Reviewer: Rick Kirk (a.k.a Arkay) at www.xpmediacentre.com.au.
Supplier: DPanda Pty Ltd (www.dpanda.com.au).
Review Date:December 14, 2005.
Introduction
The original DVB-T PCI was superseded by the new DPandA/TechnoTrend T-1500 DVB-T card. I have been asked to provide a review on this card with specific focus on its’ use with Microsoft’s Windows Media Centre Edition 2005.
The card is a PCI DVB-T Tuner, fully compatible with Australian Standards and fully compliant for use with MCE2005.
I won’t go into the full technical specifications of the card. Rather I would like to provide a real world, results based review. Lets face it, specs are fine but they don’t record my shows!
For those that would like to know the technical detail, full specifications and more can be found at
http://www.dpanda.com.au/dpanda/dvbtpci.html.
Throughout the review you will see comparisons done with the T-1500 and two other common DVB-T cards I have in my possession, a DVICO Fusion DVB-T1 and a Twinhan VisionPlus DVB-T (both popular choices among our forum members).
The DPandA/TechnoTrend T-1500 PCI DVB-T Tuner
What’s in the package?
The review unit I received didn’t come with complete retail packaging, that being said it did come with everything that the retail kit comprises.
In the box you will receive:
- The card itself.
- Noticeable items include the Philips tuner and remote receiver input jack at the rear of the card.
- There is no RF passthrough and no analog input on this card.
- An installation CD including:
- current release TV viewing software and drivers.
- an MCE compatible BDA driver.
- Installation Instructions in the form of a Quick Start Guide.
- Noticeable items include the Philips tuner and remote receiver input jack at the rear of the card.
- The remote control and required receiver for the card, batteries included.
Hardware and Driver Installation
Hardware installation is no different from any other PCI card. Worthy of note is that while the card is a full height card, it is quite short in dimension and appears to be well built and solid to handle.
For anyone needing to install in a HTPC case with limited depth (optical drive in the middle of the case for example), this card should fit quite nicely.
Having installed a number of varying cards in a number of varying machines over the years I find driver installation to be something I always want to go smoothly but regularly it doesn’t. I’m happy to report that the T1500 fared very well in this regard. On first boot after installing the card the “New Hardware” wizard popped up and asked me where the drivers for this card reside. Pointing the wizard to the included CD immediately found the necessary BDA drivers. This was a two step process, once for the Tuner and once for the Capture driver. Device Manager immediately completed the installation and the card was ready to use. No reboot required.
Only two entries result in Device Manager, unlike the seemingly endless detection/installation of components for the DVICO Fusion that also requires a reboot to function.
The supplied Quick Start Guide fully documents the above process and is more than adequate for any technophobe to get through the process.
Bundled Software/Remote
Before getting into the details of this card and MCE I should note that the card does come with it’s own viewing software. It’s not the prettiest software I’ve ever seen but it is certainly functional. Allowing recording, time shifting, easy channel selection and remote control (among many other features). The remote receiver attaches directly to the card via a 3.5mm jack at the rear, as such it can only be used with the bundled software which makes it’s inclusion a moot point for MCE owners.
The software also has the capability of constructing guide information if the information is broadcast embedded in the signal from the station. Unfortunately Australian stations do not yet provide this functionality.
I didn’t test the software for a great length of time however I found it responsive and perfectly useable (though the interface is a little verbose at first sighting). The main interest for me was how this card would perform in MCE.
Using the DPandA/TechnoTrend T-1500 with MCE
The proof is in the pudding so they say so lets see how this card performs in MCE.
The following test kit was used in the testing of the T-1500:
Dell Dimension 8300
Pentium 4 3.0Ghz
1 GB Ram.
Nvidia GForce 5900 GFX Card.
Seagate 120GB Sata HDD.
Microsoft MCE 2005 including Rollup Update 2 + additional patches.
Cyberlink PowerDVD v6.0 mpeg2 codec.
LG Flatron 1730s 12ms 17” LCD.
The entire system was built from scratch from base media and fully patched to current levels. The first things on my mind when running up a card in MCE are will it be recognised? and will it tune all stations? Happily both of these are a no brainer with this card and the supplied drivers.
MCE’s tuning wizard recognised the card immediately (no messing about required).
A complete scan in MCE took around 4 minutes with all 29 services being recognised first time.
This was my first indication that this card was faster than what I am used to with both the Fusion and VP cards taking considerably longer to scan the frequency range.
There were no hassles here. No rescans required and no fussing with bandwidth or driver versions/settings to appease the MCE Gods!
Going into “Live TV” immediately after the scan completed I was pleased to find that all Standard/High Definition and digital radio services were accessible. I surfed through the entire 29 services and found the experience to be very satisfying. The channel change speed on this card seems quite fast. At least twice as fast as the DVICO card and faster than the VisionPlus. The differences are minimal and hard to accurately measure but the “feel” of MCE and Live TV with the T-1500 was very satisfying. Changes between sub-channels on the same frequency were instantaneous and changes from one frequency to the next were very snappy. I experienced no “TV Tuner malfunctions” or glitches/stutter of any kind.
The card has been in the machine for well over a week with a number of scheduled recordings defined. All have recorded and all have been without fault and the system is yet to be rebooted. There are no audio or video glitches in the recorded files. It just works the way it should including resume from standby for automated recording.
Tuning Capability
Given the speed of this card and it’s glitch free operation I decided I’d try and quantify the differences between the T-1500 and the DVICO and Twinhan cards.
I installed ScanChannelsBDA and set about testing the 3 cards for signal strength and signal quality. The latter of which is the most important to ensure a stutter free TV experience.
Unfortunately due to a bug in ScanChannelsBDA or the Fusion drivers, I was unable to retrieve the strength values from the DVICO card.
The graphs below represent average values for all scanned channels for both signal strength and signal quality (where available). All measurements were taken on the same night under the same weather conditions.
I live in a particularly good area for digital reception with direct line of site to the transmitter.
I used a pair of rabbit ears as my antenna for the testing. This allowed me to perform two levels of testing. One with the aerial fully extended (giving high signal strength statistics), and one with the aerial fully retracted (to simulate poor reception areas).
As each card was tested the antenna was directly connected to the card in question, no splitters were used.
The tests were designed to reveal strengths and weaknesses at both extremes of reception availability.
Results
The T-1500, Fusion and VisionPlus cards all rated very similar in their ability to receive a strong signal across the full frequency range given an optimal signal.
What stands out here is that the average quality of the signal reported significantly higher with the T-1500, it maxed out at 100% on ALL stations!
I then repeated the same tests on all 3 cards with the antenna in a position to intentionally cause poor reception.The results speak for themselves. While the Fusion reported a better signal strength the T-1500 romped it in with respect to Signal Quality received.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get a valid quality statistic from the Fusion card using ScanChannelsBDA however I was able to use DVICOs’ own signal checker to run comparisons. The Fusion produced consistently high signal strengths and maintained quality well in excess of the VisionPlus card but when testing in “low reception” conditions it’s ability to maintain quality as the signal degraded was impaired more so than the T-1500.
For me the tests above really stood out in favour of the DPandA/TechnoTrend T-1500. It is far more important to have a card that can provide good signal quality in poor reception conditions than one that has high signal strength. The T-1500 proved itself to me as having a high quality tuner capable of adequate reception in poor reception areas.
During the above tests I witnessed the Twinhan VisionPlus card struggle and stutter on two different occasions in the high strength tests. On the low strength it actually failed to lock on to several stations altogether.
The fusion card had comparable results in high signal conditions but suffered more so in low signal conditions than the T-1500.
Innovation
Without going in to too much detail I want to mention some of the potential that the T-1500 possesses. If you look closely at the picture you will see something not normally found on a PCI DVB-T Tuner. An IDC connector. What is that for you ask?
