A GOOD USB TV recorder.

I wish to ask if anyone know any good HD TV recorder with USB port, I've not seen that many but maybe there come under different titles?

Ive seen a few, im not sure.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DVB-T2-Terrestrial-Digital-Receiver-Freeview/dp/B00V5XY4GM/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1442567105&sr=1-1&keywords=JAZZA+Mini+MPEG4+HD+DVB-T2+Terrestrial+Digital+TV+Receiver+Box+Tuner+with+Multi+Media+Player%2C+HD+Freeview+Set+Top+PVR

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BUSH-B320PVR-320GB-HDD-HDMI-DIGITAL-TV-FREEVIEW-RECORDER-FREEVIEW-HD-USB-BOX-/301741549855

August DVB400- HD Freeview Set Top PVR Box is the one I currently use and it can be rather temperamental.

If you want the USB port to export recordings, then all Freesat and Freeview HD branded devices should only export SD recordings in a format that can be used elsewhere. HD content should be encrypted (allowing you to move it, but only replay it on the box it was recorded on). There are hacks for some brands I believe, however if you want to export HD recordings for use elsewhere, a non-Freeview/Freesat branded box might be better. However you may then find you don't have an EPG (on Freeview HD just for HD channels)

If the USB port is purely for playback of files, worry not about the above.

Personally I use a Raspberry Pi 2 and a cheap x86 PC for Freeview HD these days. Both also running Kodi.

August DVB400- HD Freeview HD recordings are NOT encrypted as I can view them on my PC.

This is how I managed to capture TV pres, etc, hence the reason the need for USB port.

On my Freeview USB DVB-T2 stick for the PC, all HD output and recordings are FTA. There was a time when I couldn't access EPG data from the T2 muxes, but not for a while now.

Yes - that was my point. Anything with a Freeview logo on it and that is officially licensed - like a Freeview HD PVR - will encrypt HD recordings to ensure they are only replayable on the machine that recorded them. That is a requirement to be licensed to use the Freeview brand.

The August DVB400 is not a Freeview licensed box. No sign of a Freeview HD logo anywhere on it. Therefore it can record without encrypting. The seller on Amazon (and to be honest August in their packaging) is being a little bit naughty - as the box isn't Freeview HD licensed, so you don't have guarantees that all aspects of the Freeview HD standard will be implemented (like Red Button, Connected stuff for iPlayer, the IPTV channels etc.)

PC recording solutions - whether using USB, PCI-e, PCI or network capture solutions - don't have to encrypt as they aren't officially Freeview HD licensed.

That's why I use a mix of x86 and Raspberry Pi boxes for mine - mainly running TV Headend. (Windows Media Center recordings are also clear)

Thought .....

I wonder if that change was necessitated with the introduction of SD channels on the DVB-T2 muxes, presumably the locking system that previously scrambled the EPGs for these muxes, was mux wide so couldn't be applied selectively on a per service basis. It would have been unfair to restrict recording on a subset of SD channels on Freeview.

When I first purchased a Freeview DVB-T2 stick in 2012, the only software in addition to the supplied (crap) software I could get to decode the T2 EPG data was Windows Media Center. However, it was useless as converting DVR-MS to another format was too much hassle, compared to recording in .ts.

I don't think they would have made any changes for the introduction of the SD channels on the T2 muxes as to view them you still require a Freeview HD TV/receiver despite the channels not being HD.


If the EPG is no longer encrypted on the T2 muxes as suggested, I wonder if they are nowing carrying EPG data for the T2 channels on the legacy DVB-T muxes. If they are, that would of course make the encryption on T2 muxes redundant given that the same data would be broadcast unencrypted on other muxes, and as such it would make sense to just turn it off altogether.

I'll have to get out my USB DVB-T tuner tomorrow and take a look at the transport stream to see if that is the case.

You must have been running XP MCE or Vista Media Center if you were getting DVR-MS files. That format was replaced by .wtv with the later versions of Vista MC (you may have had to install these with a hack from memory) and Win 7 MC which allowed for H264 as well as MPEG2 video.

.wtv is pretty well supported these days - VLC, Kodi/XBMC and ffmpeg/ffmbc all support it. It's quite close to a .ts stream but a bit more standardised.

Also - are you sure you were decoding the in-band (i.e. broadcast) data stream? That was always optional in Windows Media Center. By default it used the downloaded EPG which knew about HD channels (but didn't use the DVB-T2 EPG broadcast). From memory I never got in-band DVB-T2 EPG to work in 7MC because it didn't know about the Huffman tables used for compression, and because it allowed unencrypted recording it couldn't licence them. (Windows 7 Media Center hasn't been Freeview or Freeview HD licensed.) You had to edit the channel settings to get the EPG to switch to broadcast in-band DVB EIT EPG data instead of the Microsoft downloaded EPG (useful when new channels launched and MS hadn't updated their EPG data...)

7MC is one of the few bits of PC software that DOES support MHEG5 - the standard used for Red Button digital text on DVB-T/T2 in the UK. (And can be kind of persuaded to support the Freesat version - though it's a hack and thus buggy)

The Freeview HD channels EPG isn't encrypted or locked, it is just compressed, as is Freesat's for SD and HD, using Huffman compression. You get the Huffman tables as part of the licence, but they have been pretty well reverse engineered (though it is possible that not all letter combinations have yet been properly deduced)

The EIT data that is 'compressed' can be done on a show-by-show basis, let alone channel by channel or mux-by-mux. The SD muxes carry EPG information for the HD muxes as well as the SD muxes, and the EPG for the HD services is compressed.

I think the EIT is compressed for the SD services carried on the HD muxes as well as the HD service.

HD mux = DVB-T2 (PSB3, COM7 and COM8)
SD mux = DVB-T (PSB1&2, COM4,5&6 and the locals)

ISTR that the DVB-T muxes always carried EPG information for the DVB-T2 muxes, and they just carry it using the proprietary Huffman compression that was introduced for the HD services' EPG. There is no issue with carrying Huffman compressed EPG data on the DVB-T muxes AIUI - it is transparent to older receivers, and only new DVB-T2 receivers see it.

Both DVB-T and DVB-T2 muxes carry EPG data for all muxes - so that whatever channel you are tuned to you get a full EPG line-up.