Freecom DVB-T USB TV Receiver

Use the search box in the top right corner to see what else may be of interest to you on my blog, or browse through the archives from the front page in the side-bar.

I've wanted to investigate a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) solution for a while as we never use the video due to the crap quality of the aerial it's connected to and the pain of programming it. SKY+ doesn't appeal due to the extra cost and the fact that anything on SKY is generally repeated 10 times a day anyway.

Having seen Lewis' mightily impressive Media Centre set-up with a 42" plasma in his livingroom I realised my requirements were a lot more modest. So, to help with a buying decision, I had to figure out exactly how I planned to use a PVR device and to what ends.

Read more...


We have a Freeview box in our bedroom and was loathe to replace it with a Freeview PVR box with hard drive. Dual tuners didn't appeal as we have quite enough TVs in the house to negate any need to watch a programme while recording another. All I needed was a device to record the odd film off the freeview channels, burn them to DVD and fire up the home cinema (I love my home cinema :-) There's usually some great classics on Channel 4 after lunch (while I'm at work), just my type of film. The BBC and ITV channels also show some gems I'd like to record and watch at leisure when I'm in my bed

Ideally I wanted to utilise the existing computer power I have stacked in my Home Office. I'd investigated PCI cards like the Hauppage TV Tuner/Capture devices but had been overwhelmed by the range on offer. I wanted something small, easily fitted with Freeview and well reviewed. After some digging around various forums and websites I settled on the Freecom DVB-T USB Stick Freeview Receiver, a bargain at under £40.

We had a new aerial installed to service the TV in our bedroom and sun lounge, and as my home office shares a wall with the bedroom, splitting the co-ax and feeding into the new device for maximum signal strength wasn't an issue. The only other negative comments usually mentioned about the Freecom concern the crap software bundled with the device. While this software does indeed look like crap (some cheap shareware, homebrew type thing) it does do the job. If all you want to do is watch some TV on your computer with minimum hassle I'd say stick with it. But I was more interested in using the device to record TV and then burn to DVD therefore a more friendlier EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) and recording set-up was required (though once again the supplied software does do the job albeit in an ugly way).

Researching, installing, configuring and then using alternative software turned out to be the biggest headache by far. Research showed that to use any other 3rd party software I needed to install BDA drivers for the device. This required some quite detailed steps to uninstall the Freecom software and drivers before installing compatible BDA drivers. Full instructions and the required drivers can be found by reading this forum thread. The viewer software which can be downloaded as well is slightly better than the Freecom deal but not much. Once you've got your device up and running with the BDA drivers you're able to select from a huge range of software (both free and commercial) to better manage the recording, time-shifting, scheduling etc.

First up was Showshifter which regularly wins magazine plaudits as the best alternative to Microsoft's Windows Media Centre. I downloaded the trial and after a tortuous install and configuration I was up and running. It offers the same features found in MCE which personally I didn't want (DVD, slideshows, radio, music as well as TV) but it did work well. Unfortunately after my trial expired it was announced that the company that owns Showshifter had gone bust. While they are trading under the administrators I'd advise you to give them a wide berth. Development and support are non-existant currently. Save your money, avoid.

Next up I tried the open source Media Portal confident I could overcome the patchy documentation associated with open source. Sadly, it crashed too much even during configuration so I deleted it before I had it fully set up. Buggy as hell it may be a contender in a while but avoid for now.

I really wanted software which focused on a neat EPG, easy set-up and configuration of scheduled recording without all the superfluous media centre bloat. This led me to try Webscheduler. Bingo, this looked ideal, donationware as well :)

DVB Web Scheduler is a Television capture and scheduling tool for scheduling unattended recordings of free to air Television programs using one or more DVB-T tuner devices.

Install was quick and painless but I had to update my java install to the latest version before it would work. Everything is controlled through a web browser and looks good for it. It found my Freecom automatically and a channel scan brought up all the available Freeview channels in the UK. A quick test of a 3 minute recording and everything worked well. I configured the software to record using DVR-MS (Microsoft Media Centre TV format) but you can select or install other MUX's as you require.

To configure the EPG you must provide Webscheduler with a .xml file containing the programme information. To create this file I used xmltv and configured it to grab the data from the Radio Times server (warning: DOS program, happy days). Webscheduler can be configured to grab and compile this information automatically once you know what you're doing. If you regularly work late you can even schedule a recording over the net to your home computer, neat eh?

Remember though, that Websheduler will only handle the capture of TV data you will need a separate programme to view live TV (I use the software downloaded from the site containing the BDA drivers) and I'm investigating other alternatives available for this as well but that's for another post along with software to convert the video for DVD burning, ripping out the advert breaks etc.

So, there you have it, a lovely little PVR for under £40. Any questions or if you need help setting up your Freecom DVB-T stick for the UK then leave a comment.

Use the search box in the top right corner to see what else may be of interest to you on my blog, or browse through the archives from the front page in the side-bar.

Category:

• DVB-T
• TV
• Gadget
• Freeview
• PVR