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Knowledgebase / OrbLive for iPhone (or iPod Touch) / How can I find out if my TV tuner will work in Orb?

How can I find out if my TV tuner will work in Orb?
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Orb does not maintain a list of supported tuner models. Therefore, the best way to find out if your TV tuner will work in Orb is to just try it! Orb is free, so download Orb, run the program, and the Orb installation wizard will walk you through the TV setup. The complete installation takes less than 5 mns.

When done, log on to your Orb account (at mycast.orb.com) and go to: Open Application > TV/Webcams > Program Guide > select a TV channel and click Play.

The following information gives a general overview of tuner compatibility in Orb.

There are essentially 2 types of TV signal: analog and digital. So TV tuners are either analog or digital. The more recent breed of tuners which are actually dual tuners that combine the two types of TV tuners are generally referred to as hybrid tuners: those are compatible with both analog and digital signal types.

Analog Tuners: Orb primarily supports MPEG-2 analog tuners (NTSC, PAL and Secam), which are tuners with an onboard MPEG-2 hardware encoder.

Software-based analog tuners, which do not have an onboard MPEG-2 hardware encoder, are not supported in Orb. However, many of them can work in Orb when their audio input is properly configured in mycast | Open Application | Control Panel | TV/Webcams | Devices.

Digital Tuners:  Orb only supports over-the-air (OTA) digital ATSC and DVB-T tuners. All other classes of digital tuners (QAM, DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-H, etc.) are not supported in Orb.

Hybrid Tuners:  The digital tuner (ATSC or DVB-T) of hybrid tuners is supported in Orb;
However, for the analog tuner of hybrid tuners, the MPEG-2 rule applies.

Therefore, the very small form-factor tuner referred to as “USB Hybrid TV Tuner stick” which has a software analog tuner and a digital tuner will only partially work in Orb: digital channels will work, but analog channels won’t.

The Table below summarizes the types of tuner Orb supports.

 TV Tuner Type
 Supported in Orb?
 Analog Tuners - NTSC, Pal or Secam (cable, satellite, antenna)
  
  •  MPEG-2 (with built-in MPEG-2 hardware encoder)
 Yes
  •  Software-based (without built-in MPEG-2 hardware encoder)
 No
 Digital Tuners - OTA (Over-The-Air antenna signal only)
 
  •  ATSC (primarily North America) w/ BDA drivers
 Yes
  •  DVB-T (Europe & Asia)
 Yes
  •  All others (QAM, DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-H, etc.)
 No
 Hybrid Tuners - (w/ both Analog & Digital TV signal input)
  
  •  Analog/Digital
 Digital tuner  ATSC (Over-the-air antenna) Yes
 DVB-T (Over-the-air antenna) Yes
 Analog tuner  MPEG-2 (usually PCI cards) Yes
 Software (usually USB “stick”)  No

Note: If you don’t know what type of tuner you have and therefore cannot use this table to determine whether it should work in Orb or not, try to search the Orb Community Forums for posts from users with the same tuner make and model as yours.
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