Freecom DVB-T USB Stick Freeview Receiver

[JayCee]

Posted here as well as the TV Tuners Forum as I think it may be useful.

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My daughters gave me one of these Freeview dongles for Fathers Day for use on my Laptop which is a 17" Dual Core MacBook Pro running WinXP Home under Apple Bootcamp.
I'd heard that the Freecom DVB-T "TotalMedia" software supplied with it sucks...and it does...so I spent most of yesterday downloading and trying various alternative freeware DVB-T and PVR software...GBPVR, DBViewer, MediaPortal, ProgDVB, Nebula, Yakumo etc some worked okay but the interface was as bad as the TotalMedia (Yakumo), some needed some files tweaked to recognise the Freecom receiver (GBPVR) and some just crashed my laptop either at startup or operating with the Blue screen of death (ProgDVB and Nebula).
I finally found software that works great with the Freecom and has a good-looking interface with plenty of options...BlazeHDTV V2.5 available from here
You get a 14 day trial then you have to register which is $39 for the download version ...roughly 20 quid at todays exchange rate but that'll do me.
BTW unless you live next door to a Freeview transmitter don't expect to be able to use the supplied stick aerial...with a decent signal from an external roof aerial the Freecom works just fine and is surprisingly stable.

[Chris Muriel]

Interesting post.
TSReader may work with it with the right driver - then you can use VLC with TSReader to stream or view selected channels.
I have done this with both Nebula and Terratec-Cinergy USB mini-boxes
(did some original DVB-T beta testing for the author of TSReader, a Brit who now lives in the USA)

Chris Muriel, Vienna (back in Manchester tomorrow)

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by Chris Muriel

Interesting post.
TSReader may work with it with the right driver - then you can use VLC with TSReader to stream or view selected channels.
I have done this with both Nebula and Terratec-Cinergy USB mini-boxes
(did some original DVB-T beta testing for the author of TSReader, a Brit who now lives in the USA)

Chris Muriel, Vienna (back in Manchester tomorrow)

Thanks Chris...I'll look into it
BTW you certainly post from some far-flung places these days

[johnhy]

Do you know if the totalmedia software supplied or the Blaze one allows you to move channels ie move C4 from eg 14 to 4 on the list?
thanks

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by johnhy

Do you know if the totalmedia software supplied or the Blaze one allows you to move channels ie move C4 from eg 14 to 4 on the list?

That's something I meant to check out myself on the Blaze...I'll let you know once I've sussed it...earlier today I made a group of favourite channels for quick access.
I couldn't move channels on the TotalMedia.

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by JayCee

I finally found software that works great with the Freecom and has a good-looking interface with plenty of options...BlazeHDTV V2.5 available from here
You get a 14 day trial then you have to register which is $39 for the download version ...roughly 20 quid at todays exchange rate but that'll do me.

Or you can get BlazeHDTV from Here for £17.96 (including 99p P&P) and it comes with the DVB-T USB stick included

Mark.

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Or you can get BlazeHDTV from Here for £17.96 (including 99p P&P) and it comes with the DVB-T USB stick included

That's certainly a fantastic offer for anyone looking for a cheap Freeview viewing experience on their PC or laptop.

[Chris Muriel]

Wow!
That's a damned good offer.
Maybe someone should post it in the A/V Bargains section.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

[MarkE19]

Done

Mark.

[m.stephens]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Or you can get BlazeHDTV from Here for £17.96 (including 99p P&P) and it comes with the DVB-T USB stick included

Mark.

Depends on the version of Blaze you end up with. I bought a cheapo DVB-T USB stick from HK which came with Blaze 2.0 and the registration code. The software sort of worked - it picked up all the local multiplexes but failed to come up with the IDs of most of the channels. I then downloaded version 2.1 as a 14 day trial from the Blaze website and this was better at recognising the channels but couldn't handle one of the multiplexes ( can't remember which one but I it was the one with the most channels) and the program just ended completely whenever it searched the multiplex. Upgrading would seem to need you to fork out more money to Blaze.

I haven't really bothered with the USB stick since I bought an Asda freevie recorder which does everything I need.

The versions of Blaze I played with put all the channel info into a .ini file and allocated the "channel numbers" by going through all the multiplexes in frequency order which doesn't tie up with the standard numbering system. It should be possible to re-order the channels to match the normal numbers by manually editing the ini file (using Wordpad or Notepad) once you've done a scan. Note that the scheduling info also goes into the same ini file so editing will get a bit messy. Not sure whether you would need to actually put the sections into numerical order for it all to work - this depends on how the software was written.

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by m.stephens

Depends on the version of Blaze you end up with.

BlazeDVT 2.5a was the version supplied.

Mark.

[LFC_SL]

Interesting post

I've never had problems changing channels with TotalMedia, but it was a tad slow, however that was on the P4 family desktop. My bro just sent the DVB-T stick and accessories down to me as I left them in Manchester () and I will try TotalMedia on my dual core laptop

[joegib]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Or you can get BlazeHDTV from Here for £17.96 (including 99p P&P) and it comes with the DVB-T USB stick included

Mark.

I already have an early Freecom dongle (manf. September 2005) with which I've been pleased. One point that impressed me was that it could detect the DVB-T HD transmissions when they were running. Unfortunately, I couldn't decode them as my computer at that time didn't have enough grunt.

Anyway, I wanted a spare dongle so ordered one from the site MarkE19 linked. Delivery was very prompt (ordered Saturday midday, delivered Tueday morning). I found this dongle to be very sensitive. Initially, I simply substituted it for the Freecom in my existing setup which has an inline RF amplifier. Only around half the available channels were detected and there were odd glitches in Blaze DHDTV operation (e.g I might have to double-click twice on a channel in the selector for it to load). Playing around, I removed the RF amplifier from the setup and immediately got a full complement of channels. BlazeHDTV also ran sweetly subsequently.One point I liked is that recordings were saved as program stream MPEGs (MPG), not transport streams (TS). That eliminates one irritating conversion stage in editing.

A point to note, though, is that this dongle uses the AF9005 chip which research suggests is not HD capable. That's academic at the moment because there are no HD terrestrial transmissions but once they resume I don't think this dongle will be able to receive them. Even so, if you want a sensitive tuner for SD transmissions, and with very decent software using a BDA driver, this is still a good deal.

Edit: - On checking this dongle with Everest I was surprised to find that it is a USB1.10 device. Perhaps that's why it's not HD-capable. This may be useful for people with older USB1 laptops but may be regarded as a disadvantage by some users.

[LFC_SL]

--Update--

I have tried both TotalMedia and BlazeDTV on my laptop:
Dual Core 1.66ghz
1.5gb Ram
ATI X1600

Both actually work flawlessly - no system slowdown. I have firefox and foobar running alongside the respective programs. Perfect. No chance on P4 family desktop. I think I prefer the 'look' of the BlazeDTV player, however, TotalMedia is easier to navigate as everything is labelled. BlazeDTV has evderything squished and you have to hover to know what the control is - unless I am missing something...

[matt222]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Or you can get BlazeHDTV from Here for £17.96 (including 99p P&P) and it comes with the DVB-T USB stick included

Mark.

just bought one of these tv sticks for my laptop and i have to say it works great. its an absolute bargain for £17.96, hats off to you for finding it!