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| Product Box of the T230C |
The product was purchased from AliExpress (link below). The box itself doesn't have anything unique on it and it just states that it is a DVB-T2 stick that allows for the watching of live TV on your PC.
Opening up the box, there is actually a number of items provided alongside the DVB-T2 stick. This includes the important ones such as the CD containing the drivers and software needed for the DVB-T2 stick to work, and an antenna to hook up to the DVB-T2 Stick.
Items included in the box include:
- DVB-T2 Stick
- DVB-T2 Antenna
- Remote Control
- CD (Driver, Software and User Guide)
- Two Stands (Flat Base, or Fixed Clip for Clipping to Laptop Screen)
- USB Extension Cable
- User Guide
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| Contents in the Box |
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| Software Key located behind the Driver CD |
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| Antenna when extended (Hooked onto my Laptop Screen) |
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| The two types of Stands provided (Flat base, or a fixed clip to attach to laptop screen) Stands just clips onto the rectangle gap in the base of antenna |
In terms of the driver/software installation and what is provided, I would say it's quite standard. The software works but I would still stick to NextPVR to do the live viewing and recordings of shows.
The software provided (TotalMedia 3.5) has a simple interface and would work fine for normal use if all you want to do is be able to watch live TV and record shows.
You can find a quick video of the setup process below on the provided ArcSoft TotalMedia 3.5 software.
You can download a sample file that it recorded above here to try out the playback for yourself.
Again, while the software provided is fine and feature rich enough for most users, I personally would use a more feature rich software such as NextPVR where it allows me to be able to schedule recordings on the go through a simple web server that it hosts. On top of that, I couldn't find a subtitle option in the TotalMedia software, which was readily available in NextPVR.
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| NextPVR Web Interface allows for scheduling on any device |
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| NextPVR Captioning |
Other than the above-mentioned details, I actually found this to be a good buy as it serves its purpose of allowing me to record shows or be able to watch live TV in the quality that it deserves to be in (1080i). Having it support third party software such as NextPVR was also a pleasant surprise as I tried searching online for information on this and there wasn't much to be found, so I'm glad they didn't lock their hardware down to just the TotalMedia software. I also didn't encounter any signal loss issues even if my antenna was not placed near the window.
I did, however, encounter issues with it not being able to allow NextPVR to stream the live channels continuously, supposedly something to do with the audio codecs or my computer performance not being the best out there for encoding videos in real time.
The audio codec issue was also noticeable when I did recordings of channels with the 5.1 channel audio, whereby the audio playback for the 5.1ch track would be choppy and distorted using MPC that is installed with CCCP. Playback was fine, however, using VLC. You can download the sample and try it out for yourself. I faced this issue with shows recorded using a standard DVB-T2 set top box purchased on Qoo10 as well, so it could just be a playback/codec issue or the hardware used doesn't properly save the recorded files. Either way, the stereo channel works fine and it is not a major issue for me.
Either way, if you are interested in purchasing this product for yourself, you may find a link I used to purchase the product below (I am not sponsored nor affiliated with them, buy at your own risk):
AliExpress: dvb-t2 GENIATECH MyGica USB TV tuner Stick T230C DVB-C T2 DVB-T HD TV with License for Russia Thailand Colombia Europe Win10
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/dvb-t2-receiver-GENIATECH-Mygica-USB-TV-Stick-T230-DVB-T2-Tuner-DVB-C-DVB-T/616485_1883597971.html
Update 1:
I experience issues with the DVB-T2 stick not being detected each time my computer was restarted. Only a plug and unplug of the device would resolve the issue. Quite a big issue for me considering I want to be able to record my shows without having to remind myself that I need to reset the device each time my computer starts. NextPVR also started to not properly detect the USB stick.
Hi, did you manage the resolve the problem with PC not detecting the device on power-off/on?
ReplyDeleteI have the T230 stick and have the same issue as your. Seller wanted me to send back but I have to foot the shipping fee!
Hi there, sorry but I couldn't figure out a workaround either to get the device working after a restart except to unplug/plug the device again. And that's strange, usually sellers refund the shipping fee once they receive the item back.
DeleteThere's quite a few people who have mentioned the issue as well on other websites but there wasn't really a solution provided for it. (A lot of them were using the stick on Linux systems and trying to modify the firmware/driver to fix this issue, too advanced for me to understand what they were doing...)
If it helps, I just tried contacting MyGica support to check if there are any new workarounds for it. I'll update you again if they provide me with a working solution. You can also try contacting them yourself here: http://www.mygica.com/contact_us/
Thanks for the quick reply.
DeleteThis USB stick will not work once you power-off/on the PC even though it is detected by Windows. It will continue to work if you simply do a Windows restart.
As for the shipping fee, I can't recall the details. I decided not to proceed as I do not wish to incur additional cost and also I might not get a refund.
I did contact Mygica support initially for help but the solution they provide is to reinstall the USB driver which clearly is not the issue.
Luckily I found your blog, I wanted to purchase the another one (T230C model) thinking it doesn't have this issue. Well, do update if you got response from them.