USB DVB-T2 Dual Tuner

buzza_2004

Standard Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2007
Messages
55
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Does anybody know if there are any USB DVB-T2 Dual Tuners available? I have only found one but it seems quite bulky and can't be bought by a UK supplier (TBS5281).

Failing that is it possible to use 2 separate tuners in WMC / XBMC etc? This is my first HTPC and never really had the need to run any media centres.

Thanks.
 
saw one in pc world with about 30 pounds off now about 20 looked like clearence. They used to exist
 
saw one in pc world with about 30 pounds off now about 20 looked like clearence. They used to exist

Thanks bow, had a look on the website but can't see anything.

Can I put 2 sticks in one machine and use seamlessly with wmc etc?
 
Can I put 2 sticks in one machine and use seamlessly with wmc etc?

It depends if the driver supports multiple tuners.

for example I had 2 Pinnacle 3010ix twin tuner cards (giving 4 tuners) with all working fine under Windows XP but with Windows 7 only one would be recognised (giving just the 2 tuners).

The only way I could get both cards recognised was to use the Blackgold driver for the second card. This worked as both the pinnacle and Blackgold cards use the same Philips chips.

other than that you should be able to "mix and match" different tuners. Some people use a mix of satellite and freeview tuners.
 
quite a few on ebay try search usb tv dual tuner.
 
Thanks bow, have I got my wires crossed somewhere? I though DVB-T was for SD TV and DVB-T2 was for HD?

Just come across this one that states DVB-T but can receive the free to air HD channels?

USB Dual DVB-T HD Stick - KWorld! Enrich Your World!!
In the UK the HD channels are only carried on DVB-T2 broadcasts. A card that contains only DVB-T tuner will be limited to SD in the UK.

Elsewhere in the world HD programmes are broadcast on DVB-T.

The tuner supplies the raw data to the host PC. It is up to the installed software to appropriately decode that, so it does not matter to the tuner whether the data is MPEG2, MPEG4, SD, HD, Flash or HTML5.
 
Any DVB-T2 tuner and the driver software, will also need to support seamless switching between 1080i and 1080p25 in the UK. This may be a problem with a non Freeview+ specific DVB-T2 tuner and it's software.
 
Any DVB-T2 tuner and the driver software, will also need to support seamless switching between 1080i and 1080p25 in the UK. This may be a problem with a non Freeview+ specific DVB-T2 tuner and it's software.
No, the tuner and driver only deliver the transport stream.
It is the player/PVR software that deals with the contents of the transport stream.
 
No, the tuner and driver only deliver the transport stream.
It is the player/PVR software that deals with the contents of the transport stream.

Isn't that part of the software ? Several TV's required software updates to cope with the change.

If a change in gop parameters (1080i/1080p) is not handled seamlessly then whether it's a driver issue or other software it's to say the least is a mute point.

So perhaps you might like to enlighten us, which software handles the change seamlessly ?

Or are you merely trying to score cheap points ? :thumbsdow
 
Last edited:
OK, the basic tuner driver provides a transport stream or mux.
See http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/302700_302799/302755/01.03.01_60/en_302755v010301p.pdf
The next layer up is the TS parser which is used to split out the elementary stream packets and data tables.
GOPs etc. aren't visible until the elementary video stream is decoded by assembling the elementary stream from the ES packets.
I suspect that the glitching between interlaced and progressive video is by using a single decoder in single mode - on some SoCs and video cores the decoder is designed to run fast enough for two simultaneous decodes so you could have one decode for the existing video (say interlaced) and the second for the new (progressive) then switch over smoothly.
This is much cheaper than two separate decoders.
There may be a higher layer other than the tuner driver itself e.g. at the parser layer which looks at the ES headers and sends messages to the decoder, in practice possibly on the back of the TS parser.
SoC, Linux PC and Windows all handle this differently of course.
Time Stamp Management could be a factor as well.
 
You wouldn't, UK HD requires DVB-T2.
Some countries e.g. Australia have HD over DVB-T.
 
Thanks guys, that clears things up. So I am either looking at the tuner in my first post (TBS5281) or two separate tuners.
 
Yes.
If there is a single tuner you are interested in then it's worth doing some searches to check the drivers support this because, as has been mentioned above, some are poorly written.
 
Pinnacle Pctv nanostick T2 is what you need, I have used 3 of them at once all work fine in media center on windows 7 and 8. It's not a dual tuner but you can get two for the same price as the tbs dual usb.

PCTV nanoStick T2

No issues with the Pctv, given its been around for 4 years it's pretty solid, first T2 tuner out for windows and still probably the best usb version for the price.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom