1
2
3
4
5
74
TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 03-04/2014
—
1. Just fit the DTA-2138 in an empty PCI Express slot and
install the drivers. You don’t even have to select between
different driver archives, because Dektec offers one single
installation to cover all their products. To check if everything
is OK, use the free DtInfo utility. In my case DtInfo informed
me that a new firmware was available. Clicking on the Info-
button reveals this window, showing the changes of the new
version. It is nice that DekTec does not force you to update
drivers and in some cases DekTec explicitly alerts you which
incompatibilities may result with custom software.
2. Of course I updated the firmware immediately, if not just to
see how it works. However, there is not much to tell here: it
just worked flawlessly.
3. now DtInfo shows that the computer is fitted with one
DTA-2138 Rev 1 card running with the latest firmware release.
You can consult and import the software licenses with this
software, too.
4. DtTV is DekTec’s TV player application. In the upper
left corner you select the device (in this case I only have
the DTA-2138 installed on my computer) and chose the
reception parameters. The toolbar underneath (you can move
it wherever you want) allows the selection of the desired
channel.
5. DtTV can be started in as many concurrent sessions as you
want. The best of it is that different sessions can share the
same tuner. This allows you to setup a live TV mosaic. Even
better is the fact that I did not notice any slowdown on my test
computer, despite using just a Core 2 Quad CPU with 2 GB
RAM and no dedicated graphics card.
6. Excerpt from the beginning of an MIB table, which is part
of the DtGrabber+ installation. The full MIB table comprises
more than 6000 lines of software code and is responsible for
defining the functions of the SNMP control software.
DTA-2138 you need not worry
about overheating, since the
entire card acts as a single
solid cooling element. Our test
proved that the card does not
heat up significantly even un-
der heavy use, which means
it can easily be removed and
re-installed without causing
burns. As a pleasant side ef-
fect, electrostatic discharge is
also reduced considerably.
If you expect channel lists
and different search modes,
DtTS Television is not for you.
Frequencies need to be en-
tered manually, which is just
the way it has to be in profes-
sional environments. After all,
this application is designed
for test scenarios that call for
quick and efficient evaluation
of specific frequencies with-
out having to first go through
a settings editor and channel
search.
One of the draw cards of
DtTS Television is the fact
that you can launch the ap-
plication any number of times
concurrently, even if only a
single card is installed in your
