HDTV working using GadgetGeek USB tuner and BlazeDTV
In a follow up to my earlier post on HDTV, I’m pleased to report that HDTV is now working. My previous attempts to get this working resulted in the conclusion that my antenna was, politely, end of life (or in other words a heap of rubbish). So, I popped in to see the guys at Hi Gain Antennas, and brought some photos with me.
They confirmed my suspicions – the antenna was old, unable to pick up the frequency range required to receive digital broadcast signal, and was positioned too low to be effective (my house in on the downside of a hill). So, a new setup was installed which has two antennas (so that the signals can be combined to get good signal strength), which is positioned higher on the roof and affixed with guidewires. This goes into an amplifier which further boosts the signal.
Part two of the installation involved re-cabling the existing TV points with shielded coaxial cable. The old cable was not shielded, and is subject to electrical interference. While the blokes were there, I also got them add another point in my bedroom. They also provided some fly leads for me which was a great bonus.
To get HDTV working on the computer, I needed a HDTV tuner. Because my computer is a laptop (and let’s face it, laptops are going to outsell desktop models very shortly), I didn’t want to put in a tuner card. The alternative is a USB HDTV tuner, and I was able to get a Gadget Geek USB DTV model from Dick Smith for under $100 which is quite reasonable. Allegedly the USB models are not as fast at processing as the cards, but so far so good – and I only really got it to prove whether or not I could get HDTV on the computer anyway.
This comes with Blaze HDTV software to allow you to record your programs. I set Blaze to scan for channels – and voila! All the digital channels available came through – and now I have HDTV on my computer 
My Linux platform (Fedora 9) doesn’t recognise the USB HDTV tuner, so I can’t run MythTV as planned – but I suppose now I have at least one reason to boot into Windows
Hi Kathy
Have just purchased Gadget Geek with Blaze HD TV but after installation it keeps telling me Windows has found a problem and will close the program etc. Could you help me out ?
Hi Paul,
A couple of quick questions; did it ever work at all after installation? Were you logged in as an admin to install the program? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling and does that make a difference? What version of Windows are you on?
Cheers,
Kathy
Hi Kathy
It has never worked at all after installation and how would I go about logging in as an admin to install ? I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times to no effect. I’m on Vista Basic, do I need something better ?
Regards, Paul.
Hi Paul, it should still work on Vista Basic. When the application crashes, is there anything in the event viewer that flags what the error is? More info on the event viewer under Windows Vista can be found here: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_event_viewer.htm
I think you may actually be able to use the Gadget Geek tuner under Linux. I’m considering of buying one myself, and found a forum thread that claimed the device uses the AF9015 chip – see http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Afatech_AF9015 for driver details.
I ended up buying the Gadget Geek tuner, but it turns out that this model uses the ec168 chip. Unfortunately, it’s not as well supported as the AF9015, but you can get it working if you’re willing to install an experimental v4l release – see https://www.dealextreme.com/forums/Default.dx/sku.8325~threadid.278942.