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HD Tuner card recommendation needed
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19507		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  poflynn [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:39 pm ]
Post subject:  HD Tuner card recommendation needed
Hi All,

Currently I have 2 150s working nicely in my backend and I am ready to make the jump to HD. My server only has PCI (no PCIe) and I'm looking for a recommendation for a card that will work well, preferably with as little manual work as possible (in other words, I'm not a linux nor ivtv expert but I am able to follow good directions if necessary :-)). I would definitely need ATSC support and clear qam would be nice.

I saw the wiki link on 'whatcardyouuse' & have searched this forum but I can't find a generic post like mine nor a comparison of cards type chart.

Lastly, both back end & front end are the same P4 2.66GHz specs, I'm assuming that that is ok?

TIA!
Author:  knappster [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 6:02 pm ]
Post subject: 
I am very happy with the HDHomerun as my HD dual tuner. It works as QAM or ATSC or a combination of the 2. It also does not use any slots in the computer because it is just connected through the network.

I'm not sure how well your computer will handle it. I had an AMD sempron 3400 w/ 512 MB RAM that worked pretty well without XvMC. If you have XvMC working, then I assume it will work for you. I just had to disable my jobs like commercial detection because it caused some major playback issues.

The only problem that I wasn't able to resolved until I updated to a dual core processor / 1 GB RAM was that the program guide would sometimes lock up for several minutes while the live tv would continue playing in the mini screen. My totally uneducated theory is that something was locked onto the processor during this time, but now that I essentially have 2 processors that it is able to proceed on the 2nd core.

Oh, and I don't remember what I had to do to setup the HDHomerun so it must have been pretty easy.
Author:  poflynn [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 6:43 pm ]
Post subject: 
knappster wrote:
I am very happy with the HDHomerun as my HD dual tuner.


I was waiting for somebody to recommend that :-) certainly looks like a good option however I am interested in keeping power consumption as low as possible, although I can't imagine that it uses much. I will keep it in mind, thank you!

knappster wrote:
I'm not sure how well your computer will handle it. I had an AMD sempron 3400 w/ 512 MB RAM that worked pretty well without XvMC. If you have XvMC working, then I assume it will work for you. I just had to disable my jobs like commercial detection because it caused some major playback issues.


As my back end will only be recording and not playing back, I am hoping I will be okay with my Pentium...

thanks for the response,
Author:  larrybpsu [ Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:22 pm ]
Post subject: 
Folks will recommend the HDHR, and it's a great tuner box. I, too, wanted an 'internal' PC tuner card.

I just got hold of a Pinnacle PCHD TV PCI card, and it works much better (in windows) than my Air2PC cards. The Air2PC card gets 2 stations, compared to the Pinnacle picking up 6. Check the threads on the card, folks say that it works great. It will work out of the box on the pending R6 LinHES release, and there are instructions on the Wiki for getting it to work in R5.5.

I'm still running R5F27, and don't have any immediate plans to upgrade. Maybe I'll upgrade to R6, but that's still pending.

Edit: One thing I tripped over while searching the web:

Pinnacle sold out all of it's tuner stuff to Hauppauge. That was supposed to happen as of 2009. You can find these cards all over ebay for about $40.
Author:  poflynn [ Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:14 pm ]
Post subject: 
knappster wrote:
I am very happy with the HDHomerun as my HD dual tuner.


FYI to anyone interested in this photoalley.com have this for $139 with no tax & $7 shipping which is a decent price.

If you go through live.com you can get $9 cashback bringing the price down to $130.

http://www.photoalley.com/product/EP44520306.htm
Author:  mcdrama [ Sun Feb 15, 2009 2:25 pm ]
Post subject: 
I too have the silicondust HDHR and love it! it tunes the major stations on my comcast cable, firmware upgrades are super easy, and the linux support out of the box is awesome.
Honestly, you can not go wrong with this external tuner. The only downside i've found is that I can not watch live TV with it if the signal is coming in at 1080i, 480i and even 720 plays ok, but this doesn't really bug me. if I need to watch in real time, I set the show to record then start playing the file under recordings. :)
Author:  jzigmyth [ Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:12 pm ]
Post subject: 
mcdrama wrote:
The only downside i've found is that I can not watch live TV with it if the signal is coming in at 1080i
I have the HDhomerun too, but I don't have that problem. I can watch over-the-air 1080i fine from the "watch TV" live menu.

R5.5
not using XvMC
Pentium 3.2 Ghz.
1.5 Gb ram
AGP FX5200 outputting 1080p to TV
Author:  hackmeister [ Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:01 am ]
Post subject: 
I have an Avermedia A180 card that works very well for capturing unencrypted cable QAM channels
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/AVerTV_HD_A180

I paid like $55 for it on Ebay a couple years back. I'm currently using the A180 along with a Hauppauge 150 in my Mythbox.
Author:  novellahub [ Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:56 am ]
Post subject: 
I use Kworld 115 cards. No special firmware or special steps needed in R5.5

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Kworld_ATSC_110

I got mine for about $35 a piece for Newegg but they have since stopped selling it.
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