Add a TV Tuner To Your Xbox (In Europe)

jfruh (300774) writes "The Xbox one isn't just a game console: it's also a nifty media set-top box, and it interacts very well with your TV service — as long as you have cable. Cord-cutters will soon be able to attach their Xbox to an antenna — but only in Europe." The peripheral that Microsoft will soon release allows you to integrate over-the-air content into the Xbox One system. From the images Microsoft released it looks like the tuner is a small box with a port for an antenna cable on one end, and the USB cable on the other. Unfortunately for my readers in North America, as of now, the Xbox One Digital TV Tuner is only scheduled to release in Europe. Microsoft says it supports DVB-T, DVB-T2 and DVB-C television channels, which I hope means something to my European readers; Wikipedia tells me these are European over-the-air cable standards. The TV Tuner will be available in late October for 24.99 in the UK, and for €29.99 in France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

Comments

Broadcast standards in Europe

[jonfr]

Only DVB-T and DVB-T2 are for over the air. DVB-C is for cable service. So Xbox One users in Europe are going to be able to use it with both over the air and cable service. In Europe using cable (DVB-C) is a common form of getting television and often it is part of the rent that people pay.

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[gl4ss]

yeah dvb-c cable is usually just what I think is "basic cable" in USA.

however, it's a bit funny for someone to write over the air cable!

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[amorsen]

There are plenty of places that run HD over cable on plain -C or even -T.

DRM does not have any connection to which particular DVB version is used.

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[Carewolf]

yeah dvb-c cable is usually just what I think is "basic cable" in USA.

however, it's a bit funny for someone to write over the air cable!

Considering it can be encrypted and you need a "cable" box from a typical "cable" provider to decode the over-the-air signal, it may sound strange, but it does make some sense.

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[jonfr]

No cable company has started to use DVB-C2. I am not sure why that is. No television on the market support DVB-C2 at the moment. Many high end television support use of DVB-S and DVB-S2 today.

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[Gobelet]

With my cable provider, Numericable (and I believe they are the only one in France nowadays), the only channels I get unscrambled are the free over-the-air channels. And they are sent as DVB-T/COFDM over the wire, as the must-carry law requires.

So DVB-C would not be too useful there, except if I want to watch that promo trailer channel they have which is unscrambled. Unless Microsoft has planned for it and allows adding a CAM card for my particular provider!

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[Gobelet]

DVB-T carries many HD channels here, scrambled and unscrambled, in H.264 and Dolby Digital+. DVB-T2 is barely on the roadmap in France.

Re:Broadcast standards in Europe

[Blue Stone]

DVB-T (Mpeg2) is used for SD broadcasts in the UK. DVB-T2 (MPeg4) is used for all the HD channels (terrestrially).

Re:great idea

[jonwil]

Don't know where you come from but in Australia (and presumably in the various European countries mentioned in the summary as well) there are free-to-air TV channels broadcasting in DVB-T standard that do not require any special cards.

DVB Tuners

[Mister Transistor]

USB DVB tuners have been around for a while now and are amazingly cheap. Like $9.99 cheap. Besides receiving compressed DVB signals, most of them also have a general-purpose tuner mode for broadcast, etc. reception, and they make dandy Software-Defined Radios (SDR) that can tune from 50-1000 MHz or more, and translate an entire 3 MHz segment of the RF spectrum for software decoding.

The cheapest ones are based on the RTL-2832U tuner chip. They are a cable-TV tuner IC coupled to a USB soundcard IC internally. Check out rtl-sdr.com for more info. The PC software to receive radio is free, mostly open source and quite sophisticated, rivaling several-thousand dollar conventional radio packages. Check out sdr-radio.com and sdrsharp.com for a couple of the many software packages out there. Cool stuff!

Re:DVB Tuners

[Anonymous Coward]

DVB-T2 USB tuners aren't cheap. PCTV 292e are something like £47 ~$80.

Re: DVB Tuners

[Mister Transistor]

Your point is? The Xbox acts the same as a PC. The host (PC or Xbox) runs software that tunes the device and then decodes the compressed MPEG video when they are in DVB mode so you can watch TV. I was also pointing out that they usually have an additional non-MPEG mode that makes them a generic IQ type SDR, and this device may also have a "hackable" aspect to it.

