Freecom DVB-T USB Stick
Author
Discussion

sprintmp

Original Poster:

379 posts

314 months

Friday 20th January 2006
quotequote all
Hi all

Seen one of these for sale at Misco at £46.99. Has anyone used one, and are they any good?

Thanks for your help

P

lockstock2sb

2,855 posts

273 months

Friday 20th January 2006
quotequote all
Is that price including VAT? If not dont buy from misco! Buy from ebuyer.com or the like. I think they are about £35 ex VAT or so.

I have heard they are good but can benefit from a house aerial being plugged in. It all depends on what the signal is like in the room you intend on using I think its the same for all freeview kits to be honest - the only differences is the quality of the software thats bundled in

Steve

sprintmp

Original Poster:

379 posts

314 months

Friday 20th January 2006
quotequote all
The price includes vat. Really just wanted it for the office and home/office without the need of running new leads.

P

evosticks

248 posts

249 months

Friday 20th January 2006
quotequote all
Picked one of these up before Christmas from Savastore, only 40 mins drive away so saves on P&P.

Comes with a 4"-ish aerial with a lick n stick base, ideal for sticking to windows. Software is comprehensive & allows plenty of messing around with the frequencies & picture size / quality.

Software allows instant & timed recordings & instant screen capture but recordings are reluctant to be played in anything other than the provided software due to the use of a fairly obscure MHEG (as opposed to MPEG) CODEC. Also supports a 7 day EPG.

Tried scanning for channels at work which wasn't too successful but this is probably due to the the concrete block of a building that passes for an office rather than anything else.

Tried it at home which is only a couple of miles as the crow flies from work, stuck the aerial to a window, and it's detected every tv and radio channel that my 'proper' Freeview box has detected which is using a decent aerial in the loft.

Very impressed, go buy one!



squirrelz

1,186 posts

301 months

Sunday 22nd January 2006
quotequote all
One of my mates just bought one of these, and was quite unimpressed with the software that comes with it.
It doesn't have BDA drivers, which is important for future compatibility - BDA drivers are what Media Center Edition requires, and will be necessary for 3rd party software to access the tuner.

You can apparently force some alternative drivers on that are BDA, from a similar device which utilises the same tuner/dvb frontend etc, but its a hack.

The bottom line is, unless you know what you're doing, always buy a device which has BDA drivers if you want to do anything other than use the included TV software.