[HiZ]

I have a Freecom DVB-T USB adaptor and dont really like the supplied software. I have got the BDA driver loaded OK and want to use a bit of free software for watching tv. If only the Nebula software worked as thats brilliant. Tried DVBStream explorer, TSReaderLite and DVBViewer. Anything better out there?

[mne2]

Can i suggest you try out MediaPortal - www.team-mediaportal.com

I'm not sure if the freecom is supported off hand but the software seems pretty good.

[Mark.]

I'm using the Yuan PD300 installed with the Yakumo drivers (in a similar way to the Freecom) and that software gave me a blue screen of death and corrupted part of my HDD when scanning for channels, so be warned.

[tghe-retford]

Sadly when I tried the MediaPortal software it messed up my drivers and whenever I wanted to watch TV the picture would be jerky and unwatchable. I had to uninstall MediaPortal and reinstall the Nova-T PCI drivers.

[HiZ]

Bump....


Anyone got any good free software?

[GBee]

Mythtv without a shadow of doubt. Requires you use linux but that's a bonus imho.

[Digger_Boot]

Mediaportal works pretty well but can be a bit difficult to set up, myth is supposed to be very good as stated above[if you dont mind piddlin about with linux). There was free copy of Show shifter (older version ) on PC magazine fronts last year , I've got it running on my daughters PC and that works nicely also used to stream music from elsewhere on our small network. Might be worth having a look for

[icehenge]

I've found GB-PVR very good.

[Chris.Day]

The main free ones are:
- MediaPortal
- ProgDVB
- GB-PVR

If you want a "traditional" application, go for ProgDVB. If you want a 10' interface application like Media Center, go for GB-PVR or MediaPortal.

[StuartB]

..........

[Digger_Boot]

Dont know about the rest of you but I got Media portal to work with a bit of effort. But could not get GB-PVR to work whatever I did despite the fact that its supposed to work with bda drivers. Not sure why, installing intervideo multiplexor took and it saw it but whatever I do it wont recognise the fact that I have my Compro T200 installed

[walkerx]

have you tried out linux

the freecom dvb-t works a dream

currently using in Ubuntu 6.06 64bit - and it works a lot better than windows

just now need to find a utility to decypher the ts stream that is saved

regards
walkerx

[gormo]

i cant get anything to work with my flydvb hybrid apart from showshifter, powercinema or gbpvr(which runs badly for some reason).

i cant get progdvb or anything else to find channels.

media portal wont even find my card.

[StuartB]

Originally Posted by Digger_Boot

Dont know about the rest of you but I got Media portal to work with a bit of effort. But could not get GB-PVR to work whatever I did despite the fact that its supposed to work with bda drivers. Not sure why, installing intervideo multiplexor took and it saw it but whatever I do it wont recognise the fact that I have my Compro T200 installed

I also have the Compro, and have only managed to make 2 things work with it:

1. The bundled ComproDTV software, which often fails to change channels properly, rendering the card useless as a PVR

2. Mediaportal, but seems to crash out if I try to make the screen larger.

GBPVR would not work and neither would ProgDVB which is also supposed to work with BDA drivers. I think there is something big wrong with the BDA functionality of this card. I cannot get any VfW applications to talk to the card for video capture purposes, if the card is selected (using BDA) it hangs up any device using VfW unless I disable and re-enable the card through Device Manager.

[dombird]

i thought i was the only one having problems with this card! the picture quality is pretty good when it is working but it hangs whenever I enable the BDA drivers in progdvb. Media portal seemed to work ok for me, but the supplied software is pretty awful if you switch channels too often! any other suggestions for third party apps and the compro?

[Ianpb]

I have a Pinnacle PCTV DVB-T PCI card.
It supports Freeview DVB channels, digital Radio and Teletext. Unfortunately, the Pinnacle software, TvCentre Pro is the worst software I've come across. Appallingly unstable.

I've tried GB-PVR but it's too fiddly, muddled, and unfortunately, the instructions and forums on its website are unintelligible, ie. nerdspeak. Gave up on that.

I tried ProgDVB. That worked briefly but kept crashing. Gave up on that.

I tried AVS TV Box. That wouldn't work at all most of the time. Gave up on that.

Does anyone know of any decent, reliable software that will run on windows XP? There's so much crap about. Or maybe I'll just get my money back.

[beardedwonder]

DVB Dream works well for my 2nd card which is a pinnacle card. You could try that, also media portal has improved but is still lacking as a desktop application (IMO).

[Sam Radford.]

The best by a mile is "EyeTV" but you need an Apple Mac to run it.

[McBread]

Originally Posted by walkerx

have you tried out linux

the freecom dvb-t works a dream

currently using in Ubuntu 6.06 64bit - and it works a lot better than windows

just now need to find a utility to decypher the ts stream that is saved

I'm another Linux user. As it's my main machine rather than a media centre, I forgo any MythTV style full-screen monolith and watch stuff in a window. Hence I just use dvbstream, the most basic of utilities, to pipe the data to mplayer or to a file (for which I simply use an .mpg extension, nothing has any problem playing it.)

If I want to adjust to adjust a file, for example to transfer on to dvd for watching on the main tv, I simply use ProjectX to demultiplex, and mplex to join the video+audio back together. mplex is part of mjpeg tools (http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/)