Impressed with Cheap DVB-T2 stick

[remlap]

Just got myself a new piece of DVB gear at a price I couldn't pass up.

A "Astrometa"/No Name DVB-T2 USB stick for £13.93



Works fine with DVB-T and T2 in DVBViewer and even works in VLC well.

Not tried the little whip aerial it comes with though, wired it into the outdoor aerial here.

Did have a dabble with the SDR side of it quickly with FM and DAB but I'd rather get another DVB stick for that.

I am not even bothering to touch the supplied software.

 

[Lazarus]

Where did you get it from?

 

[remlap]

eBay UK, search for DVB-T2 USB.

 

[Lazarus]

Already found it. I must be prescient!

 

[Lazarus]

Sadly it appears to work only with Windows.

 

[remlap]

Sadly it appears to work only with Windows.

It is a BDA device, I can bet it has Linux Drivers

Just love VLC, and excuse to show off Miss Chalke in the background.

 

[Lazarus]

Yes, I imagine I could get one to work. Mind you, I've found Android ones now so am considering one of those.

All food for thought

 

[remlap]

Saw them few weeks ago bet they'd be a battery killer.

I actually came across this, I was more interested in their mini DVB-T transmitter in the office in China with a mux of German channels, maybe sourced over IP or even a previously recorded transport stream on loop?

They do T2 for Android now too.

 

[Lazarus]

You have to hand it to our Chinese friends >> They churn out a huge variety of state-of-the-art gizmos at cheap prices.

And some of them are of decent quality.

Been looking at a 10" Tablet to replace this venerable Minted Netbook and you can pay £60 for an "unbranded one" or around £120 for a branded one. I'd hazard a guess and suggest they are more or less the same.

 

[remlap]

One of the best purchases ever was the TBS6925 directly from China and it's still cutting edge today for the most part and it was ordered in 2011.

 

[Lazarus]

That's exactly it: The Brand snobs turn up their noses at Chinese stuff, yet many of the "names" have their stuff assembled in China.

 

[remlap]

It's the software they've not gotten right yet for a lot of gear. The 6925 be useless without CrazyCat and others.

 

[2cvbloke]

That's exactly it: The Brand snobs turn up their noses at Chinese stuff, yet many of the "names" have their stuff assembled in China.

*cough*apple*cough*

 

[huve]

I would check what is the situation of linux drivers for Astrometa stick. When it came to market it worked in linux only in dvb-t, not in C or T2. It has two demodulators, a RTL2832 for dvb-t (and sdr) and a Panasonic for C and T2. The stick works fine Windows. There is a german/english discussion about this stick in dxtv.de, but you might need register to see the pictures. DXtv.de | DVB-T Neuigkeiten | Astrometa DVB-T2/T/C-Stick

An other cheap T2/C stick would be Geniatech T230 from aliexpress, 14.5 pounds. I have one. The problem with this one is that it works in windows only with the totalmedia software that came with the stick. I was not able to scan cable channels, only T/T2. When I tried smartdvb, it did not find the stick at all, with progdvb windows10 crashed, bsod, blue screen of death. The best thing about this stick is that it works with crazyscann2, spectrum analyser and constellation diagrams see CrazyScan / Wiki / Info and google for pictures. In crazysca2 you can stream the transponder to vlc-player and t/t2 and c works. This stick might work better in linux than astrometa, but I would check it elsewhere because i have not tested it myself, don't have a linux pc. This comes with suction cup rabbit ears antenna that is easy stick to a window. Here is one picture of crazyscan2 with this stick, scanned in Helsinki. I have a motorised dish on the balcony and I put the rabbit ears antenna on the dish and aimed to Tallinn Estonia 85 kilometers away to a little less than 20 kW transmitter, local UHF-transmitters are 20 km away 50 kW and I catch them easily with the antenna on the window. This stick and Astrometa are not as sensitive as my old Sony t/c-tuner tv (no T2), but not bad either.

 

[remlap]

So the Geniatech T230 is the more hobbyist device then you think?

 

[huve]

If dvb-t/t2 is enough and dvb-c is not needed and you don't want to other windows programs than totalmedia geniatech is fine. But if you want to watch tv in windows with other programs than totalmedia or cable tv then astrometa. Watching tv with crazyscan and vlc is clumsy, first you make the spectrum, the you find the right tranponder and tune it, stop it making then constellation and press the button to stream it to vlc and in vlc you choose the channel. Astrometa drivers are also clumsy in windows if you want to change from cable to terrestial, you have uninstall cable drivers, boot the pc, then install terrestial drivers. I played with crazyscan for couple of days and now the stick is in the drawer. The terrestial and cable transmissions are static, no feeds like in satellites.

There are other sticks with almost same chips as geniatech and they might have better windows bda drivers than geniatech, but cost two three times what geniatech does. I don't have any of them, but some board member might have one and could tell if they work better with other dvb viewer programs in windows and/or linux. If one wants to use crazyscan with them you could ask if crazycat would make drivers for that stick. Such sticks are dvbsky t330 and different brand opticombos like vu+ or edision opticombo and the last four in this page after geniatech t230 in the table in the bottom of the page Geniatech - LinuxTVWiki.

 

[remlap]

I am glad I made the right choice then I did check to see if they were standard BDA before ordering.

Interesting stuff, thanks mate.

 

[Llew]

I have two DVB-T/T2 USB sticks, a PCTV Nanostick 290E and an August DVB-T230.

The Nanostick uses the Sony CXD2820R demodulator, the same as my TBS6220 pci card.

The August stick uses an Si2168 demodulator, same as the Geniatech T230.

Both are recognized in my Linux Mint distros (Cinnamon 17.2 Rafaela), although I had to upgrade the kernel above 3.16 for the August driver to be loaded.

Using DVB app w-scan, the Nanostick finds all DVB-T/T2 transmissions, but with the August, w-scan goes through the channel list but finds nothing. It may be a tuner firmware issue, and I'm currently investigating this.

 

[Llew]

dmesg finds the demod and tuner, but still no picking up of channels.Incidentally I was incorrect with the August's type no. It's a T210v2, same as the Geniatech T230 / Mygica T230 though apparently...

david@david-P35-DS3 ~ $ dmesg | grep dvb
[ 1034.421549] dvb-usb: found a 'Mygica T230 DVB-T/T2/C' in warm state.
[ 1034.656127] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
[ 1034.695415] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 100 msecs.
[ 1034.695575] dvb-usb: Mygica T230 DVB-T/T2/C successfully initialized and connected.
[ 1034.695593] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_cxusb
[ 1083.813865] si2168 10-0064: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-demod-si2168-b40-01.fw'
[ 1085.356345] si2157 11-0060: downloading firmware from file 'dvb-tuner-si2158-a20-01.fw'
david@david-P35-DS3 ~ $

 

[remlap]

I am sure you've come across this Llew?

Geniatech T230 - LinuxTVWiki