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Freecom DVB-T USB Stick (merged)
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I've just seen this product, which is a small aerial and Freeview decoder which connects to a computer via USB 2.0, allowing you to get Freeview and DAB Radio on your computer.
Has anyone tried one of these? If so, what do you think of it?
I believe it also enables recording of TV on your PC. If so, any comments on the ease of use of the software?
Many thanks all
Navito
Has anyone tried one of these? If so, what do you think of it?
I believe it also enables recording of TV on your PC. If so, any comments on the ease of use of the software?
Many thanks all
Navito
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Comments
paulie
Wow!
paulie
and another from scan
Cheers
Navito
Paulie
All the specs I've read so far are saying that it's USB 2.0. I doubt that it would be compatible with earlier versions of USB as the data transfer rate would not be fast enough to transfer all the information associated with a television picture.
Cheers
Navito
Thats exactly what I was thinking...
I had a USB tuner (non digital) and it was only USB1.1 so the quality was good but only in a window (like 320 by whatever)
This is intriguing, I'm gonna pick one up when I'm paid!
paulie
The supplied aerial looks very similar (if not identical) to the one I got with my USB DAB radio.
If it is the same, then you can replace it with an external aerial via an SMA connector (I have plugged mine into the roof aerial, SMA connectors are available from Maplin).
To be honest, I could pick up virtually no signal where I live with that type of indoor aerial, but with the roof aerial attached, I'm getting all services.
1. I can't see any mention of DAB on the page linked. I think the device may be DVB-T only.
2. Since the video is sent to the computer as MPEG2, USB 1.1 is more than enough for a DVB-T receiver. It's certainly enough for any channel you'll find on Freeview today, but I don't know if it could accomodate an HDTV channel. Probably not.
Yes, Beware!
Just about every DVB-T appliance under the sun is sold as including digital radio (which technically they do via the freeview platform).
Very very rarely do these items support true DAB radio though.
USB 2.0 has a data rate of 440 Mbps. More than enough for DVD quality, never mind TV!
If you go to the SCAN link above for this item and click to zoom in on the picture (at first mine didn't even show a picture
Nice idea certainly for people with laptops, just might need to rescan if you are on the move
480 actually.
Deliberately chosen as a multiple of USB 1.1's 12.
If the stick send 1 channel rather than a Mux you wont need USB 2.
What will those two features be useful for? And what connection? Card thing?
I dont understand the terms you just used!
paulie
Ah yes. That would be useful for archiving VHS tapes.
What sort of screensize? Full? Like, are we talking very good fullscreen quality or is that too much to hope for?
And does it connect via USB, smartcard thing, or what?
Thanks, sorry for being dense...
paulie
Capture is to DVD standard assuming you have a Pentium 1000+.
Not sure what resolution analogue TV is to be honest.
For the Luminance (greyscale) signal
625 vertical lines of which only 576 contain picture information.
The available bandwidth allows for roughly similar horizontal definition. Which would be roughly
(576*4/3)=768, although some cropping takes place, leaving probably around 720 horizontal as a theoretical maximum on perfect equipment.
Of course interlacing is used which effectivley halves the information needed to be sent than if it was progressive.
The Chrominance (Colour information) resolution is roughly half that of the luminance.
But the human eye cannot normally notice this.
If you look very carefully though, you will see slight colour overlapping amongst objects of different hues, provided your equipment is of sufficient high quality.
So, to summarise: Analogue PAL TV is never better than 720x576 interlaced, with the colour info never better than 360x288.
And that assumes perfect equipment, and lack of PAL artifacts.
I'm excited.
paulie
Cheers, I knew it was a bit more than the 400 Mbps of firewire.
It certainly looks like a nice gadget, but since it requires a minimum of an 800MHz Pentium 3 I would gues that the USB dongle is just the RF side, with the demultiplexing and decoding done in the PC (a sort of 'winmodem' for DTT!). You may find that unless you've got a fairly beefy laptop you won't be able to do much else while you're watching TV.
Still, for £50...
Let us know if you get one
Yeah, I mean, if I get one, you guys will be first to hear of my thoughts. My laptop is a 2.4ghz Celeron with 512mb RAM. So I should be ok. It handles graphics fairly well, so yeah we'll see.
It wont be before the end of August though, unfortunately (unless someone buys it for me, which is possible)
Anyway.
paulie
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