Freeview DVB-T

So I finally bought a KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T card and put into into my master backend.

I chose the V-Stream card based on reputation in the MythTV lists and it's status at the linux v4l wiki. Oh, and recent models also have a good quality Samsung tuner. However, it still came as a shock to find the card fully autodetected on first-boot after installation. This was with a stock 2.6.12 FC3 kernel.

The card came with a very small antennae and the usual remote. I've tried using the supplied aerial in an upstairs room but the signal strength from the Crystal Palace transmitter 40Km away isn't strong enough. It's just about ok for testing but not good enough for a production system. This was expected.

I've plumbed it into Myth and have done some basic testing. I have a couple of weak channels displaying directly in PS mode on the PVR350. This is nice. Other channels don't display so well and I'm not sure if this is signal strength and/or problems with one of the DVB muxes or problems with the TS->PS translation. Using TS mode directly seems to force the stream into some non-mpeg2 format that causes the 350 to display it using Xv/X11 rather than directly as an mpeg stream. This is not so nice!

Of course, all of this needs a lot more testing and I need to get my master backend installed in the loft so that I can sort out a proper aerial...