Re:DVB Tuners

[Mister Transistor]

That is a newer generation of the same thing, but if you notice they decode DVB-T2, which is High-Definition. The cheap RTL dongles decode about 3 MHz of spectrum space which is enough for a Standard-Definition DVB signal, but not enough for HD. The newer ones that do DVB-T2 have a wider chunk of spectrum space they translate, wide enough for an HD signal. In the US, an ATSC or "digital TV" High-Definition signal is about 6 MHz wide, for reference.

These newer generation dongles must have internal improvements that allows them to grab a bigger hunk of RF spectrum. The professional SDR devices that cost upward of $1000 can grab much larger chunks of spectrum, some can do 20 MHz wide swaths of RF.

Re:DVB Tuners

[citizenr]

above is misinformation
debug mode of RTL2832U can transfer 2.4MHz of RAW signal
but same RTL2832U has ZERO problem with 8MHz bandwidth when it demodulates/decodes internally

Re:DVB Tuners

[NoMaster]

That is a newer generation of the same thing, but if you notice they decode DVB-T2, which is High-Definition. The cheap RTL dongles decode about 3 MHz of spectrum space which is enough for a Standard-Definition DVB signal, but not enough for HD. The newer ones that do DVB-T2 have a wider chunk of spectrum space they translate, wide enough for an HD signal. In the US, an ATSC or "digital TV" High-Definition signal is about 6 MHz wide, for reference.

These newer generation dongles must have internal improvements that allows them to grab a bigger hunk of RF spectrum. The professional SDR devices that cost upward of $1000 can grab much larger chunks of spectrum, some can do 20 MHz wide swaths of RF.

What utter bullshit.

DVB-T occupies 5/6/7/8 MHz (depending on country). The transmission is COFDM spread-spectrum, the data is interleaved across all subcarriers, and (ignoring hierarchical transmissions, which are rare) the whole ensemble needs to be retrieved to demux a single channel. So, regardless of whether the content is SD or HD, DVB-T dongles always have received the whole 5/6/7/8 MHz wide channel to work (decoding is done in software).

DVB-T2 occupies 1.7/5/6/7/8/10 MHz (depending on purpose & country - e.g. 1.7MHz is meant for mobile, while afaik 10MHz isn't in use anywhere yet). The transmission is an extended version of DVB-T's COFDM spread-spectrum, the data is likewise interleaved across all subcarriers, and (ignoring hierarchical transmissions, which are rare) similarly the whole ensemble needs to be retrieved to demux a single channel. So, regardless of whether the content is SD or HD, any DVB-T2 dongle needs to receive the whole 1.7/5/6/7/8/10 MHz wide channel to work. I don't know of any offhand, but presumably decoding is similarly done in software.

Raw mode - typically used by SDR software when using chep DVB-T dongles - is different. That has limitations, but it's got nothing to do with the channel bandwidth when using the dongles for DVB-T/DVB-T2.

Summary lacks basic thinking skills

[jareth-0205]

Microsoft says it supports DVB-T, DVB-T2 and DVB-C television channels, which I hope means something to my European readers; Wikipedia tells me these are European over-the-air cable standards.

...Christ...

Re:Summary lacks basic thinking skills

[PPH]

over-the-air cable

That must be the stuff hanging up on utility poles. Completely different than the under-the-ground cable.

Re:Summary lacks basic thinking skills

[GNious]

over-the-air cable

That must be the stuff hanging up on utility poles. Completely different than the under-the-ground cable.

No, that would be in-the-air cable - In Europe, Over-The-Air cabling is done at 700km altitude.

I must be missing something

[rossdee]

Presumably your XBox is already plugged into a TV, which already has an OTA tuner, and with an antenna you can already get OTA free TV

Or is it different in the EU ( /me now lives in the US, but formerly lived in NZ, don't know a thing about current european standards)
   

Re:I must be missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably your XBox is already plugged into a TV, which already has an OTA tuner, and with an antenna you can already get OTA free TV

Or is it different in the EU ( /me now lives in the US, but formerly lived in NZ, don't know a thing about current european standards)

 

Is not different in the EU, you are missing the part where you get the tv signal into the xbox first and let it act as a gaming/media center, you can dock a tv channel while you play something or use an app, use voice recognition, pausing etc etc

Re:I must be missing something

[Gobelet]

My $79 9" TV (it is a spare one, mind you) can do timeshifting and recording, provided I connect a USB stick or hard drive. I cannot understand why higher-end TVs cannot offer that.

