Freecom USB stick for digital TV

Hello. I have a Freecom USB stick which I plug in to my XP PC. The
digital reception is good, and I can get 67 channels (some of those are
locked). Unfortunately the picture freezes for 10-20 seconds every
10-15 minuntes. I use an external aerial but, as I live in a flat, it's
communal. Would it be better for me to buy an indoor aerial? If so can
anybody recommend a model. I live in central london and do not have a
TV with scart so can't use a Freeview box. Thanks.
david

"dave" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello. I have a Freecom USB stick which I plug in to my XP PC. The
digital reception is good, and I can get 67 channels (some of those are
locked). Unfortunately the picture freezes for 10-20 seconds every
10-15 minuntes.

That sounds more like the PC being too busy doing something else. The
decompression of the MPEG2 signal is done in software. Which software are
you using? You could try GB-PVR which is free, but can be a little awkward
to configure. DVB Viewer is only about £10 to register and is pretty good.

I use an external aerial but, as I live in a flat, it's
communal. Would it be better for me to buy an indoor aerial? If so can
anybody recommend a model.

set-top aerials are really only a last resort for DTT. Having said that, I'm
having some success with the £10 Telecam aerial from Argos. It came out top
in a recent test. :
http://www.ricability-digitaltv.org....or-aerials.htm

I live in central london and do not have a
TV with scart so can't use a Freeview box. Thanks.
david

There are Freeview boxes out there with modulators so you can connect via
the aerial socket - no SCART required. This site will let you know about
several:
http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewboxes.php

AdrianB

Dave, when your picture freezes, does the signal indicator go to zero? This
is a problem I have.

Ian

"dave" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello. I have a Freecom USB stick which I plug in to my XP PC. The
digital reception is good, and I can get 67 channels (some of those are
locked). Unfortunately the picture freezes for 10-20 seconds every
10-15 minuntes. I use an external aerial but, as I live in a flat, it's
communal. Would it be better for me to buy an indoor aerial? If so can
anybody recommend a model. I live in central london and do not have a
TV with scart so can't use a Freeview box. Thanks.
david

In message .com, dave
writes
Hello. I have a Freecom USB stick which I plug in to my XP PC. The
digital reception is good, and I can get 67 channels (some of those are
locked). Unfortunately the picture freezes for 10-20 seconds every
10-15 minuntes. I use an external aerial but, as I live in a flat, it's
communal. Would it be better for me to buy an indoor aerial? If so can
anybody recommend a model. I live in central london and do not have a
TV with scart so can't use a Freeview box. Thanks.
david

I've had occasional picture break-up and loss of signal for the last
couple of months on my iDTV.

When it happens I turn on my Labgear MSA121 amplifier/splitter, and all
is fine.

Perhaps you should try something like that.
--
Ian

Adrian B wrote:
locked). Unfortunately the picture freezes for 10-20 seconds every
10-15 minuntes.

That sounds more like the PC being too busy doing something else. The
decompression of the MPEG2 signal is done in software. Which software are
you using? You could try GB-PVR which is free, but can be a little awkward
to configure. DVB Viewer is only about £10 to register and is pretty good.

Adrian, thanks for your very helpful reply. I've downloaded DVB Viewer
but when it starts it says 'no valid DVB device found'. Any idea what
the problem is? I think I have BDA drivers installed. The current
software I use is TotalMedia (provided with the Freecom stick).


I use an external aerial but, as I live in a flat, it's
communal. Would it be better for me to buy an indoor aerial? If so can
anybody recommend a model.

set-top aerials are really only a last resort for DTT. Having said that, I'm
having some success with the £10 Telecam aerial from Argos. It came out top
in a recent test. :
http://www.ricability-digitaltv.org....or-aerials.htm

I think I'll try and get DVB Viewer working, and only try a new aerial
if nothing else works.

There are Freeview boxes out there with modulators so you can connect via
the aerial socket - no SCART required. This site will let you know about
several:
http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewboxes.php

I would have bought one of these instead of the Freecom USB stick had I
known But I'll still buy one as I like to use my PC and watch TV at
the same time. The first one listed seemed quite cheap but was
out-of-stock at Amazon and Curry's.

Thanks again for your help.

david

Digital Photography Now wrote:

Dave, when your picture freezes, does the signal indicator go to zero? This
is a problem I have.

