for any help lads.
 
I bought the hauappauge Nova-T 500 last week. It has built in freeview dual tuner ( so you can record 2 shows at once )

Cost just under £50.
 
I'm interested in this as well mate. Looking to stay as cheap as possible though.
Hopefully someone will be a long with a bit more information for us.
 
chowks said:
Would I have to buy a seperate freeview box, and then connect it to a TV-card? Or is it possible to get a TV Card with freeview capabilities already built in?
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It is possible to get a card with freeview tuners built in so you don't have to go out like you said and get a separate freeview box then plug that into your comp, however if you did want to do that for some reason it is possible.

Like Snow-Munki said, you can get a pretty decent dual tuner card nowadays for £50, anything from the hauppage brand is likely to work pretty well, although that doesn't go to say that none of the other brands won't work. As well as this it's also possible to get a decent TV card for less than £50, although I would expect it's better to pay around this price for a TV card as they're likely to pick up the signal form the aerial better than a cheaper one.

A lot of people on here recommend TV cards from Terratec, more specifically the Cinergy 2400i, but I'm not sure for how much that retails and because they don't sell it on overclockers (as far as I know) I can't post a link to somewhere that does, although you should be able to find one quite easily if you do a search on google.

I also noticed that you could get either a PCI card or just a USB one. Obviously the USB one would be easier to install, but will it be worse than the PCI versions? What are the differences?
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Like you said the USB stick would be easier to install than a PCI one but from a couple of other threads I've read it's better to get a PCI TV card. This is not only because you'll probably get more bandwidth from a PCI slot than a USB, but because (and this is more an opinion based on logic rather than fact) you can fit more hardware onto a PCI card, so rather than having the computer CPU decode the data sent from the USB TV stick it is possible to have the signal decoded by a piece of hardware on the card, lifting the load on your CPU.
 
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chowks said:
Ok thanks.....is it any good?
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I think it is very good. Works perfectly in Vista 64-bit MCE.

I have series linked a few shows and my machine will turn on to record it and then shut down.

Quality is great and being able to pause / fast forward or rewind live TV is great !
 
Thanks for the thread - I've been asked to build a rig for a mate and really wasn't up to do on TV cards. Will definitely check out this card.

:)
 
LEADTEK freeview DVB-T pci cards are cheap and work in either XP/Vista media centre or with their own application. Support has beenpretty good for these over the 3 years I've owned them so high marks for great bang for the buck. Unless you need analogue tv or capture from an old camcorder dont pay the extra for the hybrid cards. I also have asus and terratec cards, Leadtek have been better and more consitent.
 
got the card today...nice and easy to install. but then forgot that I get horrible terestrial reception here so it couldn't pick up any channels. Gay!!

So now i guess i either need to buy a new aerial or try a signal booster. Anyone had any experience with indoor aerials or signal boosters?
Might even buy a new outdoor aerial as the current one is ancient.

very annoying....but not the cards fault.
 
Bought a cheap signal booster from a certain supermarket chain - cost about £10.

It plugs into an 'inside' roof ariel of standard type ,the signal from which is poor.

Does it work - yes but would warn that I have read comments from buyers of such boosters who advised it did not work with their set up and a few said it actually made matters worse.

Before you buy a booster just check that your area is one that has digital with a decent signal and that your ariel is good enough and sited correctly
 
Since you're in a poor reception area,you might have been better going for a satellite card (DVB-S) . Obviously you'd need an external dish to connect it to(more expense) but maybe worth it in the long run.
I had a Skystar2 PCI card(cost me less than £50), hooked up to an existing sky dish. Signal was excellent and there were loads of channels to watch. Channels 4 and 5 were encoded but everything else was there ITV 1 2 3, BBC digitals etc). And since the new freesat service launched in April, I think all standard digital channels are now viewable? Some HD services too?
I know this is all a bit late, since you now have a freeview card, but it's still definately worth looking into.
 
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managed to finally get a signal. Found out the previous owner of the house had cut the aerial cable in the loft so I had to reconnect that.

Bit of advice....the software that came with the card (Win TV) still couldn't pick up any channels, whereas Windows Media Center picked up almost all of them...so try both. Win TV seems *snip*.

Does anyone find that they can receive E4+1 but not E4 ? bit of an odd problem
 
chowks said:
Bit of advice....the software that came with the card (Win TV) still couldn't pick up any channels, whereas Windows Media Center picked up almost all of them...so try both. Win TV seems *snip*.
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Can i install MC without having Windows MC Edition? or any other good TV programs that will work instead of WinTV?
 
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