Re: I must be missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in the US may be, but in Europe time shifting is becoming a standard feature of the smart TV sets. All you need to do is plus a USB drive

Re:I must be missing something

[Saffaya]

Here is an example :

I stopped using TVs when I bought a DreamCast console circa 1999, with its nifty VGA cable and 95% of games compatible with it.

I currently use a 1080p monitor for my HTPC set-up, with the big picture provided by my projector.

Not a single TV or display that includes a TV tuner in my home.

Re:I must be missing something

[drsquare]

Yes, but this allows you to use the Xbox's DVR features. Before the Xbox couldn't do that because it couldn't understand OTA TV signals.

Re:I must be missing something

[Cyfun]

I'm guessing this will allow people who aren't using a TV, but using a computer monitor or projector that doesn't have a tuner to do so.

However, the biggest benefit will probably be using your Xbox as a DVR to record shows, then organize them and play them in the Xbox's media player.

Re:I must be missing something

[Nexzus]

I combined an HDHomeRun, a PS3, PS3 Mediaserver, some "public" listings data, and some coding to make a poor man's TV guide, with channels that are switchable using the DLNA Video options on the PS3.

Making the PS3 the centre of the media system made cord-cutting pass the wife-acceptance-factor.

Wow! Wireless!

[Bing Tsher E]

Wireless is so cool. I was at a thrift shop recently and I found a wireless radio and it was only a few dollars. It says on the outside that it only has six transistors in it.

T vs T2 vs S

[Mr_Silver]

DVB-T is OTA SD television content branded as "Freeview". You get over a 100 channels but, to be honest, only about 30 of them are any good. There are all the major stations (BBC 1 and 2, ITV, Channel 4 and 5), their additional channels (BBC 3, ITV 2 etc), some +1 hour channels and some Freeview only channels. Whilst these are all subscription free, there is a small amount of subscription content and it's not essential to subscribe to these. You don't get many of the Sky channels.

DVB-T2 is the same as T but with the inclusion of 10 or so (I can't remember the exact number) HD channels. It's branded "Freeview HD". Again, subscription free for the majority of the channels. It's nice to watch Top Gear in HD.

DVB-S is the same as T2 but, I think, has a few more HD channels. It's branded "Freesat" and requires the installation of a satellite dish on the side of the house - which often fails the WAF test. It arrived before Freeview HD and so was the first way to get HD channels, although I'm not sure whether that really is the case any more.

For those that are wondering, "YouView" is actually a STB with a DVB-T2 tuner and a range of additional catch-up and VOD services bolted on.

The majority of people will probably get DVB-T2.

Re:T vs T2 vs S

[Mr_Silver]

Whoops misread the article and thought it said DVB-S not DVB-C.

DVB-C is television content through a cable. It's popular in a large number of countries and, for the UK, would be how Virgin Media would deliver their content.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure whether or not you would be able to use a DVB-C tuner to get Virgin. The majority of people I know use a STB supplied by Virgin (which, in the past couple of years, has been a rebranded TiVo). Someone else with more knowledge than me will probably be able to confirm.

It'll be interesting to see how many tuners you get. If it's only one then you'll only be able to watch one channel and you'll only be able to record another if it is on the same multiplex. So if BBC1 and BBC2 are on the same multiplex then you can record one and watch the other - but you wouldn't be able to record BBC1 and watch ITV since they are on a different multiplex.

If they are serious about providing a good STB experience (and they are part the way there because Windows 7 Media Center and a DVT-T2 tuner blows most of the STBs I've ever used out of the water for experience and, sadly, cost) then they really need to be offering a dual tuner.

Re:T vs T2 vs S

[Gobelet]

DVB-T uses some sort of MPEG2 encoding, while DVB-T2 allowed for MPEG4 encoding.

That's not true: us French get MPEG-4/AVC channels over DVB-T.

