Please recommend the setup, HDTV, SD tuner cards

[devexpert]

I've got an existing PC that I want to turn into the BTV DVR. The specs are good enough but I need help with the tuner cards etc.

If I am missing some recommend setups page please let me know. I just could not find it.

Here is what I need:

- HDTV support, recording and display
- Standard Channels recording and display
- Hardware encoding
- Dual tuners would be nice
- I need to control the Cable Box (Time Warner/Motorola) so I can record premium channels

What cards would you recommend for this?

Thank you all for helping me

[ClamsTheCat]

- HDTV support, recording and display

Do you intend on recording HDTV via an antenna (ATSC)?

- Standard Channels recording and display

This is no problem via any card.

- Hardware encoding
- Dual tuners would be nice

Try the Hauppauge MCE 500 for the SD card(s). It is dual tuners on one card. Good price too.

- I need to control the Cable Box (Time Warner/Motorola) so I can record premium channels

Time Warners Motorola box is their HD model, correct? You can not capture analog HDTV output to digital at this time. There are no HD analog encoders that I know of. To control a cable box though you need an IR blaster. It acts like the remote for you cable box and tells it what channel to rune. I reccomend the USB-UIRT.

What cards would you recommend for this?

For a dual SD card I would reccomend the Hauppauge 500 MCE.

[cfaslave]

While I use and like the Hauppauge PVR 500 card, I would recommend you stay away from this card for now. I have the older version. The one being sold today is a "newer" version and is reportedly having many problems. A long thread about these problems can be found here.

Brent

[ClamsTheCat]

Originally Posted by cfaslave

While I use and like the Hauppauge PVR 500 card, I would recommend you stay away from this card for now. I have the older version. The one being sold today is a "newer" version and is reportedly having many problems. A long thread about these problems can be found here.

Brent

This is a good point Brent. I got mine in July and it wa still the "old" version. This is the first time I have been happy to get a "last generation" product

Are there any other dual cards we can reccomend to him? In lieu of the PVR 500 I would probably just get 2 PVR150s (the OEM versions from SS).

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by ClamsTheCat;

This is a good point Brent. I got mine in July and it wa still the "old" version. This is the first time I have been happy to get a "last generation" product

Are there any other dual cards we can reccomend to him? In lieu of the PVR 500 I would probably just get 2 PVR150s (the OEM versions from SS).

Well I don't have any experience except for the pvr500 (old version), but there is a thread about the available SD, dual tuners HERE In that thread, some recommend the Nvidia DualTV. If anyone out there has experience with the pros vs. cons of this card and other dual tuners please post.

Brent

[devexpert]

Thank you guys for recommendations.

From my pile of hardware, I dug out the Haupauge 250 MCE edition, so I'll used that for now.

Regarding HDTV, I would like to record the stuff that comes through cable not over the air. I read that BeyondTV does not support that yet...
I know that you cannot get premium HDTV content from the HD Cable Box except through S-Video output...

What do you recommend for the HDTV capable cards?

[FishNiX]

Ive got two ATI Theater 650's in my box and I am very happy with them... I know some people are down on ATIs cards, but from what I've seen the quality is extremely good and they work very well with BeyondTV.... I am using them with a TERK outdoor HD antenna and get great OTA HD and ATSC. Good luck!

[ClamsTheCat]

I have not bought any cards that do HD yet because I am waiting for BTV support. Once I find out what they plan to support, I will get that product. I know the DVICO Fusion card supports QAM (Digital HDTV over cable) but BTV does not yet support it. This might be your best bet at this time however.

[Steve-o]

I just upgraded my BTV 3.5 system to BTV 4.4 with HD capability. It took some doing, but it is running great now. Check my sig for specs. If you mirror this setup, I would expect it to be fine.

Thoughts:

-Playback of HD puts my CPU over 90% with virtually nothing else running. The Athlon 2100+ runs at 1.7Ghz, which Snapstream says is the min for HD. I agree, but would strongly encourage 2.5 GHz or higher.
-The ADS card for OTA seems to work fine. Don't know a lot about these, but to my thinking, there should be no quality difference between HD tuner cards. The stream is encoded on the broadcast side, so as long as a card receives the channels you want, it should be as good as any other. I use a small $50 Radio Shack powered outdoor antenna, but I live within 15 miles of all stations and have a 3rd-floor balcony. If you use OTA, mount outdoors IF IT ALL POSSIBLE. Cable HD (QAM) is dicey, at best. Difficult to set up, and only able to receive unencrypted channels, which are likely to be only OTA channels. There is a good FAQ here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=674166 IMO, it's best to throw up an antenna if you live within range and let the brave and patient people mess around with QAM once it is supported.
-For standard cable, I have been using the Hauppauge PVR150's (hardware encoding, which I consider mandatory) for a couple of years. They have given me a couple of minor hiccups here and there (mostly heat related, I think). Otherwise, they're pretty good for the price. The quality is slightly imperfect--not horrible, by any means, but not fantastic. I don't know if the 250's are better; someone else might. The 150's come in two flavors: PVR-150 and PVR-150MCE. I have one of each. One has TV tuner, S-Video In, Composite In, and a remote port for sending commands to cable/sat box (hardware included). The other one (MCE, I think) has TV Tuner, FM tuner, S-Video In, Composite In, and L/R Audio In (no cable/sat box control). Choose the one that is right for you, or get them both!
-Obviously, get the largest hard drive you can afford. I would personally conisder 200GB the bare minimum for HD content. Double that if you record a lot of shows or like to keep them around for awhile.
-The GeForce 6200 card does a great job on HD, once you get it working. nVidia's included drivers are awful--you have to DOWNGRADE them to make HD work properly. Details here: Make BTV recognize 3rd pty decoder?

[cfaslave]

Well for recording off of cable you are probably looking for a qam tuner. As clams said BTV doesn't officially support qam. No promises from them that they will ever, but I'm always a hopefull one.....

Fonceur, a fellow forum member has developed a program called btv negociator. This free add-on does lots of things, but one of the more recent developments is that he is testing it to tune and set up unencrypted qam recordings using two different cards. The two cards are:
HDHomeRun
DVICO Fusion

Keep in mind this is still in development and still being tested by some of us, but it will happen. What it will do once the testing & development is complete:
Via the add-on you can set up recordings from the unencrypted channels - this uses a free program called vlc to do the recording. The saved file then has to be "cleaned" (I won't get into this since my understanding is slim on this) and then is ready to view in BTV viewscape.
Its not ideal, but it does allow you to watch shows recorded in HDTV from cable without an antenna. Why go through all this trouble?
1. May not get good HDTV reception (or not want to mess with it)
2. You can often get channels that aren't available OTA. For example, I get the UniversalHD channel that has HDTV movies and shows.
Ideally, SS would support these tuners and this process would be easier. We have hope that SS will support the HDHR tuner - at least for the OTA part and hopefully the qam part also.


I bought the hdhr tuner just to try it out with qam. It connects via a network cable (not a pci card or usb) so it doesn't take up any space on your PC. It allows you to tune two OTA or two unencrypted QAM or any combination of the above.

More on the qam project here (with lots of testing comments etc). Give Fonceur a few more weeks of development and cat6man (and others) more time to test and the add on should be in good working order. The makers of the HDHR card are doing a beta for Sage right now and said they will do a beta for BTV next.

If you just want a standard OTA HDTV tuner, I use the Vbox Cat's Eye USB-A-3560. Its a very good USB tuner and I recommend it.