Blackgold GDI DVB-T

[osbald]

Hi,

I've recently bought one of these dvb-t cards, but I'm having great trouble finding alternative PVR software to support it. GBPVR seems to come the closest - assuming the "Blockgold GDI DVB-T" listed on the front page is the same card?

OK, It has BDA drivers as far as I know (using Windows XP SP2 not the MCE option) and the software installs OK, set the source, pick the local transmitter but whenever I try to map the EPG channels (scan for channels) I get the following error:

Debug Assertion Failed
Program: config.exe
File: c:\program files\microsoft visual studio .net 2003\vc7\atlmfc\include\atlcomcli.h
Line: 150
Expression: p!=0

Trying GBPVR09108.msi using the Blackgold Signature 5.11.107.43 drivers (according to the device manager).

Anybody actually had more sucess with this card?

Already struck out with snowshifter, sage tv, dvbcore, snapstream, meedio and tvedia and feeling more than a little stupid with this purchase.

Thanks,

- Richard

[sub]

Trying GBPVR09108.msi using the Blackgold Signature 5.11.107.43 drivers (according to the device manager).

Are those BDA drivers? Considering BDA is very very new, that driver number seems very high.

[osbald]

The version numbers are just what I see from the device manager, driver, properties page. The actual installationof the drivers was hidden from me by the GDI software installation package which carries the version 5.7.0.23.

[sub]

What I was trying to say was, many DVB devices have two different types of drivers: their original proprietary drivers, and more recently their BDA drivers. Are you sure you've installed BDA drivers? The proprietary drivers wont work with GB-PVR.

[osbald]

Its not entry obvious, but the device manager says BlackGold Signature BDA TS Capture among others IR, Radio and Crossbar. There is a separate download for MCE, but it warns you ONLY to use it with MCE and if I switch over I'll need a copy of MCE to switch back to XP. ref: http://www.gta-ltd.co.uk/Product/Download/Download.htm

..As far as I know the XP software still uses BDA - can anyone confirm this?

[boaby]

I know this thread's old and osbald's either fixed it or thrown the card out by now but ill reply for anyone else having this problem anyways, as i personally think the blackgolds an excellent card as an internal freeview option.

The BDA drivers are available on the blackgold website and you'll need them if your running regular XP and want to use other third party pvr's such as gbpvr/showshifter etc. If your running MCE then you dont need to bother with this as your cards already setup for that - note: do not mess with that thing already mentioned where you change the cards attributes between XP/MCE or you'll have a dud card lest you have both OS's handy.

The problem is the automatic installer within the BDA driver download. It updates all but one component: BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod which is why these other pvr's cant find the card. If you try it you'll see the driver version number for that component remains 5.11.x where the rest change to 5.17.x if i remember correctly.

So, unzip the contents of the driver package to a folder, goto device manager, select BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod properties and change the driver manually by clicking 'update driver' and then select 'install from a list or a specific location' and browse to the folder you created. Once done check that the version number has updated to the same as the rest of the components.

Once you've updated the BDA drivers the pvr's that i know that work are gbpvr, showshifter and mediaportal. I couldn't get beyondtv, sage or meedio to work with the blackgold as i think theyre not supported (at this time anyways). I know there's a few more out there to try but im happy with gbpvr at the moment.

Lastly for people just researching dvb-t cards, i would recommend the BlackGold as its much cheaper than the nebula and the nova-t didnt seem to cut it in the reviews. I'll also say the remote is excellent - its well designed as it comes with tools making it easy to customise using Visual Basic scripts, so you can make your remote do literally anything if you can be bothered to do a bit of VB.

[simbaba]

I know this thread is old but I jumped on it at the first mention of the blackgold card. I have an oem BDA blackgold on a EPIA M10000 mobo and can't iron out all the wrinkles in my install. If I run the blackgold software I can pause and watch tv very successfully on full screen,but I want a true pvr envirmonent and gbpvr seems execllent. I can watch live tv fine but timeshift does not function (black screen). Record functions fine but the mpeg video and sound are not sync'ed (even if a watch in another player like media player).What settings did you have for recording? Also can I just record the data stream and not convert it to MPEG as presumably that would be more reliable. I am keen to sort this out as
gbpvr seems very good as does the (bargain) blackgold card.

[LegolasUK]

I know this thread's old and osbald's either fixed it or thrown the card out by now but ill reply for anyone else having this problem anyways, as i personally think the blackgolds an excellent card as an internal freeview option.

The BDA drivers are available on the blackgold website and you'll need them if your running regular XP and want to use other third party pvr's such as gbpvr/showshifter etc. If your running MCE then you dont need to bother with this as your cards already setup for that - note: do not mess with that thing already mentioned where you change the cards attributes between XP/MCE or you'll have a dud card lest you have both OS's handy.

The problem is the automatic installer within the BDA driver download. It updates all but one component: BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod which is why these other pvr's cant find the card. If you try it you'll see the driver version number for that component remains 5.11.x where the rest change to 5.17.x if i remember correctly.

So, unzip the contents of the driver package to a folder, goto device manager, select BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod properties and change the driver manually by clicking 'update driver' and then select 'install from a list or a specific location' and browse to the folder you created. Once done check that the version number has updated to the same as the rest of the components.

Once you've updated the BDA drivers the pvr's that i know that work are gbpvr, showshifter and mediaportal. I couldn't get beyondtv, sage or meedio to work with the blackgold as i think theyre not supported (at this time anyways). I know there's a few more out there to try but im happy with gbpvr at the moment.

Lastly for people just researching dvb-t cards, i would recommend the BlackGold as its much cheaper than the nebula and the nova-t didnt seem to cut it in the reviews. I'll also say the remote is excellent - its well designed as it comes with tools making it easy to customise using Visual Basic scripts, so you can make your remote do literally anything if you can be bothered to do a bit of VB.

I've just bought a Blackgold card and would like to use gbpvr, i'm running XP Pro SP2. From what I understand of what you wrote, to be able to run gbpvr on XP I need to install the BDA Drivers from the blackgold website, run the installer then manually update the driver for BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod, is that right? I don't want to mess the card up when i've only just got it, and one more thing i dont see BlackGold Signature BDA DVB Tuner/Demod, I have something called Black Gold Signature BDA TS Capture, is that the same?:confused:

[dansus72]

me too, i can only see Black Gold Signature BDA TS Capture and the driver dates are all the same and i cant use anything, gbpvr, windvr ect.

just cant see a pic, its driving me mad cos i want to capture to avi not this dvr-ms shit.

[opelfruit]

Hello all,
I guess my turn to jump on an old thread

I'll get to the BlackGold question in a mo'...
...I bought a Pinnacle PCMCIA card for my wife's laptop: Good card, awful software - I've never been keen on the 'shovelware' approach to writing software, besides being the type of person that gets annoyed by bloat & unnecessary slowness.
GBPVR: My congratulations - it works very well, has a nice interface & obviously has had some work to make it easy-ish on system resources.

Hmmm, the media PC uses said BlackGold DVB-T card with MediaPortal - nice, but in my opinion d*amn slow & takes far too long to start, etc...
...GBPVR..?
Here comes my problem:
The BlackGold card is recognised but when scanning for channels very few are found - no such issues with MediaPortal or indeed GBPVR using the Pinnacle card on the laptop.

Reception isn't great where I live, so BIG TV aerial + signal booster is required.

I guess the above suggests the signal is good enough & I'm using GBPVR correctly but it's struggling with the BlackGold card...
...any ideas?

My thanks.