Re:T vs T2 vs S

[GNious]

DVB-S/S2 is satellite-based
DVB-T/T2 is "air" (UHF antenna)
DVB-C is cable-based (not seen C2 - might exist)

-S and -T are MPEG2 based (usually)
-S2 and -T2 are MPEG4 based (usually)

Encryption can be applied to all of them, and in many countries is almost standard (very few free channels, usually tax-paid ones or pr0n related). The UK seems to have an above-average number of free channels.
"Freesat" is specifically a UK term for DVB-S/S2 channels without encryption.

Re:T vs T2 vs S

[Blue Stone]

DVB-S is the satellite equivalent of DVB-T which is Mpeg2.

DVB-S2 is the equivalent of DVB-T2 which is Mpeg 4.

The only difference is that nowhere in the UK is mpeg2 used for HD terrestrial broadcasts, whereas satellite broadcasting still frequently uses mpeg2 for HD content.

Better than doing this on a smart TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

List of things I am worried about:
1. Xbox One outputting 60Hz instead of 50Hz. OTA content tends to be 50Hz interlaced in Europe. There was, or is, an issue on playing 50Hz Bluray encoded movies on an Xbox One. The result was extra judder, and many people complained.
2. Xbox One doing a poor job at deinterlacing and upscaling, at least worse than what typical TVs do. Most content is either 576i or 1080i. There is a channel in Spain that broadcast 720p, but that is not the norm. Xbox One will probably always output at 1080p in order to raster the on screen menus.
3. Xbox One taking hundreds of Watts while it is on. Reports I have read state Xbox One takes around 75W while idling and 15W while in standby (Kinect related). Dedicated setup boxes probably take a lot less power, e.g. Popcorn Hour A100 takes 15W while playing from internal harddisk.
4. EPG being as inaccurate as the ones you get on a flat screen TV one.

So, can somebody remind me what are the reasons I should use a console instead of a set up box or Smart Tv?

Re:Better than doing this on a smart TV?

[Mr_Silver]

4. EPG being as inaccurate as the ones you get on a flat screen TV one.

This is a good point. Even though DVB-T/T2/S (not sure about C) can provide EPG data, Microsoft get their EPG data from third parties. This is a good thing because you get 14 days worth of data and extra meta-data associated with the program listing which allows them to do some quite nifty functionality.

Unfortunately the data is often wrong and (in the UK at least) the series link data is either not there (so you cannot record the season of a show because it thinks it's a one off) or on every single instance of a show meaning that you end up filling your HD with hundreds of repeats.

There is even a hacky bit of vbscript which is designed to attempt to delete any duplicate recordings, it's that bad.

http://www.fourteenminutes.com...

TV License

[residents_parking]

In the UK, you'll need a TV license (£145 per year) if you don't already have one - completely dwarfing the tuner purchase cost.

Re:TV License

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the high quality of pulic broadcasting in .uk I think the money is at least well spent.

Re:TV License

[stephanruby]

Given the high quality of pulic broadcasting in .uk I think the money is at least well spent.

If you're into birdwatching and watching open heart surgery at dinner time, then yes, the BBC is the best money can buy.

Re:TV License

[KevReedUK]

By just having a TV tuner in your household you need to pay the license. Regardless of whether you use it or not. So unless you run an Xbox through an HDMI monitor and don't own a single TV then yes, the license fee dwarfs the cost of the tuner.

WRONG!

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/c...

From the above link:

The law states that you need to be covered by a TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes, on any device, as they're being shown on TV. This includes TVs, computers, mobile phones, games consoles, digital boxes and Blu-ray/DVD/VHS recorders.

You don't need a licence if you don't use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV - for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch ‘catch up’ services like BBC iPlayer or 4oD.

In other words, even if you have a tuner, as long as it is not used, you DO NOT need a TV license to cover it. Should you, however, watch any content online at the same time as it is being broadcast, you DO need a license, even if you do not own a single piece of kit with a tuner in it.

