ElecardFAN Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 (edited) I just drop this message in order to take up the cudgels for the DVBViewer. From time to time i stuble over questions about the compatibility of the DVBViewer and i guess requests like this here inside this forum are just the top of the iceberg. So i like to drop a note about the compatiblity in a semi professional way - since i don't know the DVBViewer sources and to be honest i'm also not interested in, since i guess it will take a loong time to fiddle out how everything works. As you know more than 90% of all available devices come with an BDA driver. BDA is an architecture provided by Microsoft in order to allow each device controlled in the same way. This means that if a hardware provides BDA drivers (certified by Microsoft) it is 100% for sure that these devices work fine with the DVBViewer. Unluckily Microsoft engineers did not tooked a look over the edge of their USA plate and forgot important things like DiSEqC and CI handling in their specification. Heres comes the DVBViewer in the game Since the software has gathered a quite good name in the last 8 years many manufactures seems to provide all required informations to Christian in order to handle their DiSEqC and CAM driver additions. A lot people also do not know that there are not that much DVB/ATSC reference designs available on the market and all of them have their reference drivers. This means from a non technician view, even the "newest and hottest device on the market" (you can put your own marketing phrase here) bases on designs made by engineers from e.g. Conexant, Phillips, B2C2 years (up to a decade) ago. The only innovation of some manufactures is to camouflage its roots Conclusion: So finally you can say that all available devices on the market are 99% supported by the DVBViewer if they provide a BDA driver or the driver is not BDA compliant i'm quite sure that the manufacturer is willing to get it working with the DVBViewer in order to survive on the market. Only two devices which can be found luckily only on ebay are not supported. The Pinnacle PCTV device which comes with a WDM driver and does not support DiSEqC signals and the Fullfeatured Technotrend Nexus, which is in its handling more an analog tv card than a digital device, since it does not provide the transport stream. I also read often that the device is only supported by DVBDream or ProgDVB, but not the DVBViewer. This is quite a bullsh*t, if you read the top of my text you would know why. To be honest i tested both applications and i would not mention this here, if they where freeware, but both are even more expensive than the DVBViewer so their authors have to acquiesce this. Both applications are far away from beeing stable. In the most cases a channel scan forces an exception inside the application and the look and feel of the software is definitively nothing i would like to have while watching tv on a PC. Not to mention the lacking ability to offer a useful epg at least in order to present what comes in the next hours. It is honestly a shame that they even provide less than the software based on the DVBViewer which is bundled with many devices. For instance if you want to watch Teletext on DVBDream, don't try to search for. It is not implemented Again: Mentioning both applications is not meant as bashing, but since they cost >=25 Euro i think they have to live with it. If not, the authors should use my comment in order to improve their software! For a start, they should look to the application bundled with Technisat, Technotrend, FireDTV, DVBShop and others. Peter Edited May 26, 2010 by ElecardFAN Quote Link to comment
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