Hauppauge 294 WinTV Nova-T Stick / USB / DVB-T TV Tuner

Arrived really quickly and postage free - well done play.com.

Bought this to increase the number of tuners on my MythTV box (from 3 to 4). I plugged it into the aerial feed and the USB socket, and powered the MythBox on. Linux immediately recognised this, and I was able to configure the extra tuner under Myth and have it working inside 5 minutes no problem.

You don't need to compile any drivers as Hardy Heron already has the right drivers build in. (The same is also true of Nova-T 500 PCI).

From a command line, do a ...

dmesg | grep -i 'dvb'

... to see if the system has recognised the tuner OK. You should see messages like ...

dvb-usb: found a 'Hauppauge Nova-T Stick' in warm state.
dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.
dvb-usb: Hauppauge Nova-T Stick successfully initialized and connected.

I'm currently running kernel level 2.6.24-18-generic. I found that there was a problem with my Nova-T 500 PCI on 2.6.24-19-generic, so I backed off a level, and this fixed the problem.

Were I starting my build from scratch, I would probably standardise on 4 of these USB tuners, keep them outside the box (although heat generation from them is moderate) and hence reduce requirements for PCI slots. Also note that the trend is for motherboards to include several internal USB headers - sometimes as much as 10 USB connections overall, while reducing PCI slots. If you still don't have enough, you could use a powered high-speed USB hub.

External USB would probably be a good option for MiniITX - for example the new Intel Atom would provide a low power solution, but might not have enough oomf for multiple tuners and playback on the same system.

Included in the box is a short USB extension cable, so you don't have to plug this directly into the system unit. This means that you can space these out conveniently e.g. for cooling.

So far I'm very happy with this component. At £17.99 it's much the cheapest standard option, and much the cheapest place to buy.

I have a strong signal feed from my aerial connection, so can't comment on weak signal performance or the little aerial supplied.

I can't comment on the supplied Windows software as I'm operating under Linux.

I don't yet use the remote control (which is NOT a credit card size - it's more of the standard Hauppauge size that comes e.g. with Nova-T 500 PCI). But you probably could use this with LIRC.

For the Nova-T 500 PCI you need to turn on the aerial amplifier, I had already done this and this might be a necessary step for the stick (as I haven't tested this without). To do this ...

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

Add: options dvb-usb-dib0700 force_lna_activation=1

If you are adding this into an existing set of tuners, then be aware that it might not become the last tuner on the list. This causes this tuner to appear before the twin tuners of a Nova-T 500 PCI - everything beyond that shifts along a place.

The Nova-T Usb Stick appears as Dibcom 7000
The Nova-T 500 PCI appears as 2 x Dibcom 3000

I am running with at Tuning wait period of 500 mSec. You might or might not need this.

The only drawback that I can see is that for multiple tuners you end up with a lot of extraneous stuff - remotes, little aerials, windows based software etc. I think there used to be a whitebox version that was without remote, still at this price it's hard to go wrong.

Grab these while you can, at this price they won't stay around long.

In brief:- Not the best quality product from a usually, good quality company.

Cons:-
(1): After much faffing about - I did not receive any DvB signal from the little antennae that gets bundled with the tuner. I double checked if my area has DvB signals, which it does, and also my area has a high gain DvB tranmitter to ! so I put it down that the aerial is not up to the job. So, the only thing for it was to plug in an old analogue aerial, which just had to work - and yay !! it did.
(2) I Can view most freeview and terrestial channels - but for some reason, I cannot pick up ITV1...very strange. Anyways, the signal is strong but the quality is lacking at higher resolutions (above normal 640x480) as the signal is not Hi-def or of DvB quality. But, at least its watchable as a normal TV.
(3) The USB connector seems to be a tad smaller than my usb ports and there is to much 'play'. So, lucky for me I have lots of vertical entry usb ports (no smirking plz :-) ) and got the unit to stand.
(4) It's a good idea to supply an IR remote controller, so you can leisurely control your viewing from a distance. But the one supplied is very small...about the same size as a credit card and I think was meant for tiny, delicate hands and not normal-sturdy ones I have.
(5) The TV control centre is cumbersome. You dont get the option of opening a new window for different actions, and quiet often I lost the picture because of a single window refresh. Had to keep closing down the whole TV program, and restarting (not good for the software after awhile - frag problems !) ,which gets a tad tiresome after about 10 times or so.
(6) The installation and set up booklet and manual (on CD) are simple enough but the information is not conveyed well. The design and layout is awkward to.

Pro's:-
(1) Small and compact, and can transport easily in your pocket.
(2) The Analogue signal stability I recieve, is good (must have an internal booster)
(3) erm...trying to find another !!
All in all, not happy. Was expecting lots more for the price tag of this USB tuner. Was being lazy and expecting the usual high standards from Hauppauge.

Note: *** Discovered that your location and what kind of buildings(tower blocks with mob masts and Sat dishes etc.) and other interrupting signals can drastically reduce your DvB signal - regardless of what the sales people say - Do your research !!!! ***

Just a tip, this product also works on mac if you buy the software called Eye TV. I currently run this product on a mac and works very well. Alot cheeper than any ones "made for mac" as well.

This is definitely a good option if you are a student and don't want the hassle of taking a t.v to uni with you. Its easy to set up and works as expected. Good value for money too when you consider how much buying a new telly and a freeview+ box would cost.

The hardware is average and the supplied WinTV7 software is basic but adequate. The installer is slick, it installed ok under Windows XP SP2 32bit and was watching TV via an external aerial within 30 minutes. Annoyingly, the USB cable is very short and the IR remote control needs a driver that is in the icon tray as "Safely Remove Hardware". The remotes got enough functionality to be useful, the buttons are quite small and fiddly tho'.

Its no better or worse than my existing Freecom and other sticks i tried, its good value for the price (£18) and a cheap way of viewing TV on a PC.

The biggest problem, like most TV sticks, is the mini aerial which is poor unless you live in spitting distance of a transmitter, reception should get better when the digital signal is switched to full power. Grounding the mini aerial on a radiator or other big metal object and putting it in line of sight of a transmitter can help.

Cheap tip - a wideband aerial from a portable TV usually gives better indoor reception than the mini aerial.

If you use the WinTV7 software then be aware that it eats up to 70mb of memory with three background boot processes (even when not using the software) which seems excessive. Setting the HauppageTVServer process to Manual will free up resources until WinTV starts.