Freeview card for PC

Chris120A

Can anyone recommend a good, cheap one (preferably under £40)?

-TangleFoot-

The Freecom DVB-T USB Stick is pretty cheap, if you're willing to shop around.

tigermatt

Do you already have a freeview box in your house that is near your PC? If it is, you can get split the signal so that one RF cable goes to TV and one goes to your PC. You could then get a cheap TV card and tune it to your freeview box. This all assumes your freeview box has an RF output and isn't just scart, as some only have scart output.

danmanchester

I can recommend the Freecom DVB-T as Tanglefoot mentioned - I use it as I don't have a spare card slot. Cost me £44, think it's a little cheaper on Amazon.co.uk now - though for some silly reason Maplins are charging 79.99 for it! :rolleyes:

withabix

I'm waiting for delivery of a Pinnacle PCTV 310i PCI card, to go with my ShowCenter 1000G, so that I've got added Freeview and PVR to go with movie, music and photo streaming via WiFi from the PC to the telly.

Cheapest for the 310i was eBuyer.

Should result in hours of faffing about to get this all rigged up to the lounge telly...will report when I've succeeded!

danmanchester

gizmoleeds wrote:

Oooh - this is the first time I've seen someone who actually owns one posting . I've got a question - how good a picture can you get with the little aerial that comes with it? I used to get an okay signal with an indoor aerial on my normal freeview box, but had to adjust it for Channel 4, and this is a fraction of that size .

aaaah the only downside is that little aerial! It's useless - at least where I live, I just used an aerial splitter and a coax cable and attached that to the USB stick. Every channel is crystal clear :j .



The picture is much better than my shaky photo taking skills:p .

hendersonb

I have a TwinHan PCI Freeview tuner in my machine, picture is good and very good for recording (depending on what software you use). I paid around £40 for it so not sure what it will cost retail (I work as an engineer in local computer shop so get my goods trade price).

As with all the freeview tuners you need a good reception to get good results. I have a friend who brought the freecom USB tuner for his laptop - He hasn't been able to use it yet as he can't get a reception with the aeriel they give you with it (He got it for using on the laptop while he's out in the car - hence its not attched to a roof top aerial

Chris120A

danmanchester wrote:

aaaah the only downside is that little aerial! It's useless - at least where I live, I just used an aerial splitter and a coax cable and attached that to the USB stick. Every channel is crystal clear :j .



The picture is much better than my shaky photo taking skills:p .

I am confused, the aerial splitter is because the signal is also going to your TV? Could I just connect the stick to my roof aerial?

blinky

Yes, you can connect it to the roof aerial.

I've got one of these and a Compro DVB-T200. The Freecom is more sensitive of the two (i.e. picks up more / weaker signals).

With the Freecom there are BDA drivers available from Yakumo which allows you to use a greater range of software e.g. XP Media Centre Edition, Media Portal, Web Scheduler, ProgDVB, Power Cinema, ShowShifter, GBPVR, Meedio . You do need to remove all traces of the Freecom Drivers first though and the Freecom software (Yakumo TV viewing software is in with the drivers).

How to remove Freecom Drivers and Install Yakumo BDA drivers