Ian

Ian, when it freezes the signal indicator stays at 6 bars. It stays at
6 (the max) most of the time. Also, the LED on the device stays green,
so it seems a strong signal is still coming in. As Adrian mentioned it
looks like a software problem.

This hapens when using an external aerial. The supplied indoor aerial
was useless and always gave a weak signal.

david

"dave" wrote in message
oups.com...

Adrian, thanks for your very helpful reply. I've downloaded DVB Viewer
but when it starts it says 'no valid DVB device found'. Any idea what
the problem is? I think I have BDA drivers installed. The current
software I use is TotalMedia (provided with the Freecom stick).

Dave, Go to Settings, Options then pich Hardware from the list. Set
everything listed there to "Do Not Use" except"Digital TV Receiver" which
should be set to "Prefered". Now try a search.

I'm using an OEM version of the Freecom stick and it works fine.



AdrianB

OK, your problem is not the same as mine.

The bars go from 6/6 to zero, the picture freezes and then I have to change
to a different channel then go back to the channel I was watching and all is
well again for a few more minutes.

I'll try a signal amplifier on my Telecam indoor antenna, though it's
curious that the signal strength is 6/6 until the picture freezes.

Ian

"dave" wrote in message
oups.com...

Digital Photography Now wrote:

Dave, when your picture freezes, does the signal indicator go to zero?
This
is a problem I have.

Ian

Ian, when it freezes the signal indicator stays at 6 bars. It stays at
6 (the max) most of the time. Also, the LED on the device stays green,
so it seems a strong signal is still coming in. As Adrian mentioned it
looks like a software problem.

This hapens when using an external aerial. The supplied indoor aerial
was useless and always gave a weak signal.

david

"dave" wrote in message
oups.com...

Digital Photography Now wrote:

Dave, when your picture freezes, does the signal indicator go to zero?
This
is a problem I have.

Ian

Ian, when it freezes the signal indicator stays at 6 bars. It stays at
6 (the max) most of the time. Also, the LED on the device stays green,
so it seems a strong signal is still coming in. As Adrian mentioned it
looks like a software problem.

This hapens when using an external aerial. The supplied indoor aerial
was useless and always gave a weak signal.

david


I have the Freecom device working fine with DVBViewer. First, are you sure
that you have the BDA drivers installed, Freecom supply 2 driver sets, one
is BDA. The software they supplied with mine dated from before the BDA
drivers were available and is not BDA, you need to check whether that is
still the case. Look for the device name in the Device Manager, that should
tell you whether you have the BDA drivers or not.

The other thing you might look at is raising the priority of the viewer
task. DVB Viewer has a setting for this but you can try with your other
software by right clicking on the process in Task Manager and raising the
priority to High(this only holds for that session). This generally takes a
lot of the choppiness out of the replay as the player is not competing with
other background activities. Don't set the priority to Real Time though,
this could cause other problems.

If that helps, there are a number of utilities around you can use to start
the process at a higher priroty normally. Google for 'priorityrun' and
create a shorcut that start your player running High pritity.

HTH

Chris K

CJK wrote:

I have the Freecom device working fine with DVBViewer. First, are you sure
that you have the BDA drivers installed, Freecom supply 2 driver sets, one
is BDA. The software they supplied with mine dated from before the BDA
drivers were available and is not BDA, you need to check whether that is
still the case. Look for the device name in the Device Manager, that should
tell you whether you have the BDA drivers or not.

The other thing you might look at is raising the priority of the viewer
task. DVB Viewer has a setting for this but you can try with your other
software by right clicking on the process in Task Manager and raising the
priority to High(this only holds for that session). This generally takes a
lot of the choppiness out of the replay as the player is not competing with
other background activities. Don't set the priority to Real Time though,
this could cause other problems.

Thanks for the replies. It's now working perfectly. I think I missed
the (obvious) hardware setting! It's so much better than TotalMedia and
I can't believe it only costs 10£.

The only thing I don't like about DVB Viewer is the screen capture. It
seems the only way to do this is to set the video output to vmr. As
this takes up more cpu (according to the manual) I don't want to do
this. Also it seems you have to select screen capture from a menu,
rather than a short-cut key which would be much more convenient.
Another thing when I record, I can't view the recording in WMP. I tried
downloading some mpeg codecs (Moonlight-Elecard, suggested in a
message) and although WMP then worked with the recordings DVB Viewer
stopped working! So I deleted those codecs. But I'm still working
through the manual and I'm sure I'll work these things out.

Thanks again.
david