DVB - PC Cards Audio Description Channels

[cafe.racer]

Some have "Audio Desc" in the title, but others don't - is it just a case that the Aduio Desc channels are on a different transponder, or is ther some "layer" I can turn off?

It seems to be intermitant, possibly when they have audio desc for a particular program, but it can be a pain that a channel I've thought was without audio desc suddenly starts telling me " a large swarthy man walks across a busy courtyard..."

 

[wonko]

do you mean just audio description channels (described as such in the channel name) or channels with audio description on?

the former simply omit from your lineup and the later normally have normal audio on audio track 2 - still trying to persuade mediaportal to use than by default lol

 

[cafe.racer]

Yeah, I've excluded most of the ones with "Audio Desc" in the name, but there are some channels that I've convinced myself are the correct channels, then all of a sudden I switch over to watch something and get the Audio Description.

I wonder if it's a driver thing...

 

[cafe.racer]

Ha!

Popped over to firedtv.co.uk and it seems that Elyl gets the same thing! Any solutions mate?

I've started to wonder if VM have changed the way they do this recently, around mid Jan - I'm sure it never used to do this...

 

[mudd786]

Hi not sure if this is relevant, but i have a dbox n the same thing happens on most of the movie channels and some disney channels?

is there a way around?

Regards

Mudd

 

[charlieram]

most software on the pc will let you change the audio pid, I dont have a dbox so i don't know about them but if you check the channels properties in your software you should be able to select different audio tracks if the channel broadcasts more than one. I have noticed a few that default to audio description so i changed them to track two and saved them (using ProgDVB)

 

[neathdrew]

Hi not sure if this is relevant, but i have a dbox n the same thing happens on most of the movie channels and some disney channels?

is there a way around?

Regards

Mudd

press the green button on most dbox2 uk imgs gives u a choice of audio pids.

 

[mudd786]

Thank you will try it tonight!

regards

Mudd

 

[elyl]

Ha!

Popped over to firedtv.co.uk and it seems that Elyl gets the same thing! Any solutions mate?

I've started to wonder if VM have changed the way they do this recently, around mid Jan - I'm sure it never used to do this...

Sorry for the late reply, I've not been on here for a while. Yes, I had the same problem as you, and I found an obscure registry entry which I thought had fixed it (the registry entry was ENG backwards in hex... god knows!) but it doesn't work.

I managed to fix my problem thus:

I used TransEdit (free download if you own DVBviewer - think you can download a limited but still functional version of TransEdit for free) which can scan the transponders and gives you a whole host of handy information about them.
This lists all the audio channels which a channel can broadcast (usually 2, Eng for english, and NAR for audio description, also, sometimes AC3 for surround sound).
The handy thing it does is list what the default audio channel is broadcast as. Now, this SHOULD be Eng for every channel but the foreignese ones, but I think VM are broadcasting some of them wrong. E4+1 for me was being broadcast as NAR default, so I got the audio description on Friends and what-not.

Now, there's no way to change which audio channel Vista uses (other tv programs/STBs will have Eng set as the default, whereas, I think Vista just takes whatever default it's told to), but what I noticed is that sometimes the channel will be broadcast with Eng as default, when previously it was NAR. I kept an eye on E4+1, and when it was being broadcast as Eng, I deleted the channel in VMC and rescanned. It has now "stuck" the audio channel on Eng. How often the NAR channels are changed to Eng, I don't know, but I suspect the answer is "not very often".

Far from ideal, but it's the best I can manage with Vista's piss-poor DVB support. Another option is editing the channels database to change the audio channel - I am still working on a viable solution for doing this, since it is completely undocumented.

 

[cafe.racer]

Cool, thanks mate - I doubt I would've found that little gem myself...

Will, transedit work with the Floppy MCE Drivers?

I don't know if E4+1 does it for me, but Five and I think UK Gold do it. AC3 Sound would be nice...

I'll try your trick, but I'm also going to have a word with Marco and see if there's anything they can do - perhaps a default setting in the drivers somewhere, or a order of preference for the language...

 

[elyl]

Yeah, works fine with the FloppyDTV MCE drivers. Just make out to TransEdit that it's a DVB-T card.

I'm still looking into editing the MCE database to change channel information, as this would give us much more control over things. Sky Premier and HD1/2 transmit in AC3 which would be great to have, but their default audio channel is Eng, and I've never seen it change to AC3. All that needs changing is the Audio PID for the channel in the MCE database and it would be permanently AC3.

I can load and view the database (an .sdf file) in SQL Express, but I can't edit any of the fields or run SQL queries on it. Not sure if Microsoft have locked it down for editing, but I'll keep you guys updated.

 

[cafe.racer]

I've just tried it and got some error or other when I tried to scan - it "sees" the FireDTV's though. I'll try it again tonight and post back.

Getting into the database would be the best thing. I think I'l have another try now mine's all settled.

 

[cafe.racer]

So the error pops up if I try and scan freqs for a card I "don't" have - I was scanning for cable signals with a DVB-T card.

So, what am I scanning for? MCE Frequencies? Edit channels in MCE says BBC1 is on "506" in MCE, which is list as "506000" in the Left hand bit of the DE registry entry. So I try "506" in transedit with the bandwidth set to 6, 7 or 8 and it finds nothing.

FireDTV "behind the scenes" frequencies? MCE's "506000" points to an actual frequency of 491000 (6887), but this frequency gives me nothing, either, and I can't enter the symbolrate anywhere.

Help?

Blind Scan would've been useful about 12months ago, but it appears disabled in the free/demo version...

 

[elyl]

Yeah, blind scan is disabled in the free one. You should be scanning for the DVB-T frequencies that MCE "thinks" it's tuning to, so on mine, I put in something like 506-570:8 for frequencies, and bandwidth is 8. You'd probably want to put in 506, 514, 522 etc etc.

 

[cafe.racer]

Yeah, blind scan is disabled in the free one. You should be scanning for the DVB-T frequencies that MCE "thinks" it's tuning to, so on mine, I put in something like 506-570:8 for frequencies, and bandwidth is 8. You'd probably want to put in 506, 514, 522 etc etc.

Thinking about it, blind scan wouldn't be any good with the MCE drivers - you have to tell it the cable frquencies anyway. Although I suppose you could flood fill the transponder list THEN blind scan.

I've now done one scan which worked, but all the channels are "eng". I couldn't see Five anywhere in the list.

The woopwoop channels were there...

 

[elyl]

All the channels will have Eng, but will also have NAR. If you tick the option to hide additional audio channels (can't remember the exact setting, but you can filter it to avoid showing every audio channel) it will show up what is the default audio channel.

 

[cafe.racer]

Hmmm, I saw a check box (bottom right-ish) which I thought meant "Show additional audio channels", I'll read it more carefully...

 

[elyl]

I'm doing that from memory though, so you might be right. You've got to tick something though!

 

[cafe.racer]

Hmmm, I left this alone, but I've just settled down to watch swordfish and the audio description is back. Can anyone confirm that they can view swordfish in MCE without the narrative?

This is after rescanning all the channels in the week.

I did speak to Digital Everywhere who said that they have spent ages looking for a way to fix it, then heard that MS were going to sort it, so they stopped looking.

 

[charlieram]

withiiut audio description here but that is using Twinhan DVB-C>DVBSBridge>MCE2005