TEST REPORT DVB-C PC Card DVB-C on the PC – Thanks to TBS • at long last: cable TV on the PC or laptop computer • tuner with extremely low threshold • works with many TV applications thanks to BDA drivers • CI available for subscription TV 62 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 01-02/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com www.TELE-audiovision.com — 01-02/2013 — TELE-audiovision International — 全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志 63 TEST REPORT DVB-C PC Card TBS 5680 USB box has the IR receiver already built into Now you can receive cable TV its box and hence does not require an external unit. In- stead, we found a USB cable and an external power sup- on your PC or laptop computer ply unit in the cardboard box of the TBS 5680. We started out with the TBS 6618 which we con- The TBS 6618 is a PCI-e known as Tenow) prod- TBS 6984 with no less than nected to our test center PC. card with tuner and CI slot ucts have been presented four tuners. It was with The LGA 775 board we use for CAMs. The TBS 5680 is in TELE-satellite in recent great pleasure that TELE- provided an available PCI-e an external USB tuner which months and we even ran a satellite gave its ‘Innovation 1.0 slot. Since all TBS PCI-e also features a CI slot and company report in TELE-sat- Award’ to this extraordinary cards are compatible with all which is part of the QBox ellite 02-03/2011. The TBS product. versions, it does not make product family. Both devices product portfolio comprises TBS is now launching two a difference which slot you share a rather unique char- all types of PC receivers, more PC receivers that can use. Any will do, no matter acteristic: They are designed such as PC cards with DVB- be used to process DVB- whether 1x, 4x, 8x or 16x. for DVB-C, which stands for S/S2 and DVB-T/T2 tuners C signals on the PC. Many Slotting in the card was digital television distributed like the ones we introduced manufacturers turn their easy peasy – its measure- via cable networks. in TELE-satellite 10-11/2011. cold shoulder to DVB-C as ments fully comply with A number or TBS (also Among them is the famous far as PC cards are con- industry standards and so cerned, and you have to it fit into the existing slot look long and hard to find space nicely. The TBS 6618 suitable products at all. But draws its entire power from not everybody has access to the PCI-e interface, which satellite television and the means no more cables have range of digital terrestrial to be attached. channels is nothing to write For all its Windows-based home about in most regions. TV cards TBS uses so-called Each of the two DVB-C PC BDA drivers. BDA is short receivers arrived at our test for ‘Broadcast Driver Archi- center in a neat black card- tecture’ and has become the board box, complete with a Microsoft standard for ATSC driver CD-ROM, an F-adapt- and DVB/ISDB video cards. er and a remote control. The The interface is fully docu- TBS 6618 comes with an mented and therefore allows additional IR receiver with both hardware manufactur- standard phone jack. The ers and software developers to supply suitable drivers for their products. What’s more, programmers of TV applica- 01-02/2013 tions are able to make sure their software is compatible TBS 6618 & TBS 5680 Excellent hardware for watching DVB-C with different TV cards. TBS with an extremely sensitive tuner. customers, in turn, can use their cards with all stand- www.TELE-audiovision.com/13/01/tenow 64 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 01-02/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com 1 ard TV applications such as from Microsoft is practically is not always so easy. TBS 6618 all you need to do pied another PCI-e slot) and it seemed WMC was able to DVBViewer or ProgDVB, to the only TV software not al- The first time you launch is call up TV Configuration had us select one of the two download transponder data give just two examples. lowing installation of Soft- WMC you’re greeted by the under Settings. available cards to configure from the Internet. Even In order to put the TBS CAM plugins. The obvious installation wizard. In case On our test PC WMC de- and pair with WMC. though, you need a lot of 6618 and TBS 5680 to their result is that pay TV recep- you interrupt that process tected the TBS 6618 DVB-C Even users without pre- patience for the channel paces we tried them out with tion is simply not possible. or if WMC was already used card right away (as well as vious experience need not search that took some 20 a number of different soft- You’re left with watching before the installation of the a DVB-S2 card that occu- worry: WMC automatically minutes in our case. ware suites. We had a go what is available free-to-air. 7 downloads channel lists To be fair, we cannot with the TBS 6618 first. • WMC tries so hard to from the Internet that corre- blame the TBS 6618 for the Windows Media Center create a pleasant user expe- spond to the actual location. rather lame performance. (WMC) has never gained rience it misses out on con- This way the channel search With DVB-C each provider much ground and we only figuration options to make that follows is completed uses their own transponder know a handful of people in the software work with a much faster. matrix, which means that for Europe who use that soft- broad range of hardware In our first go, however, a complete channel search ware. In our opinion, two products. Users are guided we had no such luck and all channels of the standard- crucial limitations are to through strictly defined in- WMC could not find a sin- ised transponder table have blame for that: stallation routines and can- gle channel. Apparently, no to scanned with all possible • Windows Media Center not even freely edit their transponders were detected parameters: QAM4, QAM8, 2 3 channel lists. for our particular post code. QAM16, QAM32, QAM64, Those restrictions aside, Of course we did not give QAM128, QAM256, and dif- WMC is a very capable and up so easily and entered the fering symbol rates such as user-friendly software prod- post code of a major town 6100, 6875 or 6900. uct than can easily turn any nearby, instead of our local Nonetheless, chances conventional PC into a multi- code. This did the trick and are the available channels media box that cannot only are not found after all, be- present TV channels but play 8 cause some cable provid- back more or less all media ers do not use frequencies files. It sports an intuitive that conform to the industry user-interface and since it standard. This is why many comes as part and parcel TV applications come with a of any Windows7 operat- stupefying search mode that ing system you don’t have tries out all possible modula- to worry about troublesome tions and symbol rates one installation. Ask any Linux after the other for each and user with VDR and XBMC every frequency. One nota- and they will tell you that life ble exception is ProgDVB, 4 5 and we’ll deal with that soft- ware a little later. ProgDVB 7. Easiest channel scan, even our cable provider was pre- configured! 8. Lots of functionalities in an easy to use interface – ProgDVB matured over its 10 years of existence 9. Just a software blind scan, but still pretty good, in case no pre-defined frequency list is available. 10. CAM’s are recognized and supported, thanks to the integraded CI interfacecurrent version is a limited OEM one. 9 10 6 DVBDream 1. Many optional modules may be selected 2. Though the TBS tuners are shipped with a remote, they don’t require remote configuration in the TV application, since the remote buttons are mapped as regular keyboard keys – very clever! 3. DVBDream features so many modules, one is in doubt, which to select… 4. Configuration goes on: what CODECs should be used? A little technical insight is an advantage here. 5. Finally we can enjoy TV with a very clean user interface. 6. Sadly, most of the available buttons refer to the full version of DVBDream and you only gets this message box, stating that the current version is a limited OEM one. 66 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 01-02/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com www.TELE-audiovision.com — 01-02/2013 — TELE-audiovision International — 全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志 67 At the end of the second cards are installed during dends tab in order to select pay TV channels or those search run WMC once again the installation process. an appropriate transponder with unsuitable content. had not found any channels. Next, we had to tackle the list. Next, we had to visit WMC This was a clear indication DVBLink configuration. The The list on offer is quite again in order to reconfig- that Microsoft had the US manual that is supplied with huge in comparison with ure it. This time it detected market in mind when imple- the software gives very de- other TV applications we four new satellite cards, all menting DVB-C.