Infomania.co.uk » freeview http://www.infomania.co.uk Stuff you want to know Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:20:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 PCTV nanoStick T2 290e Freeview HD DVB-T2 tuner stick http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/429 http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/429#comments Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:08:15 +0000 admin http://www.infomania.co.uk/?p=429 Regular DVB-T tuner cards and tuner sticks will allow your PC to receive and record regular Freeview TV and radio programmes. Things are a bit more complicated if you want to receive Freeview HD, as it uses a new broadcast standard, DVB-T2. This is an improved version of DVB-T which can deliver 40 Mbps in [...]]]> Regular DVB-T tuner cards and tuner sticks will allow your PC to receive and record regular Freeview TV and radio programmes. Things are a bit more complicated if you want to receive Freeview HD, as it uses a new broadcast standard, DVB-T2. This is an improved version of DVB-T which can deliver 40 Mbps in a single channel, compared to a maximum of 24 Mbps from the original version. Another benefit is that it is far less susceptible to electrical interference, such as from tumble driers, heating thermostats or even Christmas tree lights.

The good news is that there are now a couple of DVB-T2 tuner products for PCs. Here at Infomania Towers we’ve been testing the PCTV nanoStick T2 290e. This is a single-tuner USB tuner stick which can tune in both regular DVB-T transmissions as well as DVB-T2. It comes with a software disk, remote control, a short USB extension cable and a puny stick aerial which will be of little use unless you happen to live right next to a TV transmitter.

Rather than install the software we decided to see how far we could get with Windows Media Center on a Windows 7 PC. Tuners for Media Center need to work with BDA drivers, which the PCTV stick does. Happily there was no need to do anything other than connect a TV aerial to the stick and plug it into a USB port. Windows got to work finding the stick and sorting drivers out. All we had to do was to start Windows Media Center, tell it our postcode so it knew which region to get TV listings for and set it up to tune the channels in. Although everything worked fine, tuning was a very slow process – far slower than any TVs we have come across. In fact we thought the software might have crashed except that occasionally the progress indicator did actually increment.

The HD signals in this part of the world are a little weak, as the region has not switched to digital yet. Fortunately the stick seems to be quite sensitive and we receive all the HD channels without a problem. Programme guide listing are another issue however. Microsoft haven’t yet added listings for the HD channels to the EPG. It is possible to get listings to show up for BBC 1 HD, ITV 1 HD and Channel 4 HD by editing the guide setup for those channels and telling the EPG to use the listings for the regular versions of the channels. No solution for BBC HD as yet but we are investigating.

So our experience to date is quite positive except for the missing BBC HD listings. We have been able to successfully view, record and replay HD programmes, although sadly Microsoft seem blind to the benefits of Blu-ray DVD drives so it doesn’t appear possible to transfer HD recordings to Blu-ray disc.

]]> http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/429/feed 0 Updating the Philips DTR1500 Freeview box http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/10 http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/10#comments Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:07:22 +0000 bill http://g4raa.bpweb.net/info/?p=10 The Philips DRT1500 set-top box is a great Freeview receiver but suffers one problem. It is only possible to add new channels to the channel lineup, not change those already tuned in. As channel names and numbers change the channel list can get quite out of date.

It is possible to reset the Philips receiver [...]]]> The Philips DRT1500 set-top box is a great Freeview receiver but suffers one problem. It is only possible to add new channels to the channel lineup, not change those already tuned in. As channel names and numbers change the channel list can get quite out of date.

It is possible to reset the Philips receiver to the default factory settings, which will cause the receiver to tune all the channels in afresh.

Here’s how:

How to do a factory reset on the Philips DTR1500 Digital Terrestrial TV (Freeview) set-top box

1) Turn off the mains.
2) Hold in the + button on the box
3) Turn the mains back on while continuing to hold in the + button
4) Wait for the orange light to start blinking, then release the + button
5) Press + briefly
6) The red light will now start blinking
7) Using the remote, enter 9900 8) Wait a minute or so while the box sorts itself out and clears the stored settings
9) Finally will see a green light and the box will start up as if brand new

NB The box will lose all user settings such as widescreen settings, blocked channels and favourites lists. If necessary make a note of what they are before resetting!

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