Nebula DigiTV TV Card Support

[HyperReality]

EDIT: The latest version is here.


I've whipped up a variation of the DigiTV SDK application that is a bit nicer to use when it comes to MPEG2 Transport Stream captures.

This tool is mainly of use to TV Stations and STB manufacturers who are using DigiTV for transport stream capturing for subsequent offline stream analysis, but can also be a quick and handy tool for testing SNR for various channels (useful if they are missed in DigiTV's channel scan if the SNR is too low).

It is available here (70KB zip).

This app should work correctly with all variations of the DigiTV hardware (PCI, USB, Nxt6000, MT352).

It ensures that the first TS packet in each recording file is the MPEG2 PAT packet - so that the recordings play nicely with TS analysis tools such as the latest version of TSReader, and it auto-increments a numeric suffix on each recording file to make multiple captures slightly easier.

More info is in the README.TXT file in the download.

If you give it a try and it doesn't work for you, please let me know.

[HyperReality]

I've made some modifications to this tool over the weekend, and have now added the ability to stream the full transport stream from a device out over the network using UDP, allowing the stream to be sent to a suitable application (eg VLC, TSReader with UDP Source selected) either on the local machine or a remote one.

v1.2 of the tool is available here (73KB).

Please see the README.TXT file for usage information.

Please also note that this tool is limited to sending the full transport stream onto the network (ie no PID filtering is performed), multicasting is not supported, and streaming will stop after 2 hours and will need to be restarted.

If you require multicasting, PID filtering, and/or non-stop streaming, please contact us via sales <at> HyperReality.com.au as we have software available that can do this (but which is available on a commercial basis only).

Constructive feedback is appreciated.

[funff]

Very handy little tool, thanks Richard!

I can watch TV live on the laptop streamed from the main HTPC, and using VLC can select each channel from the transport stream as required, excellent

(I don't really want to go down the client-server route so this is ideal)

Don't suppose there's any way to make it start up with the last settings, i.e for it to remember the last IP address, frequency, bandwidth etc?

Cheers

[HyperReality]

Thanks for the positive feedback.

At this stage, I have no plans to expand it beyond what it currently is, sorry.

There are a number of reasons - the main one being lack of time, but others include that DigiTV can and should be used for the more complex network streaming use cases (it already has all the features such as filtering, multicast, channel changing, remembering which channel was last selected, etc), and because commercial necessities dictate that we can't have too much overlap with our commercial (ie paid) streaming software offerings (like everyone else, we've got bills to pay too).

That said, I've been known to change my mind...

[funff]

Totally fair comment. Still, in its present form it's a useful tool to have in the arsenal - it does a simple job very well and I shall use it as such.

Thanks again.

[HyperReality]

If I get a chance, I'll add a few extra command line options to enable you to specify the initial frequency, bandwidth, IP address, and port number. You can then create a desktop shortcut for each mux/client that you want, and that will make it a bit easier for you.

[funff]

That'd certainly help! Here's hoping you "get a chance..."

[HyperReality]

Who needs to eat lunch anyway?

Try this: DigiTV TS Capture and Streaming Tool v1.2.1.

(See the README.TXT for info on how to set the initial values).

Feel free to send beer.

[funff]

What a star! It does exactly what it says on the tin, thanks!
(Beer on its way by carrier-turtle, look for it around Xmas...

...2008)



Cheers