Tvheadend

I live in the UK. It may be a bit early to consider this a recommendation as I only discovered tvheadend yesterday, the same day as the tuner stick arrived, but I have just got a
PCTV Systems DVB-T2 292e. I ordered it from Amazon where it was described as the nanoStick HD TV Tuner, and when it turn up the box said it was a Tripplestick. PCTV Systems seem to have product pages for both names, though they share the model number.

It is only single tuner but does support DVB-T2 (as well as DVB-T and DVB-C) so I can watch/record Freeviw HD channels and I even seem to have the freeview HD channels in the EPG. I wasnt't expecting that to happen as I was lead to believe the EPG data for them was encrypted and was thus expecting to have to setup XMLTV, but enabling the Freeview EPG module does seem to have worked.

What other requirements do you have? Do you need multi-tuner or satellite too?

I have the 290e also - Running tvh on an old school rPi 1.
Works a treat for SD and HD channels.

I also just picked up a HDHomeRun connect (also DVB-T2) with which I was having problems... but now fixed (I think it was due to pre-existing config before I added the tuners) :)
I would recommend both.

Did you mean a 290e or a 292e? The 290e is the older device with different hardware. Mine is definietly a 292e.

See Antti's LinuxTV Blog at http://blog.palosaari.fi/2014/04/naked-hardware-15-pctv-triplestick-292e.html where he goes into more detail. Interestingly he refers to the original 290e as the nanoStick and the 292e as the trippleStick so maybe Amazon are just re-using the ASIN for both products as one seems to have replaced the other.

Ah sorry - my mistake.
Definitely the 290e not 292e:
http://www.pctvsystems.com/Products/ProductsEuropeAsia/DVBTT2products/PCTVnanoStickT2/tabid/248/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

That is one thorough blog post from Antti!

Interestingly the link you gave is where I started. Clicking the "Buy From Amazon" button takes you to a page advertising a nanoStick (290e) but the box illustration is for the trippleStick (292e) and when I ordered it, it was the trippleStick that turned up.

Anyway, I think the upshot is that both work with THV which is good news.

James Fry wrote:

I have the 290e also - Running tvh on an old school rPi 1.
Works a treat for SD and HD channels.

I also just picked up a HDHomeRun connect (also DVB-T2) and I am having problems...

I saw the HDHR on HUKD when it was on offer, I was debating whether to buy it or not, but eventually decided not to as I have a ton of DVB devices as it is! But it should work fine.

I have the HDHR. All seems fine here, well most of the time anyway. I get the occasional freeze whereby I need to stop and start the channel again - it doesn't happen too often though.

I am able to record and watch both SD and HD channels. I use Kodi as a front end and TVH is installed in an Ubuntu VM.

I use the TBS 6205 (quad tuner PCIe) with the TBS open source drivers, works very nicely, not a clue about how sensitive it is as I'm only a few miles from Crystal Palace (London).

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.

There is a quite comprehensive review of the HDHR on Amazon UK, documenting using it on various systems, including TVH, so that combined with some of the replies here is good news. The triplestick is also something I've been looking at, and the cost per tuner is exactly the same when compared to the HDHR.

I'm trying to steer away from PCI/e cards, as I hope to go down the route of a pi3 or much smaller backend server eventually, so it will definitely be USB or network tuners from now on. I still suspect that the odd glitch that occurs on my picture is due to RF and/or traffic inside my current case.

I'm about 18 miles from the Dover transmitter BTW, and the picture on all other devices is solid. Odd that using myth, the recordings and live TV were almost unwatchable.

Paul Hey wrote:

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.

There is a quite comprehensive review of the HDHR on Amazon UK, documenting using it on various systems, including TVH, so that combined with some of the replies here is good news. The triplestick is also something I've been looking at, and the cost per tuner is exactly the same when compared to the HDHR.

You can get the August T210v2 used for £13.45 (+ £3.50 del) on Amazon, which is almost identical to the 292e. I have 2 of these & they're fine (minus a few signal issues due to weak signal).

I'm trying to steer away from PCI/e cards, as I hope to go down the route of a pi3 or much smaller backend server eventually, so it will definitely be USB or network tuners from now on. I still suspect that the odd glitch that occurs on my picture is due to RF and/or traffic inside my current case.

If you're planning on using more than one tuner and attaching a drive to record, you may run into usb issues on the Pi as it only has one bus (for usb & network). There are plenty of alternatives though, the Banana Pi for example, although that's getting a bit long in the tooth now but it should be fine for what you want to do.

I'm about 18 miles from the Dover transmitter BTW, and the picture on all other devices is solid. Odd that using myth, the recordings and live TV were almost unwatchable.

Updated my post to change recommendation for both nanostick 290e (USB) AND HDHomeRun.
Both working great for me!

I have a TBS6284 (quad tuner PCIe) which has worked very well for me. I use another TBS quad tuner (6985) in the same server for DVB-S/S2 inputs. Once you overcome the occasional nuisance with the TBS drivers, i've found them both to be very good cards.

I should probably point out that I have no problem with using PCIe cards in a larger footprint server, as the host runs ESXi and TVH is one of a number of virtual machines (others being FreeNAS, pfsense firewall, Windows Home Server etc) running on the same host.

Darren Olive wrote:

I have a TBS6284 (quad tuner PCIe) which has worked very well for me. I use another TBS quad tuner (6985) in the same server for DVB-S/S2 inputs. Once you overcome the occasional nuisance with the TBS drivers, i've found them both to be very good cards.

I should probably point out that I have no problem with using PCIe cards in a larger footprint server, as the host runs VMware ESXi and TVH is one of a number of virtual machines (others being FreeNAS, pfsense firewall, Windows Home Server etc) running on the same host.