TechnoTrend aren’t just a Manufacturer, they are developers and to an extent Pioneers in the DVB market, as such they provide for functionality that we are yet to see in the Australian Market.
There are currently three DVB cards in the 1500 family, (T)errestrial, (C)able and (S)atellite. The only difference between them is the front end. They all have the IDC header which allows a separate Common Interface Module card to plug into it for the reception of encrypted services. Typically this finds more use with the S-1500 satellite version but hopefully we will see a use for the C-1500 (cable) version in Australia some day soon.
If Foxtel for instance were to sanction the use of a Foxtel CAM (to decrypt the digital signal), it would be possible right now to receive digital Pay TV Cable and/or Satellite services directly on the MCE machine (no more need for analog capture cards).
While this presently means little to the current user base of MCE in Australia it is a capability that adds some possible future enhancement to any purchase.
Additionally it is possible with the T-1500 to use a different driver for the card that effectively turns the card into a network interface. The interface can then be used to receive internet services via DVB-T. This works in a similar fashion to current ISP’s satellite broadband offerings; where downstream internet traffic can be received via the DVB-T card! Again this has not yet been adopted in Australia but I thought it worth mentioning as it is refreshing to see a manufacturer take an active role in developing a technology rather than simply supplying the basics of functionality.
Final comments
As with all things untested I was at first sceptical about a brand of card with which I have had no previous experience. Within the MCE community we often discuss the merits of a particular brand and often as a result we become accustomed to recommending that brand over all others. Possibly not fully looking at what really is available in the broader market.
My experience with DPandA Pty Ltd and the DPandA/TechnoTrend T-1500 has been nothing short of pleasurable. The company are responsive and easy to deal with, as is the card itself.
From installation, through setup and tuning, to daily use of the card (where you really notice any faults, or rather your wife does!), I have found this card to be flawless in operation.
It hasn’t faulted once, including when operated as one half of a dual tuner configuration. I have not had to search for updated drivers nor search thread after thread in the hope of finding an answer to any niggling issue. The card has just worked for me from day one.
Installation is simple. Tuning is a breeze given the cards ability to make the most of the signal it receives, even in poor reception environments, and it’s operation is snappy and faultless.
Making a decision on which DVB-T card to go with is a difficult choice. To me the main concern is knowing just how sensitive the tuner on the card is as ultimately this defines the experience you will have with Digital TV, whether good or bad.
Being used to Analogue TV and it’s varying degrees of reception many people fall in to the trap of attempting to base decisions on the quality of a card based on the quality of the picture received. Digital TV doesn’t work this way. You either receive a perfect picture or nothing at all. The things that most differentiate one digital card from any other is how well it is able to tune into a station and how well it’s internal error correction can cope with any signal degradation. Cards with poorer components will exhibit motion stutter and/or pixelisation (as apposed to analog “snow”), in the final image as a result of any lack in signal strength or quality. Logically speaking then it is of most benefit to acquire a card that makes the most out of the signal it receives.
I would recommend that you take a look at the DPandA TechnoTrend T-1500 for any new or existing MCE setup.
The remote won’t be of any use to you but I don’t believe this is a negative. At a retail price of $229 delivered it isn’t the cheapest card on the market but you do get what you pay for. With tuning capabilities in excess of the Fusion, uncomplicated driver installation and an element of future proofing out of the box the T-1500 represents a great buy.
Assuming it will work as well on your rig as it has on mine you simply just can’t go wrong.
David Porter and Associated Pty Ltd (Known as DPanda in our forums) has kindly offered a $20 discount to all members of www.xpmediacentre.com.au.
Please let DPandA Pty Ltd know(on purchase) where you heard about the card to ensure you receive the discount.
You can find further information about the T-1500 and many other services and products (including the soon to be released Hybrid Analog/Digital T-3000 at the DPandA website (www.dpanda.com.au).
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