It should be noted that when you buy any equipment with a tuner in it (TV / STB / PCTV device / whatever) the retailer will normally take your name and address (I believe this is by law) and this information is communicated to the TV Licensing bureau. If, when they receive this notification, they do not have on record any current valid TV license for that property, they will send out a letter asking you to either provide evidence that you have a license, buy one, or make a declaration that neither you, nor anyone in the property, watch or record TV as it is being broadcast, regardless of whether it is via the equipment you bought or some other method (e.g. online). As we keep our license up-to-date (My wife's daughter lives with us. It would seem that not having the capability to watch the latest reality-TV/whatever-other-crap-is-on is almost considered cruelty by many these days!), I have no idea what happens if you fail to respond to such a letter (I only received one of these letters because we bought a new TV the day we moved, and my change of address notification and their letter crossed in the mail).

Re:TV License

[Tukz]

In Denmark you have to pay TV Licens by just having a smartphone.
I'm not kidding.

Re:TV License

[Carewolf]

In Denmark you have to pay TV Licens by just having a smartphone.
I'm not kidding.

Not literally, you have to pay it for the internet connection. So if you have no subscribtion for your smart phone you don't need to pay a license ;) For TVs though, you need to pay the license whether you use it or not, the logic being that you pay for the capability of receiving TV. Not sure why they havn't just made a tax already.

Welcome to 2008, Microsoft!

[Sasquatch6]

Sony have already done this. Until I moved to the US this year, I was happily using the PlayTV accessory for my Playstation 3 to do basically exactly the same thing in Australia. It should be noted that the main benefit here isn't access to TV channels. It's the DVR functionality that comes along with it. Pausing and rewinding live TV, scheduling recordings, and live TV Guides.

Re:great idea

[Hamsterdan]

OTA is not encrypted.

Re:Old tech

[Gobelet]

In Germany (and probably other countries) maybe. In France, none of the OTA channels are free-to-air on DVB-S.

The OTA channels ARE on satellite, they just need a cheap, no subscription CAM to unscramble them. I believe it is to block reception by other countries than France. You can probably just get the CAM in France though, there is no check or subscription; just a €39 box to hook up.

All wrong

[StripedCow]

If you need an xbox to watch TV, you're doing it wrong.

Re:All wrong

[xlsior]

If you need an xbox to watch TV, you're doing it wrong.

There's a difference between 'needing and xbox to watch TV', and the desire for a unified, integrated one-stop destination for your entertainment: games, TV, streaming media, using a single remote control and consistent interface.

That may not be a big deal to you or me personally, but i can definitely see a potential market for something like this.

Re:great idea

[Teun]

To name a few, Germany, Denmark and Poland have many open channels on DVB-T en T2.

The Netherlands usually the 3 public and one regional that are free and I'd be surprised if it weren't similar in most countries.

Re:great idea

[TBoon]

DVB supports encryption for all it's varieties, including OTA (DVB-T). Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Netherlands all have a mix of unencrypted channels and encrypted premium channels. It's run like a cable company really.

Re:Old tech

[bruce_the_loon]

This is incorrect. -T can carry HD channels, albeit with heavier compression of the video/audio signals. -T2 increases the channel bandwidth from 24Mb/s to 35Mb/s and allows less compressed HD channels.

Spain, Italy, France, Taiwan, Panama, Colombia all do HD over -T.

How will this apply to your Television License

[lippydude]

Pay for your TV Licence in a way that suits you

Re:Old tech

[Teun]

Sure, but due to the shitty compression of mpeg2 you can only get an SD channel within the conventional channel width.

Re:Old tech

[bruce_the_loon]

True, but that's the choice of the station operators or the country's standard body. Some operate MPEG-4 or H.264 over DVB-T.

The station probably doesn't want to replace their encoders that they've used for satellite transmission before digital terrestrial was launched in their country.

Potential for modding/injecting video

[citizenr]

You can emulate any USB device with something like Facedancer
http://goodfet.sourceforge.net...

USB DVB tuners just output MPEG2 transport stream when they are properly tuned to mux frequency.

You can use OpenCaster
http://www.avalpa.com/the-key-...
to build your own stream.

This means if will be relatively easy to build small usb dongle device capable of injecting h.264 video into Xbox 180.
Of course I have no clue about xbone 180, maybe* its already capable of playing h.264 natively, and there is no need for hacks if you want to use one as a media center.

* just checked, yep, xbone can stream h.264 natively

xbox fifa 14 coins

[dfhgsht]

yeah http://fifa14coingen.com/

Re:Wow

[chilvence]

TV is shit anyway.