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

Paul Hey wrote:

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.

There is a quite comprehensive review of the HDHR on Amazon UK, documenting using it on various systems, including TVH, so that combined with some of the replies here is good news. The triplestick is also something I've been looking at, and the cost per tuner is exactly the same when compared to the HDHR.

You can get the August T210v2 used for £13.45 (+ £3.50 del) on Amazon, which is almost identical to the 292e. I have 2 of these & they're fine (minus a few signal issues due to weak signal).

I'm trying to steer away from PCI/e cards, as I hope to go down the route of a pi3 or much smaller backend server eventually, so it will definitely be USB or network tuners from now on. I still suspect that the odd glitch that occurs on my picture is due to RF and/or traffic inside my current case.

If you're planning on using more than one tuner and attaching a drive to record, you may run into usb issues on the Pi as it only has one bus (for usb & network). There are plenty of alternatives though, the Banana Pi for example, although that's getting a bit long in the tooth now but it should be fine for what you want to do.

I'm about 18 miles from the Dover transmitter BTW, and the picture on all other devices is solid. Odd that using myth, the recordings and live TV were almost unwatchable.

I'm a sucker for cheap, but will the T210v2 work out of the box? I'm only asking because I spend days trying to get DVBT2 from a DVBT2 USB receiver I bought from ebay, which I'm sure was branded as August...maybe a different model.

Edit: I'm talking rubbish - it was an Astrometa.

The Astrometa doesn't have DVB-T2 support AFAIK. The August T210v1 works very well (I have three dedicated to PSB3, COM7 and COM8 here) and I believe the T210v2 now works OK for T2, thought may need a pretty new kernel or media_build.

Paul Hey wrote:

Mark Clarkstone wrote:

Paul Hey wrote:

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.

There is a quite comprehensive review of the HDHR on Amazon UK, documenting using it on various systems, including TVH, so that combined with some of the replies here is good news. The triplestick is also something I've been looking at, and the cost per tuner is exactly the same when compared to the HDHR.

You can get the August T210v2 used for £13.45 (+ £3.50 del) on Amazon, which is almost identical to the 292e. I have 2 of these & they're fine (minus a few signal issues due to weak signal).

I'm trying to steer away from PCI/e cards, as I hope to go down the route of a pi3 or much smaller backend server eventually, so it will definitely be USB or network tuners from now on. I still suspect that the odd glitch that occurs on my picture is due to RF and/or traffic inside my current case.

If you're planning on using more than one tuner and attaching a drive to record, you may run into usb issues on the Pi as it only has one bus (for usb & network). There are plenty of alternatives though, the Banana Pi for example, although that's getting a bit long in the tooth now but it should be fine for what you want to do.

I'm about 18 miles from the Dover transmitter BTW, and the picture on all other devices is solid. Odd that using myth, the recordings and live TV were almost unwatchable.

I'm a sucker for cheap, but will the T210v2 work out of the box? I'm only asking because I spend days trying to get DVBT2 from a DVBT2 USB receiver I bought from ebay, which I'm sure was branded as August...maybe a different model.

Edit: I'm talking rubbish - it was an Astrometa.

Yes it will work OOTB provided the driver is in the kernel for the Pi (and the last time I looked it is).

I have an Astrometa as well, I stopped using mine because of the issues I had with it, I just couldn't get it to do T2 on an arm machine, but on a standard pc running a recent kernel it worked but would flake out. Things may have changed recently though.

Thanks, that's good to know. It won't be used on a pi for the foreseeable future, but a dual core desktop running plain old 16.04 server, so hopefully will work OOTB.

As alluded to earlier, there are other single board PCs with gigabit ethernet and USB 3 which would be better suited to a multi-tuner setup, but that's for another time.

I'm struggling to locate any new T210s in the UK...

Other option would be the MyGica T230 from Aliexpress - these seem to be well rated for Linux - any current users here?

Paul Hey wrote:

I'm struggling to locate any new T210s in the UK...

Other option would be the MyGica T230 from Aliexpress - these seem to be well rated for Linux - any current users here?

The August T210v2 is the MyGica T230, it's just a rebrand.

Btw, https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B008D8K50Q has some available. I've purchased these & they work perfectly fine!

Thank you for the prompt reply Mark. Decision made!

EDIT : Seller also offering a further 10% off when buying more than one item... so 2 tuners coming for £27.

That's a pretty good deal. My thanks to Mark for the first Amazon link - I got one.

As for working out of the box I am using an HP Microserver running Arch, rather than a Pi. The driver was shipped as part of the usual kernel but the firmware was not. The journal tells you which file it can't find, a quick Google found the file, drop into /lib/firmware and all is fine.

Compared to the PCTV Systems DVB-T2 292e, my first tuner stick, the August one has the advantage of a normal coax plug for the aerial connection which makes it less likely to fall out. The 292e uses a smaller plug, more like SMA sized but slightly different; they supply an adaptor and, undisturbed, it seems to be fine but when I rummaged around to fit the second tuner stick it did fall out.

On sensitivity, it is usual to use a high gain aerial. We don't have one, just the old-style UHF aerial but we do have a cheap as chips TV distribution amplifier. The two tuner sticks have so far been flawless whereas one of our TVs occasionally has signal trouble.

I have one T230 plugged in, and it's working pretty much flawlessly, so many thanks for the recommendation. Very surprised how easy it is compared to mythtv backend to setup. All HD channels picked up immediately, with just the very occasional reception related artifact, which I'm hoping will be eliminated once I've replaced all of my cheap co-ax.

Although listed as used, I'm guessing that they are open box returns, as the items I received are as good as new.