I occasionally write about bad user experiences I have had. Writing helps me deal with the primitive rage and also registers a small black mark on Google for the poor product or service I have encountered. Here, though, is a story of an entirely happy user experience. I include it to show that I’m not always Mr. Angry.
BlackGold Technology have offices on Robert Robinson Avenue in Oxford. I’d like to live on Robert Robinson Avenue. How splendid that would be. Full marks to Oxford for celebrating his life and achievements. I can imagine a bus coming down the road with “Mothers and Younger Sons Only” on the front.*
Well hey-ho and fiddle-de-dee, why am I writing about BlackGold Technology? Well, they sent me something I’ve been trying to find for a long time. They didn’t just send it to me out of the blue actually, I bought it on Amazon
It’s a twin-tuner Freeview HD (DVB-T2) card for my Media Center PC, the BlackGold Technology BGT3620. There have been set-top boxes for Freeview HD around for a while now but I couldn’t find a tuner card for a PC until this one. One story was that a shortage of chipsets meant that none were available for PC card makers, but I’m a bit sceptical about supply-and-demand stories as they are often attempts at price manipulation.
This wasn’t a cheap card but at £106.80 it’s less than the cost of a twin-tuner set-top box.
Unusually for a reasonably-priced British product, the card exudes quality and good design. My whole experience of buying, unpacking and installing it was a pleasure.
Buying
BlackGold have a friendly and usable website with a brochure, shop and support section. I will forgive them the Flash element on the home page - it’s not a barrier to interacting with the site.
I bought the card from their Amazon merchant site rather than their own online shop. The prices are identical but my credit card details were already on the Amazon site so it saved me time to do it that way.
Unpacking
The packaging was almost Apple-like in its attention to detail. A neat black box with a magnetic catch contained the card, faceplates for full-height and mini card slots, and a cable adapter for various video inputs. A card insert showed details of their website - no driver CD is included so you’ll need this to download the drivers for the card.
Installing
I screwed the full-height faceplate to the card using the screws (and screwdriver!) provided in the box, then installed it in my PC’s chassis in the usual way.
After powering up I downloaded the latest driver from the BlackGold website and unzipped it. I have Windows 7 64-bit on my Media Center PC so I needed to find the card in Device Manager, right-click on Update Driver Software… and choose Browse my computer for driver software. I showed it to the folder where I’d unzipped the downloaded driver and Windows installed the driver without a hitch.
Then I needed to go into Media Center setup and go through the TV setup wizard. It found my new tuner card and updated the list of channels from my local transmitter (Crystal Palace). Now in the Guide I saw the HD channels for the first time.
Watching Two Greedy Italians in HD made me hungry so I went off to cook dinner. But that’s it. The card just works.
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- It’s possible the road is named after Sir Robert Robinson, the distinguished chemist.