Freecom DVB-T (ART 25452)

[maxihod]

Just a record of my experience with Win7 and this device:
Summary is that I did get the drivers to work OK and ProgDVB is so far the best software for this on win7: ProgDVB

This is on my Toshiba Portege M100 Laptop with 82855 Graphics, so very much less than ideal setup. Might try the DVB-T on my desktop to check whether the Media Center then works fine with it, but time is tight now.

Drivers:
I actually used the XP drivers and installed in safe mode with driver signing turned off. Had to install do the install twice in safe mode. 1st time round failed. 2nd time installed OK and was fine on normal boot. Not tried the vista drivers.. I tried to install them later, but win7 said I already had the latest, and the dlls etc look the same in terms of versions etc for the 32-bit, so presumably it's the 64 bit that's different.

XP BDA Drivers here: Freecom Technologies is the specialist in multimedia connections and storage solutions for PC, Apple Macintosh and Home entertainment.

Vista Drivers Here: Freecom Technologies is the specialist in multimedia connections and storage solutions for PC, Apple Macintosh and Home entertainment.

Media Center
Recognised the device fine, and went on to scan for channels fine, and picks up all the channels great for my area.... but the problems came when actually viewing the TV or for that matter any DVD.
Got the old classic: "files needed to display video are missing..."

Cyberlink PowerDVD7 is installed and works fine with DVDs, so the decoders are there OK. I suspect it's the old intel 82855 driver which isn't compatible.

ProgDVB:
Loaded this up and set it to pick up the DVB-T as a "Generic BDA Device" rather than "Microsoft BDA Compatible", and all works pretty well. Set it to use the Cyberlink mpeg2 decoder(for recordings) and the WMV9 renderer for live TV.
Channel switch is a tad slow, but not too bad. Nice little TV and PVR application this and pretty lightweight... and the std version is Free!

Summary:
Media Center didn't go well, but with DVDs not playing though there (and being fine with Media Player and cyberlink it seems to all go back to the 82855 video drivers being incompatible with Media Center rather than the Freecom device itself.

ProgDVB turns out to be a really great free app for basic watching and recording TV. I also tried GB-PVR and MediaPortal, both of which are pretty heavyweight really for a laptop such as this.

If anyone has managed to get the 82855 video drivers behaving with Media Center then I'd be interested to know.

Best regards
Maxihod

Hardware:
Tosh Portege M100, 1.2GHz Pentium M, 1.75GB RAM
OS: Win7 Ultimate RTM

 

[maxihod]

Freecom DVB-T Now Working with Media Center ... sort of

Well Just thought I'd give this another try this morning. So re-scanned for channels fine again and then went on to check the TV viewing.

Rather interestingly if I go through the "Live TV" link I get the same message about video files missing.

If however I access live TV from the "TV guide", then it all works fine! Recording is also fine. Best of all the Teletext works well as well which isn't available from the ProgDVB product.

Performance is a bit choppy now and again, but on the whole it works. Not bad. Not checked DVDs again just yet.

 

[ollie007]

Well Just thought I'd give this another try this morning. So re-scanned for channels fine again and then went on to check the TV viewing.

Rather interestingly if I go through the "Live TV" link I get the same message about video files missing.

If however I access live TV from the "TV guide", then it all works fine! Recording is also fine. Best of all the Teletext works well as well which isn't available from the ProgDVB product.

Performance is a bit choppy now and again, but on the whole it works. Not bad. Not checked DVDs again just yet.

offtopic but how the hell did you get the internal wireless to work? which drivers?

 

[maxihod]

OffTopic: Wireless Drivers

Installed the latest intel vista ones:-
Intel® PRO/Wireless Drivers-Only for Windows Vista*

Works a treat actually.

 

[maxihod]

Off Topic.. wirless drivers

Ah however this is the 2200 BG wireless card I have in here which I swapped out for the B card that was OEM in this. the 2200s were supplied in the later M100 series I believe.

 

[ListerofSMEG]

what version of win 7 are you using?

i cant get my tv stick to work under 64bit home premium

 

[maxihod]

what version of win 7 are you using?

i cant get my tv stick to work under 64bit home premium

Windows7 Ultimate 32-bit edition

 

[ListerofSMEG]

Looks like i'm stuffed then as Freecom arent going to release 64bit Win7 drivers & I cant get the vista ones to work

 

[DerekGCWhite]

Guys I know this is an old thread but my PC power supply failed and had to revert to laptop so I had to go through the DVB-T install process on Windows 7 x64

Plug in Freecom DVB-T in the USB port and wait for Windows 7 to load various drivers and when complete (it fails but no worries) use Device Manager to find the "Unknown Device", right_click and "Update Driver"

Using the files from the attached .zip file point at these files (wherever you place them om you PC). A device will be installed and it will fail again with 2 uninstalled devices

Using the same set of files update the device driver for the first of the 2 x "Unknown Device" and magically the devices will be installed

I then go into Settings in Windows Media Centre & configure my TV at which point WMC detects the device

I am sorry I have only the 64bit drivers

 

[Lancasters]

Thanks for this info!

Really helped me refit DVB TV sticks to our household after Win7 arrived on 3 PC's! Thanks, worked with Win Media Center very well using 64bit drivers.

As you can pick up these older dvb sticks for a fiver that is a real bargain!

 

[DerekGCWhite]

Wow, really great it was of some help - enjoy!

 

[bmu]

I know this is a very old thread, but I'd like to say a massive thank you Derek, you've helped me out a huge amount.

 

[DerekGCWhite]

Thanks for letting me know

Really thanks you for letting me know and I am glad my experience was of help

 

[smiffy12]

Thanks from me too....

Derek, You're a star - thank you

 

[Jeepster]

Derek, great stuff, been looking for these drivers since Noah's Ark set sail.
You're a top man.

 

[TSO]

Many thanks for the 64 bit drivers ;o)

 

[subseb]

Resurrection

Just tried this with Windows 8.1 64bit and it seems to have worked with these drivers and instructions!! I'm quite amazed.

 

[redxx]

Another thank you from me for your post on Page1 Derek, the tip to install the drivers twice worked perfectly - in my case for a Freecom DVB 25451-rev3 on Win7 64-bit Pro utilising Windows Media Centre
I used the Vista 64-bit drivers from the Freecom site.

 

[hardcore1976]

Freecom DVB-TV

Thanks DerekGCWhite that's great my Tuner is running at full tilt now much appreciated.