What's the Best USB DVB Device?

[davsan]

Hi everyone.

I've bought a couple of USB DVB devices over the last couple of days, and I've run into so many problems (as seems to be the trend here).
I want to get rid of the ones I've bought, and buy one that will work without having to spend two weeks solving problems.

So does anybody have any suggestions for what the best USB DVB device is? I'm not made of money, so I'm not after something pricey. Just something that's a reasonable price, that works with gbpvr.

I live in the UK by the way

[soccerdad]

I don't have an answer to your question, since I am using a PCI card, however, if you are having problems with specific cards, it would be great for you to post your issues and what you have found so we can all learn.

Good luck and hang in there. Are you trying DVB-S or DVB-T?

[davsan]

Okay, well I could consider going PCI. Is yours reliable? Is it worth it? Better than USB?

As for my original question, I'll explain my situation:

I live in a flat in Oxfordshire, UK. Freeview reception (which is what I'm after) here is excellent, through a communal roof antenna. I want to be able to watch TV while I work on my computer, time-shift, record, schedule recordings, and have an integrated EPG. And not spend the rest of my life trying to get the thing to work.
I have an AMD Athlon 3000+ PC with 2 GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9600XT graphics card, two 21" CRT monitors, each running at 1856 x 1392, 32 bpp. OS is Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, SP2, with every patch and hotfix available through windows update (including optional ones).

At first, I bought a cheap device: The Afatech AF9005 DVB-T USB stick. Everything went without a hitch. Picked up around 65 channels, with the bundled software.
The problem started when I began to watch TV. The bundled software is BlazeVideo HDTV Player, which is actually a good piece of software; has great features and is easy to use. The problem is, if you so much as move the mouse, the video starts skipping, and the sound goes out of sync. After a couple of minutes, the sound is out by about 5 seconds, and the video is skipping so much, you can barely tell what's happening. This was with the video window as small as it would go. My CPU usage never went above 65%, and the hard disk light was only flashing intermittently. Barely ticking over.
I know my screen resolution is high, but I'm not gonna change it. My graphics card can easily handle playing a different video on each monitor, in full screen mode, at the same time. It doesn't even break a sweat.
So I start looking around for alternative software, and nothing works. Either the AF9005 isn't detected, or the program crashes.
Media Center worked just right. It picked up all the channels, etc. But when I tried to watch anything on it, it would say: "No TV Signal", which was a lie, because BlazeVideo picked everything up perfectly.
My last hope was GB-PVR, but every time I did a channel scan, it said Signal: 0 Quality: 0, and didn't pick up a single channel. The stick was detected all right; I modded the bda.ini file to make sure, but to no avail.
In the end, my conclusion was that what it says on the Afatech web-site:

"- AF9005 does NOT support MediaCenter in Windows XP or Windows Vista. It only works with specific DVB-T applications which can support PID filter. Please contact product manufacture or vendor to acquire the proper software."

probably means that I won't be able to use this stick with anything but BlazeVideo (I know it says "Media Center", but I didn't check out the web site until after I'd tried).

So I go and buy a Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T SE Stick. The software (WinTV2000) is an absolute joke. Looks like a school project, hacked together back in 1993, on Windows 3.1. And as far as I can tell, the EPG is just a link to an online TV guide that has no listings (at least for my region).
So I get Media Center to work on this thing, and it picks up about 55 channels (a fair few missing). It works, and the video doesn't skip at all, but the reception seems to be real flaky with this stick. There are many artefacts all over the video, all the time! Rubbish.
So I also try GB-PVR (just to see if it will work), and after fiddling with bda.ini, I get it to detect the stick. But on scanning the channels, it gives me "Signal: 0 Quality: 0" again, and no channels found.
I'm sending this stick back whatever happens, because of the dodgy reception, and now I want to choose one that will work.

So if anyone could help me, It'd be much appreciated.

[davsan]

I was thinking of going with the Freecom DVB-T, but the reviews are very mixed. Anyone have an opinion?

[herbs]

I have a nova-t usb2 and a nova-t stick both work for me, but it was a case off getting the correct driver. Some drivers caused issues on hibernating and resuming, it was trail and error but now they are working 100%. I think its an issue with your system if you have so many issues with different tv cards.

[danIrl]

I use a Hauppauge HVR-900, which seems to work well in digital mode.
I use a Hauppauge PVR-150 for the analogue channels

/Dan.

[davsan]

Thanks for all your advice guys, that's the sort of thing I'm after. There are so many horror stories out there, that I don't know which one to go for, but if your model works for you, then maybe it's a good sign.

Thanks for your reply Herbs. I'm not so sure that it's an issue with my system. I've only just finished clean-installing the whole OS, and I'm having no problems with anything else. The drivers for the sticks seem to be working fine: no lock-ups, blue screens or any other strange behaviour. The only strange thing is not being able to get my Nova-T to work with GB-PVR.
I want to send it back anyway, because in my haste and impatience, I bought it without realising it doesn't come with a remote.

Anyway, keep it coming.

Thanks.

[cosmocat]

I have always been sceptical of these USB "stick" devices. I don't see how anything so small and unscreened could have proper RF sensitivity and noise immunity especially when plugged into a PC whos front side bus will be radiating at about the same frequency as the TV signal its trying to pick up.
I use 3 x single tuner Nova-Ts (PCI ) with big metal cans covering the sensitive bits. They work fine. Maybe try the USB version of that.

[GBChris]

I had the freecom usb stick, but it seems very process hungry and will not always lock on.

I just got the latest Nova - T USB 2 stick, plugged it in and away it went