Terrestial 720p50 HDTV on a PC

To celebrate that Sweden hasn't lost a game to England in almost 40 years, here's a guide to watching the World Cup HDTV broadcasts on a Windows machine. The guide was written by my good collegue wizzerd*at*wizzerd*dot*com and is published here with his kind permission.

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Background
Beginning on June 9th 2006, SVT and TV4 in Sweden will broadcast the World Cup in HD 720p via Satellite and Terrestrial (for select areas). To be able to watch these broadcasts you will need equipment that can decode the H.264 (MPEG4) stream.

Recently, several different software codecs for H.264 have become available for PC´s. There is a method (described below) to be able to watch the broadcasts with a PC that has a digital TV card (DVB-T).

IMPORTANT

• This will only work if you have a good digital reception in Stockholm, Gotland, Västerås or Uppsala.
• The hardware requirements are tough, you will need a lot of processor power if you want a smooth picture.
• These instructions may also work if you have a Satellite card in your PC & a dish pointed at THOR, but we have not tested.
• These instructions are just a guide, no guarantee or support is offered if you run into problems.

Requirements Hardware
As MPEG4 H.264 is highly compressed, it requires a lot of processor power to decode the stream in real time.

Minimum System

• Pentium 4 - 3.0 Ghz Dual Core
• Graphic card PCI Express with 256MB (Nvidia 6600 / ATI X1600XT or better)
• Sound card that supports Dolby 5.1 (recommended, not required)
• 1 GB RAM
• Digital TV card (DVB-T). These cards have been tested and work:
  
  • Hauppauge Win-TV HVR1300 Hybrid DVB-T & Analog PCI
  • TerraTec Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS USB2.0

Software

• Windows XP Pro (SP2)
• H.264 codec
• One of the following:
  
  1. PowerDVD 7 Deluxe (http://www.cyberlink.com/)
  2. CoreAVC (http://coreavc.corecodec.org/download.html)
  3. More codecs found here (http://www.compression-links.info/MPEG-4_AVC_H.264)
• TV-software with H.264 support
  
  • DVBViewer (beta).
    Buy the program here: http://www.dvbviewer.com/en/index.php.
    When you have access to the members downloads, you will need:
    
    1. Main Application: DVBViewer (version: V3.2.6 tested)
    2. Beta Section: DVBViewer public Beta (version: 3.4.11.3 tested)
    3. Plugins: DVBViewer Filter (H.264 support) (version: 2.8.0 tested)

Installation

1. Install the TV Card.
2. Install the H.264 codec (PowerDVD, CoreAVC, or other).
3. Install DVBViewer Main.
4. Unpack The DVBViewer public beta. You can either unpack into the DVBViewer main directory, or a separate directory.
5. Unpack the DVBViewer Filter zip file into the DVBViewer/Filters directory.
6. In Explorer, browse to the DVBViewer/Filters directory and double click on the Register_DVBSource.bat file.
7. You should now get a message saying that PushSource.ax registered correctly.

The installation is now complete, all that is left is configure DVBViewer.

Configuration
Set up the TV card

1. Run the beta version of DVBViewer.
2. Choose Settings / Options.
3. In the left column, select Hardware.
4. Select each device in turn and make sure that Do not use is selected, except for the TV Card (DVB-T), where you select:
• Tuner Type: Terrestrial (this probably works for Satellite, but we have not tested this.)
• State: preferred
5. Apply

Set up DirectX Options
Note: Deselect Auto and select devices where possible.


Extended

Scan for Channels

1. Select Channel / Channel Scan.
2. Select Terrestrisch ;o)
3. Click on Scan Range.

Once the scanning is complete, just select the channel HD-kanalen under SVT & TV4.
Now just break out the popcorn and enjoy the World Cup in HDTV (720p).