freeview reception not very good on PC ??

Snow-Munki

Snow-Munki

Snow-Munki

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Hi,

was wondering, i think, why is it that on my HTPC using the Nova-T running through MCE that the reception isn't that good. ITV and channel 4 very often doesn't work and judders a bit.

but when using a normal freeview box everything is fine, is my Nova-T just rubbish ? :p
 
Snow-Munki said:
Hi,

was wondering, i think, why is it that on my HTPC using the Nova-T running through MCE that the reception isn't that good. ITV and channel 4 very often doesn't work and judders a bit.

but when using a normal freeview box everything is fine, is my Nova-T just rubbish ? :p
Click to expand...

yep it is

same as my leadtek DTV-B thingy. Plugged in house aerial and nothing, not 1 channel. Plugged the normal freeview box in again and everything perfect.
 
I replaced my Nova-t with a leadtek, can now pick up all the channels. Its not the reception, i just think its shoddy BDA drivers.
 
Lanz said:
I replaced my Nova-t with a leadtek, can now pick up all the channels. Its not the reception, i just think its shoddy BDA drivers.
Click to expand...
More likely a shoddy card - all the drivers do is enable MCE to talk to the card so that it can chose a frequency, and the card can pass the 1s and 0s back for decoding. Not really much that can go wrong there!
 
Snow-Munki said:
so basically no point spending £'s on aerial boosters and all that.

just need to get a 'better' card ?
Click to expand...
Boosters might help, but I suppose a card with a more sensitive tuner would probably help too.

Don't know which cards are known to be better - I've got a pair of GDI BlackGold cards, and they seem to be ok. I've got a roof aerial balanced on a fridge at completely the wrong angle (pointing upwards!). It's got a 26dB Mast Head booster on too (a bit OTT). Strangely, it works fine. I'm probably just in a good signal area though - someone upstairs has a Nova-T working fine off a crappy indoor tv aerial.
 
csmager said:
Boosters might help, but I suppose a card with a more sensitive tuner would probably help too.

Don't know which cards are known to be better - I've got a pair of GDI BlackGold cards, and they seem to be ok. I've got a roof aerial balanced on a fridge at completely the wrong angle (pointing upwards!). It's got a 26dB Mast Head booster on too (a bit OTT). Strangely, it works fine. I'm probably just in a good signal area though - someone upstairs has a Nova-T working fine off a crappy indoor tv aerial.
Click to expand...


I have to say I was never overly impressed with my blackgold card - but I was using it before MCE was recently updated, so I might be tempted to install it again. Just had worse reception than from the tv downstairs using same aerial and changeable performance.
 
I wouldn't be too harsh on the Nova-T card, I have a Nebula Digi-TV card that suffers in exactly the same way.

I would suspect power supply or hard drive electrical noise to be the problem - perhaps re-routing internal cables would have a favourable response?
 
Ok, you may well have done this as it seems obvious....

Have you checked all the way down the channel list, i'm using two nova-ts and the problem i have is that it picks up too many channels, mce alocates the first bbc1 it finds to bbc1 etc, however in my case it finds bbc 1 wales first even though my arial is pointing in the opposite direction, and sets bbc1 wales as my bbc 1, i then have to go into tv settings and rejig all the channels around, the standalone freeview boxes seem to manage ok.

I can end up with several versions of each channel but from experience i know the best ones to use and mce never picks these.
 
I've got a compro t200 card. Absolutely no problems, but i am on XP not MCE although it shouldnt really make a difference.
 
thanks for all the advice.

Well last night recorded BB, as i wasn't in, and it was perfectly fine. Might have just been the fact my old machine wasn't powerful enough ?
 
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