DTV-Dongles

Tens · 15 May 2006 at 19:58

Leadtek Winfast DTV-Dongle Digital TV USB2.0 Tuner

This any good ^^

Also just to double check, this is a small dongle like a usb memory stick or bluetooth adapter which when plugged in allows you to watch freeview channels?

What else is req'd with the dongle, arial? software? - I am assuming they are bundled with that anyways just curious as to how they work and what exactly they do!

Cheers

Energize · 15 May 2006 at 20:08

Dongles usually are just cut down tv cards, with no inputs and without an ariel they give a very poor signal.

Street · 15 May 2006 at 21:14

I've just bought one of these but the software that comes with it is buggy as hell... crashes my PC when you run it. Is there any other decent free software that will allow me to watch TV?

Cheers

Artheas · 15 May 2006 at 21:21

There are some listed at http://www.tv-cards.com/apps.php that i've tried with 2 different cards, but i couldnt get any of them to work properly.
That may be just me though as 1 or 2 did seem good, but i just didnt have the patience of the know-how to apply the correct settings.

I avoided that leadtek dongle as it had a few semi-bad reviews, but the software that came with my leadtek 2000h was good IMO as it was easy for a newb to set up, although it did crash on occasion. I assume its the same app as they're both leadtek, check for the latest versiob from their website to see if that helps.

gam3r · 15 May 2006 at 21:38

Also the USB tuners usually don't have hardware decoders/encoders meaning that if you want to record a TV show it will put load on the CPU as it doesn't have a dedicated chip unlike on the pci ones.

Tens · 16 May 2006 at 19:12

so how much worse are these usb dongles rather than the actual card, and is there any advantage in having a dongle over a card other than the obvious which is moving the dongle to another pc easily.

Street · 16 May 2006 at 19:21

Well I got mine working in the end... Turns out it was the ATI 6.4 drivers causing the problems! 6.3s work fine

I tried the app it came with and I couldn't seem to pick up any channels at all, so I tried a few off of that page but couldn't seem to get any to work either...

Jimbu · 16 May 2006 at 20:07

IM currently using the MSI Mega Sky 580 and its actually quality even though the software that came with it is rubbish but it has BDA drivers

use this program its pretty good. If you got problems with the card recognition just update to nightly builds.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/home/

Street · 16 May 2006 at 20:18

Cheers, I'll give it a go

Where abouts can I get the BDA drivers for it?

Street · 16 May 2006 at 20:39

Seems like a good program, but again it won't scan for things using the USB dongle...

R@tman · 17 May 2006 at 08:32

Jimbu said:
IM currently using the MSI Mega Sky 580 and its actually quality even though the software that came with it is rubbish but it has BDA drivers

use this program its pretty good. If you got problems with the card recognition just update to nightly builds.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/home/

I downloaded this last night and installed it now it will scan for and pick up the channels but when i got to watch them on my tv i get error time shift failed to start . Any Ideas ?

Jimbu · 17 May 2006 at 10:53

Street said:
Seems like a good program, but again it won't scan for things using the USB dongle...

For my usb stick i needed to update to the latest nightly build for it to recognise it as its still being developed

I downloaded this last night and installed it now it will scan for and pick up the channels but when i got to watch them on my tv i get error time shift failed to start . Any Ideas ?

Again try the latest nightly svn builds, make sure your cards support that function or try changing the video codec in the settings.